Текст книги "The Martian"

Автор книги: Andy Weir

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“There are risks to any launch,” Annie said, sidestepping the question, “but we don’t anticipate problems. The weather at the Cape is clear with warm temperatures. Conditions couldn’t be better.”

“Is there any spending limit to this rescue operation?” another reporter asked. “Some people are beginning to ask how much is too much.”

“It’s not about the bottom line,” Annie said, prepared for the question. “It’s about a human life in immediate danger. But if you want to look at it financially, consider the value of Mark Watney’s extended mission. His prolonged mission and fight for survival are giving us more knowledge about Mars than the rest of the Ares program combined.”

•••

“DO YOU believe in God, Venkat?” Mitch asked.

“Sure, lots of ’em,” Venkat said. “I’m Hindu.”

“Ask ’em all for help with this launch.”

“Will do.”

Mitch stepped forward to his station in Mission Control. The room bustled with activity as the dozens of controllers each made final preparations for launch.

He put his headset on and glanced at the time readout on the giant center screen at the front of the room. He turned on his headset and said, “This is the flight director. Begin launch status check.”

“Roger that, Houston” was the reply from the launch control director in Florida. “CLCDR checking all stations are manned and systems ready,” he broadcast. “Give me a go/no-go for launch. Talker?”

“Go” was the response.

“Timer.”

“Go,” said another voice.

“QAM1.”

“Go.”

Resting his chin on his hands, Mitch stared at the center screen. It showed the pad video feed. The booster, amid cloudy water vapor from the cooling process, still had EagleEye3 stenciled on the side.

“QAM2.”

“Go.”

“QAM3.”

“Go.”

Venkat leaned against the back wall. He was an administrator. His job was done. He could only watch and hope. His gaze was fixated on the far wall’s displays. In his mind, he saw the numbers, the shift juggling, the outright lies and borderline crimes he’d committed to put this mission together. It would all be worthwhile, if it worked.

“FSC.”

“Go.”

“Prop One.”

“Go.”

Teddy sat in the VIP observation room behind Mission Control. His authority afforded him the very best seat: front-row center. His briefcase lay at his feet and he held a blue folder in his hands.

“Prop Two.”

“Go.”

“PTO.”

“Go.”

Annie Montrose paced in her private office next to the press room. Nine televisions mounted to the wall were each tuned to a different network; each network showed the launch pad. A glance at her computer showed foreign networks doing the same. The world was holding its breath.

“ACC.”

“Go.”

“LWO.”

“Go.”

Bruce Ng sat in the JPL cafeteria along with hundreds of engineers who had given everything they had to Iris. They watched the live feed on a projection screen. Some fidgeted, unable to find comfortable positions. Others held hands. It was 6:13 a.m. in Pasadena, yet every single employee was present.

“AFLC.”

“Go.”

“Guidance.”

“Go.”

Millions of kilometers away, the crew of Hermes listened as they crowded around Johanssen’s station. The two-minute transmission time didn’t matter. They had no way to help; there was no need to interact. Johanssen stared intently at her screen, although it displayed only the audio signal strength. Beck wrung his hands. Vogel stood motionless, his eyes fixed on the floor. Martinez prayed silently at first, then saw no reason to hide it. Commander Lewis stood apart, her arms folded across her chest.

“PTC.”

“Go.”

“Launch Vehicle Director.”

“Go.”

“Houston, this is Launch Control, we are go for launch.”

“Roger,” Mitch said, checking the countdown. “This is Flight, we are go for launch on schedule.”

“Roger that, Houston,” Launch Control said. “Launch on schedule.”

Once the clock reached −00:00:15, the television networks got what they were waiting for. The timer controller began the verbal countdown. “Fifteen,” she said, “fourteen…thirteen…twelve…eleven…”

Thousands had gathered at Cape Canaveral, the largest crowd ever to watch an unmanned launch. They listened to the timer controller’s voice as it echoed across the grandstands.

“…ten…nine…eight…seven…”

Rich Purnell, entrenched in his orbital calculations, had lost track of time. He didn’t notice when his coworkers migrated to the large meeting room where a TV had been set up. In the back of his mind, he thought the office was unusually quiet, but he gave it no further thought.

