1

Challenges

Even though the next sol was Satursol, Will went to the office in the morning. He usually worked half a sol, especially when Satursol fell on a working day on Earth. That morning he was surprised by several videomails from his colleagues in charge of other planetary facilities. He was pleased to see a message from Rick Page, the head of the Lunar Commission. Rick had been a member of Columbus 3 fifteen years earlier.

“Will, good sol. Your speech has gotten some good press, I see. You’re good at gazing into your crystal ball and seeing the future. I realize you weren’t specific about what Mars can expect in the year 2100, but a lot of people are beginning to ask the same question about the moon and other places. I have to congratulate you; Mars has now decisively pulled ahead of the moon in terms of population. Until six years ago we were ahead, but then gold gave you a surge and the worldwide depression cut our tourism and water export business sharply. We’ve now exceeded 200, and of course no one is a permanent resident, though we have some staff who have spent as much as two years straight on the moon. I suspect our population may decline to about 150 over the next few years; lunar geological research is going through a dry period, water exports are getting more automated in order to compete with declining Swift shuttle launch charges, and tourism has plateaued. If we only had the nitrogen and carbon you have, we could go into the plastic manufacturing business. On the other hand, our platinum extraction is producing a lot of nickel-steel as a byproduct, and the market in low Earth orbit for construction products is growing, so we may expect a growing income from that source. Water demand is really incredible, too; I think it’ll exceed a thousand tonnes this year.

“But I’m rambling. I hope all is well with you. Say hello to Sebastian for me; we miss him down here. We’ll be contacting Yevgeny pretty soon with a projection of our methane import needs. Bye.”

Will hit reply. “Good morning, Rick, and thanks for the call. I’m still amazed we have over 600 people up here. It’s really a miracle and means that social forces are now set in motion that the Commission can no longer control or direct. The time for rethinking the Commission treaty is coming in a decade or so, I think; Mars will need more self-determination. Ruhullah and I have started thinking about devolution of more responsibility from the Commission to the borough councils or the Mars council. It’ll be hard to avoid once the Green World Community sets up its own borough at Aram, since there won’t be any Commission employees there. Let us know how much methane the moon needs; we’ll be glad to send it, we’ve got plenty! It’s easy to make on Phobos and Deimos, and as we increase our production there of liquid hydrogen for solid-core nuclear engines, we need to convert the surplus oxygen into carbon dioxide and use it to make methane for export.

“I hope you and your family are well. We’re fine up here. Keep in touch. Bye.”

Will sent the message and turned to the next videomail, from Sheila Duchamp, Commander of Magellan Station in Venus orbit.

“Will, good sol. That was a great speech last night. I wish we could predict our expansion here. The Venus-Mercury Commission still won’t commit to buying a caravel, which in our opinion is what we need to raise our crew safely to twenty or so. We do the best pure science around; we’ve got a huge planet to explore remotely from orbit, and the technology to deal with the heat and pressure is finally getting pretty good. We think an automated base on the surface is the next goal, where we can use robots to repair telerobotic rovers and especially to install or remove nuclear power sources. But with a dozen folks, how much can we do? So push the sale of a caravel, please! I hope all is well. Bye.”

“Hi Sheila,” Will replied. “I’ve been following closely the proposal for an automated base on Maxwell Montes and I think it’s a great idea. It makes sense. The robotic technology is now mature enough, especially if the base has a nuclear powered air conditioner to reduce the temperature of an interior repair facility somewhat. Of course, the air conditioner will need a liquid sodium loop to remove the heat, which is a strange thought! Now that we’re beginning a serious, in-depth study of the mineralogy and petrology of the Venusian crust, we’re discovering geochemical processes no one could have imagined. I’ve already seen spinoff papers on thermal metamorphic processes on Earth, and we can probably predict that in a few decades mining of mineral deposits unique to Venus will begin, especially if atmospheric deuterium harvesting gets cheap enough to be competitive. You all should have some pretty interesting gold deposits, and tellurium extraction seems to be very easy. So I am very optimistic about the future of Magellan Station. Who knows, eventually it might even be possible and safe for people to land and explore.

“We’ve offered a caravel to the Venus-Mercury Commission twice in two years. I suppose it’ll buy one eventually; keep up your calls to politicians, they have to offer the money! It’s a shame Venus research is regarded as esoteric and a luxury; you all need better public relations. I’d even start selling plots of Venus land to the public around the robotic base; you’d generate income and publicity, though it would be legally innovative, since no person has physically set foot on the planet. Good luck. Bye.”

