Log entry sol 397
Now that the comms array is fixed, well, repaired temporarily, a good windstorm could mess things up. I'm trying to figure something out to keep it stabilized and so is NASA. Since I have the dish installed again with its new antenna and I can transmit from the Hab, that means NASA can upload, or rather I can upload and send them my logs, and then they can download them.
I don't think I can edit my logs and even if I could, I don't want to read through over 350 logs. It's not quite that many. I didn't log every single day. Some days I logged more than once. When they get these back at NASA, someone isn't going to be happy with me I'm sure, cuz yeah there's language in some of these. If they want to complain, they can come and stay here on Mars by themselves with no possible solution in sight other than eventually dying. If they can do that without cussing, then I'll publicly apologize. Since the likelihood of that is infinitesimally small, I'm not going to worry about it. Still, it all comes down to this: I don't want to go back and reread all of those logs. It would take forever, and I'm pretty sure there are things in them I don't want to relive, so it's a good thing I can't edit them anyway.
I need to start by putting my logs and the reports I've written on my farm into a common folder. There's no way I can upload them all at once, it'd be just too big a file. I'll have to send them in batches and keep track of what I've sent. Guess I'll start a new document to do that. Just what I need, one more tedious thing to do.
Since I got the array up and running again, I've been getting big data dumps with loads of emails. My parents were even able to send a video message… I'll have to link it to my log later. Video... Wait a minute. If they can send me a video, I can send them videos. I can send them the videos that I made on my way to Pathfinder. I can make new videos to show them how everything looks now, not just random people on the internet, but all the departments at NASA will be able to check on their equipment. I don't have to appear in any of the videos, so nobody has to see that I'm kinda ragged and skinny, scrawny actually.
Damn, I'm glad they can't control the cameras in the Hab remotely. That was a huge argument between the astronauts and other departments. They wanted to be able to turn the cameras on and check on us at any point. We argued that first of all, that was an invasion of our privacy, and secondly, it was unnecessary as the Hab would never be empty so someone could always turn on the cameras if they needed them or we could simply report back to them.
There was some comment made in response about privacy not being a guaranteed right due to working for a government agency. Let's just say that didn't fly, even with the astronauts who are also members of the military and had limited privacy due to that. A suggestion was made that we turn on the remote option when we left the Hab for the last time and that was the final agreement. The Hab would be left in low power mode instead of being shut down completely and as long as there was enough juice stored in the batteries, they could turn the cameras on and get a look around and then shut them back down for as long as the Hab continued to stand. We never turned them on the remote setting because we left in such a rush to leave.
That took me way off-topic. I can make new videos and send them back home. I can make all the videos I was scheduled to make for our surface ops. When I go on an EVA I can take the camera out with me. Okay, that was stupid. I have a camera on my suit; I'll just use it like I did at the beginning.
I'm starting to worry that the lack of calories is affecting my brain as well as my body. Well, that and the isolation. Thank goodness I can talk to people again even if it's delayed.
Anyway, I can turn on my camera, and then I can show them Pathfinder. I can show them the Rover. I can show them the solar farm and how to clean it off. I don't need any more samples of rocks or dirt but I could do that too just to show the kids back home how it works, just like I was supposed to. That's the one part of the mission I haven't finished. It wasn't worth it to do when I couldn't send the videos anywhere. I had a hard time continuing to make log entries when I didn't know if anyone would ever read them. Recording things would have felt even more useless.
I could take everyone for a ride in the Rover except that's kind of what I did with Pathfinder, but I didn't do it all at once and I didn't show the rover airlock. Okay, I need to do some planning. Oh yeah, I could also do another video about the Hab and what it's like now. I also need to edit the footage from my Pathfinder trip. Um, maybe I should clean the Hab first. That is, everything other than the plants. Okay, time to work.
Log entry Sol 397 (2)
So, I made a video and got it sent off already. Hopefully, they will ok it. I didn't bother editing it. I probably should, not sure who else will have time or be able to. I also worry about them cutting it in ways I don't want them to, but I don't think I have a choice. For some reason, my surface laptop doesn't have the editing software. That wouldn't have been a big deal if I'd realized it when everyone was here. I could have had NASA send me the program to add. I still could but I doubt they'd make that a priority transmission. Still, it can't hurt to ask.
I'm pretty tired so I think I'll head to bed a little early. First I'm going to watch the video from my parents again.
Grace and Timothy sit in front of the camera smiling.
"Mark," Grace calls, "Honey. We love you."
"But I'll say it again, you're grounded," Timothy insisted.
