On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (6 page)

“Flight, Pathfinder. We are go for transit burn.”

Jayden asked if I had any final words before leaving. I adopted a comical southern twang and replied, “Well that’s a big 10-4 good buddy. I think it’s time we kick the tires and light the fires! Let’s get this puppy off the porch and see if it can bark with the big dogs!”

The audience and the stage all laughed and applauded at my élan. The image cut to an external view of the MTV and Lander, courtesy of a USAF Mil-Sat. There was a PIP in the corner still showing me, and the anonymous voice of Flight Control was now loud over the auditorium speakers. My son, his wife, my friend Mary, and Jayden all had tears in their eyes: all for different reasons. The auditorium went dead silent except for the Flight Control voice.

“OMS cut-off, final alignment re-confirmed.”

“Trajectory Engines prelight warm-up commencing.”

“Five.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

A sudden flair of light from the nine Merlin engines as the ignition sequence began.

“Two.”

“One.”

The brilliance on the screen flashed blinding white. The long lens aperture screwed almost shut so that a viewable image was still on the screen.

“Ignition confirmed. Final trajectory burn in progress.”

The screen flared orange and yellow as all nine Merlins fired full throttle at the same time. Much of what I saw out the portal when the PDV went on its way was what the auditorium audience and millions of television viewers saw, except that the USAF Mil-Sat was a bit further away and taking a long shot with the camera.

“Main engine ignition, re-alignment engines enabled.”

Having much better optics than my eyes, the camera was able to effectively follow my rocket for almost two full minutes before the engines’ flaring became a small burning spec in the distance.

“Approaching mid-burn.”

“Mid-burn. Engine number one planned cut-off, trajectory alignment re-confirmed.”

The on-board camera was now showing a static laced feed of me in the cockpit. It showed me pressed into the couch. You could see the skin on my face slightly distorted by the massive g-forces from the powerful thrust of the engines.

The ship had gone from being relatively still (though it wasn’t really, not in orbit) at apogee to a speed of 33,800 kilometres per hour, or 9.6 kilometres per second. That would be like travelling from Toronto, Canada to London, England in under ten minutes. My flight Activity Suit had a built-in pressurization system for the flight. It had pumped up and did its best to keep the blood high up in my body so that I would not black out from a brain starving for oxygen.

We had done extensive testing and training on this one aspect of the flight, and while I was prepared for it, I wasn’t ready for it. With no real gravity to speak off, trying to fight the engines thrust, this burn was like a whole passel of wild horses going hell-bent-for-leather towards the stars. A few seconds into the burn I felt like several of those horses had decided to sit down on my chest. The pressure kept up for almost five full minutes. I was absolutely convinced at one point that my brains had liquefied and were leaking out of my ears. I had planned to keep up a narrative during this part of the acceleration, but all I could do was make guttural grunting noises. When I first tried to talk there was so much grunting, groaning, and squealing that Flight Control had muted the audio transmission from the capsule to the auditorium, and kept up a running narrative of their own so the audience wouldn’t notice.

“Final engine cut-off in three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

“Final engine cut-off.”

“Stand by to jettison Trajectory Engines.”

“Trajectory Engine separation successful.”

“Final trajectory alignment confirmed. The Mars Transit Vehicle has been successfully inserted into a Heliocentric Transit Orbit.”

“Pathfinder is now en route to Mars.”
There was loud cheering in the background,
“Flight Control to Pathfinder, bon voyage Mike, and Godspeed.”

I managed to croak out, “Thank you, Flight.”

“Flight Control to Mission Control for hand-off.”

“Mission Control to Flight Control, we have assumed active control status. Thank you for your assistance.”

The horses lounging on my chest had stood up since I was no longer accelerating. I was able to breathe without a struggle; the pressure suit relaxed its death grip on my legs and lower torso; the ringing in my ears finally subsided. WOW! What a ride. The Space Shuttle alumni I had spoken with had never really let me know how intense that acceleration was going to be. Of course, none of the Space Shuttle alumni had ever ridden a Falcon Trajectory rocket out of Earth orbit either: no one had until that day. So just a word of caution to any future Pathfinders, when they “prepare” you for that trajectory burn, smile to yourself. You will
never
be fully prepared for that ride! It’s just an order of magnitude worse than the ascent g-forces.