He sent his reply and decided to make it three for three; Patrice Dumkowski, Commander of Concord Station at the Mercurian north pole, had called as well. Patrice had been on Columbus 3 as a climatologist, an utterly useless background for Mercury exploration. But Patrice had fallen in love with the place, had no family, and had stayed three years so far. He hit play.

“Good sol, Will. I just wanted to congratulate you for a great speech; it had historical depth, vision for the future, and was optimistic and uplifting as well. It should inspire the folks there. I can’t believe Mars has over 600 human beings. When you said that, I gasped a little. Concord now has fourteen and we’ll reach eighteen in another year. The new two-year service term for at least half of the arriving crew, with a ship either arriving or departing every year, is working pretty well, and the direct passenger flights from earth using solar-ion propulsion augmentation have been very effective. I hope those flights have cleared the way for Mars cargo flights via Mercury. Come visit and use our gravity well, please! Just leave us some nitrogen and argon in return.

“Not much to add. We’re telerobotically visiting a volcanic field in the southern plains next month; the assault on the unit involves a dozen rovers. The automated road-clearing unit is half way to the equator and should reach the south pole early next year. God willing, once it’s finished we’ll drive a crew down the road during a Mercurian night all the way, setting up regolith-covered emergency shelters as we go, just like your oases. We’d like to have access to both poles, and eventually of course we want a network of north-south and east-west roads that give people, not just robots, access to everything at night or during twilight. Meanwhile, we’re bringing samples back overland and getting a pretty good grasp of what this world is like.

“Best wishes for the upcoming year. Ideas and advice welcome, as always. Bye.”

Will always enjoyed hearing from Patrice; they had started exchanging messages monthly. He hit reply. “Good sol, Patrice, and thanks for your call. I love to hear what you’re doing on Mercury. Just keep pushing the machines forward and pushing the politicians for more support. You’ve got more water and helium-3 than the moon and at night you have less cosmic radiation than Mars because of the sun’s and Mercury’s magnetic fields. The solar sailing cargo ships should make imports and exports cheaper. If you can get a caravel, fifty people can travel back and forth at a time, and if we can complete the development of the magnetic radiation shield, the radiation exposure won’t be bad either. So Mercury has an important role to play in humanity’s future.

“We got an order for argon propellant just a month ago; we’re glad to be working with you. Best wishes with everything and keep in touch. Bye.”

He sent the message, then turned to other items in his in-box. Louisa Turner, the Mars Commission’s Media Director, commented on his speech and the talking points, which they had discussed ahead of time. Press releases and human-interest stories were being scheduled to reinforce the main points; among the arrivals was a full-time assistant media director on Mars to improve coordination of the message. The Mars Commission’s success had a lot to do with its skillful use of the media.

There were reports from several directors or assistant directors of the Commission on Earth. He listened and acknowledged them. Rick Page called back with a question about the Mars Commission’s review of a plan to set up a Gateway Commission to oversee the now dozens of vehicles and habitats orbiting around the lagrange 1 point where the gravity of the Earth balanced that of the moon. Lately, the number of objects had grown large enough that they were occasionally shadowing each other’s solar arrays, and debris was floating around slowly in its own orbits, potentially threatening to damage equipment. Will forwarded the request to complete the review to the task force members; the Mars and Lunar Commissions were the two largest users of Gateway, which was also the launching point for missions to Venus, Mercury, and the asteroids, and for almost all unmanned probes. Telescopes of various sorts residing at the Earth-Sun Lagrange 2 point, where the Earth’s shadow shielded them from solar heat and radio output, were first assembled at Gateway and floated back years later for servicing. For the last year it had continuously had a staff of four.

When he looked up, he was surprised to see Sebastisan Langlais standing in the doorway.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure, come on in. I was just handling routine messages.”

“Ah yes, I remember well.” Sebastian entered; Will pointed to the table and chairs near the door and rose from behind his desk.

“All I can offer you is mint tea. I don’t make coffee on Satursol mornings.”

“That’s fine; I like it. It makes me think of my visit to Morocco, as well as reminisce about Columbus 2.”

“It’s been the staple hot drink here since the beginning; mint is so easy to grow and is so indestructible, and comes in various flavors.” Will carried two cups to the table and sat. “Did you enjoy the cultural program last night?”

“Yes. I liked your speech, by the way, and I see it has gotten pretty good press.”

