Losing Mars Read online

  The boomerang sits well below the balloon, stretching out for fifty feet on either side of the basket housing the scientific instruments. Although it looks like a set of wings, it isn’t. The boomerang doesn’t provide any lift. Its role is solely to house six turboprop engines and the array of solar panels powering them. Even then, flying a boomer is like steering a brick. Flying into a headwind is painfully slow. There have been times where we’ve sent them into polar air currents to loop around behind us rather than flying them into an oncoming dust storm as circling the planet is faster.

  Without the boomers, the research undertaken at Shepard base would be limited. Boomers are sky cranes, capable of floating over unstable crater walls and lowering probes to capture groundwater seeping out onto the surface. Our ability to collect samples from thousands of vastly different sites is well beyond what the team could achieve on its own. Most of the samples have been packed for return to Earth where they’ll be examined in greater detail.

  As flattering as it is to be here on Mars, I understand my role. I’m part of the boomer support team—we all are. The boomers are the real heroes. They’re the reason us astronauts are here, as precision guidance isn’t possible from Earth. Even with enhanced artificial intelligence, the boomers need someone to swing a hammer and work a wrench. The team at Shepard base are essentially field support for tens of thousands of scientists waiting patiently on Earth for Martian soil samples.

  “All crew, standby.”

  As we already are, that comment speaks loudly about the pressure Jen’s under. I’m intensely curious, wanting to know more, but I keep my mouth shut. Jen doesn’t need to be dealing with my idiosyncrasies right now. I wonder what could have gone wrong on a mission where every activity is planned days in advance by the support team back in Houston. Mission Control has a full prototype of our base, complete with rocks piled on top—although their base isn’t layered quite as thick as they’re replicating the equivalent structural load here on Mars. Every time something changes up here, our doppelgängers make the same modification on Earth so Mission Control can run multiple scenarios in an actual base in the event of an emergency.

  Hedy Washington and her partner Lisa are in the module extension, building 3D parts from refined regolith and setting up wiring. Once that module is complete, the living space will double, giving everyone a bit more room to stretch. At the moment, it’s pressurized but unpowered. Technically, there’s no need for the women to wear anything beyond a thermal suit, but even with insulation lining the walls, the air is so cold it hurts the lungs. They’ll be wearing scarves and breathing through synthetic wool so their respiration takes the chill out of the air. Could something have gone wrong in there?

  It’s only a few minutes before Jen comes back on the channel, but it feels like hours. My heart rate spikes with the hiss of static rushing through my earpiece.

  “General update: Commander Scott Barnes has fallen and is incapacitated. Hedy Washington is in command effective immediately. Lisa Washington will assume communications watch. Jennifer Anderson will conduct EVA in support of Sue Barnes to assist in rescue efforts. Over.”

  I’m not transmitting, but I can’t help a single word from slipping past my lips. “Fuck.” I hit the airlock purge button, raising the internal pressure and flushing the CO2 that allows our vegetables to grow at an accelerated rate.

  As I’m the only one not mentioned, the announcement is largely for my benefit and, later, the mission controllers back home. There’s a lot to unpack.

  General update—everyone’s listening, Jenny’s opened the comms channel.

  Commander Scott Barnes—I hate the formality. We all know who he is, but carefully designed procedures are all that keep us alive on Mars.

  Incapacitated—not dead, but unable to move or respond. Not good. Jen must be watching his vital signs via telemetry.

  Hedy… is in command—so she’s given the green light for a second EVA but is staying in the background off comms.

  Jennifer Anderson—hearing my wife speak of herself in the third-person never comes easy, but she’s ensuring there’s no confusion when Houston picks up the signal. Given she’s the base surgeon, it make sense she’s going out to assist, although she’s limited in what she can do for anyone out on the surface. Can’t operate on someone in a spacesuit.

  “Jen. I’m already breathing pure O2. I can be suited up and out there in five minutes.”

  There’s silence.

  “Hedy, I know you’re listening. This is his best chance and you know it.”