“Pathfinder, Mission Control. We have assumed control of the mission. We are ready for you to move to the MTV.”

An Aside:
The Outer Space Treaty

The document called the Outer Space Treaty was agreed to by the United Nations in 1966 (resolution 2222 [XXI]). It was largely based on the 1963 United Nations Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the
Exploration and Use of Outer Space Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
(resolution 1962 [XXVIII]).

This treaty was created during the height of the cold war. Given the climate of détente between the superpowers, I can’t blame some of the decision makers believing it would be for the benefit of all. However, their thinking on the matter was flawed. In The Space Review, in 2007, John Hickman argued that this treaty evolved from, “the fear that either superpower would achieve a decisive military technological advantage over the other in outer space, the fear that competition for the best ‘real estate’ on celestial bodies might itself result in war between the superpowers, and the fear that the superpowers might cooperate in a duopoly over all of outer space.” So as you can see, we still have the biggest cause for war and sabre rattling, real estate, being a concern for outer space as well.

The Outer Space Treaty had the purpose of making both corporations and States (Nation States) responsible for what they do outside the atmosphere. The treaty stated that any corporation privately operating in outer space would be operating under the flag and auspices of that corporation’s host country; that is, the country where the corporation’s head office paid their taxes. Actually, it says that States (Nation States) are responsible for space activities carried out by governmental or non-governmental agencies (corporations); so ipso facto, my first statement was correct.

There is quite a bit about the treaty that makes sense; common sense, actually. It’s unfortunate that the world at the time was a place where they felt it was necessary to codify common sense in legalese but hey, we’re humans. If we didn’t have government and lawyers, we’d all sit around with too much money in our bank accounts, and not enough things to complain about.

The Outer Space Treaty says that outer space is for the use and benefit of all. That makes sense. It says that States (Nation States) are responsible for any damage caused by their space junk. That also makes sense. It says that astronauts, of any state (Nation States), shall be considered envoys of mankind. Yes, still making perfect sense. It also says that States (Nation States) shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit, in space or on other celestial bodies. Ah-ha! Now we find the crux of the impetus to wrest control of that which is beyond our borders, which God created, and which we actually have no hold over. I think that the whole sentiment is wonderful, given the cold war stalemate of the day, but they should have left it at “in orbit”. Why would mankind not want the ability to defend itself against all enemies: foreign, domestic, interplanetary
and
exo-planetary? So while, as I said, it was a good sentiment, this wording doesn’t really make as much sense.

Moving right along, we find that the treaty also says that outer space (which includes the moon and other celestial bodies), cannot be appropriated by means of claim, use, or occupation. That means that no nation can assert sovereignty over anything in outer space. So this is where the treaty stops making sense completely.

If mankind cannot claim sovereignty, why would mankind want to expand to new uninhabited planets? If mankind were to set up bases on the moon or bases on Mars, would mankind not inherently have claim to at least a goodly portion of the surface around them? Would they not be able to say, “No, our base is already here, go build your new base over there.” Does that not make sense?

If corporations were going to go into space, the most likely economic benefit would be production of low-g chemicals, medicines and building materials (asteroid ore mining, etc.). Granted, no one could tell them to “shove off”, as no one would have the sovereignty to. However, the corporation would not have any claim to not be
shoved off
by someone that wasn’t adhering to quite all of the sections of the treaty. Therefore, the treaty was, if I may be so bold, stupid.

Within the aforementioned article in
The Space Review
, Mr. Hickman presents us with an understanding of the anticommons. The anticommons arises as a direct result of the treaty establishing that everything beyond Earth was
res communis
. By virtue of this assertion, the treaty had ensured that since it had, “eliminated the possibility that States could claim territory on the final frontier it also extinguished an important motivation for States and private firms to engage in exploration and development.”

With this understanding of the Outer Space Treaty in mind,
we can see that the Corporation, with Jayden at the head, had to do some work to actually get the mission off the ground (no pun intended). In 2016, with a 50 person lobby group, the Corporation, with the assistance of their host country, Sweden, had successfully introduced amendments to the Outer Space Treaty through the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Specifically, the amendments were to Article 1 and Article 2.

Article 1 of the treaty was amended from, “and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.”; to read, “and there shall be free access to all
unclaimed
areas of celestial bodies.”