"I'm not sure what to tell you. We cleaned out your storage unit, but you probably figured that out. Also, your cousin Jimmy got married a month ago."
"For the third time," Tim interjected.
"Timothy!"
"What dear? It's the truth. Just because it's your family, you get defensive. Mine isn't any better. Lorna is pregnant for the fifth time. She has no idea who the father is just like the last two. This one she says she's going to raise instead of my sister doing it."
"Should we be sharing family gossip?"
"He'd want to know. I'm partially retired-"
"By which he means he works from home instead of going into the office."
"It's the same thing."
"It's not, dear. Karen has been so kind. She brought us your Christmas gifts."
"And Rick is a hoot when he comes to visit. I can see why he's your best friend."
"What else should we tell him?" Grace asked her husband.
"Oh, I know. You're mom nearly clocked the director-"
"Former director," she put in gleefully.
"Former director," Tim acknowledged. "The rest of that story you have to come home to hear."
"We have to stop now sweetie, if the recording is too long they say they can't send it. Love you!"
"Love you!"
"Mark sent us a video to post," Martinez said.
Beck looked up from his desk. "He's making videos for the kids again?"
"Yeah, you never did post the ones he made before, did you?"
"No," Chris replied. "I wasn't sure I should when we thought…and I've been too busy since then."
Rick nodded. "Better get on it then."
"Maybe we should watch the new one first," Beck suggested, sliding his laptop to the center of the desktop and opening it up.
Rick pulled a chair up next to him and said, "Let's do it."
"Here we are in the airlock again. This is where I started my last video about the Hab, nearly a year ago. Come to think of it, I don't know if my crew ever even uploaded the videos I made before the evacuation. I'll have to ask the next time I email them, and then I'll need to edit this out. The last time I was in the airlock, we were headed into the Hab for a tour. This time we're going in the other direction. Don't worry, I'll show you what the Hab looks like now with my potato farm, but first I'm going to take you outside. I've already depressurized the airlock. So are you ready? Not that it matters because ready or not, here we go."
A hand reaches out to grasp the handle, turns it, opens the door, and steps out.
"Okay, so first things first, I've got to make sure the Hab is safe, so I'm going to repressurize the airlock."
He turns rapidly to the panel, reaches up, and taps the screen to be sure the door is secure then taps the screen again waiting for the sign that it's done, then turns again, this time more slowly.
"I used airlock one today so that I could turn right and you can see there in the center of what is essentially my front yard: Pathfinder. As I'm sure you know, Pathfinder is a prime part of my communications array. It is now hard-wired into the Hab so I don't have to worry about it running low on charge. As long as the Hab has power, it will. Let's get a little closer so you can see it. I have to admit that being the first person to see and touch a Mars rover since it was placed in its shell to be launched decades ago is pretty awesome!"
He walks closer.
"So these triangular-shaped panels are solar cells that aren't needed anymore but I didn't remove them for two reasons. First, I didn't want to accidentally remove anything that would keep it from working. The second reason was so that I can fold them back up if the wind is getting worse, to help protect them. I know, I know. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking 'But Mark, it survived decades on Mars without that extra protection just fine,' and you're right. Still, as it is my main source of communication I'm not going to risk it."
"Now you're wondering if I ever put the panels up before communication was reestablished. The answer is no. I probably should but, well, I honestly didn't want to go out into a storm. There was no warning system before so I didn't know a storm was coming until it hit. Now that NASA can tell me a storm is coming. I can take precautions."
"In the center is the camera that JPL and I first used to communicate. You probably saw something about it on the news. Maybe I'll see if we can find time for them to send me a message that way, just a short one so you can see how it works."
"This little ramp on either side of this panel was for the little Sojourner rover to return to base. I can show you that in another video. Soju is in the Hab. Time to move on, don't want to make this video too long or it will be too big to upload. On to the rovers."
He steps away from Pathfinder and walks past it.
"I'm doing my best to walk as smoothly as I can."
The rovers are parked side by side. Mark steps between them and stops.
"Here we have the rovers. As you can see I still have two, not sure why I just said that. It's not as if one would suddenly disappear. I have only been routinely driving one, while I use the other as storage space. These are a big upgrade from the moon rovers which were dune buggies. Nope, now we have pressure vessels to ride around in, allowing us to travel further and be safe in case something went wrong."
Mark keeps walking between the rovers until he steps out and turns to the left.
"Now you can see our pop tents. Part of the rover safety protocol was to use them if something went wrong with the rover and wait for a crewmate to come pick us up in the other rover. I'm the only one here so I use them as small farms. One pop tent has green beans and the other has potatoes."
