Let’s get greedy. Let’s say I can find a home for fourteen more panels instead of seven. Not sure how to do that, but let’s say I can. That would give me thirty-six pirate-ninjas to work with, which would net me five sols of oxygen per air sol. I’d only have to stop once per five sols. That’s much more reasonable.
Plus, if I can arrange battery storage for the extra power, I could drive 100 kilometers per sol! Easier said than done, though. That extra 18 kilowatt-hours of storage will be tough. I’ll have to take two of the Hab’s 9-kilowatt-hour fuel cells and load them onto the rover or trailer. They aren’t like the rover’s batteries; they’re not small or portable. They’re light enough, but they’re pretty big. I may have to attach them to the outside hull, and that would eat into my solar cell storage.
One hundred kilometers per sol is pretty optimistic. But let’s say I could make 90 kilometers per sol, stopping every fifth sol to reclaim oxygen. I’d get there in forty-five sols. That would be sweet!
In other news, it occurred to me that NASA is probably shitting bricks. They’re watching me with satellites and haven’t seen me come out of the Hab for six days. With my back better, it was time to drop them a line.
I headed out for an EVA. This time, being very careful while lugging rocks around, I spelled out a Morse code message: “INJURED BACK. BETTER NOW. CONTINUING ROVER MODS.”
That was enough physical labor for today. I don’t want to overdo it.
Think I’ll have a bath.
Today, it was time to experiment with the panels.
First, I put the Hab on low-power mode: no internal lights, all nonessential systems offline, all internal heating suspended. I’d be outside most of the day anyway.
Then I detached twenty-eight panels from the solar farm and dragged them to the rover. I spent four hours stacking them this way and that. The poor rover looked like the Beverly Hillbillies truck. Nothing I did worked.
The only way to get all twenty-eight on the roof was to make stacks so high they’d fall off the first time I turned. If I lashed them together, they’d fall off as a unit. If I found a way to attach them perfectly to the rover, the rover would tip. I didn’t even bother to test. It was obvious by looking, and I didn’t want to break anything.
I haven’t removed the chunk of hull from the trailer yet. Half the holes are drilled, but I’m not committed to anything. If I left it in place, I could have four stacks of seven cells. That would work fine; it’s just two rovers’ worth of what I did for the trip to Pathfinder.
Problem is I need that opening. The regulator has to be in the pressurized area and it’s too big to fit in the unmodified rover. Plus which, the oxygenator needs to be in a pressurized area while operating. I’ll only need it every five sols, but what would I do on that sol? No, the hole has to be there.
As it is, I’ll be able to stow twenty-one panels. I need homes for the other seven. There’s only one place they can go: the sides of the rover and trailer.
One of my earlier modifications was “saddlebags” draped over the rover. One side held the extra battery (stolen from what is now the trailer), while the other side was full of rocks as counterweight.
I won’t need the bags this time around. I can return the second battery to the trailer from whence it came. In fact, it’ll save me the hassle of the mid-drive EVA I had to do every day to swap cables. When the rovers are linked up, they share resources, including electricity.
I went ahead and reinstalled the trailer’s battery. It took me two hours, but it’s out of the way now. I removed the saddlebags and set them aside. They may be handy down the line. If I’ve learned one thing from my stay at Club Mars, it’s that everything can be useful.
I had liberated the sides of the rover and the trailer. After staring at them for a while, I had my solution.
I’ll make L-brackets that stick out from the undercarriages, with the hooks facing up. Two brackets per side to make a shelf. I can set panels on the shelves and lean them against the rover. Then I’ll lash them to the hull with homemade rope.
There’ll be four “shelves” total; two on the rover and two on the trailer. If the brackets stick out far enough to accommodate two panels, I could store eight additional panels that way. That would give me one more panel than I’d even planned for.
I’ll make those brackets and install them tomorrow. I would have done it today, but it got dark and I got lazy.
Cold night last night. The solar cells were still detached from the farm, so I had to leave the Hab in low-power mode. I did turn the heat back on (I’m not insane), but I set the internal temperature to 1°C to conserve power. Waking up to frigid weather felt surprisingly nostalgic. I grew up in Chicago, after all.
But nostalgia only lasts so long. I vowed to complete the brackets today, so I can return the panels to the farm. Then I can turn the damn heat back on.
I headed out to the MAV’s landing strut array to scavenge metal for the shelves. Most of the MAV is made from composite, but the struts had to absorb the shock of landing. Metal was the way to go.
I brought a strut into the Hab to save myself the hassle of working in an EVA suit. It was a triangular lattice of metal strips held together with bolts. I disassembled it.
Shaping the brackets involved a hammer and… well, that’s it, actually. Making an L doesn’t take a lot of precision.
I needed holes where the bolts would pass through. Fortunately, my Pathfinder-murdering drill made short work of that task.
I was worried it would be hard to attach the brackets to the rover’s undercarriage, but it ended up being simple. The undercarriage comes right off. After some drilling and bolting, I got the brackets attached to it and then mounted it back on the rover. I repeated the process for the trailer. Important note—the undercarriage is not part of the pressure vessel. The holes I drilled won’t let my air out.
I tested the brackets by hitting them with rocks. This kind of sophistication is what we interplanetary scientists are known for.
After convincing myself the brackets wouldn’t break at the first sign of use, I tested the new arrangement. Two stacks of seven solar cells on the roof of the rover; another seven on the trailer, then two per shelf. They all fit.
After lashing the cells in place, I took a little drive. I did some basic acceleration and deceleration, turned in increasingly tight circles, and even did a power-stop. The cells didn’t budge.
Twenty-eight solar cells, baby! And room for one extra!
After some well-earned fist-pumping, I unloaded the cells and dragged them back to the farm. No Chicago morning for me tomorrow.
I am smiling a great smile. The smile of a man who fucked with his car and didn’t break it.
I spent today removing unnecessary crap from the rover and trailer. I was pretty damn aggressive about it, too. Space inside the pressure vessels is at a premium. The more crap I clear out of the rover, the more space there is for me. The more crap I clear out of the trailer, the more supplies I can store in it, and the less I have to store in the rover.
First off: Each vehicle had a bench for passengers. Bye!
Next: There’s no reason for the trailer to have life support. The oxygen tanks, nitrogen tanks, CO2 filter assembly… all unnecessary. It’ll be sharing air with the rover (which has its own copy of each of those), and it’ll be carrying the regulator and oxygenator. Between the Hab components and the rover, I’ll have two redundant life support systems. That’s plenty.