Article 2 was a bigger change, but took less arguing. Article 2 stated, “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” The lobby team argued from the position that this would allow an enemy from beyond Earth orbit to establish a colony or base of operations anywhere in our galaxy, including our solar system, or even our own Moon. The military lobbyists worked around the globe. It was an easy sell for military ears; they pushed for larger countries’ military establishments to talk sense into the politicos of the day. Finally, after several months of discussions and private talks, with the assurance there would be no media coverage of the changes or which Country had voted for them, a closed session of the United Nations General Assembly passed the edits to Article 1, and the complete withdrawal of Article 2.

With that
fait accompli
, our own Corporation was now free to pursue its goal, without encumbrances by any Nation State or treaty of law.

Descent Day: T-Minus 90 Seconds

Eight and a half months later I was orbiting Mars and ready to descend to the surface. All the indicators are green, all the readings are nominal. I cast my eyes around the Lander cabin to make sure everything looked secure. I felt like I was in my uncle’s old Woody packed with suitcases, bags, and odds and sods on moving day. Every available surface had either canvas bags, or heavy duty plastic equipment boxes strapped, lashed, and tied in place. I had three large duffels, and two plastic foot lockers that were filled with personal clothing and other items. Getting those on board had been a bit of a battle, but eventually I played the,
I’m going there forever and giving up my life on Earth
card. I won. I got to take some stuff from home.  In that “negotiation” I also won a commitment for just over a half cubic metre of space in every supply mission that they would fill with whatever I asked. They said they would do it for me, but they could not do that for the following colony ships. I said that was okay, I’m going to be the first man on Mars. I’m a special case. Besides, I planned to use that for tastes of home that would help keep me sane. There was no
Dépanneur on Mars
,
how the hell else was I going to get any Twinkies there? I chuckled to myself thinking thankfully that there were no garbage bags full of bedding or clothing, and that I didn’t have to stick my arm out the portal and hold a mattress on the roof.

I had brought a lot of stuff in the Lander with me because I had to make up the weight of the three people I didn’t have on board. There was even about 20 kilograms worth of scientific experiments for some university students I had befriended in the Swedish town I had been living in. There was even a rumour circulating in the rocket assembly building, that there were two cement bricks in the Lander to make up the weight difference. The configuration of the Lander was for four people to descend to the surface of Mars, so it had to have the same mass as four people.

Audio and video transmissions with Terra were delayed about 18 minutes and a few seconds each way with the current position of Mars in its orbit. In another four months, Mars would be at apogee, and transmission time would be 22 minutes. I wasn’t able to hear Mission Control counting down or providing a running narrative. When I left Terra there had been a lot of chatter for me to listen to. Now it was silent, except for the ever-so-slight hiss of air in my helmet. Everything concerning the actual descent had been programmed into the Lander’s navigation computer. It would have been nice if the computer could carry a conversation with me but hey, this is real life, not science-fiction. All it could do was respond to direct requests and alert me to preplanned events. I found that silence was kind of creepy, yet the moment was still very exciting!

The “Go-No-Go” button winked at me. It was time to put on my big boy panties. If I didn’t press the button in time, I would be given the chance again next orbit; and then again the following orbit after that. If I missed pressing it for three orbits, then the MTV would execute a preplanned burn with its final bit of remaining fuel, and enter a free return trajectory to Earth. Of course, I would never be able to survive that trip. I pressed the button.

The display on the computer in front of me gave me the countdown: I was at seventeen seconds. One last look around, I re-tighten the straps holding me to the couch, squint my eyes shut, and quickly recite a portion of the 23
rd
Psalm.

When I opened my eyes, the countdown was at three seconds. When it reached “one”, I heard the tunnel between the Lander and the MTV depressurize; I also heard the Lander/MTV mechanical couplings
thunk
open (the mechanical couplings that had held the Lander to the Command Module for the whole journey). There was an ever-so-slight jolt and barely a sense of forward momentum as manoeuvering rockets moved me away from the Command Module. I was now completely detached from the MTV. Looking forward through the dorsal portal I could see the MTV moving away from me, or more accurately, me moving away from the MTV. With a sudden twinge of nostalgia, I raised my hand to my visor and gave it a salute, “Goodbye old friend, old
smelly
friend.”

