I decided it was a good time to test the bedroom.
I got in the rover and attached the bedroom to the outer airlock door from the inside. Like I mentioned before, this is the only way to do it. Then I turned it loose on an unsuspecting Mars.
As intended, the pressure from the rover blasted the canvas outward and inflated it. After that, chaos. The sudden pressure popped the bedroom like a balloon. It quickly deflated, leaving both itself and the rover devoid of air. I was wearing my EVA suit at the time; I’m not a fucking idiot. So I get to…
Live Another Sol! (Starring Mark Watney as… probably Q. I’m no James Bond.)
I dragged the popped bedroom into the Hab and gave it a good going-over. It failed at the seam where the wall met the ceiling. Makes sense. It’s a right angle in a pressure vessel. Physics hates that sort of thing.
First, I patched it up, then I cut strips of spare canvas to place over the seam. Now it has double-thickness and double sealing resin all around. Maybe that’ll be enough. At this point, I’m kind of guessing. My amazing botany skills aren’t much use for this.
I’ll test it again tomorrow.
I’m out of caffeine pills. No more Martian coffee for me.
So it took a little longer for me to wake up this morning, and I quickly developed a splitting headache. One nice thing about living in a multibillion-dollar mansion on Mars: access to pure oxygen. For some reason, a high concentration of O2 will kill most headaches. Don’t know why. Don’t care. The important thing is I don’t have to suffer.
I tested out the bedroom again. I suited up in the rover and released the bedroom, same as last time. But this time it held. That’s great, but having seen the fragile nature of my handiwork, I wanted a good long test of the pressure seal.
After a few minutes standing around in my EVA suit, I decided to make better use of my time. I may not be able to leave the rover/bedroom universe while the bedroom is attached to the airlock, but I can stay in the rover and close the door.
Once I did that, I took off the uncomfortable EVA suit. The bedroom was on the other side of the airlock door, still fully pressurized. So I’m still running my test, but I don’t have to wear the EVA suit.
I arbitrarily picked eight hours for the test duration, so I was trapped in the rover until then.
I spent my time planning the trip. There wasn’t much to add to what I already knew. I’ll beeline out of Acidalia Planitia to Mawrth Vallis, then follow the valley until it ends. It’ll take me on a zigzag route which will dump me in to Arabia Terra. After that, things get rough.
Unlike Acidalia Planitia, Arabia Terra is riddled with craters. And each crater represents two brutal elevation changes. First down, then up. I did my best to find the shortest path around them. I’m sure I’ll have to adjust the course when I’m actually driving it. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
MITCH TOOK his seat in the conference room. The usual gang was present: Teddy, Venkat, Mitch, and Annie. But this time there was also Mindy Park, as well as a man Mitch had never seen before.
“What’s up, Venk?” Mitch asked. “Why the sudden meeting?”
“We’ve got some developments,” Venkat said. “Mindy, why don’t you bring them up to date?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mindy said. “Looks like Watney finished the balloon addition to the trailer. It mostly uses the design we sent him.”
“Any idea how stable it is?” Teddy asked.
“Pretty stable,” she said. “It’s been inflated for several days with no problems. Also, he built some kind of… room.”
“Room?” Teddy asked.
“It’s made of Hab canvas, I think,” Mindy explained. “It attaches to the rover’s airlock. I think he cut a section out of the Hab to make it. I don’t know what it’s for.”
Teddy turned to Venkat. “Why would he do that?”
“We think it’s a workshop,” Venkat said. “There’ll be a lot of work to do on the MAV once he gets to Schiaparelli. It’ll be easier without an EVA suit. He probably plans to do as much as he can in that room.”
“Clever,” Teddy said.
“Watney’s a clever guy,” Mitch said. “How about getting life support in there?”
“I think he’s done it,” Mindy said. “He moved the AREC.”
“Sorry,” Annie interrupted. “What’s an AREC?”
“It’s the external component of the atmospheric regulator,” Mindy said. “It sits outside the Hab, so I saw when it disappeared. He probably mounted it on the rover. There’s no other reason to move it, so I’m guessing he’s got life support online.”
“Awesome,” Mitch said. “Things are coming together.”
“Don’t celebrate yet, Mitch,” Venkat said. He gestured to the newcomer. “This is Randall Carter, one of our Martian meteorologists. Randall, tell them what you told me.”
Randall nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Kapoor.” He turned his laptop around to show a map of Mars. “Over the past few weeks, a dust storm has been developing in Arabia Terra. Not a big deal in terms of magnitude. It won’t hinder his driving at all.”
“So what’s the problem?” Annie asked.
“It’s a low-velocity dust storm,” Randall explained. “Slow winds, but fast enough to pick up very small particles on the surface and whip them into thick clouds. There are five or six of them every year. The thing is, they last for months, they cover huge sections of the planet, and they make the atmosphere thick with dust.”
“I still don’t see the problem,” Annie said.
“Light,” Randall said. “The total sunlight reaching the surface is very low in the area of the storm. Right now, it’s twenty percent of normal. And Watney’s rover is powered by solar panels.”
“Shit,” Mitch said, rubbing his eyes. “And we can’t warn him.”
“So he gets less power,” Annie said. “Can’t he just recharge longer?”
“The current plan already has him recharging all day long,” Venkat explained. “With twenty percent of normal daylight, it’ll take five times as long to get the same energy. It’ll turn his forty five-sol trip into two hundred and twenty-five sols. He’ll miss the Hermes flyby.”
“Can’t Hermes wait for him?” Annie asked.
“It’s a flyby,” Venkat said. “Hermes isn’t going into Martian orbit. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to get back. They need their velocity for the return trajectory.”
After a few moments of silence, Teddy said, “We’ll just have to hope he finds a way through. We can track his progress and—”
“No, we can’t,” Mindy interrupted.
“We can’t?” Teddy said.
She shook her head. “The satellites won’t be able to see through the dust. Once he enters the affected area, we won’t see anything until he comes out the other side.”
“Well…,” Teddy said. “Shit.”
Before I risk my life with this contraption, I need to test it.
And not the little tests I’ve been doing so far. Sure, I’ve tested power generation, life support, the trailer bubble, and the bedroom. But I need to test all aspects of it working together.
I’m going to load it up for the long trip and drive in circles. I won’t ever be more than 500 meters from the Hab, so I’ll be fine if shit breaks.
I dedicated today to loading up the rover and trailer for the test. I want the weight to match what it’ll be on the real trip. Plus if cargo is going to shift around or break things, I want to know about it now.