He turns away from the small domes toward the solar cells.
"There's the power factory. You saw Vogel and I set up the solar farm in the first video that I made on the surface if it's been shared. If not, it will be soon, so you can check it out there. In the meantime, I'm going to have you help me clean the panels off. I don't have to clean them daily, though it's nice to get out of the Hab once in a while. It would be better if I could do it without my suit, but that would be a bad idea. Anyway, I don't clean them every day. If it's been calm like it has lately, with only a little bit of wind, I only go out every other day or every few days. Mostly I watch the power meter on the computers. When I see it dropping, I suit up and head out."
A hand raises up in view of the camera holding a pole with a soft nubby cloth on the end.
"Bet you thought we'd have some fancy way to clean these right? Some compressed air to blow them off? Well, we did but I ran out of that ages ago. Oh yeah, NASA, if there's room, maybe send out some more on a probe headed my way, please. I now clean with this. I made it when I ran out of the air. This is a sampling pole. The head is a sheet knotted up as many times as I could. Now it's a kind of mop. It takes a few passes but it does the job."
Mark places the head of this improvised mop down on a solar cell and pushes away, pushing all the dirt to the edge of the cell and off.
"Right now, scientists all over NASA and JPL are screaming. The dirt here is rough and coarse, much like the regolith on the moon. Regolith is a fancy name for that specific type of dirt. It's not like dirt or sand on Earth so it gets its own name. The dirt here probably isn't as bad as the regolith on the Moon because there is wind here to move the sand around meaning some of it will erode to become more rounded. Still, doing this could scratch the coating of the solar panels and make them less efficient but I don't have any other option. Now if I had a windshield washer or one of those rubber snow scrapers, I could use that. Another idea for the supply probe."
"That's all for today. Next time…hmm I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it, but I do have some ideas. Anyway, have a good morning, afternoon, evening, whatever time it is where you are."
Beck closed the video player. "He sounds good."
"Wish we could see him though," Rick said.
"Probably a good thing we can't," Chris commented. "He probably doesn't look that great."
"Not that he ever did," Rick joked.
"I'm telling him you said that," Beth said from the door.
"Whatever," Martinez said and rolled his eyes, "by the time we get him back, he won't remember."
"Do you think he doesn't look good?" Beth asked.
"Not eating full rations for a year, not being able to take a shower with soap or shampoo, no way to cut his hair. Yeah, he's probably starting to look like Robin William's character in Jumanji. The only thing he can still do is shave, as long as he keeps his clippers charged."
"That dirt was pretty damned clingy," Rick put in. "It wouldn't come off easily even with soap. I still don't know how it got through the gloves. They knew that happened on the moon, so why haven't they fixed it by now?"
"Because they have yet to invent a fabric that is completely solid," Beth answered.
"And if someone did, I highly doubt it would be flexible enough to use for gloves," Beck added. "I'm going to go talk to Annie. This stuff is more her field than anyone else's"
"Annie," Beck said as he knocked on her office door. Her assistant was not at the desk in the outer office so he took the chance that he might not need to make an appointment.
"Go away! I have too damn much to do, and I don't need any more damned surprises so whatever it is can wait." came Annie's harried response.
Beck chuckled as quietly as he could.
"I can hear you," Annie called.
"Sorry," he replied, sounding anything but. "It's Beck and it's not bad news, I promise."
"Fine, come in, but if it turns out to be bad news I reserve the right to throw a shoe at you, so be warned."
He bit back a grin as he opened the door, then shook his head to see Annie kicked back in her chair, feet up on the desk, shoes on the floor, and phone in hand.
"You're not even working are you?"
"Of course I am, and if you tell anyone any different I'll have to kill you." She stared blank-faced at him for thirty seconds before flashing a toothy grin. "Now, what is this not bad news that you're dropping in my lap when I've finally found five minutes to myself to relax for the first time in weeks?"
"May I?" he gestured to the chair in front of her desk.
"Oh goodie, this news is going to take so long to tell me that you need to sit down. I'm seriously reconsidering letting you stay," she grumbled and dropped her feet to the floor, looking down at her shoes and then shaking her head. "Yes, come on in and sit and tell me but make it fast."
He proceeded to tell her about Mark's latest email and its attachment as well as the files still on his laptop from before the evacuation.
"Now, I need your advice on how to handle it. Will it be good to get those videos out or will it hurt NASA in any way?"
"You've viewed them all?"
"Yes."
"And you can share them with me so I can view them?"
"Yes."