“This one was carefully planned, rather like a State of the Union address, complete with talking points and a schedule of follow-up publicity. On Monsol I’m scheduled to visit the caravel factory with our media coordinator, with two dozen reporters on earth tagging along via video link.”

“I gathered the Mars Commission has made the media a high priority. It makes sense. The cultural program after your speech will certainly help, too. I liked the Aurorae Oratorio; a nice piece of music. And the ballet was spectacular. I’m glad we now have a professional ballerina.”

“Well, we already had one, in a sense; Tina Hvitmer had extensive ballet training. She developed the Martian modifications to make ballet work here, and it looks like they are being kept by Ginger. It’s worth paying two people to be full-time ballerinas and teach our children. There’s a growing fascination with Martian ballet on Earth.”

“It’s our first art form. I had a great time dancing afterward; I think people danced until 2 in the morning! I haven’t had that much fun in ages!”

“It was great, though we had to leave a midnight with the kids. After midnight the families all leave and the atmosphere changes.”

“Yes, it was a singles event after that time.”

“Exactly. Which is fine, but Marshall wanted to stay, and we didn’t want him to! He’s too young.”

“I agree. I think I saw he has a crush on Tabitha Cahill—”

“Yes, I think so. She’s a bit older than him; she’s almost 16. But he’s never seen a kid his own age before, let alone a girl! So he’s thrilled. But she’s been standoffish.”

“Ah, the trials of teenagerhood. I guess it’s the same on Mars as on Earth.”

“So far, it appears to be the same, yes. So, I’m surprised you’ve come to visit so quickly. You just arrived.”

“True, but I hate to be idle, and I can always start slowly. Besides, you said you had an idea for a job for me.”

“Indeed, which isn’t easy; you have a very impressive resume.” Will smiled; Sebastian had been Director of the Lunar Commission for twelve years. “Our asteroid effort is in disarray. It was never supposed to be an organized effort. As you know, from the very beginning, flights from Earth to Mars and back were timed so that they could either fly by an asteroid or land on one, and the Mars Commission soon acquired far more experience with asteroids than anyone else. Seven years ago we decided that our shuttles were reliable enough that they could be flown on missions to asteroids that flew past Mars during the periods of slack demand on the shuttles, and we have visited four more asteroids this way. We’ve claimed Quirinus and sold its mineral rights to Muller Mining. We’ve sent automated probes to thirteen asteroids, including to two Mars Trojans. Then the United States decided to phase out its Project Argo and send people to asteroids via Project Odyssey, which would involve larger crews and longer missions, as well as equipment designed to explore Jupiter and the outer planets. Then the United States decided to concentrate on sinking billions into construction of a whole new advanced propulsion system and cut the asteroid belt from Odyssey’s goals. Meanwhile, we had launched a vehicle with an inflatable hab, solar panels, Prospector telerobotic rovers, a drill, and fuel making capacity to Ceres, where it finally landed last month, and we designed the caravel and have built two. We have the vehicle NASA decided not to build for Odyssey; in fact, it looks like they’ll use caravels for their first manned flight to Jupiter in ten years. The Chinese will use them, too, we think. NASA wants to test the caravels and Congress has barred them from adding asteroid missions to Odyssey, at least for now, so NASA has agreed to send American astronauts to asteroids on our caravels and pay their places. We suspect we can make similar arrangements with other nations.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Head up an Asteroid Belt Commission, which will be located within the Mars Commission for now.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “A separate Commission?”

“Yes. If the Mars Commission establishes a ‘Project Asteroid’ or such, it’ll be perceived as us running everything and selling seats to others. That has limited appeal. An Asteroid Belt Commission that brings contributors to a common table to plan projects will probably garner more support.”

“That makes sense. How much money has Mars committed?”

“One billion redbacks; six hundred thirty million U.S. dollars at current exchange rates. That doesn’t sound like much, but as long as we are spending the money rather than giving it to NASA, we can use it two or three times more efficiently than NASA can. Our commitment is exactly of that sort; caravel production, launching and controlling automated probes, mission support, etc.”

Sebastian nodded. “Mars is the logical headquarters for exploring the asteroid belt; the energy to go there is half the energy from low earth orbit, and we’re the closest major facility. We have an incredibly capable and experienced workforce, too, so we’re ideal for support.”

