A Mars Odyssey

by Michel Poulin

  CHAPTER 3 – CREW MATTERS

  10:40 (California Time)

  Tuesday, August 6, 2041

  Office of the Director, Human Resources Department

  Mars Home Project headquarters, Vandenberg Space Center

  California, U.S.A.

  Francine Dubois, Director of the Human Resources Department of the Mars Home Project, braced herself mentally before activating the intercom box on her work desk.

  ‘’Miss Steinberg, you may send in Doctor Bulganin.’’

  ‘’Right away, Miss Dubois!’’

  The 51 year-old French psychologist then got up from her swivel chair and walked around her desk to greet the big, balding man that came in. She smiled to her visitor while shaking hands with him, speaking in good Russian, one of the five languages she spoke fluently.

  ‘’Doctor Vladimir Bulganin, I am Francine Dubois, Director of Human Resources for the project. Welcome to Vandenberg!’’

  While the man smiled as well while shaking hands with her, his face still reflected a trace of frustration and impatience. In view of what Francine had read about the man’s character, that didn’t surprise her a bit. She however stayed polite and welcoming as she pointed at a low coffee table and sofas in one corner of her large office.

  ‘’I believe that we will be more comfortable to speak while sitting in those sofas, Doctor.’’

  ‘’Thank you, Miss Dubois! I hope that this is to announce to me that I was selected to be part of the crew of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP?’’

  ‘’Your candidacy is indeed what we are going to discuss this morning, Doctor Bulganin.’’ replied Francine diplomatically. She then led the Russian physicist to one of the sofas around the coffee table, then sat herself in a sofa, in front of which lay a file folder on the table. After a short pause, she looked the Russian straight in the eyes and spoke calmly but firmly.

  ‘’Doctor Bulganin, I have reviewed carefully your personal history file and the results of the various physical, mental and skill competency tests that you passed. I must say that your scientific achievements in nuclear physics are impressive, while you proved to be in excellent health for your age. However, your personality test pointed to a couple of problems that are of concern to me.’’

  The Russian frowned at once and gave her a hard look.

  ‘’Me, personality problems? This can’t be serious! What kind of problems are you exactly alluding to?’’

  ‘’Basically, your interpersonal skills and your aptitudes for teamwork, Doctor Bulganin. If I can believe the info in your personal history file, you are known to be a rather harsh supervisor and somewhat of a disciplinarian.’’

  ‘’So? When you are in charge of a science project worth billions of rubles, you can’t afford to keep around lazy or incompetent employees. Such major science projects need a firm hand at the helm in order to avoid it to derail and fail.’’

  ‘’That may be an accepted management philosophy here on Earth, Doctor Bulganin, but not in space. Please understand that the crew of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP will be in deep space or around Mars for over two years and that all of its members will need to work in harmony with each other in order to ensure the success of the mission. As important as their technical and scientific qualifications are for the mission, so is their ability to interact smoothly with each other while in space or on Mars. One negative personal conflict could be enough to seriously affect the morale of the rest of the crew, especially if the person in contention is in a supervisory position. Now, you were a candidate for the position of head physicist aboard the FRIENDSHIP, with up to four other top physicists under that position. We are talking here about men and women who have proved themselves as top scientists, with major advances and discoveries to their credits. They are also mature persons with lots of experience in working as part of a group. While you are highly qualified scientifically, your career history has shown you to be less than ideal as a project manager.’’

  ‘’What are you talking about?’’ exclaimed Bulganin, his voice reflecting anger. ‘’Has someone spread nasty stories about me? If that is so, then it probably is some incompetent that I had to fire in the past and who is now trying to take revenge on me.’’

  ‘’I rest my case, buster!’’ thought Francine while giving a dubious look at the Russian. She then picked up the file on the table in front of her and opened it, reading silently a particular paragraph before looking back at Bulganin.

  ‘’Doctor Bulganin, you were put in charge of the Kurchatov Nuclear Science Institute in Moscow nine years ago. Within a year of you taking over as chairman, fully sixteen percent of the scientific personnel of the institute quit or was fired by you, including the deputy chairman at the time.’’

  ‘’They were fired because they were incompetents and wouldn’t follow directives!’’ interrupted Bulganin.

  ‘’Then, in the following year, another 26 percent of the original scientists left. Are you going to tell me that the Kurchatov Institute is in the habit of hiring incompetent scientists, Doctor Bulganin, or did these people leave simply because they found it impossible to work under you?’’

  ‘’Why would I keep people who are not ready to obey my directives, Miss Dubois? I was the chairman of the institute and it was up to me to direct it and give it a focus.’’

  Francine sat back in her chair, her mind now made up.

  ‘’Maybe, but we won’t have the luxury of firing people left and right while they are aboard the FRIENDSHIP and on their way to Mars, Doctor. We need team players, not martinets. I am sorry, but your candidacy for this project is rejected.’’

