10
Promotion
The rest of the afternoon, Will was busy with media interviews, stressing the theme of living well. Turner already had drafted talking points and had run them past Morgan personally; the two of them called Will from Morgan’s office to offer him the media strategy. Between interviews, Will talked to a half dozen residents of the Outpost about what they could do with their contacts with the media.
It wasn’t until the next morning when Will was able to talk to Morgan in detail. “Thank you for hosting this conference,” Will said, in response to a brief message asking for a discussion. “I’ve never seen the folks here in the Outpost so uplifted by a single event. The panel discussion really fascinated everyone and proved to be a catalyst for a very frank and detailed discussion about our future. We’ve already started implementing some ideas, and we’ll be implementing others for weeks; there were a lot of good ideas. I’ll draft a memo to send you later this sol about the implications I see. We do need to reexamine the crew roster and see whether we can fill the few remaining positions with people able to provide some key services here; specifically I’d like to get someone here with a master of business administration, a law degree, and/or an accounting degree. This person could run a store, provide financial advice, and offer legal advice. I have less confidence we can import a hair dresser, and even less that we can fly up a pet dog!
“One very significant development is that almost everyone wants to use their media contacts to coordinate the public relations message better. Of course, most people also want a say in how we choose our themes, but that’s okay; I can coordinate that. The conference bodes well for our future here.
“Anyway, let me know what you thought about the meeting yestersol. Bye.”
Will turned to other tasks. He sent a voicemail to Alexandra, proposing a time for their long-delayed meeting to discuss construction. He sent another to Madhu to set a time when they could discuss art and entertainment further. He emailed Lisa Kok and asked her about what she would do if she had more time to make consumer goods. Then he looked at the biographies of a dozen candidates for the remaining two slots on Columbus 5, and was delighted to see that one candidate with strong credentials in robotics had a husband who was a lawyer and accountant (though he had not applied for the mission).
By then, a half hour had passed and Morgan’s reply had arrived. “Good sol, Will. I look forward to your memo, whenever you can get it finished, which I am sure will be specific and detailed. I was very impressed by the conference yesterday. The speakers were perfect; everyone here in Houston went home thinking a lot about their own lives, and we had an excellent brainstorming about Mars. Our ideas resonated pretty well with the report Érico sent, too.
“Thank you for recommending Louisa Turner. She was perfect for the job. We talked several hours afterward and I was immensely impressed by her capacities. We need to get her down here, where her talents can be integrated better with the Commission’s staff.
“I’ve also been rethinking some aspects of the Commission. We’ve worked together for about fifteen months, and I think our relationship has gradually strengthened. I’ve come to appreciate your honesty, fairness, and the clarity of your thought. It’s pretty difficult to communicate clearly across the gulf of interplanetary space, but you have a remarkable talent for doing it. We’ve never really met, yet I feel I know you, and you probably feel that you know me as well. Without such a feeling of contact, coordination of human resources on two worlds would be much more complicated and fraught with mistrust, even suspicion. Columbus 1 and 2 both had difficult relationships with ground control, but we have not.
“I think the time has come to strengthen this relationship by giving you the position of Assistant Director of the Mars Commission for Mars Operations. You are already in charge of Mars operations as commander there, but by making you Assistant Director I am raising you to the number two position in the Commission’s organizational structure. This means that you will outrank everyone else in the organization except me, and in collaboration with me you will be able to direct and coordinate the Commission’s operations.
“It’ll be interesting to see how this new arrangement works. If it weren’t for the fact that you are able to communicate so clearly across the gulf, this promotion wouldn’t work. With the promotion, we should be able to coordinate our operations on the two planets even better.
“So, Mr. Assistant Director, what are your thoughts? Let me know. Bye.”
Will stared at the screen, partially in shock. He wasn’t sure what to say. Finally he hit the reply icon on his attaché. “Doug, thank you for your reply. You have rendered me speechless. I’m not sure what to say. I’m very flattered that you have so much confidence in me. You can be sure that my personal priorities are devoted entirely to making the Mars operation grow. I’ll be honored to serve the Mars Commission in any capacity you see fit to give me.”
