Log entry Sol 31
Leave Mars day… yeah if only I was leaving.
I finished packing everything up and put everyone's boxes away in cabinets where I won't see them. I did leave out anyone's clothes that fit. I can't easily wash clothes, it's not like we have a washer and dryer here and I could run them through the shower and hang them to dry but I'm still limited in my amount of soap. I can make more water, I need to get to that actually, but I can't make more soap. So the more clothes I have that I can cycle through the better. By the time I leave for Ares IV, they'll all be disgusting no matter what I do unless I just start going naked in the Hab.
Now that's an idea, no one else is here, and as long as I'm not actively making water or trimming my plants that could work. Not sure I'm quite there yet, but I'll hold that idea in reserve. I used to hang out in my apartment in my boxers and I always kept a pair of sweatpants in easy-to-reach spots. Even there though I never went naked.
Anyway, I had a bit of a ceremony and toasted my comrades with a juice box, well not a juice box. I had a bottle of reconstituted apple juice. I've been saving them, trying to space out everything other than coffee, so I still have something other than water to drink as time goes on.
I hope they make it back safely. Hermes was rehauled and rehabbed after the last mission following the plan so there's no reason anything should go wrong in space, but things do go wrong in space. I'm proof of that.
Log entry Sol 31 (2)
I took a bit after packing and did nothing, but I need to make water so I can get these potatoes growing. I need as many plants as can fit in the space I have.
After I get the potatoes I need to survive for years, if the soil is still viable I'm going to plant the green beans.
So now onto making water, I have the hydrogen, the oxygen, and the wood shavings for the fire. I've done all the calculations, and double and triple-checked them. Now to do it.
Log entry Sol 32
I haven't been this nervous on this damned planet since I first woke up and realized I was alone. I'm about to start making water. Everything's ready to go. I just stopped to make a quick log entry for someone to find someday in case I die doing this.
Log entry Sol 32 (2)
Well so far so good. The reaction is working just as I expected. I should have an additional 50 L of water when I'm done with this first burn. It's going to take all night. I don't dare burn the hydrazine too fast, just a drop at a time literally. After this is all said and done I'll type up a long detailed technical explanation of how I'm making the water but I'm not doing it right now. I need to just start making water.
Log entry Sol 35
Holy shit! The Hab is a bomb. I've turned my home into a bomb. A hydrogen freaking bomb! And even worse, I've been living in it for three days. It took me three freaking days to realize I fucked up in my calculations. Well maybe not, before I started making water they were ok, but I wasn't paying enough attention to the results. I simply assumed I'd made the amount of water I'd planned on making and that it wasn't all collectible to put in the space suit cistern because it was still in the air. I was wrong, really really wrong. A check of the air in the Hab with the atmospheric regulators in the rover proved it. The hab is a hydrogen bomb, the hydrogen was not all burning; some of it was escaping past the flame. So now I'm hiding in the rover trying to figure out what I can do. How do I get the hydrogen burned off without blowing up the Hab? Or how do I remove it from the air? Ok, so I'm going to keep cowering here and stay safe for now.
Log entry Sol 36
Ok so I have an idea and it's crazy but it should work. I'm heading back into the Hab in my spacesuit so I can be sure it's safe to breathe. I'm going to mess with the atmospheric regulator, read that as essentially I'm going to break it and so it will remove all of the oxygen from the air. Why? Well because hydrogen is fine on its own the problem comes when it's with oxygen. So I'll remove all but one percent of the oxygen and then release it in really small bursts to burn off the hydrogen. It's not going to be a short process.
I can hear you from here by the way, "if you remove all of the oxygen the bacteria in the soil will die Mark then you can't use it to grow potatoes. It'll also kill the starter plants already growing." Yeah I know I thought of that too. I'm going to drop the temp in the Hab to one degree celsius to force the bacteria to go into near hibernation and move the plants to the rover. I'll be suited up which will help keep me warm.
"UM, Mark, to get the plants into the rover don't they have to go outside and you know be exposed to Mars's lack of atmosphere that will cause all the liquid in them to boil off?"
Yeah, I'm still working on that one. There has to be something I can use in the Hab to help. I just need to get in there and look. Ok so now to stop being a scared baby, suit up and go back into the bomb.