“…six…five…four…”

“Ignition sequence start.”

“…three…two…one…”

Clamps released, the booster rose amid a plume of smoke and fire, slowly at first, then racing ever faster. The assembled crowd cheered it on its way.

“…and liftoff of the Iris supply probe,” the timer controller said.

As the booster soared, Mitch had no time to watch the spectacle on the main screen. “Trim?” he called out.

“Trim’s good, Flight” was the immediate response.

“Course?” he asked.

“On course.”

“Altitude one thousand meters,” someone said.

“We’ve reached safe-abort,” another person called out, indicating that the ship could crash harmlessly into the Atlantic Ocean if necessary.

“Altitude fifteen hundred meters.”

“Pitch and roll maneuver commencing.”

“Getting a little shimmy, Flight.”

Mitch looked over to the ascent flight director. “Say again?”

“A slight shimmy. Onboard guidance is handling it.”

“Keep an eye on it,” Mitch said.

“Altitude twenty-five hundred meters.”

“Pitch and roll complete, twenty-two seconds till staging.”

•••

WHEN DESIGNING Iris, JPL accounted for catastrophic landing failure. Rather than normal meal kits, most of the food was cubed protein bar material, which would still be edible even if Iris failed to deploy its tumble balloons and impacted at incredible speed.

Because Iris was an unmanned mission, there was no cap on acceleration. The contents of the probe endured forces no human could survive. But while NASA had tested the effects of extreme g-forces on protein cubes, they had not done so with a simultaneous lateral vibration. Had they been given more time, they would have.

The harmless shimmy, caused by a minor fuel mixture imbalance, rattled the payload. Iris, mounted firmly within the aeroshell atop the booster, held firm. The protein cubes inside Iris did not.

At the microscopic level, the protein cubes were solid food particles suspended in thick vegetable oil. The food particles compressed to less than half their original size, but the oil was barely affected at all. This changed the volume ratio of solid to liquid dramatically, which in turn made the aggregate act as a liquid. Known as “liquefaction,” this process transformed the protein cubes from a steady solid into a flowing sludge.

Stored in a compartment that originally had no leftover space, the now-compressed sludge had room to slosh.

The shimmy also caused an imbalanced load, forcing the sludge toward the edge of its compartment. This shift in weight only aggravated the larger problem, and the shimmy grew stronger.

•••

“SHIMMY’S GETTING violent,” reported the ascent flight director.

“How violent?” Mitch said.

“More than we like,” he said. “But the accelerometers caught it and calculated the new center of mass. The guidance computer is adjusting the engines’ thrusts to counteract. We’re still good.”

“Keep me posted,” Mitch said.

“Thirteen seconds till staging.”

The unexpected weight shift had not spelled disaster. All systems were designed for worst-case scenarios; each did its job admirably. The ship continued toward orbit with only a minor course adjustment, implemented automatically by sophisticated software.

The first stage depleted its fuel, and the booster coasted for a fraction of a second as it jettisoned stage clamps via explosive bolts. The now-empty stage fell away from the craft as the second-stage engines prepared to ignite.

The brutal forces had disappeared. The protein sludge floated free in the container. Given two seconds, it would have re-expanded and solidified. But it was given only a quarter second.

As the second stage fired, the craft experienced a sudden jolt of immense force. No longer contending with the deadweight of the first stage, the acceleration was profound. The three hundred kilograms of sludge slammed into the back of its container. The point of impact was at the edge of Iris, nowhere near where the mass was expected to be.

Though Iris was held in place by five large bolts, the force was directed entirely to a single one. The bolt was designed to withstand immense forces; if necessary to carry the entire weight of the payload. But it was not designed to sustain a sudden impact from a loose three-hundred-kilogram mass.

The bolt sheared. The burden was then shifted to the remaining four bolts. The forceful impact having passed, their work was considerably easier than that of their fallen comrade.

Had the pad crew been given time to do normal inspections, they would have noticed the minor defect in one of the bolts. A defect that slightly weakened it, though it would not cause failure on a normal mission. Still, they would have swapped it out with a perfect replacement.