He sent the message and stared out the window, wondering what to do next. The promotion would have implications for what he could do, but it was not yet clear how it would impact on his work. Finally he stood up and walked around the outpost, watching staff doing their jobs and asking trivial questions. He walked past the day care room in Renfrew, where Jennie Dunbar was watching all five of the children on Mars. Finally he headed to the basement of Joseph, where Ethel was hard at work on a metal docking unit. She was inspecting the work of their two robot welders when he arrived.
“What’s wrong with you?” she said, looking at Will’s face, which looked delighted and grave at the same time.
“Morgan just sent me a videomail appointing me Assistant Director of the Mars Commission. That makes me number two in the structure.”
“Really?” Ethel looked at him, surprised and delighted. Then she emitted a squeal of delight and grabbed him, kissing him.
“Wow!” he said. “I guess you approve.”
“Approve! It’s about time someone realized what my husband can do! This is great news.”
“Better not tell anyone yet. I’m sure there will be a news release, and when I get it I’ll circulate it to everyone.”
“Good. How do you feel about this?”
“I don’t know yet. I think I’m in shock. It immediately makes me wonder what else I can do; how much more work I can get done, how many new ideas I can come up with. . .it’s a challenge to me.”
“I’m glad you see it that way. Some would feel pride in themselves and lose their humility, or would sit back and get lazy.”
“No, I won’t do that. I guess I had better mop more floors.”
“No, you should do fewer floors, so you have more time for your new responsibilities! I can’t tell you how happy I am, Will.” She kissed him again. “I love you.”
“And I love you very much as well.” He kissed her as well. “I guess I’d better get back to work.”
She nodded. He headed back to his office in Habitat 1, at least feeling oriented. He began to repeat a Bahá'í prayer he had memorized decades ago, as a child, that he particularly liked.
Back at his desk, he found a videomail from Turner congratulating him. “After talking to Morgan yesterday, I found that I could work with him; I even liked him. I think he’ll want me to move my operation to the Mars Commission facility, so I guess I’ll have to part with all these beautiful mountains and resign myself to coastal flatlands, heat, humidity, and occasional hurricanes! Some of the time, at least. If he does say he wants me to move, tell him I’ll do it and that I want at least 160K, and that we should do a three-way negotiation about my duties there. Bye.”
He wondered how she had heard so fast. He thanked her and looked at his other messages. As he scanned everything, Morgan’s announcement arrived. He sent it just as someone knocked on his door.
“Come in. Oh, Alexandra. What can I do for you.”
“You asked me to come at 11, remember!”
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry; I’m still in shock. About an hour ago Douglas Morgan sent me a videomail offering me the position of Assistant Director of the Mars Commission.”
“You mean you’re going back to Earth?”
“No! I’ll remain Commander of Mars Operations. It means as commander, I am also the number two person in the Commission. It greatly strengthens the Outpost’s position in the command structure and should make it easier for us to get what we want and need.”
“Oh; excellent! Congratulations!” Alexandra offered her hand.
Will smiled and shook. “Thank you. It means I haven’t had a chance to pull together my thoughts for our meeting, however. I apologize that we’ve been thinking for a long time—many months—about meeting and resolving our differing philosophies about construction here on Mars. Maybe we can reach some sort of reasonable compromise; I don’t know. We can’t afford to wait any longer, I hope you agree. We have to get started on housing for Columbus 5 and we have to plan the housing for Columbus 6.”
“Oh, I do agree, Will. But maybe compromise is the wrong word. My team and I have been hard at work, thinking about the direction we should take. We’ve changed our ideas radically in the last six months, and you don’t know even what they are. So let’s sit down and I’ll tell you what our philosophy is, down in the Construction Department.”
Will nodded. “Fair enough.” He pulled his chair out from behind the desk and moved it over to a little meeting table, and Alexandra sat in the chair that was already there.
