by Dan Eaton
I raised my hand to interrupt Mike and said, “Hey Mike how many ice crabs are working in the crater at any given time?”
Mike replied, “Good question. We currently have a fleet of twenty four ice crabs of which we manage to keep twenty constantly running. It’s a tough environment for machines to work in and things break on a regular basis. By keeping twenty crabs running constantly we produce about one hundred and seventy kiloliters of liquid per year. The lower processing unit can handle forty ice crabs so we can expand production as demands increase.”
Mike moved over to one of the consoles and pulled up a diagram of the crater floor on the display. “This shows how we’ve sectioned off the crater floor into mining areas. The crabs are autonomous and know which section they need to be working. We actually just designate a section of strips to be worked and the crabs work it according to the mining rules laid out in their programing. We have to get involved when something like a breakdown occurs. Even then, the crabs have procedures that facilitate getting the failing unit back to the lower processing unit where it can be repaired in place or if things are serious enough hoisted back topside so it can be overhauled.”
Myra raised her hand and asked, “Mike, how long will the ice in the crater last?”
Mike replied, “Well, we process a square meter in an hour with one crab so say twenty square meters an hour with all the crabs. In pure ice, the processing consumes about one centimeter in depth. It will take twenty crabs about 114 years to process the entire crater floor down one centimeter and with what we believe is an average ice depth of 78 centimeters it will be just shy of nine thousand years before we empty the crater at current rates. Of course, every expectation is that we will be significantly raising our production rates in the years to come, but it should still take a very long time before we run out of ice in the crater.”
The transport started back up and pulled around to the ramp leading into the reclamation facility. Once through the locks and into the facility, Mike led us to the end of the building closest to the crater rim.
There he pointed up at a large cylindrical container and said, “That’s the incoming liquid storage tank. Notice I said liquid and not water. There’s all sorts of nasty contaminants in the ice so a glass of the liquid contains water, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, and a few other contaminates in smaller quantities. To get a clean glass of water we run the liquid in the tank through the filtering unit in front of us. The other components are separated out and stored in tanks before being transported over to the manufacturing module for use. The water goes through some additional processing to make it taste good if it’s intended for drinking water. Most of that gets transported over to the Habitat for use and storage. The remaining water gets run through the separators to produce liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which get taken over to the fuel facility near the launch pads for use by the moon shuttles or now the CLT30. “
The reclamation facility wasn’t much to see, but it was unique, so I was glad we got a chance to actually visit it finally. We headed back to the transport and while we were exiting the locks I had an idea.
“Hey, Christine,” I asked, “as long as we are out this way would it be possible to swing by the original landing site?”
Christine thought about it a minute and then asked the transport driver to take us by the site. The transport swung back out onto the main road and continued to the East past the nearby Manufacturing module. From the road it looked like a monolithic structure, but in reality it was a hodge podge of individual structures that were all add ons and outgrowths of the original module now buried by the add ons. The structure had once lain strictly to the South of the road, but as expansion continued, it had swallowed the road and now a good third of the massive structure lay to the North of the road. Once the road passed through the manufacturing module you could see the Denali Aerospace facility where the CLT30 was assembled just to the Northeast and then lying to the Southeast was the original landing site.
As the site had historical significance there were rules for visiting the site and the transport could only get so close. But we could clearly see the two power tower landers as they were called that provided the initial power at the site. The robotic landers that delivered the remotely guided construction robots were also clearly visible. The remains of the 3D printer that printed the first shelters for the human crew that would arrive five years later were visible next to the shelters they had built. It was strange to think that the print heads that built those structures must still be in use someplace in the Habitat today. The printers were handy and it was just too expensive to get something like that to the moon and then just abandon it when its initial work was done. It was interesting to note that the sintered blocks, paving the paths among the structures were much smaller than the paving stones currently in use. At some point after the first structures were in place, a larger sintering machine must have been made.
Christine had the transport head back and when we finally made it back to the classroom, Miss Gayle pounced on us and we spent the rest of the afternoon telling her every detail of what we saw. It was a good way to end the day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Grand
Good morning fellow NLH residents. It’s Thursday, April 15th, 2038.
In Habitat news, yesterday was the official opening of the Grand, the newest living space in the Habitat. If you haven’t had a chance to visit the Grand, please do so at your earliest opportunity. You won’t regret it.
O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is pleased to announce they will be doubling the size of their facility. In addition to the shrimp they currently produce, they plan to start producing Tilapia.
SpaceX, Trans Astonautica, and Denali Aerospace are all pleased to announce that they are opening up new offices located in the Grand’s business section.
Margarita Mama’s is pleased to announce that they have relocated to the entertainment section of the Grand. They are offering a Buy One, Get One free special to welcome all of their patrons to the new location.
Hotel Whipple is pleased to announce its move to its own annex off of the Grand. Enhancement to the facility include more spacious rooms, co-location with the Seline’s Bistro restaurant, and a private view of the lunar landscape.