The off-center load presented unequal force to the four remaining bolts, the defective one bearing the brunt of it. Soon, it failed as well. From there, the other three failed in rapid succession.

Iris slipped from its supports in the aeroshell, slamming into the hull.

•••

“WOAH!” EXCLAIMED the ascent flight director. “Flight, we’re getting a large precession!”

“What?” Mitch said as alerts beeped and lights flashed across all the consoles.

“Force on Iris is at seven g’s,” someone said.

“Intermittent signal loss,” called another voice.

“Ascent, what’s happening here?” Mitch demanded.

“All hell broke loose. It’s spinning on the long axis with a seventeen-degree precession.”

“How bad?”

“At least five rp’s, and falling off course.”

“Can you get it to orbit?”

“I can’t talk to it at all; signal failures left and right.”

“Comm!” Mitch shot to the communications director.

“Workin’ on it, Flight,” was the response. “There’s a problem with the onboard system.”

“Getting some major g’s inside, Flight.”

“Ground telemetry shows it two hundred meters low of target path.”

“We’ve lost readings on the probe, Flight.”

“Entirely lost the probe?” he asked.

“Affirm, Flight. Intermittent signal from the ship, but no probe.”

“Shit,” Mitch said. “It shook loose in the aeroshell.”

“It’s dreideling, Flight.”

“Can it limp to orbit?” Mitch said. “Even super-low EO? We might be able to—”

“Loss of signal, Flight.”

“LOS here, too.”

“Same here.”

Other than the alarms, the room fell silent.

After a moment, Mitch said, “Reestablish?”

“No luck,” said Comm.

“Ground?” Mitch asked.

“GC” was the reply. “Vehicle had already left visual range.”

“SatCon?” Mitch asked.

“No satellite acquisition of signal.”

Mitch looked forward to the main screen. It was black now, with large white letters reading “LOS.”

“Flight,” a voice said over the radio, “US destroyer Stockton reports debris falling from the sky. Source matches last known location of Iris.”

Mitch put his head in his hands. “Roger,” he said.

Then he uttered the words every flight director hopes never to say: “GC, Flight. Lock the doors.”

It was the signal to start post-failure procedures.

From the VIP observation room, Teddy watched the despondent Mission Control Center. He took a deep breath, then let it out. He looked forlornly at the blue folder that contained his cheerful speech praising a perfect launch. He placed it in his briefcase and extracted the red folder, with the other speech in it.

•••

VENKAT STARED out his office windows to the space center beyond. A space center that housed mankind’s most advanced knowledge of rocketry yet had still failed to execute today’s launch.

His mobile rang. His wife again. No doubt worried about him. He let it go to voice mail. He just couldn’t face her. Or anyone.

A chime came from his computer. Glancing over, he saw an e-mail from JPL. A relayed message from Pathfinder:

[16:03] WATNEY: How’d the launch go?

CHAPTER 16

Martinez:

Dr. Shields says I need to write personal messages to each of the crew. She says it’ll keep me tethered to humanity. I think it’s bullshit. But hey, it’s an order.

With you, I can be blunt:

If I die, I need you to check on my parents. They’ll want to hear about our time on Mars firsthand. I’ll need you to do that.

It won’t be easy talking to a couple about their dead son. It’s a lot to ask; that’s why I’m asking you. I’d tell you you’re my best friend and stuff, but it would be lame.

I’m not giving up. Just planning for every outcome. It’s what I do.

•••

GUO MING, director of the China National Space Administration, examined the daunting pile of paperwork at his desk. In the old days, when China wanted to launch a rocket, they just launched it. Now they were compelled by international agreements to warn other nations first.

It was a requirement, Guo Ming noted to himself, that did not apply to the United States. To be fair, the Americans publicly announced their launch schedules well in advance, so it amounted to the same thing.

He walked a fine line filling out the form: making the launch date and flight path clear, while doing everything possible to “conceal state secrets.”

He snorted at the last requirement. “Ridiculous,” he mumbled. The Taiyang Shen had no strategic or military value. It was an unmanned probe that would be in Earth orbit less than two days. After that, it would travel to a solar orbit between Mercury and Venus. It would be China’s first heliology probe to orbit the sun.