“Rather than starting with a philosophy, let me start with an idea; an image,” said Alexandra. “I’ll get to the philosophy later.” She put her attaché in a stand on Will’s table so that the main screen was vertical and easy for both of them to see. “Display Integrated Design 1, please,” she commanded. Her attaché had no keyboard; Alexandra preferred to do all inputs by voice.
An image appeared on the screen of a circular depression in the ground with a transparent dome over it. A crescent-shaped building hugged the north side below the ground level and was matched by a similar building on the south side, leaving an oval-shaped area between them. The buildings had no details visible on them; no doors and windows; in fact, they appeared to be transparent.
“Add some trees for scale,” commanded Alexandra, and two rows of six trees each appeared along the north and south sides of the oval-shaped middle. “Oh, and add the swimming pool.” A blue pool appeared at the west end in the narrow space between the buildings.
“This is about the size of the dome we have?” asked Will.
“No; bigger. The swimming pool is twelve meters long and three wide. I had to throw one of them in; I know how much you want to go swimming again. The dome is forty meters in diameter and would be manufactured by Adastra Ltd. of Saskatoon, just like our current dome. We’ve worked closely with them over the last six months to design this one. Even though it’s larger, it’ll have a mass of only four tonnes, which means it can be launched into low earth orbit by a Swift Shuttle to save money. The life support and environmental equipment will be built into the two buildings, with a mass of four tonnes per building.”
“How many people are we talking about?”
“This dome will have 1,200 square meters of agricultural space and 1,200 meters of housing and work space, so it can accommodate twenty-four people altogether.”
“How can you provide for that many people with that small an amount of life support mass?” Will sounded skeptical.
“Because this is an integrated system. Right now our Habitats are designed to be self-sufficient; they filter all air and purify all water, then release them into the greenhouses or into the Martian environment. In a pinch, they can release semi-purified air or water instead. In the integrated system, the plants do much of the work to purify the air and a combination of microbes in the soil and sunlight do much of the work to purify the water. The rest is done by equipment we can make here, with some imported filters and equipment for the final purification step.”
“Ah-hah.” Will nodded, absorbing the idea. “And the buildings? They look rather small to me.”
“If they were duricrete, they would be. Each building varies from six to ten meters wide, and if they were of duricrete like Renfrew and Joseph, two meters would be taken up by the thickness of the walls. These buildings have walls just ten centimeters thick. Radiation shielding is provided by the outer wall of the enclosure, by their crescent shape, by the presence of the other building not too far away, and by a roof—including a two-meter overhang—covered by two meters of regolith. The roofs will be agricultural areas, so adding the buildings won’t diminish the space in the dome for farming at all. Computer, add agricultural areas, please.” A moment later the screen changed; both roofs were covered by squares of grains and vegetables, including a rice paddy, while the central area surrounded by trees was covered by other vegetables.
“The area under the overhang will be public space for kids to run,” added Alexandra.
“Now, how are you going to build buildings with walls just ten centimeters thick? You’ll have to make them out of metal to make them airtight. That’s a huge amount of welding and a lot of refining of meteoritic nickel-iron.”
Alexandra shook her head slowly. “That’s the secret ingredient. The buildings, like the dome, are bags of kevlar, nomex, and other plastics manufactured by Adastra. We’ve talked to them about this detail for months. Each building starts its life as a carefully designed bag with exactly the dimensions we want and capable of holding in as much as entire terrestrial atmosphere of pressure. Each one has a mass of only one tonne, too; they’re remarkably light when they have no machinery in them, no floors, no interior walls. The plastic needs to be only one millimeter thick. And they’re transparent; that means when we build the interior structures out of metal and sheetrock, we can put windows anywhere we want, and we can move the windows later. We have no pressure-tight windows to worry about. We inflate the bag, move our building materials in through an airlock, and build an entire building inside the bag, walls flush against the bag’s walls. And we do the same outside, building supports for the extremely heavy roof—that’s one reason to make the building narrow—and erecting a curtain wall over the bag to protect it from damage. And since all the construction is done inside another bag—the dome—no space suits are necessary.”