  Jen and Hedy must be talking off-channel as there’s silence for almost a minute. Emergency egress is a bitch. Jenny will need at least forty-five minutes to decompress within the airlock and acclimatize to breathing straight oxygen at 30 kilopascal or roughly four PSI. It’s a bit like climbing Everest in an afternoon—actually it’s equates to Everest plus a few skyscrapers. Not as much fun as it sounds, and it doesn’t sound like fun to start with. There are no shortcuts when it comes to driving nitrogen out of the blood. Move too soon and the bends kick in. As tempting as it is to rush, bubbles forming in the bloodstream is as dangerous and painful as it sounds.

  “D—Do it.”

  That wasn’t Jen. Hedy lacks the calm professionalism of the last few minutes. Sue must be panicking out there and Hedy’s still trying to come to grips with what’s happened.

  “On my way.”

  I cycle the lock using the emergency override setting, equalizing my ears as the pressure increases rapidly. The overly warm, muggy, high CO2 environment is replaced with cool air. A green light appears, indicating the process is complete. Within a minute, I’m rushing through the cabin, but I still have my face mask on, keeping the pure O2 running. My muscles start to cramp with the rapid change, but as I’ll be back in a low-pressure environment within a few minutes, I’ll be fine.

  “How bad?”

  My voice is muted by the mask. A single green cylinder sits vertically in a backpack, resting between my shoulder blades, feeding me pure oxygen. Gas escapes through a side valve with each breath.

  Jennifer looks worried. Lisa paces back and forth within the narrow living quarters. Hedy sheds a heavy overcoat, tossing it on a workbench. “Bad. Real bad.”

  Although we’re all wearing thin microphones wrapped over our ears, curling down in front of our lips, the red LED glowing on the tips indicates no one’s transmitting. No one wants Sue to hear.

  Jen’s voice is calm and methodical. “Boomer came down on a canyon ledge about three kilometers northwest. Scott fell while trying to retrieve it.”

  “Do we have any imagery, any video?”

  “Sue can’t see him from where she is.”

  “Any rockhoppers close by?”

  “None.”

  Lisa brings up a map of our surroundings on the vast tabletop computer, with the landscape displayed like the sailing charts of old. “It’s too soon for satellite imagery. I’m recalling a boomer so we can get a better idea about the lay of the land.” Her finger presses against a spot on the canyon wall. “This is where the first boomer went down.”

  Jen holds her hand to her ear, signaling she’s talking with Sue out on the surface.

  “Yes, I hear you. Go ahead.”

  Hedy seizes the opportunity to lead me to one side. She hooks her hand behind my arm, a gesture that looks friendly enough, if not somewhat unusual, but the force with which she directs me over to the main airlock dispels any doubts about her thinking. She whispers, not wanting Jen or Lisa to overhear what she’s saying.

  “I need to know why you’re going out there.”

  I’m not sure how to respond.

  “Tell me this isn’t some macho bullshit toxic masculinity knee-jerk reaction. This isn’t about you guys being the only two men on Mars, right?”

  For a slender woman, barely five-foot four in height, Hedy has the gravitas of a linebacker and the agility of a quarterback. I’m still trying to unravel her sentence.

 
“This isn’t about pre-breathing pure O2, is it?”

  I swallow the knot in my throat. It’s hard to express a sentiment I felt rather than thought moments ago in the greenhouse airlock.

  “I—We can’t lose her.”

  ‘Her’ is telling. Not me. Not Scott. My eyes drift to Jen, who’s still talking on the radio with Sue. Hedy nods, but only slightly, not wanting to give anything away to the others. Hedy is the only person I know who can physically look up to someone and make them feel small.

  I adjust my oxygen mask. Not because I need to. It’s a subconscious act as I fight to justify my rationale.

  “You can’t afford to lose the base surgeon. I can’t lose my wife.”

  Hedy purses her lips. She’s on the verge of saying something but thinks better of it. I suspect I know what she’s thinking.

  “This isn’t about me and Scott. This isn’t bravado. This is simply math. I’m a biologist. I’m the only one here who’s expendable.”

  Hedy squeezes my arm with an iron grip that belies her frail frame. She nods, but never makes eye contact. Her eyes cast down at the floor. She’s not going to contradict me.

