Chapter 23
I think I can work this out.
I’m on the very edge of a storm. I don’t know its size or heading. But it’s moving, and that’s something I can take advantage of. I don’t have to wander around exploring it. It’ll come to me.
It’s okay to lose some driving distance per sol. I have plenty of time, but I can’t let myself get too deep in the storm or I’ll never be able to get out.
At the very least, I need to travel faster than the storm. If I can go faster, I can maneuver around it without being enveloped. So I need to find out how fast it’s moving.
I can do that by sitting here for a sol. I can compare tomorrow’s wattage to today’s. All I have to do is make sure to compare at the same times of day. Then I’ll know how fast the storm is moving, at least in terms of percent power loss.
But I need to know the shape of the storm, too.
Dust storms are big. They can be thousands of kilometers across. So when I work my way around it, I’ll need to know which way to go. I’ll want to move perpendicular to the storm’s movement, and in whatever direction has less storm.
So here’s my plan:
Right now, I can go 86 kilometers (because I couldn’t get a full battery yesterday).
Tomorrow, I’m going to leave a solar cell here and drive 40 kilometers due south.
Then I’ll drop off another solar cell and drive another 40 kilometers due south.
That’ll give me three points of reference across 80 kilometers.
The next day, I’ll go back to collect the cells and get the data. By comparing the wattage at the sametime of day in those three locations, I’ll learn the shape of the storm. If the storm is thicker to the south, I’ll go north to get around it. If it’s thicker north, I’ll go south.
I’m hoping to go south. Schiaparelli is southeast of me. Going north would add a lot of time to my total trip.
There’s one slight problem with my plan: I don’t have any way to “record” the wattage from an abandoned solar cell.
I can easily track and log wattage with the rover computer, but I need something I can drop off and leave behind.
I can’t just take readings as I drive along.
I need readings atthe same time in different places.
So I’m going to spend today working on some mad science. I have to make something that can log wattage. Something I can leave behind with a single solar cell.
Since I’m stuck here for the day anyway, I’ll leave the solar cells out. I may as well get a full battery out of it.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 477
It took all day yesterday and today, but I think I’m ready to measure this storm.
I needed a way to log the time of day and the wattage of each solar cell. One of the cells would be with me, but the other two would be dropped off and left far away. And the solution was the extra EVA suit I brought along.
EVA suits have cameras recording everything they see. There’s one on the right arm (or the left if the astronaut is left-handed) and another above the faceplate. A time stamp is burned into the lower left corner of the image, just like on the shaky home videos Dad used to take.
My electronics kit has several power meters. So I figured, why make my own logging system? I can just film the power meter all day long.
So that’s what I set up. When I packed for this road trip, I made sure to bring all my kits and tools. Just in case I had to repair the rover en route.
First, I harvested the cameras from my spare EVA suit. I had to be careful; I didn’t want to ruin the suit. It’s my only spare. I extracted the cameras and the lines leading to their memory chips.
I put a power meter into a small sample container, then glued a camera to the underside of the lid. When I sealed up the container, the camera was properly recording the readout of the power meter.
For testing, I used rover power. How will my logger get power once I abandon it on the surface?
It’ll be attached to a two-square-meter solar cell!
That’ll provide plenty of power. And I put a small rechargeable battery in the container to tide it over during nighttime (again, harvested from the spare EVA suit).
The next problem was heat, or the lack thereof. As soon as I take this thing out of the rover, it’ll start cooling down mighty fast. If it gets too cold, the electronics will stop working.
So I needed a heat source. And my electronics kit provided the answer: resistors. Lots and lots of them. Resistors heat up. It’s what they do. The camera and the power meter only need a tiny fraction of what a solar cell can make. So the rest of the energy goes through resistors.
I made and tested two “power loggers” and confirmed that the images were being properly recorded.
Then I had an EVA. I detached two of my solar cells and hooked them up to the power loggers. I let them log happily for an hour, then brought them back in to check the results. They worked great.
It’s getting toward nightfall now. Tomorrow morning, I’ll leave one power logger behind and head south.
While I was working, I left the oxygenator going (why not?). So I’m all stocked up on O 2 and good to go.