Yet the State Council insisted all launches be shrouded in secrecy. Even launches with nothing to hide. This way, other nations could not infer from lack of openness which launches contained classified payloads.

A knock at the door interrupted his paperwork.

“Come,” Guo Ming said, happy for the interruption.

“Good evening, sir,” said Under Director Zhu Tao.

“Tao, welcome back.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s good to be back in Beijing.”

“How were things at Jiuquan?” asked Guo Ming. “Not too cold, I hope? I’ll never understand why our launch complex is in the middle of the Gobi Desert.”

“It was cold, yet manageable,” Zhu Tao said.

“And how are launch preparations coming along?”

“I am happy to report they are all on schedule.”

“Excellent.” Guo Ming smiled.

Zhu Tao sat quietly, staring at his boss.

Guo Ming looked expectantly back at him, but Zhu Tao neither stood to leave nor said anything further.

“Something else, Tao?” Guo Ming asked.

“Mmm,” Zhu Tao said. “Of course, you’ve heard about the Iris probe?”

“Yes, I did,” Guo frowned. “Terrible situation. That poor man’s going to starve.”

“Possibly,” Zhu Tao said. “Possibly not.”

Guo Ming leaned back in his chair. “What are you saying?”

“It’s the Taiyang Shen’s booster, sir. Our engineers have run the numbers, and it has enough fuel for a Mars injection orbit. It could get there in four hundred and nineteen days.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Have you ever known me to ‘kid,’ sir?”

Guo Ming stood and pinched his chin. Pacing, he said, “We can really send the Taiyang Shen to Mars?”

“No, sir,” said Zhu Tao. “It’s far too heavy. The massive heat shielding makes it the heaviest unmanned probe we’ve ever built. That’s why the booster had to be so powerful. But a lighter payload could be sent all the way to Mars.”

“How much mass could we send?” Guo Ming asked.

“Nine hundred and forty-one kilograms, sir.”

“Hmm,” Guo Ming said, “I bet NASA could work with that limitation. Why haven’t they approached us?”

“Because they don’t know,” Zhu Tao said. “All our booster technology is classified information. The Ministry of State Security even spreads disinformation about our capabilities. This is for obvious reasons.”

“So they don’t know we can help them,” Guo Ming said. “If we decide not to help, no one will know we could have.”

“Correct, sir.”

“For the sake of argument, let’s say we decided to help. What then?”

“Time would be the enemy, sir,” Zhu Tao answered. “Based on travel duration and the supplies their astronaut has remaining, any such probe would have to be launched within a month. Even then he would starve a little.”

“That’s right around when we planned to launch Taiyang Shen.”

“Yes, sir. But it took them two months to build Iris, and it was so rushed it failed.”

“That’s their problem,” Guo Ming said. “Our end would be providing the booster. We’d launch from Jiuquan; we can’t ship an eight-hundred-ton rocket to Florida.”

“Any agreement would hinge on the Americans reimbursing us for the booster,” Zhu Tao said, “and the State Council would likely want political favors from the US government.”

“Reimbursement would be pointless,” Guo Ming said. “This was an expensive project, and the State Council grumbled about it all along. If they had a bulk payout for its value, they’d just keep it. We’d never get to build another one.”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “And the American people may be sentimental, but their government is not. The US State Department won’t trade anything major for one man’s life.”

“So it’s hopeless?” asked Zhu Tao.

“Not hopeless,” Guo Ming corrected. “Just hard. If this becomes a negotiation by diplomats, it will never be resolved. We need to keep this among scientists. Space agency to space agency. I’ll get a translator and call NASA’s administrator. We’ll work out an agreement, then present it to our governments as a fait accompli.”

“But what can they do for us?” Zhu Tao asked. “We’d be giving up a booster and effectively canceling Taiyang Shen.”

Guo Ming smiled. “They’ll give us something we can’t get without them.”

“And that is?”

“They’ll put a Chinese astronaut on Mars.”

