LOG ENTRY: SOL 63

I finished making water some time ago. I'm no longer in danger of blowing myself up. The potatoes are growing nicely. Nothing has conspired to kill me in weeks. And seventies TV keeps me disturbingly more entertained than it should. Things are stable here on Mars.

It's time to start thinking long-term.

I realized that I have enough supplies to last up to Sol 900. But what am I going to do after that? The answer is, that I don't know. This is something that will require some thought. At least I have 837 sols to come up with a solution. (Well, actually I have a little less, because I have to actually implement the solution, but, one thing at a time, right?

There's another piece of wonderful news. I have potatos. Oh yes, nice, home grown, martian potatos. So if I end up needing to do a long journey, I won't have to live on meal packs, and I won't have to starve, either. I have 2 crops of potatos, which should last me a good 150 days.

While sitting here watching Schoolhouse Rock, courtesy of commander Lewis, (yeah, that Mother Necessity song really, really did hit home), I came up with an idea.

This is not the only Hab on Mars!

Boo ya!

If they sent Ares III with redundant supplies, then they most certainly would have sent redundant supplies with Ares I and II! And if they are still good (really, what can go wrong with a food pack?), then I can eat them! I could live until Ares IV!

Now, there are a few problems with this picture:

Problem A, is I don't know where the other two Ares Habs actually are. The planet-wide maps we were sent were grainy, and don't show much in detail. Finding a Hab in this mess will be difficult.

Problem B, is that I only have 2 working rovers, and each one can only go thirty-five kilometers before needing to be recharged. At the Hab. Yeah this could get a little messy.

I decided to sleep on the issue, and I'll worry about what to do later.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 64

I came up with an idea. I don't like it, and it could get backfire spectacularly. But I think it should work.

You see, the rovers each have a tow hook, that allows you to tow one rover using another one. This way, they share resources, like power. I figure I can use both rovers, and empty out one of them to serve as storage, while living, and breathing using the other one. This will double both my charge and storage capacity.

It took an hour, but I was eventually able to hook together both rovers. The idea is I will make one long train of rovers, winding up with 6 in all. I will be the engineer, driving the entire train from the head. I'll pick Rover 2 as my head car.

Now I have the issue of life support. The rovers are designed to support two people for three days, plus some reserve. That's roughly seven days, if it's only one person.

However, going to Ares II is going to take (at least ) sixty days out and another sixty days back. Looks like I'll need to figure out some life support (AKA, bring in enough CO2 and O2 filters to do the job, or else bring the oxygenator, atmospheric regulator, and water reclaimer). I'm lucky that I'm going on a journey to the older Ares I and Ares II Habs, because I'll be able to loot their redundant CO2 and O2 filters as well.

With that, I should pretty much have unlimited access to life support. Storing oxygen will also be tricky, but I found a solution to that as well. I plan to bring along one of my Hab O2 tanks, and use it to top up the rover's tanks so that I can have a constant supply of oxygen to breathe. Seeing as I am not planning to come back here (might as well set up by Ares II, since it's really close to Ares I), I don't mind looting the HAB for all it's got.

Power is going to be a bit trickier. The rovers are not designed to go very far without a recharge. Ideally, we were supposed to complete EVAs within the span of a day, and come back to the Hab to sleep at night. This obviously will not work for my purposes.

There is only one solution: I will have to take some solar panels from the farm with me.

Actually... come to think of it... I'll take the whole farm.

Well, now that I've defined a huge set of problems, it's time to solve them.

Ugh... tomorrow.

Half ration today, all I did was think.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 68

I came to the realization that since I won't be coming back, I should find a way to take anything and everything to help me. This means loading up the rovers with as much crap as I can. So the last few days were all about gutting.

And when I say gutting, I really mean gutting. Rover 1 is now a shell of its former self. There is one tank for the regulator, but besides that, there is literally nothing in it. Now, I have a nice, pressurized area to put all my crap in.

Rover 2, as my driving vehicle, couldn't be gutted as severely. I was able to get rid of the passenger bench, though, and the sampling equipment, but I decided to leave in the life support for obvious reasons.

This took a day. Now all I have to do is lug some of this stuff around out of my way, load up, and I'll be ready to go!