Log entry Sol 36 (2)
So yeah… I spotted Martinez's EVA suit pretty much as soon as I went back in and realized that was the perfect way to transplant the plants. No way was I going to try and bag the plants while I was in my suit though so I took it off and dropped the temp, then went to work with the plants. As it got colder I went digging through the clothes I'd left out and kept piling them on until I was wearing three pairs of pants and I think five shirts. Then I had to take all of that off to take the bagged plants out to the rover and mess with the heater to stay on while I wasn't in there. Back on with the suit and back into the Hab. Now the suits are designed with the option to regulate the temperature. It's cold in space, but we also work hard during surface ops and can get quite warm.
Our suits are vastly different from those used by the Apollo guys on the moon but they're still a bit bulky and it will still strain your hands to continuously dig and pick up samples, the pressurization more than anything is the problem. I went back to work in the Hab and decided it wasn't worth the warmth I was getting from the suit so I threw all the extra clothes back on instead.
I managed to rig the regulator to pull all of the oxygen out of the air and to make sure I could breathe since I'd given up on wearing my suit. I just grabbed a small O2 canister and breathing mask from the med bay. A rubber band around the back of my head helped it stay in place.
Once the regulator had pulled all but one percent of the oxygen out I shut it down. I grabbed another canister of O2, this one from Vogel's suit, and attached an air line I could put a kink in to control the amount of oxygen being released. I only wanted small amounts. I made a sparker from one of the LED Lights in the Hab by stripping the wires.
My next step was standing on the table with both in my hands so I could get the hydrogen out of the air up high, like that matters to start.
It worked for a while and then… then I managed to blow myself across the Hab.
Pretty sure I hit my head and was knocked out for about a minute. When I came to, I was dizzy and my ears were ringing. I looked around trying to figure out what happened and reached up to make sure I hadn't burned anything on my face only to realize that my mask had slipped off and I was breathing pure nitrogen, not good. Really bad actually, Looking around the mask was nowhere in sight but the commander's suit was still hanging where I left it filled with the extra water I'd made so far. So I stuck my head in and cranked the O2. Then I spent the next several minutes going back and forth from the suit to the atmospheric regulator until it put enough oxygen back into the air that I could breathe without the suit.
Yeah, I'm back in the rover for the night. Gotta figure out what the hell went wrong and make sure everything works before I stay in there again.
Log entry Sol 37
Ok, so I'm an idiot. Remember I decided not to wear my whole EVA suit and instead went with layers of clothes and that oxygen mask with the rubber band around my head? Yeah, this was my big mistake, though I was too dumb to realize it at first. See that mask wasn't a perfect seal around my mouth so oxygen was escaping around the edges as I breathed out. You do know you don't take all the oxygen into your lungs when you breathe in right? I mean if you did what use would mouth-to-mouth resuscitation be? I was just too dumb to think about it ahead of time.
My idiocy could have killed me. Thank goodness it didn't and fortunately, the layers of clothes kept me from getting burned, of course, I have fewer clothes which sucks. Never mind the fact that if I'd worn the damned suit I wouldn't have blown myself up, to begin with.
Anyway, the result of my idiocy is that I have 60 more liters of water, which is a good start. Now as I work to make even more I'm going to go slower and in smaller amounts.
I've run diagnostics on all of the Hab systems and everything is working well. The atmosphere of the Hab is breathable, and no longer going to kill me so I'm moving back in, and so are the plants.
Log entry Sol 38
My potato plants are safely back in the ground in the Hab farm and out of the Martinez suit nursery. The dirt has been doubled and as soon as the current plants grow new potatoes I can use those to seed more ground.
I cleaned out Rick's suit so I can use it if I need to. It wasn't too bad since i"d bagged the plants but a little dirt did escape. Thankfully we had a vacuum to clean up when we came in from EVAs.
Log entry Sol 40
Ok, I'm getting back to making water today. After blowing myself up you'd think I'd stop but I literally can't, not if I'm going to stay alive. Still, I can take it slow and be more careful. Guess this means lots more watching crappy seventies tv and listening to disco. Yeah, I might have to break down and start watching Vogel's stuff. I may not speak German but maybe I'll pick it up from watching, if not I'll just make up a story to go along with what I'm watching and pretend I know what's happening. Maybe I'll even learn to speak German if I watch it enough, like immersion.
The advantage to doing so little while I make water, is my calorie needs are lower so I can eat less of the rations I have left and save them for later.