  “You be careful out there.”

  “Will do.”

  Outbound

  I step into the main airlock and put on a pair of thermal long johns. Thin electrical wires wind through the material to supply heat once activated, but they make the pants difficult to squeeze into.

  Jen joins Hedy by the edge of the airlock. She’s finished her conversation with Sue and is visibly upset. “He shouldn’t have gone down there.”

  I feel guilty. After the conversation with Hedy, I feel as though I’m misleading, perhaps deceiving my wife, keeping my motivation hidden from her. I ask her a question, but not because I actually want an answer. I’m deflecting, cowering behind words.

  “Anything from his helmet cam?”

  “Video from the fall is scattered, jerky. There’s nothing but rocks and sky.”

  I nod and look away, pulling the thermal gear over my shoulders, leaving the thin oxygen tube feeding up to my face mask. It’ll be easy enough to pull off later. I try to focus on what needs to be done.

  Putting on a surface suit is normally done in pairs because of the difficulty in working with the stiff material, but neither of the women can come in the airlock, not without suiting up as well. I sit as Jen closes the lock. The sound of ratchets moving within the heavy door feels ominous, as though I’m being locked inside a prison cell. Hedy starts the decompression routine, swapping our regular nitrogen/oxygen mix for pure O2.

  I shake off my doubts and focus on the task of suiting up. Once my inner suit is snug, I don a pair of disposable surgical gloves—although these will be recycled rather than buried or burned. The existence of microbial life on Mars is still being debated by researchers back on Earth, and some of the complex molecules the team has found in subsurface core drills suggests there may be life at depths of up to a mile beneath the surface.

  Regardless of whether there’s life on Mars, there’s a clear scientific consensus not to allow Earth’s microbes to escape into the wild, so external suits are sterilized before use. I follow quarantine procedures to reduce the possibility of microbes hitchhiking on the outside of my suit, but my motion is rote. My mind is elsewhere, still back in the main module talking with Hedy. I realize now that it was only then, during that brief exchange, that I was honest with my own thinking.

  I flex my fingers, looking at the thin blue gloves, still trying to calm my mind.

  Jen watches me through the glass porthole on the hatch.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine, Jen. Everything’s fine.”

  I pull on a pair of outer trousers, fixing my boots in place. Five minutes? Wishful thinking. I’ll be ready in under ten, maybe, not five.

  I discard my portable face mask as I’m now breathing pure O2 within the airlock. Air hisses around me as I slip into the upper torso of my spacesuit and fix the locking ring around my waist. After donning a backpack and helmet, I strip off my surgical gloves, swapping them one at a time for external suit gloves. I twist the wrist rings connecting the thick gloves to the sleeves of my suit, working them until they lock in place.

  Surface walks are far more tedious than Hollywood would suggest. After starting the flow of oxygen from my life-support pack, I power up the electronics and run through my pre-op checklist, closing my visor. Normally, I’d have to wait the best part of an hour for the next step, but breathing O2 in the greenhouse has meant my body is already acclimatized to my suit—in theory, at least. Although we’re trained to think in terms of kilopascals for air pressure, old habits die hard and I find myself thinking in pounds per square inch. The rush of switching from seven PSI in the bio-mod to twelve PSI within the module and back down to a mere four PSI within the airlock leaves me with a thumping headache. It’s like going from the Yukon to Denver and then on to the summit of Everest in a crazy short amount of time. Might as well throw myself in a tumble dryer.

  “Cory Anderson, ready for egress.”

  “Copy that.” Jen is still at the window. I offer a thumbs up and smile, but it’s fake.

  She doesn’t reciprocate. “Be careful.”

  “Will do.”

  “No heroics, babe. None. Okay?”

  I nod. My spacesuit stiffens as the atmosphere within the airlock adjusts to match the surface of Mars. In reality, the pressure within my suit doesn’t change, it’s just no longer compressed by the livable eighty-five kilopascal maintained within the module. By comparison, the pressure within the lock is now less than one kilopascal—less than a tenth of a pound per square inch. Even if the atmosphere were breathable, which it’s not, the extremely low pressure alone would be lethal without a suit. A dull red light indicates that both the pressure and gas composition within the lock has equalized with the outside.

