By Sol 856 I’ll be long dead.
CHAPTER 15
[08:12] WATNEY: Test.
[08:25] JPL: Received! You gave us quite a scare there. Thanks for the “A-okay” message. Our analysis of satellite imagery shows a complete detachment of Airlock 1. Is that correct? What’s your status?
[08:39] WATNEY: If by “detachment” you mean “shot me out like a cannon” then yeah. Minor cut on my forehead. Had some issues with my EVA suit (I’ll explain later). I patched up the Hab and repressurized it (main air tanks were intact). I just got power back online. The farm is dead. I’ve recovered as many potatoes as I could and stored them outside. I count 1841. That will last me 184 days. Including the remaining mission rations, I’ll start starving on Sol 584.
[08:52] JPL: Yeah, we figured. We’re working on solutions to the food issue. What’s the status of the Hab systems?
[09:05] WATNEY: Primary air and water tanks were unharmed. The rover, solar array, and Pathfinder were out of the blast range. I’ll run diagnostics on the Hab’s systems while I wait for your next reply. By the way, who am I talking to?
[09:18] JPL: Venkat Kapoor in Houston. Pasadena relays my messages. I’m going to handle all direct communication with you from now on. Check the oxygenator and water reclaimer first. They’re the most important.
[09:31] WATNEY: Duh. Oxygenator functioning perfectly. Water reclaimer is completely offline. Best guess is water froze up inside and burst some tubing. I’m sure I can fix it. The Hab’s main computer is also functioning without any problems. Any idea what caused the Hab to blow up?
[09:44] JPL: Best guess is fatigue on the canvas near Airlock 1. The pressurization cycle stressed it until it failed. From now on, alternate Airlock 2 and 3 for all EVAs. Also, we’ll be getting you a checklist and procedures for a full canvas exam.
[09:57] WATNEY: Yay, I get to stare at a wall for several hours! Let me know if you come up with a way for me to not starve.
[10:11] JPL: Will do.
“IT’S SOL 122,” Bruce said. “We have until Sol 584 to get a probe to Mars. That’s four hundred and sixty-two sols, which is four hundred and seventy-five days.”
The assembled department heads of JPL furrowed their brows and rubbed their eyes.
He stood from his chair. “The positions of Earth and Mars aren’t ideal. The trip will take four hundred and fourteen days. Mounting the probe to the booster and dealing with inspections will take thirteen days. That leaves us with just forty-eight days to make this probe.”
Sounds of whispered exasperation filled the room. “Jesus,” someone said.
“It’s a whole new ball game,” Bruce continued. “Our focus is food. Anything else is a luxury. We don’t have time to make a powered-descent lander. It’ll have to be a tumbler. So we can’t put anything delicate inside. Say good-bye to all the other crap we’d planned to send.”
“Where’s the booster coming from?” asked Norm Toshi, who was in charge of the reentry process.
“The EagleEye 3 Saturn probe,” Bruce said. “It was scheduled to launch next month. NASA put it on hold so we can have the booster.”
“I bet the EagleEye team was pissed about that,” Norm said.
“I’m sure they were,” Bruce said. “But it’s the only booster we have that’s big enough. Which brings me to my next point: We only get one shot at this. If we fail, Mark Watney dies.”
He looked around the room and let that sink in.
“We do have some things going for us,” he finally said. “We have some of the parts built for the Ares 4 presupply missions. We can steal from them, and that’ll save us some time. Also, we’re sending food, which is pretty robust. Even if there’s a reentry problem and the probe impacts at high velocity, food is still food.
“And we don’t need a precision landing. Watney can travel hundreds of kilometers if necessary. We just need to land close enough for him to reach it. This ends up being a standard tumble-land presupply. All we have to do is make it quickly. So let’s get to it.”
[08:02] JPL: We’ve spun up a project to get you food. It’s been in progress for a week or so. We can get it to you before you starve, but it’ll be tight. It’ll just be food and a radio. We can’t send an oxygenator, water reclaimer, or any of that other stuff without powered descent.
[08:16] WATNEY: No complaints here! You get me the food, I’ll be a happy camper. I’ve got all Hab systems up and running again. The water reclaimer is working fine now that I replaced the burst hoses. As for water supply, I have 620 liters remaining. I started with 900 liters (300 to start with, 600 more from reducing hydrazine). So I lost almost 300 liters to sublimation. Still, with the water reclaimer operational again, it’s plenty.
[08:31] JPL: Good, keep us posted on any mechanical or electronic problems. By the way, the name of the probe we’re sending is Iris. Named after the Greek goddess who traveled the heavens with the speed of wind. She’s also the goddess of rainbows.
[08:47] WATNEY: Gay probe coming to save me. Got it.
RICH PURNELL sipped coffee in the silent building. He ran a final test on the software he’d written. It passed. With a relieved sigh, he sank back in his chair. Checking the clock on his computer, he shook his head. 3:42 a.m.
As an astrodynamicist, Rich rarely had to work late. His job was to find the exact orbits and course corrections needed for any given mission. Usually, it was one of the first parts of a project, all the other steps being based on the orbit.
But this time, things were reversed. Iris needed an orbital path, and nobody knew when it would launch.
Planets move as time goes by. A course calculated for a specific launch date will work only for that date. Even a single day’s difference would result in missing Mars entirely.
So Rich had to calculate many courses. He had a range of twenty-five days during which Iris might launch. He calculated one course for each.
He began an e-mail to his boss.
Mike, he typed, Attached are the courses for Iris, in 1-day increments. We should start peer review and vetting so they can be officially accepted. And you were right, I was here almost all night.
It wasn’t that bad. Nowhere near the pain of calculating orbits for Hermes. I know you get bored when I go into the math, so I’ll summarize: The small, constant thrust of Hermes’s ion drives is much harder to deal with than the large point-thrusts of presupply probes.
All 25 of the courses take 414 days, and vary only slightly in thrust duration and angle. The fuel requirement is nearly identical for the orbits and is well within the capacity of EagleEye’s booster.
It’s too bad. Earth and Mars are really badly positioned. Heck, it’s almost easier to—
He stopped typing.
Furrowing his brow, he stared into the distance.
“Hmm,” he said.
He grabbed his coffee cup and went to the break room for a refill.
TEDDY SCANNED the crowded conference room. It was rare to see such an assembly of NASA’s most important people all in one place. He squared a small stack of notes he’d prepared and placed them neatly in front of him.
“I know you’re all busy,” Teddy said. “Thank you for making time for this meeting. I need status on Project Iris from all departments. Venkat, let’s start with you.”