Will smiled, excited by the proposal. “And what do you call the philosophy?”
“Integrated design. The habitats are integrated into the dome; the large volume of air in the latter dilutes smells and gives them room to break down naturally. The agriculture is integrated into the life support system, removing carbon dioxide from the air. The radiation protection system—regolith on the roofs—is integrated into the life support system as soil for the plants and as water filtration. The trees are integral, as a source of fruits and nuts, a privacy screen in front of the housing, and as an aesthetic element. The swimming pool also is the fish farm, and it can be covered by plexiglass to become a miniature basketball court.”
“And according to your calculations, this requires how much mass imported from Earth?”
“Fourteen tonnes for twenty-four people. That cuts your imports per new arrival in half. Furthermore, each building will require about a third as much work to build as the duricrete structures we’ve relied on so far. The most important construction materials are nickel-steel and sheet rock.” Alexandra turned to the computer. “Project the final image, please.” And the bags were instantly replaced by apartment buildings, with children running around on a patio next to the swimming pool. Adults sat at tables relaxing and eating at another patio.
Will smiled when he saw the last touch. “Very nice. Alexandra, if this really is possible, you deserve a Nobel Prize! No one will want to live in the current outpost any more; they’ll want to live here!”
“That’s the idea, Will. It’s all a part of ‘living well,’ remember! We can convert the existing space into work areas and storage; there will always be a use for it.”
“One minor problem I see is the size. Accommodation for twenty-four is a good size when our flights involve eighteen or nineteen people; it leaves room for future population growth. But it looks like Columbus 6 will involve thirty people.”
Alexandra shrugged. “Then you scale the design up a bit. A fifty-meter dome would have 1960 square meters and could accommodate forty people.”
“Have you run this plan past Rudenkov and the other construction people?”
Alexandra hesitated. “No, I haven’t. They know something about our research, of course. But Pavel, in particular, has a strong commitment to the duricrete construction technique. He developed it here, and Joseph Building is a monument to its success. I am not opposed duricrete buildings, but I have always felt that they were too squat, too thick to be attractive, and too massive to be practical. The plastic bubble technique will work for construction outside as easily as construction inside a dome; we don’t have to build with a meter of duricrete any more.”
“I hear you. You’ve ‘dejustified’ the technique.” Will paused. “I hate the term ‘dejustify.’ It’s a fancy word that means we can’t change because we’ve already done something one way and spent money on that way. Well, too bad. If another way is better, we should switch. We’ll have to talk to Pavel and the other construction folks. We have to get a green light from them. Don’t worry about Pavel; I’ll talk to him and make sure he’s fair.”
“Good; thanks.”
“Of course, we have some time. We can’t get this ready for Columbus 5.”
Alexandra frowned. “Why can’t we? Adastra can make bubbles in three months for about fifty million bucks, total. The technique is the same one used to make the Mars dome; the dimensions are changed, that’s all. Columbus 5 leaves Gateway in seven months. There’s a nuclear rocket launch to Gateway in six months, and the bubbles would have to be part of that shipment.”
“That’s just about impossible, though, because the politics will take seven months. Or even seven years. That’s what I’m afraid of. We have to convince the construction people, then convince the Commission, we’ll probably have to convince either NASA or ESA in the process as well, and then we have to find the money.”
“It’s a good thing you’re Assistant Director, then!” exclaimed Alexandra.
“I never thought of it that way.”
“What about the Mars Exploration Society? This is actually easier than the Mars Dome they sent with Columbus 4. Its mass is two thirds as much and it can be launched using the Swift, which is much cheaper. Adastra will charge less as well, because they already bought and paid for the manufacturing equipment with the Mars Dome contract.”
“MES might be easier and more practical. But it would also be more political because it would undercut other cargo on the manifest already.”