"I don't see any harm. It should be positive. As long as he looks okay and sounds positive then we can release them with no problems and show how his extended stay can be beneficial, or," she stops talking and purses her lips. "No, we leave it at posting them. Let the world work it out as they will. I don't want to be seen as trying to make light of a bad situation, downplaying the fact that he is and will be stuck there for years."
"I'll get the files uploaded to the server then and let you know when I'm done."
"Will Irene think this is a good idea?" Annie asked suddenly.
"If we post the videos and send him the positive comments from them, it will help to keep his morale up. He also enjoys doing this and doing things he enjoys will keep him going and keep him happier so I think she'll approve. I can ask her if you want," Beck offered.
"No." Annie shook her head. "I trust your judgment. Get those files to me and I'll view them. If they're good, I'll post them."
"They're all rough, none of them are edited in any way. That was Mark's job and he doesn't have the software to do it on his laptop in the Hab, at least I don't think he does."
"Can you edit them?"
"I'd have to have someone show me how," he replied.
"Which would take longer than just having someone else do it themselves."
"Yeah."
"Okay, whatever, go do the thing and send it to me. I'll let you know."
"Thanks, Annie."
She shrugged. "It's my job, and it is a good idea."
Log entry sol 399
They never posted the videos I made about the MDV and our first days here. I guess I can't blame them for that. It probably wasn't a good idea to feature a dead astronaut on NASA's social media.
They're finally posting them now though so I'm going to keep making them. It's about time to head out and do just that.
"Today I'm taking you on a field trip. Instead of a big yellow bus, we'll go in the rover."
"Even though you'll never leave the comfort of your desk chair, bed, or couch, or wherever you're watching this from, this will be one of the best field trips of your life. And I guess technically all of the videos I've made have been field trips for you, virtually. Still this time it will be a little bit different."
He steps out of the airlock door and after closing the door and tapping the screen turns to the right and walks to the rovers.
"When I showed you around the outside of the Hab, I showed you the rovers. This time we're going inside and going for a ride. As you can see here on the side almost at the back of the rover is the airlock door. It works just like the Hab airlock. First, you open the door."
A hand reaches out and does just that. Mark steps into the small airlock space.
"You close the door behind you, hit the button, and pressurize."
The sound of air rushing in fills the space.
"Then we can open the door into the cabin of the Rover. As you can tell I'm sure, it's a pretty tight fit. We only ever went in the airlock in sets of two maximum. It is easier to do it one at a time even though it takes longer. I don't even know if Superman could change his clothes back there. Kids, ask your grandparents or your parents, or look up one of those old Superman movies online. They have to be from before the year 2000. And now I've got a bunch of you wondering how I know because I'm not that old. Where do you think my love for superheroes came from? It's all from my dad."
"So let me step into the rover cabin. On my left, there's a little bit of storage space, and to the right are the crew seats. The rovers are designed to hold no more than four astronauts at a time. If we were desperate, we probably could squeeze all six of us in, but we would have to be desperate. It's a safety feature though and there's always supposed to be somebody in the Hab so there would never be more than two or three people out on an EVA together if we had to travel such a far distance that we needed to use the rover. That does mean we could be beyond the line of sight, but no further than twenty-five kilometers or fifteen miles for those of you not familiar with the metric system. That's as far as we go. Don't worry today we won't go that far. We'll stay in sight of the Hab, in my sightline anyway.."
"Other than my trip up to Ares Vallis to get Pathfinder, I've never gone further than I can walk back. That means I stay within the life-support limits of my suit. Yep, I'm following Apollo Moon-era safety procedures. Hey, they worked for those guys; they work for me. Hang on just a second while I take off my helmet. Since the rover is pressurized I don't have to stay in my EVA suit. I didn't wear it for long periods on the trip to Pathfinder and back, but for a short sampling EVA run like we did when everyone was here it's just not worth it to take the whole suit off. It takes too much time to take off and put back on."
The camera lifts and spins rapidly to the side then is jostled back and forth before finally being settled with a view out the front of the rover. The rover begins to move and the landscape rolls by slowly.
"Okay, that's better. I can breathe rover air and you guys can still see where we're going. Maybe on the way back, I'll let you drive, haha. Seriously, I might keep the helmet on and just raise my visor. It's a short enough trip. When our mission was being planned, hundreds of photos were taken by the satellites and certain areas seemed interesting to scientists back home, specifically the geologists. They picked out several locations where they wanted samples retrieved, just like the moon mission. I got those all done months ago. What else was I going to do here? They're reviewing the results I've sent them and are locating new areas. In the meantime, it's up to me to decide where to sample. One of the reasons humans are sent on missions is for those immediate decision-making skills. Anyone thinking my life would be better if I'd never been to Mars and we should have sent robots is wrong. I've learned so much here. Yeah, it sucks that I'm stuck here but immediate decision-making saved five members of the crew."