Chef Patel is pleased to announce the opening of Seline’s Bistro restaurant. The restaurant offers fine food and a private view of the lunar landscape.
In financial news today, on the Lunar Stock Market shares of Mussconny Machine are trading steady at $24.63 a share, Mussconny Fabrication at $26.81 a share, Hotel Whipple shares are rising at $20.83. O’Reilly’s Shellfish Company is up at $19.86 a share and CDB Farms is trading steady at $18.45 a share.
Mom, Dad, and I headed down to breakfast together. It was getting back to being a habit which was a good thing. Dad was busier than ever with his work for Transcor but he made it a point to always be there with us for breakfast. Mom’s work on the Grand was now a steady thing and no longer an everyday emergency. She still had busy days between her work for the Habitat and her work at CDB Farms but it was manageable. Most of the Habitat had shut down yesterday for the opening of the Grand and with the day off, we went as a family to check it out.
We went through the crowded cafeteria line and set out across the cafeteria to where Myra’s family had saved us some seats with them.
Myra looked up with a smile and said, “Good morning Bryce. Did you and your parents enjoy seeing the Grand yesterday?”
I smiled at her and said, “Didn’t everyone? What I have a hard time believing is how little we heard about the project while it was being built. I mean I know my mom was working on it a lot, but I really had no idea what she was doing exactly. I’d be paranoid and think they were hiding it from us kids, but I know adults like my Dad were anxious to see it because they’ve been kept in the dark too. I don’t get what all the secrecy was about.”
Myra gave it some thought and said, “Well, it is a ma
jor expansion and there’s some really nice places to live available there. Maybe they were trying to keep a wrap on things to make it clear everyone had the same opportunities to get one of the nice places.”
“Maybe,” I said, “just seems weird. What are you planning on doing today?”
“I was going to go walk the length of the Grand to get some exercise and look things over again. Then I have to go work with your Mom on the Farm after lunch.”
It had been a while since I had spent any time with just Myra so I smiled and said, “You want some company?”
We set out West from the Cafeteria and headed along Grand Boulevard.
Myra said, “Look at those Zinnias blooming. Sometimes I get so busy helping your Mom that I just get focused down to the plants on the growing plate and miss the big picture. That wall looks really spectacular today.”
I nodded in agreement. Mom had solved a food crisis by installing the vertical gardens on all the walls that were available to her, but the improvement to life at the Habitat had gone beyond just the additional food available now. There were always flowering plants breaking up the vertical gardens and providing bright swatches of color in what could otherwise be a monotonous environment.
I called out, “Hey” and waved as Nina and Ananyu came loping by. They must have been at it for a while because they both had sheens of sweat glistening on their skin. The light lunar gravity made it harder to get in a good work out so you had to do things for much longer.
Myra waved at them and said, “Good work. Keep going, don’t let us stop you”, as she grabbed my hand and pulled me along. Myra pulled me along laughing and giggling until we reached the new door that had been installed in the West end of Grand Boulevard. We headed through the doors and then to the right down the ramp and entered the doors that led us to the Grand.
“Wow”, I said as we walked out onto the central level of the Grand. The walkway here spread out to overlook a small pool on the lower level. We sat down on one of the benches to take a moment to enjoy the small park space.
“I love how the little waterfall comes down from the upper level. With it gurgling in the background and the carved mural on the end wall, it’s almost like we’re looking out on a jungle pool someplace back on Earth,” Myra said.
I could tell from all the green plants that my mom had worked on this space but it wasn’t her vision that had sculpted the place. Unlike the earlier habitat living spaces that had a more utilitarian feel to them, the Grand felt more artsy to me, sometimes almost whimsical in its implementation.
Myra jumped up and said, “Come on,” as she grabbed my hand again to pull me along.
As we walked along I told her, “I really like how they did this central corridor. The guys who designed the original Habitat would have run it down one of the sides for the whole length of the Grand. I think it’s neat how they created breaks in the structures by moving the corridor from one side to the other and even changing levels occasionally.”
Myra said, “Yeah, it makes it more interesting and seem longer that it really is. Oh, look at this space. I forgot about this park.”
The corridor left the structure, it was passing through and dropped down and to the right to enter the next structure on the lower level. The intervening space was open to the full height of the tube and the parkland to either side of the path was filled with soft grass, colorful flower beds, and two honest to God trees. The saplings didn’t look like much at this stage since they’d been grown from seed and were quite small.
“Can you imagine what this place is going to look like in ten years when the trees get bigger? I wonder if anyone thought about getting some small birds. That would be so cool. Of course, that’s assuming they could learn to fly in the lunar gravity. Flies born in zero-g can learn how to cope so maybe birds would do okay on the Moon.”
I said, “Yep, that would be neat to have birds chirping in here. You know what that place is don’t you?”
I pointed to the three story structure filling the tube in front of us. Each floor was filled with floor to ceiling windows and we could look in on the rooms.