I reached out to the COM panel and transmitted the confirmation signal for successful detach. Telemetry would provide the technical information on the procedure. I was just sending the human confirmation. I think they just wanted me to feel useful in this fully automated descent stage of the trip, like every other fully automated stage of the trip. I said a quick prayer for a safe landing, then after a pause, I yearningly whispered, “Look out Barsoom, here I come.”

Everything I said and whispered was being relayed back to Terra, and broadcasted on the internet. I learned from Hans later on, that this statement had caused all those in Mission Control to go sombre for a few moments. Shortly after being informed of this proof of concept mission, I had bought a dozen copies of
Princess of Mars
, and put them into circulation at the Corporation’s head office. A lot of the Mission Control staff had already read it. Those that hadn’t already read it fell in love with it. It was about a time and place when men were honourable, women were strong, and adventure waited at every turn of the page. The words I whispered had struck a chord with everybody for the monumental nature of what we were doing, the dreams that we were turning into reality, and that we were doing all of it
right now
. That I was doing all of it, all alone.

My couch was oriented to a normal upward position. I was on my back facing the top of the Lander, which meant I could only see where I had been, and not where I was going. When the Orbital Manoeuvering Package (OMP) fired, the downward force thrust me upward, in the direction I was facing. It was like a big hand reached down and was trying to pluck me out of my seat, but the restraints held me in place. The OMP burn only lasted a few seconds, and then I felt normal again. I could feel a distinct sense of motion, but once more, my ship was ballistic and no longer under power. It was up to physics, Martian gravity, and prayer to get me where I needed to be; to get me there safely. I took care of the prayer part, and left the rest to Newton. I was roughly twenty-five minutes from touchdown in Chasma Boreale in the North Polar region of Mars, only a kilometre above the northern edge of the Hyperboreae Undae region of sand dunes. Specifically, I landed at 81° 40’ 27.28”N and 44° 32’ 24.92”W, West of the Martian prime meridian.

This site was selected for its proximity to the North Polar ice fields that covered thousands of square kilometres, and were estimated to be 2 to 3 kilometres thick. The site presented excellent drilling opportunities for water, and the test drilling carried out by robotics indicated a reliable source of water was possible. My ability to extract water would be the difference between life and death; the difference between mission success and failure; the difference between a colony and no colony. I was arriving in the latter half of the summer, so spring sublimation would have evaporated most, if not all, of the frozen carbon dioxide that settled over the North Polar region in this hemisphere’s winter season.

The landing and habitat site was less than 2 kilometres from a 500 metre ice wall. With good recycling technology in place, these frozen fields would supply a fair sized colony indefinitely. We planned the water mining and collection so that I could use up to 50 litres of water a day, not that I would ever use that much. With the advanced recycling technology I had in the Habitat (
everything
got recycled, if you know what I mean), and proper maintenance of the water storage tank, I would only lose about two litres a day. The two five hundred litre water storage tanks in the Habitat meant I would only have to water-mine two or three times a Martian year; only one or two times per Terran year. The water mining transport tank would also act as a backup. Provided it was kept properly insulated and heated, that water mining process could be done only once or twice every
two
Terran years after its first fill-up. Of course, once the first colony arrived and set up the hydroponics, that might change. By then, I planned to have a piping system with automated recovery in place so that it would be something no one had to actively go out and attend to as often.

The flat, open nature of the landing site also presented excellent opportunities for the wind farm that was going to be an important and extensive project. I needed to set up ten wind collectors soon after arrival for my own needs for the next few years. While the wind collection system would keep the Habitat batteries fully charged, the mission planners wanted the Habitats to use the DC conversion as much as possible, given the almost continuous wind patterns at the colony site. I needed to set up thirty wind collectors in total to supply all the colony needs prior to the next crew arriving in six years. No problem. The wind turbines had already been delivered, and were waiting to be unpacked and set up. I only needed to set up four for my immediate needs, then six more before my first Martian winter. Mission Control relayed daily updates to the Command Module after our equipment started landing on Mars. Since the Habitats’ arrival, Big Dawg and Little Dawg (the large and small rovers) had moved the Habitats into close proximity, and then deployed and connected the solar collectors. These required frequent attention as they seemed to be dust magnets, and even a little dust drastically affected their efficiency. Little Dawg was almost exclusively dedicated to keeping the solar collectors dust free. After the wind farm was up and running, the solar collectors would be rolled back up and held in reserve as a backup to the wind farms.