Zhu Tao stood. “Of course.” He smiled. “The Ares 5 crew hasn’t even been selected yet. We’ll insist on a crewman. One we get to pick and train. NASA and the US State Department would surely accept that. But will our State Council?”

Guo Ming smiled wryly. “Publicly rescue the Americans? Put a Chinese astronaut on Mars? Have the world see China as equal to the US in space? The State Council would sell their own mothers for that.”

•••

TEDDY LISTENED to the phone at his ear. The voice on the other end finished what it had to say, then fell silent as it awaited an answer.

He stared at nothing in particular as he processed what he’d just heard.

After a few seconds, he replied, “Yes.”

•••

Johanssen:

Your poster outsold the rest of ours combined. You’re a hot chick who went to Mars. You’re on dorm-room walls all over the world.

Looking like that, why are you such a nerd? And you are, you know. A serious nerd. I had to do some computer shit to get Pathfinder talking to the rover and oh my god. And I had NASA telling me what to do every step of the way.

You should try to be more cool. Wear dark glasses and a leather jacket. Carry a switchblade. Aspire to a level of coolness known only as…“Botanist Cool.”

Did you know Commander Lewis had a chat with us men? If anyone hit on you, we’d be off the mission. I guess after a lifetime of commanding sailors, she’s got an unfairly jaded view.

Anyway, the point is you’re a nerd. Remind me to give you a wedgie next time I see you.

•••

“OKAY, HERE we are again,” said Bruce to the assembled heads of JPL. “You’ve all heard about the Taiyang Shen, so you know our friends in China have given us one more chance. But this time, it’s going to be harder.

“Taiyang Shen will be ready to launch in twenty-eight days. If it launches on time, our payload will get to Mars on Sol 624, six weeks after Watney’s expected to run out of food. NASA’s already working on ways to stretch his supply.

“We made history when we finished Iris in sixty-three days. Now we have to do it in twenty-eight.”

He looked across the table to the incredulous faces.

“Folks,” he said, “this is going to be the most ‘ghetto’ spacecraft ever built. There’s only one way to finish that fast: no landing system.”

“Sorry, what?” Jack Trevor stammered.

Bruce nodded. “You heard me. No landing system. We’ll need guidance for in-flight course adjustments. But once it gets to Mars, it’s going to crash.”

“That’s crazy!” Jack said. “It’ll be going an insane velocity when it hits!”

“Yep,” Bruce said. “With ideal atmospheric drag, it’ll impact at three hundred meters per second.”

“What good will a pulverized probe do Watney?” Jack asked.

“As long as the food doesn’t burn up on the way in, Watney can eat it,” Bruce said.

Turning to the whiteboard, he began drawing a basic organizational chart. “I want two teams,” he began.

“Team One will make the outer shell, guidance system, and thrusters. All we need is for it to get to Mars. I want the safest possible system. Aerosol propellant would be best. High-gain radio so we can talk to it, and standard satellite navigational software.

“Team Two will deal with the payload. They need to find a way to contain the food during impact. If protein bars hit sand at three hundred meters per second, they’ll make protein-scented sand. We need them edible after impact.

“We can weigh nine hundred and forty-one kilograms. At least three hundred of that needs to be food. Get crackin’.”

•••

“UH, DR. KAPOOR?” Rich said, peeking his head into Venkat’s office. “Do you have a minute?”

Venkat gestured him in. “You are…?”

“Rich, Rich Purnell,” he said, shuffling into the office, his arms wrapped around a sheaf of disorganized papers. “From astrodynamics.”

“Nice to meet you,” Venkat said. “What can I do for you, Rich?”

“I came up with something a while ago. Spent a lot of time on it.” He dumped the papers on Venkat’s desk. “Lemme find the summary.…”

Venkat stared forlornly at his once-clean desk, now strewn with scores of printouts.

“Here we go!” Rich said triumphantly, grabbing a paper. Then his expression saddened. “No, this isn’t it.”

“Rich,” Venkat said. “Maybe you should just tell me what this is about?”

Rich looked at the mess of papers and sighed. “But I had such a cool summary.…”

“A summary for what?”

“How to save Watney.”

