Got to hand it to NASA. They don’t screw around when making this stuff.
Then came the critical part… checking the dirt. I took a few samples from all over the Hab (remember, it’s all dirt flooring now) and made slides.
With shaking hands, I put a slide into the microscope and brought the image up on-screen. There they were! Healthy, active bacteria doing their thing! Looks like I won’t be starving to death on Sol 400 after all. I plopped down in a chair and let my breathing return to normal.
Then I set about cleaning up the mess. And I had a lot of time to think about what had happened.
So what happened? Well, I have a theory.
According to the main computer, during the blast, the internal pressure spiked to 1.4 atmospheres, and the temperature rose to 15°C in under a second. But the pressure quickly subsided back to 1 atm. This would make sense if the atmospheric regulator were on, but I’d cut power to it.
The temperature remained at 15°C for some time afterward, so any heat expansion should still have been present. But the pressure dropped down again, so where did that extra pressure go? Raising the temperature and keeping the same number of atoms inside should permanently raise the pressure. But it didn’t.
I quickly realized the answer. The hydrogen (the only available thing to burn) combined with oxygen (hence combustion) and became water. Water is a thousand times as dense as a gas. So the heat added to the pressure, and the transformation of hydrogen and oxygen into water brought it back down again.
The million dollar question is, where the hell did the oxygen come from? The whole plan was to limit oxygen and keep an explosion from happening. And it was working for quite a while before blowing up.
I think I have my answer. And it comes down to me brain-farting. Remember when I decided not to wear a space suit? That decision almost killed me.
The medical O2 tank mixes pure oxygen with surrounding air, then feeds it to you through a mask. The mask stays on your face with a little rubber band that goes around the back of your neck. Not an airtight seal.
I know what you’re thinking. The mask leaked oxygen. But no. I was breathing the oxygen. When I was inhaling, I made a nearly airtight seal with the mask by sucking it to my face.
The problem was exhaling. Do you know how much oxygen you absorb out of the air when you take a normal breath? I don’t know either, but it’s not 100 percent. Every time I exhaled, I added more oxygen to the system.
It just didn’t occur to me. But it should have. If your lungs grabbed up all the oxygen, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation wouldn’t work. I’m such a dumb-ass for not thinking of it! And my dumb-assery almost got me killed!
I’m really going to have to be more careful.
It’s a good thing I burned off most of the hydrogen before the explosion. Otherwise that would have been the end. As it is, the explosion wasn’t strong enough to pop the Hab. Though it was strong enough to almost blast my eardrums in.
This all started with me noticing a 60-liter shortfall in water production. Between deliberate burn-off and a bit of unexpected explosion, I’m back on track. The water reclaimer did its job last night and pulled 50 liters of the newly created water out of the air. It’s storing it in Lewis’s spacesuit, which I’ll call “The Cistern” from now on, because it sounds cooler. The other 10 liters of water was directly absorbed by the dry soil.
Lots of physical labor today. I’ve earned a full meal. And to celebrate my first night back in the Hab, I’ll kick back and watch some shitty twentieth-century TV courtesy of Commander Lewis.
The Dukes of Hazzard, eh? Let’s give it a whirl.
I slept in late today. I deserved it. After four nights of awful sleep in the rover, my bunk felt like the softest, most profoundly beautiful feather bed ever made.
Eventually, I dragged my ass out of bed and finished some post-explosion cleanup.
I moved the potato plants back in today. And just in time, too. They’re sprouting. They look healthy and happy. This isn’t chemistry, medicine, bacteriology, nutrition analysis, explosion dynamics, or any other shit I’ve been doing lately. This is botany. I’m sure I can at least grow some plants without screwing up.
Right?
You know what really sucks? I’ve only made 130 liters of water. I have another 470 liters to go. You’d think after almost killing myself twice, I’d be able to stop screwing around with hydrazine. But nope. I’ll be reducing hydrazine and burning hydrogen in the Hab, every ten hours, for another ten days. I’ll do a better job of it from now on. Instead of counting on a clean reaction, I’ll do frequent “hydrogen cleanings” with a small flame. It’ll burn off gradually instead of building up to kill-Mark levels.
I’ll have a lot of dead time. Ten hours for each tank of CO2 to finish filling. It only takes twenty minutes to reduce the hydrazine and burn the hydrogen. I’ll spend the rest of the time watching TV.
And seriously… It’s clear that General Lee can outrun a police cruiser. Why doesn’t Rosco just go to the Duke farm and arrest them when they’re not in the car?
CHAPTER 6
VENKAT KAPOOR returned to his office, dropped his briefcase on the floor, and collapsed into his leather chair. He took a moment to look out the windows. His office in Building 1 afforded him a commanding view of the large park in the center of the Johnson Space Center complex. Beyond that, dozens of scattered buildings dominated the view all the way to Mud Lake in the distance.
Glancing at his computer screen, he noted forty-seven unread e-mails urgently demanding his attention. They could wait. Today had been a sad day. Today was the memorial service for Mark Watney.
The President had given a speech, praising Watney’s bravery and sacrifice, and the quick actions of Commander Lewis in getting everyone else to safety. Commander Lewis and the surviving crew, via long-range communication from Hermes, gave eulogies for their departed comrade from deep space. They had another ten months of travel yet to endure.
The administrator had given a speech as well, reminding everyone that space flight is incredibly dangerous, and that we will not back down in the face of adversity.
They’d asked Venkat if he was willing to make a speech. He’d declined. What was the point? Watney was dead. Nice words from the director of Mars operations wouldn’t bring him back.
“You okay, Venk?” came a familiar voice from the doorway.
Venkat swiveled around. “Guess so,” he said.
Teddy Sanders swept a rogue thread off his otherwise immaculate blazer. “You could have given a speech.”
“I didn’t want to. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t want to, either. But I’m the administrator of NASA. It’s kind of expected. You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
“Good,” Teddy said, adjusting his cuff links. “Let’s get back to work, then.”
“Sure.” Venkat shrugged. “Let’s start with you authorizing my satellite time.”
Teddy leaned against the wall with a sigh. “This again.”
“Yes,” Venkat said. “This again. What is the problem?”
“Okay, run me through it. What, exactly, are you after?”
Venkat leaned forward. “Ares 3 was a failure, but we can salvage something from it. We’re funded for five Ares missions. I think we can get Congress to fund a sixth.”
“I don’t know, Venk…”
“It’s simple, Teddy.” Venkat pressed on. “They evac’d after six sols. There’s almost an entire mission’s worth of supplies up there. It would only cost a fraction of a normal mission. It normally takes fourteen presupply probes to prep a site. We might be able to send what’s missing in three. Maybe two.”