The Lander started buffeting slightly in the thin atmosphere of Mars, only about ten percent as dense as on Terra. I could feel the buffeting turn into a thrumming feeling coming through the couch. Eventually that thrumming became a teeth chattering sensation. Thin atmo or not, this was going to be a ride!

There would be no ionization blackout for telemetry during re-entry. Mission Control would continue to receive the stream uninterrupted. Both the Mar-Sat and the Jalopy-Sat had a TDRS installed. The Tracking and Data Relay System was able to transmit and receive telemetry signals from the forward (topside) antenna array on the Lander, through a small space in the ionization envelope created by the shape of the Lander itself (topside was pointed backwards during re-entry). Otherwise there would have been almost a full minute of blackout as the Lander was on a very shallow trajectory to the landing site. I would be completing almost a full half orbit before touchdown. The Landers descent needed this extra distance due to the very thin Martian atmosphere being such an important part of the aerobraking/deceleration process. As I was heading towards the planet surface, the Jalopy-Sat was already moving itself to a more northerly geosynchronous position, to have better oversight on the colony.

I had been orbiting Mars at roughly 6 kilometres per second. That meant the descent time was going to be about 25 minutes to cover the low angle distance, and slow down the Lander. The robotics packages that had arrived in the past few years landed much faster. They also had significantly less mass than I did. The supply drops and systems delivery (Habitat, Atmo-Gen, Hydrazine Plant, etc.) had all taken almost a full 50 minutes for descent. Maximum use of the thin Martian atmosphere was required because of the exceptional mass of those objects. The Habitats alone were about seven tonnes each. However, all had landed safely and intact according to telemetry and visuals from the rover, Big Dawg. Big Dawg and Little Dawg had been dropped in the first investigation package to land at Chasma Boreale, four years ago.

The pressure system in my Activity Suit was activated around my upper body (as opposed to lower body during ascent), but it wasn’t squeezing me like a tube of cheese, as the pressure suit had during ascent, and trajectory burn. The pressure suit was primarily needed for acceleration and the descent of the craft was all deceleration.

I began to see a faint red glow outside the windows. The aeroshell on the bottom of the Lander was getting extremely hot from the friction of the Martian atmosphere. Even though at this altitude it was about 1% as dense as the Terran atmosphere, there was still a thin atmosphere that was dense enough to be using it for the initial braking effect.

Fourteen minutes into the descent, the next critical phase came up on the timeline. While the atmospheric friction had slowed down the Lander considerably, it was still going too fast to deploy the three parachutes. If they were deployed at this point, they would rip right off the top of the Lander, and probably taking the top of the Lander with them. What came first was the firing of RAD assemblies (Rocket Assisted Descent engines). There were two disposable RAD assembly frames on the bottom of the Lander, plus the final third assembly attached to the Lander itself. These RAD assemblies had the brunt of responsibility for getting me safely to the surface.

Before any of that could happen though, the aeroshell had to be discarded. I was now moving slow enough, and in a thin enough atmosphere that the aeroshell was no longer needed as a heat shield. I felt a slight jolt from the jettison rockets after the control system had blown the couplings to the aeroshell, propelling it out of the path of the ballistic Lander.

When the first RAD assembly ignited, I was slammed into the flight couch again. This lasted for seventeen seconds. After the seventeen second burn elapsed, the first stage RAD engines cut out. Almost immediately, tiny launching rockets fired three, one pound metal Monkey’s Fists from three points on the top of the Lander. These small weights pulled and arched the drogues for the parachutes out far enough to not get tangled in each other. The larger than normal drogues, catching the thin atmo filled out; and pulled out the much larger than normal three main parachutes right behind them. All three parachutes deployed simultaneously. After the first RAD assembly cut out, I went back into free fall for about seven seconds (an eternity it seemed), before I felt the parachutes give drag to the Lander’s descent. Ten seconds after the RAD cut-off, the first RAD assembly ejector units released that first frame. It fell from the bottom of the Lander, engines, and fuel tanks attached to them.