Chapter 15
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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.”
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[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.
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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.
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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.”
“The mission team’s ready,” Venkat said, looking at spreadsheets on his laptop.
“There was a minor turf war between the Ares 3 and Ares 4 presupply control teams. The Ares 3 guys said they should run it, because while Watney’s on Mars, Ares 3 is still in progress.
The Ares 4 team points out it’s their coopted probe in the first place. I ended up going with Ares3.”
“Did that upset Ares 4?” Teddy asked.
“Yes, but they’ll get over it. They have thirteen other presupply missions coming up. They won’t have time to be pissy.”
“Mitch,” Teddy said to the flight controller, “what about the launch?”
Mitch pulled the earpiece from his ear. “We’ve got a control room ready,” he said. “I’ll oversee the launch, then hand cruise and landing over to Venkat’s guys.”
“Media?” Teddy said, turning to Annie.
“I’m giving daily updates to the press,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
“Everyone knows Watney’s fucked if this doesn’t work.
The public hasn’t been this engaged in ship construction since Apollo 11.
CNN’s The Watney Report has been the number one show in its time slot for the past two weeks. ”
“The attention is good,” Teddy said. “It’ll help get us emergency funding from Congress.” He looked up to a man standing near the entrance. “Maurice, thanks for flying out on short notice.”
Maurice nodded.
Teddy gestured to him and addressed the room. “For those who don’t know him, this is Maurice Stein from Cape Canaveral. He was the scheduled pad leader for EagleEye 3, so he inherited the role for Iris. Sorry for the bait and switch, Maurice.”
“No problem,” said Maurice. “Glad I can help out.”
Teddy flipped the top page of his notes facedown beside the stack. “How’s the booster?”
“It’s all right for now,” said Maurice. “But it’s not ideal.
EagleEye3 was set to launch. Boosters aren’t designed to stand upright and bear the stress of gravity for long periods.
We’re adding external supports that we’ll remove before launch.
It’s easier than disassembly. Also the fuel is corrosive to the internal tanks, so we had to drain it.
In the meantime, we’re performing inspections on all systems every three days. ”
“Good, thank you,” Teddy said. He turned his attention to Bruce Ng, who stared back at him with heavy bloodshot eyes.
“Bruce, thank you for flying out, too. How’s the weather in California these days?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Bruce said. “I rarely see the outdoors.”
Subdued laughter filled the room for a few seconds.
Teddy flipped another page. “Time for the big question, Bruce. How’s Iris coming along?”
“We’re behind,” Bruce said with a tired shake of his head. “We’re going as fast as we can, but it’s just not fast enough.”
“I can find money for overtime,” Teddy offered.
“We’re already working around the clock.”
“How far behind are we talking about?” Teddy asked.
Bruce rubbed his eyes and sighed. “We’ve been at it twenty-nine days; so we only have nineteen left. After that, the Pad needs thirteen days to mount it on the booster. We’re at least two weeks behind.”
“Is that as far behind as you’re going to get?” Teddy asked, writing a note on his papers. “Or will you slip more?”
Bruce shrugged. “If we don’t have any more problems, it’ll be two weeks late. But we always have problems.”
“Give me a number,” Teddy said.
“Fifteen days,” Bruce responded. “If we had another fifteen days, I’m sure we could get it done in time.”
“All right,” Teddy said, taking another note. “Let’s create fifteen days.”
Turning his attention to the Ares 3 flight surgeon, Teddy asked, “Dr. Keller, can we reduce Watney’s food intake to make the rations last longer?”
“Sorry, but no,” Keller said. “He’s already at a minimal calorie count.
In fact, considering the amount of physical labor he does, he’s eating far less than he should.
And it’s only going to get worse. Soon his entire diet will be potatoes and vitamin supplements.
He’s been saving protein-rich rations for later use, but he’ll still be malnourished. ”
“Once he runs out of food, how long until he starves to death?” Teddy asked.
“Presuming an ample water supply, he might last three weeks. Shorter than a typical hunger strike, but remember he’ll be malnourished and thin to begin with.”
Venkat raised a hand and caught their attention. “Remember, Iris is a tumbler; he might have to drive a few days to get it. And I’m guessing it’s hard to control a rover when you’re literally starving to death.”
“He’s right,” Dr. Keller confirmed. “Within four days of running out of food, he’ll barely be able to stand up, let alone control a rover. Plus, his mental faculties will rapidly decline. He’d have a hard time even staying awake.”