“That’s already in progress,” Venkat said. “It’s a last-ditch effort, but—”

“The Taiyang Shen?” Rich snorted. “That won’t work. You can’t make a Mars probe in a month.”

“We’re sure as hell going to try,” Venkat said, a note of annoyance in his voice.

“Oh, sorry, am I being difficult?” Rich asked. “I’m not good with people. Sometimes I’m difficult. I wish people would just tell me. Anyway, the Taiyang Shen is critical. In fact, my idea won’t work without it. But a Mars probe? Pfft. C’mon.”

“All right,” Venkat said. “What’s your idea?”

Rich snatched a paper from the desk. “Here it is!” He handed it to Venkat with a childlike smile.

Venkat took the summary and skimmed it. The more he read, the wider his eyes got. “Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely!” Rich beamed.

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know,” Venkat said. “Friends?”

“I don’t have any of those.”

“Okay, keep it under your hat.”

“I don’t wear a hat.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Really?” Rich said. “It’s a stupid expression.”

“Rich, you’re being difficult.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

•••

Vogel:

Being your backup has backfired.

I guess NASA figured botany and chemistry are similar because they both end in “Y,” One way or another, I ended up being your backup chemist.

Remember when they made you spend a day explaining your experiments to me? It was in the middle of intense mission prep. You may have forgotten.

You started my training by buying me a beer. For breakfast. Germans are awesome.

Anyway, now that I have time to kill, NASA gave me a pile of work. And all your chemistry crap is on the list. So now I have to do boring-ass experiments with test tubes and soil and pH levels and Zzzzzzzzzz.…

My life is now a desperate struggle for survival…with occasional titration.

Frankly, I suspect you’re a super-villain. You’re a chemist, you have a German accent, you had a base on Mars…what more can there be?

•••

“WHAT THE fuck is ‘Project Elrond’?” Annie asked.

“I had to make something up,” Venkat said.

“So you came up with ‘Elrond’?” Annie pressed.

“Because it’s a secret meeting?” Mitch guessed. “The e-mail said I couldn’t even tell my assistant.”

“I’ll explain everything once Teddy arrives.” Venkat said.

“Why does ‘Elrond’ mean ‘secret meeting’?” Annie asked.

“Are we going to make a momentous decision?” Bruge Ng asked.

“Exactly,” Venkat said.

“How did you know that?” Annie asked, getting annoyed.

“Elrond,” Bruce said. “The Council of Elrond. From Lord of the Rings. It’s the meeting where they decide to destroy the One Ring.”

“Jesus,” Annie said. “None of you got laid in high school, did you?”

“Good morning,” Teddy said as he walked into the conference room. Seating himself, he rested his hands on the table. “Anyone know what this meeting’s about?” he asked.

“Wait,” Mitch said, “Teddy doesn’t even know?”

Venkat took a deep breath. “One of our astrodynamicists, Rich Purnell, has found a way to get Hermes back to Mars. The course he came up with would give Hermes a Mars flyby on Sol 549.”

Silence.

“You shittin’ us?” Annie demanded.

“Sol 549? How’s that even possible?” asked Bruce. “Even Iris wouldn’t have landed till Sol 588.”

“Iris is a point-thrust craft,” Venkat said. “Hermes has a constant-thrust ion engine. It’s always accelerating. Also, Hermes has a lot of velocity right now. On their current Earth-intercept course, they have to decelerate for the next month just to slow down to Earth’s speed.”

Mitch rubbed the back of his head. “Wow…549. That’s thirty-five sols before Watney runs out of food. That would solve everything.”

Teddy leaned forward. “Run us through it, Venkat. What would it entail?”

“Well,” Venkat began, “if they did this ‘Rich Purnell Maneuver,’ they’d start accelerating right away, to preserve their velocity and gain even more. They wouldn’t intercept Earth at all, but would come close enough to use a gravity assist to adjust course. Around that time, they’d pick up a resupply probe with provisions for the extended trip.

“After that, they’d be on an accelerating orbit toward Mars, arriving on Sol 549. Like I said, it’s a Mary flyby. This isn’t anything like a normal Ares mission. They’ll be going too fast to fall into orbit. The rest of the maneuver takes them back to Earth. They’d be home two hundred and eleven days after the flyby.”