“Exactly. We have the same equipment as the explorers and we use it daily, so we understand it and can troubleshoot easily. We have ten new automated asteroid explorers on the way from Earth right now. They were produced under contract on Earth at a very good price and they’re all identical, so we can repair them easily. They use the standard technology of our satellites and prospectors. We’ll be launching them to asteroids throughout the rest of this year and part of next; each one can orbit the asteroid, survey it thoroughly, land using its ion engine and reaction control system, hop about on springs to explore the surface, then leap off the surface and aim its ion engine at another asteroid. They can communicate to any node on the interplanetary internet, so communications are simple. With any luck, the ten vehicles will visit forty asteroids in five years. NASA could not have done that on a shoestring the way we did.”

“So what do you want me to actually do?”

“What do you want, and how much do you want to be in retirement? I’d like the Commissioner to be on Mars; I’d like you to take that position. There are two other key positions; mission planner and external relations. External relations will have to have a director located on Earth, but I know you have incredibly rich contacts on Earth and a sterling reputation, so I could easily see a commissioner located on Mars playing a key role in lining up support among the various national space agencies. The mission planner could be located here or on Earth, but if the missions are departing from here, the planner probably should be here. Even the so-called Ceres mission badly needs a planner; it reminds me of the old joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. A Hohman trajectory to Ceres requires a departure on November 6, 2041; that’s 18 months from now. But everyone is running calculations on the trajectory and what asteroids could be visited on the way, and pretty soon there were proposals for departures as much as six months early, visits of as many as three asteroids on the way, arrivals up to six months late, and delta-vs as much as 6,000 meters per second, chemical and ion. The same calculations have been made for the return trip, which normally would leave Ceres about January 1, 2045, and return here in mid 2046. We’re now thinking in terms of a five year mission, which is pretty long, but hard to avoid because of low-energy trajectories. Someone has to impose some sanity on the plans and make sure they are reasonable and safe.”

“And would there be another mission to the main belt during the Ceres mission, or should the second wait until the first ends?”

“An excellent question. After Columbus 11 arrives here in June 2042, we’ll have plenty of workers to build new caravels, and plenty of personnel we can spare who will want to go. We probably could launch another mission in 2043. There are launch opportunities to objects in the main belt every few months.”

Sebastian considered for a moment. “A five year mission will require quite a different social structure than our usual missions. There will have to be arrangements for couples, for example.”

“Yes, and procedures for weighing the application from a couple fairly and comparing it to applications from single people. It may even be possible to accommodate children on the flight; we have to look at that question very closely. We’re funding development of a powerful magnetic field generator that deflects all solar radiation and a lot of cosmic radiation, focusing it onto small areas of the ship that we can shield heavily, thereby reducing overall radiation exposure considerably. If a variable thrust ion engine is developed soon, it will have a powerful magnetic field that can be used instead. So there are some promising developments.”

“And who’s coordinating all of this?”

“I am, and I don’t have time! Asteroid-related activities are scattered among various Mars Commission departments. Érico Lopes is director of the spaceport and schedules launches and landings, so he has overseen our manned asteroid missions; we’ve treated them like missions to Phobos and Deimos. Mars Control is under him, with Rostam Khan serving as chief officer; Rostam coordinates launches of the automated probes and oversees their functioning and data gathering. Our exploration department, run by Roger Anderson, oversees exploration of Mars and its moons and has overseen the selection of asteroids based on their scientific interest and the dissemination and analysis of the data. Caravel development is coordinated by Alexandra Lescov and Pavel Rudenkov in Moscow. You’ll want to decide what positions to create and who to hire. Ask anyone here you want. A lot of my senior people have been in their positions for a decade or more and probably need a new assignment to be more productive.”

“And there are lot of senior folks in the Lunar Commission who are looking for new assignments; Rick Page wants his own team, of course.” Sebastian nodded. “This has a lot of potential, Will. But do you think the Mars Commission should establish an Asteroid Belt Commission, appoint a Commissioner, then seek international support?”

“No. Let’s start by calling it the ‘Asteroid Belt Project’ with you as Director. Then you and I get on the phone and seek support for a Commission. The evolution from Project to Commission will take a year. It sounds like we should hire terrestrial directors from among your contacts, since you know them well and can work with them in spite of the communications delays. I doubt anyone would object to you running the Project and Commission.”

“Well, I have my enemies; every administrator does.”

“Sure, but you have a solid reputation. So, what do you say?”

Sebastian smiled, then nodded. “I’ll do it, but probably for only five years. I’m 63, after all. My health is fine, but I was hoping to do some real exploration for a while!”

“We’ll see whether we can work more exploration into your schedule, then,” replied Will. “Thanks. I think this is an exciting opportunity for everyone.”

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