  ‘’WHAT?!’’ exploded Bulganin, shooting up from his sofa while glaring at the psychologist. For a short moment, Francine became afraid that the big Russian would physically attack her. However, she quickly overcame that fear and got up as well, facing off across the table from Bulganin.

  ‘’You heard me well, Doctor: your candidacy has been rejected. This decision is final, by the way, and has been approved by all the members of the project’s High Council.’’

  ‘’WE WILL SEE ABOUT THAT!’’ raged Bulganin before storming out of Francine’s office. The psychologist couldn’t help shake her head then: rarely had she met with so many inflated egos in such a short time.

  13:07 (California Time)

  Thursday, August 22, 2041

  Main conference room, Mars Home Project headquarters

  Vandenberg Space Center, California

  Robert Lithgow, posted at the door of the conference room, greeted with a handshake and a smile each member of the project’s High Council as they arrived with their aides and scientific counselors. The last member to arrive was Jacques Rocard, the head of the French National Center for Space Studies, or CNES in French.

  ‘’Welcome to Vandenberg, Doctor Rocard!’’ said Robert in his laborious, heavily-accented French. The French astronomer replied in his own polished English.

  ‘’Thank you, Mister Lithgow. I understand that this meeting will be about matters a bit less dry than scientific dissertations.’’

  ‘’Oh?! I thought that astronomers, astrophysicists and the likes had orgasms listening to scientific formulas.’’

  That made Rocard laugh briefly before he replied with a smile.

  ‘’We scientists, and especially French ones, still prefer to have orgasms in bed with a suitable partner. So, we are going to discuss matters pertaining to the crew of our spaceship, right?’’

  ‘’Correct, Doctor Rocard. If I can go by your last reply, you may find today’s questions quite interesting.’’

  ‘’Really? You are starting to intrigue me.’’

  ‘’Well, you will all know soon enough what I want to speak about. But please, go take your seat. It is the one to the left of Maria Cardona.’’

  ‘’Aaah, a judiciously chosen seat indeed!’’ said Rocard before walking to the swiveling padded captain’s chair set beside that of the N
ASA’s Administrator. On his part, Lithgow went to his own chair but stayed standing at first as he opened the meeting.

  ‘’Welcome to Vandenberg, my friends. While our project is technically on track and on schedule, we still have to take firm decisions concerning a few personnel matters. While our project specialists have already studied in depth those matters and have presented their recommendations to me, I will ask you today to study those recommendations and to either approve them, modify them or reject them. However, if you reject certain proposals, we will then have to agree on alternative ideas, as we need to take firm decisions so that our project could continue advancing without uncertainties.’’

  Lithgow then sat down and clicked on a button of his computer station integrated to the conference table, making the first image of his presentation appear on a giant video screen set on a wall of the room.

  ‘’Lady and gentlemen, here are the points we will discuss this afternoon: policies about sexual relations in space; the possibilities of space pregnancies and our response to such pregnancies and, finally, whether our astronauts on Mars should keep fit to withstand Earth’s gravity. The two first points may sound a bit frivolous to some of you, but they are very serious ones indeed, as they may heavily affect crew morale during their long space mission. First, our policies about sexual relations among the crew of our spaceship. Right now, we don’t officially have policies about that matter, mostly because a lot of people were too embarrassed to talk publicly about it. However, we can’t hide from that question anymore and must take some definite decisions now.’’

  ‘’Could we review first the reasons why sex in space was not allowed in the past…officially?’’ asked the head of the Japanese Space Agency, Shinzo Kurozawa, making Robert Lithgow nod his head.

  ‘’A logical thing to do, I must say. Basically, the past reasons not to allow sex in space had to do with the conditions in the capsules and space stations of the time. Zero gravity was actually the biggest culprit: all kinds of bodily fluids and other things would end up floating around the spacecraft or station, something not very pleasant for the occupants, as you may imagine. Also, there was the fact that, unless you anchored yourself to something, you would find yourself bouncing around with your partner. Finally, the risk of developing pregnancies in orbit was deemed too great.’’

  ‘’All good points!’’ said Misha Borisovich, the head of Roskosmos. ‘’If I may introduce here a piece of information that had been kept confidential up to now, I can tell you all that a Russian couple once tried sex during a long sojourn aboard our MIR space station, many years ago.’’

  ‘’And?’’ asked Michel Dupré, of the European Space Agency, an amused smile on his lips. Borisovich rolled his eyes in response.

  ‘’The male cosmonaut said later: the girl was fine but the act itself wasn’t. As for the female cosmonaut, she said in rather unprintable terms that it had to have been the worst sex ever. Basically, that couple kept slamming around against other objects rather than inside each other. The cleaning job afterwards was even less pleasant.’’

