Disclaimer: I don't own The Martian. It would be awesome to be as smart as Andy Weir, though!
Log Entry: Mission Day 687 (2)
Just in case the person who ends up reading this log plans to give me a hard time about it, I'll say this now. With T minus eighteen minutes until intercept with the MAV, I know I shouldn't be wasting valuable time writing in my log. I don't care.
This might be my last entry. I feel that whoever recovers it, if anyone does, deserves to know what happened. But in case that person is from Mission Control, I feel obligated to point out that I am at least writing this a few sentences at a time, taking long breaks to actually run the ship and work towards rescuing Watney.
So far, we have run into several problems with getting to the MAV. At first the problem was that we would be sixty-eight kilometers apart at the ideal time of intercept. At that distance, we couldn't even wave to Mark as the Hermes passed him. Martinez, Johanssen, and I were able to work together and decided to point our thrusters towards the MAV and use 75.5% of our remaining fuel to bring the range down to zero. One problem solved. I was feeling pretty proud of myself.
It didn't last long. Johanssen quickly pointed out that the intercept range would be fixed, but burning the jets would bring the intercept velocity up to forty-two meters per second. And Beck can't grab Mark if it's anything higher than ten.
While this was certainly a problem and needed to be addressed, I was planning on having Martinez burn the jets anyway, which would get us in range, then use the remaining thirty-nine minutes before intercept to figure out how to get the Hermes to within ten meters per second. Of course it was Watney who stopped me.
He came up with the "brilliant" idea to poke a hole in his EVA suit and use the escaping air to shoot himself from the MAV to Hermes, so that Beck didn't have to worry about interception. While the idea was completely ridiculous, it gave me the idea to use atmosphere as thrust. After careful deliberation (and I mean it; the decision to risk killing everyone was not an easy one), I decided to have Vogel make a bomb to blow a hole in the VAL, which would give us thrust, correct the range without making the intercept too much of a problem, and ensure that we had enough fuel for maneuvers on the way home.
Sounds great, right? Except that releasing all the air created certain survival problems. For example, we would either suffocate or implode if exposed to the vacuum of space. So blowing a hole in the VAL would work fine for correcting the range and velocity, but not so great if we wanted to breathe. If everything goes perfectly, then we should be fine, but if we are off by even the tiniest bit when building or exploding the bomb, we would all die and/or damage the Hermes permanently.
But if it works, we get Mark back with enough fuel to get home comfortably. So I chose to go through with it.
Vogel and Johanssen just left to go build and set up the bomb. I tasked Beck with opening the outer door of the VAL, then crawling back along the outside of the ship to Airlock 2, where he will be able to reenter. This problem could be avoided if we decided to blow the outer airlock door, but losing the inner one preserves the ship's aerodynamics.
After Beck is safely aboard, Johanssen will deploy the bomb, then return to the control room and detonate it.
For now, at least for a little while, all I can do is wait. And hope. Hope that Vogel builds the bomb correctly, hope that it's not too weak or strong, hope that Watney doesn't die from any problems we didn't anticipate.
If this does turn out to be my last entry, I want everybody in Houston, and my family, to know that, despite everything that has gone wrong over the past year and a half, I never would have chosen differently. NASA, the Ares program, and space exploration- these are all part of something bigger than all of us. I am honored to have been a part of that. And if I die trying to save Mark; to save a fellow astronaut, another beacon of progress in this race to advance humanity, then… well, I can live with that. And after living with them for years now, years wherein we were tested far beyond the parameters of a normal crew, I can say that I know all my teammates feel exactly the same way. Even Mark Watney. Especially Mark Watney.
Martinez and Johanssen have returned to the control room. Beck and Vogel are in position in the airlock, ready to retrieve Mark. Time to intercept is T minus three minutes thirty seconds. This is it. One way or another, everything ends now.
Yay, part two! I hope that you guys like it, even though both this chapter and the last have basically been me summarizing what happened in the book and movie. Hopefully you're at least getting a different perspective of Lewis! I hope she's in character. We don't know much about her, but I tried to keep this true to her personality as best as I could. Feel free to review and tell me what you liked/disliked!
Thanks to Jelsemium, knightphoenix2, adira2, and AB Feta for reviewing part one! You guys are super awesome and are part of what encouraged me to post this part, since this is my first time writing for The Martian!