"Yes, there are and always have been humans in control of the rovers we've sent to Mars. Yes, those humans have made the judgment calls about which way to turn or where to go next, but none of it is in real time, because it's impossible due to time delay for the distance."
"Humans on location can collect samples much more quickly than a rover can. They can pick up a rock, look at it closely and decide in seconds whether or not it's worth taking back for analysis. Rovers take thirty minutes or longer to do the same thing. That's not to say rovers aren't worth it either. We need our little robot friends to come first and check things out so we can be as prepared as possible to send humans. Here we are."
The rover stops and once again the camera is jostled and turned, then settled.
"I'm going to gather my supplies and then we'll head out and do some sampling."
Hands reach out to pick up an unidentified tool and a large bag. Mark then walks to the rover airlock, enters, closes the door, pushes the buttons, and a moment later opens the door to step outside.
"As you can imagine, I've driven around the Hab a lot in my time here. At first, I wasn't looking for rock samples. I was testing the rover's driving capabilities. Then I worked my way through the list of locations we'd brought with us. Finally, I started looking for myself. I have stayed within walking distance of the Hab, meaning I don't drive further than I could walk back if something happened with the rover. Now you're probably wondering why I don't just walk, to begin with. Two reasons: first, it's easier to carry large amounts of rocks with the rover. Second, I can only walk so far in one direction before I have to turn back. By driving instead I can get twice as far."
The hands appear again, setting the large bag down on the surface, and removing a smaller bag from inside. Then the tool appears again.
"This is our sampler. It's nearly identical to the reach-and-grab tools you can get at your local hardware store on Earth. Okay, not really. It does look like the one you can buy at your local hardware store, but it's made with much stronger materials. It wouldn't be a good thing if the tools broke when we used them. They have to be durable. The sample containers are zip-top bags but are also more durable. Now let's select a rock and put it in the sample bag. Maybe at some point later I can show you how the analysis works. Maybe not as it's pretty boring if you're not into the chemical breakdown of geological samples. It's also not exciting at all."
The camera swings to the ground. The red dirt is littered with rocks of a multitude of sizes.
"Hmm, which one of these should we pick up? We can't take them all, but I do have multiple sample bags. When this was just a thirty-day mission we had to be choosy about the samples we took. Then the goal was to be even more selective on which ones would come back to Earth with us. Each rock has a tiny bit chipped off and ground up and then run through chem analysis. That helps determine which ones to bring back. Of course, we would have been taking samples nearly up to ascent so some would have just been guesswork."
The tool is held out in front of the camera. The top is flat with sides that angle down to the pole. Inside the triangle is another smaller one. At the other end are three prongs that are closed up against each other.
"You see the top of this is a squeeze handle. I had a pooper scooper with a handle like this for my dog years ago. Squeeze the top and the claw opens at the bottom. The claaaaaww. Yeah sorry about that. I'll have to edit out the aliens from Toy Story but I couldn't resist," Mark laughs. "The crew got so tired of hearing me say it. Every time we practice with the tool during mission prep, I said it. I know it got old for them but not for me."
The camera swings slowly left and right focusing on the ground.
"Let's see which rocks shall we sample today? Hmm, this one is an interesting shape."
The tool is opened and grasps the rock, which is then lifted and dropped into the sample bag. The small bag is sealed and dropped into the larger bag.
"And this one is a slightly different shade than the others, or at least it looks that way now. By the time I get it back to the Hab and under those lights, I'll probably find it's the same as all the others."
Again a rock is picked up and dropped into a sample bag.
"How about one more?"
Mark continues to walk, slowly, one careful step at a time. He picks up a rock, brings it closer to the camera, then drops it again. This process is repeated several times before he finally selects a third rock and bags it without explanation.
"Okay kiddies, time to go back home. Are you ready to drive? If we were back on Earth, I wouldn't want to drive with my helmet on. It doesn't allow for the best peripheral vision but there's nothing to hit here other than the Hab and that's straight ahead once we turn the rover around, so no worries."
As he talks, Mark walks back to the rover and goes through the steps to get back in. He stores the tools and samples and then sits down.
"Here we go, back to the Hab at the blisteringly fast pace of 25 kph."
The camera view was higher than on the trip out to the sampling site. Mark's hands were visible on the steering wheel. As the drive continues the Hab grows larger and larger in the windshield until finally, Mark parks the rover.
"Well, that's all for today, everyone. Hope you enjoyed the trip."