  That triggered a short round of laughs around the table as the respective heads of national space agencies pictured that scene in their heads. Maria Cardona then asked the next question.

  ‘’So, in view of that past experience, what are the recommendations on the subject that our experts arrived at, Robert?’’

  ‘’In the specific case of the future trip to Mars by the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, our experts say that having sex in the artificial gravity of our spaceship should be both safe and as enjoyable as if done on Earth. Please understand that the living conditions aboard our new spaceship are infinitely superior to those found even on our current space stations. Now, that leaves the question of whether we want to allow our astronauts to pursue sexual relations during the trip to Mars or on Mars itself. Our expert psychologists told me that being able to have sexual relationships aboard the FRIENDSHIP could only be beneficial to the long term morale of the crew. The only point that would be touchy is about the possibility of a female crewmember becoming pregnant during the trip. Even though our spaceship is superbly equipped in terms of medical facilities, giving birth to a baby onboard and then raising that baby inside our spaceship is bound to raise a few problems.’’

  ‘’Is it, really?’’ countered Michel Dupré, of the ESA. ‘’The long term goal of this project is to create a self-sustaining Human colony on Mars. To me, a self-sustaining colony means one where its members can procreate and multiply. Whether some like it or not, we will one day have to allow pregnancies to develop on Mars. So, why not start right now? Don’t we want to find out as soon as possible if long space trips and sojourns on Mars could have any deleterious effects on fetus development and pregnancies? If some unknown factor could impact negatively on future births away from Earth, we should find out about it as soon as possible, no?’’

  The other participants looked at each other, struck by the common sense in Dupré’s arguments. Wang Lao Xi, of the Chinese Space Agency, was the first to speak in support of the Frenchman’s position.

  ‘’I must say that Administrator Dupré makes a lot of sense on this subject. As you know all, China has a long history of carefully controlling its demographics and we learned quite a few lessons from it. For one, Administrator Dupré is right about the need to eventually allow pregnancies to happen on Mars. He is equally right about the need to ascertain if some unknown factor could make human procreation in space hazardous or even impossible, and this as quickly as possible, before we could end up with a non-viable colony on Mars. I thus say that we should allow the crew of the FRIENDSHIP free rein about starting sexual relations between themselves. I further say that we should ensure that our spaceship has both the facilities and the qualified personnel to deal with an eventual pregnancy during the mission to Mars. We should also ensure that some baby-related supplies and equipment be brought aboard our spaceship, just in case.’’

  ‘’I will second Administrators Wang and Dupré on this.’’ announced Shinzo Kurozawa. ‘’We can’t afford to play the offended virgins here, not when we are talking about the long-term growth of our future colony on Mars. A few hundred kilos of baby supplies shouldn’t make a difference in a 64,000 ton plus spaceship.’’

  ‘’I second this as well!’’ said Jacques Rocard, of the French CNES. With Misha Borisovich also jumping on that bandwagon, that left Maria Cardona and Robert Lithgow to ponder their own points of view as the other participants stared at them, awaiting their response. The Spanish-American scratched her head, taken off balance by such a quick, unexpected group consensus on what she had expected to be a contentious subject.

  ‘’Uh, I must say that I was expecting a more vigorous discussion on the subjects of sex and pregnancy in space. However, I have to agree that Administrator Dupré’s arguments are quite solid. I will thus go with the opinion of the majority here. Mister Lithgow, we will need your medical experts and psychologists to study the question again, with the view of formulating practical rules and protocols concerning crew sexual relationships and possible pregnancies and their aftermaths aboard the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP.’’

  Lithgow wrote down a few notes quickly, then looked up with a smile at the other participants to the meeting.

  ‘’Well, this leaves us with the question of keeping or not our astronauts and future colonists on Mars fit to withstand Earth’s gravity after a few years on the Red Planet. As you know well, the astronauts who spent months in orbit aboard either the MIR space station or the International Space Station came back to Earth with greatly weakened muscles and bones, and this despite exercising vigorously while in orbit, to the point that they could barely walk once back on firm soil. Their visual acuity was also affected negatively and their DNA was modified by exposure to space radiations. This question was raised again recently by one of the members of the team sent in orbit to help assemble and activate our spaceship. Personally, I would like to see our astronauts and
future colonists stay fit for Earth gravity levels, but the sole technical solution available to us right now, meaning the use of rotating living quarters on Mars, would entail the shipping to Mars of lots of heavy extra equipment, something that would cut into the quantity of more essential equipment and supplies we will send to Mars.’’

  ‘’I would say that such a requirement is not essential right now, Mister Lithgow.’’ Said Wang Lao Xi, bending forward and putting his forearms on the table. ‘’Our crew will travel in normal felt gravity conditions, while the Mars landing crew will stay on Mars for less than a year while living under 0.37 G conditions. We will be in a better position to discuss this at a later time, when we will have established a permanent base on Mars.’’