The solar cell efficiency for today was 92.5 percent. Compared to yesterday’s 97 percent. This proves the storm is moving east to west, because the denser part of the storm was to the east yesterday.
So right now, the sunlight in this area is dropping by 4.5 percent per sol. If I were to stay here another sixteen sols, it would get dark enough to kill me.
Just as well I’m not going to stay here.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 478
Everything went as planned today. No hiccups. I can’t tell if I’m driving deeper into the storm or out of it. It’s hard to tell if the ambient light is less or more than it was yesterday. The human brain works hard to abstract that out.
I left a power logger behind when I started out. Then, after 40 kilometers’ travel due south, I had a quick EVA to set up another. Now I’ve gone the full 80 kilometers, set up my solar cells for charging, and I’m logging the wattage.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to reverse course and pick up the power loggers. It may be dangerous; I’ll be driving right back into a known storm area. But the risk is worth the gain.
Also, have I mentioned I’m sick of potatoes? Because, by God, I am sick of potatoes. If I ever return to Earth, I’m going to buy a nice little home in Western Australia. Because Western Australia is on the opposite side of Earth from Idaho.
I bring it up because I dined on a meal pack today.
I had saved five packs for special occasions.
I ate the first of them twenty-nine sols ago when I left for Schiaparelli, but I totally forgot to eat the second when I reached the halfway point a few sols ago.
So I’m enjoying my belated halfway feast.
It’s probably more accurate to eat it today anyway. Who knows how long it’ll take me to go around this storm? And if I end up stuck in the storm and doomed to die, I’m totally eating the other earmarked meals.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 479
Have you ever taken the wrong freeway entrance? You just need to drive to the next exit to turn around, but you hate every inch of travel because you’re going away from your goal.
I felt like that all day. I’m now back where I started yesterday morning. Yuk.
Along the way, I picked up the power logger I’d left behind at the halfway point. Just now I brought in the one I’d left here yesterday.
Both loggers worked the way I’d hoped. I downloaded each of their video recordings to a laptop and advanced them to noon. Finally I had solar efficiency readings from three locations along an 80-kilometer line, all from the same time of day.
As of noon yesterday, the northernmost logger showed 12.3 percent efficiency loss, the middle one had a 9.5 percent loss, and the rover recorded a 6.4 percent loss at its southernmost location. It paints a pretty clear picture: The storm’s north of me. And I already worked out it’s traveling west.
So I should be able to avoid it by heading south a ways, letting it pass me to the north, then heading east again.
Finally, some good news! Southeast is what I wanted. I won’t lose much time.
Sigh…I have to drive the same god damned path a third time tomorrow.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 480
I think I’m getting ahead of the storm.
Having traveled along Mars Highway 1 all day, I’m back at my campsite from yesterday.
Tomorrow, I’ll finally make real headway again.
I was done driving and had the camp set up by noon.
The efficiency loss here is 15.6 percent.
Compared to the 17 percent loss at yesterday’s camp, this means I can outrun the storm as long as I keep heading south.
Hopefully.
The storm is probably circular. They usually are. But I could just be driving into an alcove. If that’s the case, I’m just fucking dead, okay? There’s only so much I can do.
I’ll know soon enough. If the storm is circular, I should get better and better efficiency every day until I’m back to 100 percent. Once I reach 100 percent, that means I’m completely south of the storm and I can start going east again. We’ll see.
If there were no storm, I’d be going directly southeast toward my goal.
As it is, going only south, I’m not nearly as fast. I’m traveling 90 kilometers per day as usual, but I only get 37 kilometers closer to Schiaparelli because Pythagoras is a dick.
I don’t know when I’ll finally clear the storm and be able to beeline to Schiaparelli again.
But one thing’s for sure: My plan to arrive on Sol 494 is boned.
Sol 549. That’s when they come for me. If I miss it, I’ll spend the rest of my very short life here. And I still have the MAV to modify before then, too.
Sheesh.
LOG ENTRY: SOL 482
Air Day. A time for relaxation and speculation.
For relaxation, I read eighty pages of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun courtesy of Johanssen’s digital book collection. I think Linda Marshall is the murderer.
As for speculation, I speculated on when the hell I’ll get past this storm.