I made one concession to common sense: I left most of my water supply in the Hab. I loaded twenty liters; enough for the test but no more. There are a lot of ways I could lose pressure in this mechanical abomination I’ve created, and I don’t want all my water to boil off if that happens.
On the real trip, I’m going to have 620 liters of water. I made up the weight difference by loading 600 kilograms of rocks in with my other supplies.
Back on Earth, universities and governments are willing to pay millions to get their hands on Mars rocks. I’m using them as ballast.
I’m doing one more little test tonight. I made sure the batteries were good and full, then disconnected the rover and trailer from Hab power. I’ll be sleeping in the Hab, but I left the rover’s life support on. It’ll maintain the air overnight, and tomorrow I’ll see how much power it ate up. I’ve watched the power consumption while it’s attached to the Hab, and there weren’t any surprises. But this’ll be the true proof. I call it the “plugs-out test.”
Maybe that’s not the best name.
THE CREW of Hermes gathered in the Rec.
“Let’s get through status quickly,” Lewis said. “We’re all behind in our science assignments. Vogel, you first.”
“I repaired the bad cable on VASIMR 4,” Vogel reported. “It was our last thick-gauge cable. If another such problem occurs, we will have to braid lower-gauge lines to carry the current. Also, the power output from the reactor is declining.”
“Johanssen,” Lewis said, “what’s the deal with the reactor?”
“I had to dial it back,” Johanssen said. “It’s the cooling vanes. They aren’t radiating heat as well as they used to. They’re tarnishing.”
“How can that happen?” Lewis asked. “They’re outside the craft. There’s nothing for them to react with.”
“I think they picked up dust or small air leaks from Hermes itself. One way or another, they’re definitely tarnishing. The tarnish is clogging the micro-lattice, and that reduces the surface area. Less surface area means less heat dissipation. So I limited the reactor enough that we weren’t getting positive heat.”
“Any chance of repairing the cooling vanes?”
“It’s on the microscopic scale,” Johanssen said. “We’d need a lab. Usually they replace the vanes after each mission.”
“Will we be able to maintain engine power for the rest of the mission?”
“Yes, if the rate of tarnishing doesn’t increase.”
“All right, keep an eye on it. Beck, how’s life support?”
“Limping,” Beck said. “We’ve been in space way longer than it was designed to handle. There are a bunch of filters that would normally be replaced each mission. I found a way to clean them with a chemical bath I made in the lab, but it eats away at the filters themselves. We’re okay right now, but who knows what’ll break next?”
“We knew this would happen,” Lewis said. “The design of Hermes assumed it would get an overhaul after each mission, but we’ve extended Ares 3 from 396 days to 898. Things are going to break. We’ve got all of NASA to help when that happens. We just need to stay on top of maintenance. Martinez, what’s the deal with your bunk room?”
Martinez furrowed his brow. “It’s still trying to cook me. The climate control just isn’t keeping up. I think it’s the tubing in the walls that brings the coolant. I can’t get at it because it’s built into the hull. We can use the room for storage of non-temperature-sensitive cargo, but that’s about it.”
“So did you move into Mark’s room?”
“It’s right next to mine,” he said. “It has the same problem.”
“Where have you been sleeping?”
“In Airlock 2. It’s the only place I can be without people tripping over me.”
“No good,” Lewis said, shaking her head. “If one seal breaks, you die.”
“I can’t think of anywhere else to sleep,” he said. “The ship is pretty cramped, and if I sleep in a hallway I’ll be in people’s way.”
“Okay, from now on, sleep in Beck’s room. Beck can sleep with Johanssen.”
Johanssen blushed and looked down awkwardly.
“So…,” Beck said, “you know about that?”
“You thought I didn’t?” Lewis said. “It’s a small ship.”
“You’re not mad?”
“If it were a normal mission, I would be,” Lewis said. “But we’re way off-script now. Just keep it from interfering with your duties, and I’m happy.”
“Million-mile-high club,” Martinez said. “Nice!”
Johanssen blushed deeper and buried her face in her hands.
I’m getting pretty good at this. Maybe when all this is over I could be a product tester for Mars rovers.
Things went well. I spent five sols driving in circles; I averaged 93 kilometers per sol. That’s a little better than I’d expected. The terrain here is flat and smooth, so it’s pretty much a best-case scenario. Once I’m going up hills and around boulders, it won’t be nearly that good.
The bedroom is awesome. Large, spacious, and comfortable. On the first night, I ran into a little problem with the temperature. It was fucking cold. The rover and trailer regulate their own temperatures just fine, but things weren’t hot enough in the bedroom.
Story of my life.
The rover has an electric heater that pushes air with a small fan. I don’t use the heater itself for anything because the RTG provides all the heat I need, so I liberated the fan and wired it into a power line near the airlock. Once it had power, all I had to do was point it at the bedroom.
It’s a low-tech solution, but it worked. There’s plenty of heat, thanks to the RTG. I just needed to get it evenly spread out. For once, entropy was on my side.
I’ve discovered that raw potatoes are disgusting. When I’m in the Hab, I cook my taters using a small microwave. I don’t have anything like that in the rover. I could easily bring the Hab’s microwave into the rover and wire it in, but the energy required to cook ten potatoes a day would actually cut into my driving distance.
I fell into a routine pretty quickly. In fact, it was hauntingly familiar. I did it for twenty-two miserable sols on the Pathfinder trip. But this time, I had the bedroom and that makes all the difference. Instead of being cooped up in the rover, I have my own little Hab.
After waking up, I have a potato for breakfast. Then, I deflate the bedroom from the inside. It’s kind of tricky, but I worked out how.
First, I put on an EVA suit. Then I close the inner airlock door, leaving the outer door (which the bedroom is attached to) open. This isolates the bedroom, with me in it, from the rest of the rover. Then I tell the airlock to depressurize. It thinks it’s just pumping the air out of a small area, but it’s actually deflating the whole bedroom.
Once the pressure is gone, I pull the canvas in and fold it. Then I detach it from the outer hatch and close the outer door. This is the most cramped part. I have to share the airlock with the entire folded-up bedroom while it repressurizes. Once I have pressure again, I open the inner door and more or less fall into the rover. Then I stow the bedroom and go back to the airlock for a normal egress to Mars.
It’s a complicated process, but it detaches the bedroom without having to depressurize the rover cabin. Remember, the rover has all my stuff that doesn’t play well with vacuum.
The next step is to gather up the solar cells I laid out the day before and stow them on the rover and trailer. Then I do a quick check on the trailer. I go in through its airlock and basically take a quick look at all the equipment. I don’t even take off my EVA suit. I just want to make sure nothing’s obviously wrong.