Log entry Sol 43
Yeah, I tried watching Vogel's stuff today and discovered that at least one of the shows I can pretty much follow along with just by what is happening. I also discovered that he has several old black-and-white Hollywood movies that have been translated into German. I had no idea he was a classic film buff. We spent a year together training for the mission, then three months on Hermes and somehow I feel like I barely know him. Then again I didn't know much about Lewis until I was left here with her data stick.
Martinez has become my best friend with Beck close behind. The three of us spent a lot of time outside of training hanging out. Johannsen is like a little sister and I teased her just like I would if I had any siblings. Overall we're a close crew but somehow not as close as we could be and I never realized that until now. Then again with them thinking I'm dead, they're probably all even closer now. I'm going to feel like I no longer belong if I make it back. It won't matter as long as I can make it home though.
Log entry Sol 45
Well, my potato plants have sprouted. Little green shoots all over the small section of dirt they're in. I wasn't even looking at them when I noticed. I was just walking by after I got up this morning, on my way to the mess to make my breakfast. The green caught my eye, the corner of my eye anyway so I turned, and there they were. I was torn between cheering, jumping for joy, and just sighing at how awesome it is to see them. I kinda did all three,
Water making has continued. I'm nearing the halfway point of what I need in total. In another week I should be done making what I need but I think I want to keep making more just in case. I'm trying to figure out a way to get it in the rover I don't use to drive around. If I could store some of it in that rover since the rover is pressurized, I'll always have a backup supply just in case. The problem is getting it there. I'm going to test using a small tub with a lid. No idea how good a seal the lid has but I can try.
If I park as close as I can get to the airlock and go straight from the Hab airlock to the rover airlock, there might be some sublimation but not all. I'm not ready to try yet though. I need all of the water I've made so far. In a few weeks though I should have some extra.
There's no reason I don't drive rover one except that rover two is the one I used most in the six sols everyone else was here so it feels like mine in some way. That's ridiculous because they're identical but it does. I don't want rover one to be unusable just in case, but using it as a storage locker won't prevent me from driving it so I'm good there.
Log entry Sol 50
I've doubled the dirt again and the plants are growing faster than I thought they would. The lack of insects or other diseases, the high humidity and temps, and the sun-lights have them growing nearly twice as fast. I should be able to pull my first crop of seed potatoes in another week or so.
You're probably wondering about the sun lights. We have them in the Hab and some sections of Hermes. It was to help us psychologically. I know they told us more but I'll be honest I wasn't listening. It was something about vitamin D and serotonin levels. Anyway, I'm just glad we have them.
Log entry Sol 53
Well, I've now made all of the water I need, I still have the hydrogen and oxygen though so I'm going to keep making more and that means it's time to find a good container to try and move water to rover one. I tried to drive it up and see if I could connect the airlocks of the rover and the Hab but they weren't designed to match, yeah if I get home I'm making that suggestion for future missions. It would be more efficient if you could just go from one to the other and have them cycle at the same time. Then again you couldn't have the Hab airlock go all the way to the ground, there would have to be steps up to the airlock on the rover. It's not super high up but it is about a foot off the ground. Unless there was some sort of folding enclosure that could come out to the Hab door, you know like tunnels to airplanes have the extendable area to meet the airplane door.
Anyway, I've got rover one parked about a meter from the Hab. I didn't want to get any closer and risk hitting the Hab and causing it to depressurize. Since both airlock doors open in, I can depressurize the Hab airlock, pick up the box, open the door, step across like two steps, open the rover airlock, put the box in, step in myself, then pressurize it. All told the box of water will be subjected to two to three minutes of no atmospheric pressure. Hopefully not enough to boil off too much.
I plan on marking the box I use when I fill it and then checking it when I get it into the rover to see how much I lose.
Log entry Sol 53 (2)
Ok, I think I found the right box. It's a big tote box, the lid seals pretty tight though not a complete seal so we'll see.
Log entry Sol 53 (3)
Ok so I'm an idiot, somehow I looked past the fact that the airlock depressurizing would tighten the seal on the box. That should have been obvious as these are containers that we would have used to take samples and other equipment with us that needed to be returned to Hermes and then Earth. Anyway, I got the water to the rover with no loss. So now I can keep making more as long as I have containers to hold it and store it in the rover. To account for expansion with freezing I didn't fill the container full and I won't do that with future containers either. Wish I could do the same with a box of fertilized soil but the temps absolutely would kill off the bacteria, not just leave them hibernating and I don't want to leave the heater running all the time when I'm not in it. I'd like to keep the rover in the best condition I can in case something happens to rover two.