  “Anderson, you are clear for egress.”

  Jen’s trying to sound professional. She’s working hard to maintain her demeanor, but the lack of my first name reveals the anguish she feels.

  “Copy that.”

  I open the outer hatch, although ‘outer’ is a misnomer. ‘Outer’ relative only to the airlock. Rather than stepping onto the surface of the planet, I enter the payload bay—an unpressurized compartment designed as a staging and storage area.

  Microbial contamination is a significant concern for the base, and one that runs both ways. If there’s life on Mars, it will undoubtedly be different from life on Earth, and that difference could be lethal, so we don’t take any chances.

  The risk of contamination is bi-directional.

  Like South American fire ants spreading unchecked through the United States, microbes from Earth could run rampant through Martian environments, so exit and entry procedures include an additional sterilization step. A brilliant purple light bathes my suit. I adopt a spread eagle position, with my legs wide and my arms raised. After a minute, the light changes to a deep red. Waves of heat wash over me, lashing my suit. The internal cooling within my undergarment kicks in as the external material is subjected to temperatures of 180 degrees Celsius, over 350 degrees Fahrenheit, killing any terrestrial microbes that might be clinging to the material. The heat radiates through my glass visor. Sweat beads on my forehead.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good. Should have brought a tray of muffins in here.”

  When returning from the surface op, the process will be repeated, but will start with an air wash. Jets of carefully filtered Martian air will be pressurized to clean my suit and reduce dust exposure within the airlock. The suits themselves are made from an anti static cloth to prevent dust fines from clinging to the material.

  I’m not naive about the risks involved in surface operations. Mars isn’t Earth. Not even close. Everything’s different, especially those things that look the same—like deserts. American Southwest? Meteor Crater? Grand Canyon? Death Valley? They’re all microbial oases by
comparison. Even the frozen Atacama Desert and the dry valleys of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica are hospitable. At best, the surface of Mars is a graveyard.

  Most living cells exposed to the Martian environment will die within a matter of seconds. If I happen to be the owner of those particular cells, I’ll follow suit. A few hardy microbes like tardigrades can lie dormant in the cold desiccated wasteland until they’re pummeled into submission by the cosmic radiation that scorches the surface, but none of them can thrive, not without heat, not without water. Mars was once habitable, but not anymore, at least, not on the surface.

  I open the payload door and step out onto the rocks littering the ground. The spotlights on my helmet come on, illuminating the dark tunnel ahead of me. Dust kicks up with my boots, shifting like silt on the bottom of a muddy lake. My steps are light, barely kicking off the soft sand. It’s almost as though I’m suspended in water. In one third the gravity of Earth, I might as well be.

  Even dust is misleading. On Mars, fine dust is akin to ground-up glass, and far more dangerous as it’s laced with highly reactive chemicals like perchlorates. Then there’s the bitter cold. The extreme variation between day and night causes materials to expand and contract, causing even the hardiest of bearings to wear over time. Moderating temperatures for humans is difficult when swings can be as great as a hundred and fifty degrees. Getting anything electrical or mechanical to operate consistently is a challenge. The Mars rovers made the problem seem trivial, but that said more about NASA’s engineering prowess than the reality of life on the fourth planet. If one of the rover’s wheels locked or broke, a particular mission might be cut short but no one would die. When it comes to life within Shepard base, however, the margin for error is even lower because of the risk to our lives.

  The pressure difference on Mars is another aspect that often goes unnoticed by Earthlings pining away for the adventure of exploring the red planet. Even on those days where the temperature on Mars is warm enough to mimic a North American winter, the fourth planet from Sol is hostile. With the atmospheric pressure hovering at less than one percent of that found at sea level, any exposed skin would expand rapidly. Deep bruising would occur almost instantly and various gases would come out of suspension within the blood, forming bubbles that, on reaching the heart, would be fatal. A suit leak is a nasty, painful way to die.