Myra said, “Our school. I ran into Christine yesterday and she said the bottom floor will hold the Cafeteria and Admin offices. There are four large classrooms on the middle floor and then the upper floor has two smaller classrooms and a lecture hall.”
“Heck, the six of us could each have our own classroom,” I said.
“Really Bryce, you want to sit by yourself in a classroom for the whole school day? Can’t you even think of one person you might want to be with?”
I gave it some thought and said, “Well, duh, you’re right. If Willie was with me we could plan our strategies for our next Gogo session or hey, maybe if Nina… OW!”
Myra may be a girl and she may be smaller than me, but she really packs a wallop. After punching me in the arm she stalked off towards the tunnel leading through the school building. I found her mid-way through the tunnel staring at the sculptures sitting in the little garden running up the wall on the tube side of the corridor.
I carefully approached her and said, “Geeze Myra, what was that for. I’m going to have a bruise. I’m sorry, I guess it would be good to have all my friends, including you in the classroom with me.”
She looked at me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and said, “That was because you’re such an idiot. Come on, let’s get moving.”
The enclosure on the far side of the school was a mirror image of the park on the first side and the path ascended a gentle slope and entered the second level through a glass facade that reached to the ceiling yet gave the shops fronting the park a view. The section consisted of small shops and offices that gave way to an open area where a tunnel broached the Grand’s cylinder on the North side. There were signs above the entrance that proclaimed this was the new home of the Hotel Whipple. There was another sign lower down welcoming us to Seline’s Bistro. We wandered through the doors and found ourselves in the lobby of the Whipple Hotel. Willie was at the front desk and Myra ran over and gave him a hug.
He gave me a big grin and said in his most polished voice, “Welcome to the Hotel Whipple. Can I get the gentleman and his lady a room for the evening?”
Before I could say anything, Myra responded with, “Why thank you kind sir. We’ll pass on the room, but if you could direct us to the restaurant where we might get a drink, we would appreciate it very much.”
We all laughed at us playing grownups and then Willie said, “Take the stairs over there. Say hi to Ananyu for me. She just came through about five minutes ago.”
At the top of the stairs we found the restaurant foyer and there at a little lectern was Ananyu presiding over everything. Girls are amazing. I didn’t think Myra and I had been walking that long, but somehow the sweaty girl in jogging clothes we had seen not too long ago had transformed into a cool, very professional looking hostess wearing a colorful dress. We each gave her a hug and heck, she even smelled good too.
Ananyu greeted us with, “Will the gentleman and his lady be joining us for lunch today? I happen to have the best table in the house open for you if you do.”
Myra laughed and said, “Thanks Ananyu, we’re just walking through the Grand again and thought we’d come in and take a look. Your dad’s restaurant really looks great.”
The door from the kitchen burst open and Chef Patel came out. He saw us talking to Ananyu and came over, scowling and said, “Ananyu, what is wrong with you? Why are you leaving your friends standing there when you should be seating them at a table?”
I wasn’t sure if Chef Patel was kidding or not.
I knew he adored his daughter and I didn’t want him yelling at Ananyu on my account so I jumped in with, “It’s okay Chef Patel. Myra and I just wanted to stop by and get a look at your beautiful restaurant. We didn’t mean to cause a fuss.”
Chef Patel stopped in his tracks and looked at me. He said in a very cold voice, “It is not okay young Mr. Burns. Judgin
g by the company of the woman you keep right here in front of me and the fact you called my restaurant beautiful you are obviously a young man of considerable fine taste. I cannot have it be said that Bryce Burns visited my restaurant and left without even trying a bite. No, young man, that is completely unacceptable.”
My jaw hit the floor about the same time Myra elbowed me and Ananyu said, “Father, quit teasing poor Bryce. He thinks you are serious.”
“But I am serious,” Chef Patel sputtered. “You and Miss Myra are two of the most beautiful young ladies on the Moon and Bryce thinks my restaurant is beautiful. He must try the food or I will be terribly insulted.”
“Fine Father, I will seat Myra and Bryce and you can serve them some snacks, but if they find it not to their liking, I’m going to blame it on your poor mood.”
With that, Ananyu gave us a smile and led us to a table. I looked back at Chef Patel and he smiled and winked at me.
Chef Patel insisted on serving us a seven course meal. It was a different meal than I had ever had before in that each course was just a small portion. Just enough to give you a delicious taste of the course but not enough to fill you up. Which was a good thing since we had eaten breakfast not that long ago. Half way through the meal, Chef Patel came over to ask us how it was.
I smiled at him and said, “Sir, it fully exceeds my usual fine dining standards. My compliments to you and your staff.”
“See Ananyu, I told you he had fine tastes. We must have a picture to remember this day by.”
With that, Chef Patel disappeared into the kitchen and came back shortly with one of his staff in tow along with a camera. The picture still graces the wall of the restaurant foyer. Myra and I are the happy young couple seated at the table while a proud Chef Patel and Ananyu stand next to us behind the table.