“What good is a flyby?” Bruce asked. “They don’t have any way to get Watney off the surface.”

“Yeah…,” Venkat said. “Now for the unpleasant part: Watney would have to get to the Ares 4 MAV.”

“Schiaparelli!?” Mitch gaped. “That’s thirty-two hundred kilometers away!”

“Three thousand, two hundred, and thirty-five kilometers to be exact,” Venkat said. “It’s not out of the question. He drove to Pathfinder’s landing site and back. That’s over fifteen hundred kilometers.”

“That was over flat, desert terrain,” Bruce chimed in, “but the trip to Schiaparelli—”

“Suffice it to say,” Venkat interrupted, “it would be very difficult and dangerous. But we have a lot of clever scientists to help him trick out the rover. Also there would be MAV modifications.”

“What’s wrong with the MAV?” Mitch asked.

“It’s designed to get to low Mars orbit,” Venkat explained. “But Hermes would be on a flyby, so the MAV would have to escape Mars gravity entirely to intercept.”

“How?” Mitch asked.

“It’d have to lose weight…a lot of weight. I can get rooms full of people working on these problems, if we decide to do this.”

“Earlier,” Teddy said, “you mentioned a supply probe for Hermes. We have that capability?”

“Yes, with the Taiyang Shen,” Venkat said. “We’d shoot for a near-Earth rendezvous. It’s a lot easier than getting a probe to Mars, that’s for sure.”

“I see,” Teddy said. “So we have two options on the table: Send Watney enough food to last until Ares 4, or send Hermes back to get him right now. Both plans require the Taiyang Shen, so we can only do one.”

“Yes,” Venkat said. “We’ll have to pick one.”

They all took a moment to consider.

“What about the Hermes crew?” Annie asked, breaking the silence. “Would they have a problem with adding…” She did some quick math in her head. “Five hundred and thirty-three days to their mission?”

“They wouldn’t hesitate,” Mitch said. “Not for a second. That’s why Venkat called this meeting.” He glared at Venkat. “He wants us to decide instead.”

“That’s right,” Venkat said.

“It should be Commander Lewis’s call,” Mitch said.

“Pointless to even ask her,” Venkat said. “We need to make this decision; it’s a matter of life and death.”

“She’s the mission commander,” Mitch said. “Life-and-death decisions are her damn job.”

“Easy, Mitch,” Teddy said.

“Bullshit,” Mitch said. “You guys have done end runs around the crew every time something goes wrong. You didn’t tell them Watney was still alive; now you’re not telling them there’s a way to save him.”

“We already have a way to keep him alive,” Teddy said. “We’re just discussing another one.”

“The crash-lander?” Mitch said. “Does anyone think that’ll work? Anyone?”

“All right, Mitch,” Teddy said. “You’ve expressed your opinion, and we’ve heard it. Let’s move on.” He turned to Venkat. “Can Hermes function for five hundred and thirty-three days beyond the scheduled mission end?”

“It should,” Venkat said. “The crew may have to fix things here and there, but they’re well trained. Remember, Hermes was made to do all five Ares missions. It’s only halfway through its designed life span.”

“It’s the most expensive thing ever built,” Teddy said. “We can’t make another one. If something went wrong, the crew would die, and the Ares Program with them.”

“Losing the crew would be a disaster,” Venkat said. “But we wouldn’t lose Hermes. We can remotely operate it. So long as the reactor and ion engines continued to work, we could bring it back.”

“Space travel is dangerous,” Mitch said. “We can’t make this a discussion about what’s safest.”

“I disagree,” Teddy said. “This is absolutely a discussion about what’s safest. And about how many lives are at stake. Both plans are risky, but resupplying Watney only risks one life while the Rich Purnell Maneuver risks six.”

“Consider degree of risk, Teddy,” Venkat said. “Mitch is right. The crash-lander is high-risk. It could miss Mars, it could reenter wrong and burn up, it could crash too hard and destroy the food…We estimate a thirty percent chance of success.”