“Maybe if MES proposes it, the Commission will feel compelled to act instead.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t play games like that. And as a result I don’t feel pressure to do so.”
“Okay,” said Alexandra, considering. “I can prepare a detailed proposal. Do you think we could put it on the Outpost’s website? That way we could seek input from the Construction people, the Commission, space agencies, and the public at once.”
Will considered the request for a moment. “Yes, we probably could justify publishing the plan on the grounds that time is short. I want to read the report very carefully before it goes up. This idea will be controversial; I want to be sure it’s right.”
“Okay.” Alexandra smiled. “So, for once, we’re both in agreement about construction priorities?”
Will nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry it was so difficult; but it was worth the wait, I think!”
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That evening, Will was surprised by a big strawberry chocolate cake at supper to congratulate him for his promotion. By and large, everyone at the outpost was thrilled; it strengthened their collective voice in the bureaucratic processes that shaped Martian settlement and exploration.
Two sols later, Alexandra had the Integrated Design proposal finished. The section about the life support equipment ran fifty pages since it involved rethinking and minimizing the work the equipment had to do; appended to the proposal were three reports previously completed, totaling one hundred pages, that specified what a combination of habitat and greenhouse could accomplish. The Mars Dome provided most of the data, and since it had two thirds of the area of the dome being proposed, it represented a reliable source. The main difference was the lack of wastewater treatment in the Mars Dome, but several greenhouses provided that data. The paper was a massive technical tour de force justifying the new approach. Its importance was immediately recognized.
But it was also immediately controversial. A day-long panel discussion about it involving Alexandra and her staff, Pavel Rudenkov and his staff, Will Elliot, and Doug Morgan, only partially resolved the concerns, but it was sufficient for Morgan to act. “I’ll tell you what I took away from the discussion, Will,” said Morgan the next sol. “There are an awful lot of technical matters to be resolved, it is true. But everyone agrees—or concedes—that it’s a good idea to build buildings inside their own customized bubbles; it’s simple and safe, though no one is yet sure exactly what procedures are necessary to do it. And everyone agrees or concedes it’s a good idea to build buildings inside domes; not only does it protect the buildings further from the Martian environment, but potentially it integrates the life support systems better.
“But now to the technical matters. No one is sure exactly what combination of life support equipment is needed, though the guesses seem to be pretty good. The construction folks in Moscow are upset because all their assumptions and approaches have been rendered partially ineffective. By the way, I think they made some excellent points that the construction schedule Alexandra proposed was optimistic. The construction support crew in Moscow isn’t doing the actual construction work; that has to fall on the people at the Outpost. From what I see, the construction team up there is unanimous and enthusiastic in their support. So the Moscow people will have to come around.
“In sum, I’m on board. I think this is an exciting new development. Our problems are two-fold. First, we have to assure ourselves that redundancy will be sufficient if the cargo were lost en route to Mars or if the dome-habitat combination fails. With the reconstruction plan Lescov has been pursuing, the Outpost currently can accommodate forty-six; Columbus 5 raises your population to forty-seven, which is too high in an emergency situation. Clearly, we need a backup. Maybe Habitat 5 and another Mars dome will do that, but together their mass is twenty-two tonnes; a lot to haul to Mars. Possibly we can reduce that somewhat if we have time to plan the use of life support equipment that could work for either habitat-dome combination.
“If the dome-habitat combination is successful, you’ll have a capacity to accommodate about seventy people; if Columbus 6 flies thirty and everyone were to stay you’d have seventy-seven, so we have the redundancy problem again. Maybe the problem can be solved if we fly out fifteen tonnes of extra food, since you have plenty of water, and plenty of electricity to make oxygen. I suspect there are other combinations we could investigate as well, because the dome-habitat combination and the Mars dome—habitat 5 combination could overlap substantially. I want you and Alexandra to take the lead and work on that problem, in close collaboration with the key folks down here.
“Our second problem is identifying a source of money to pay for this. The Canadians are an obvious place to start, since the money will go to Saskatoon. I’ll work on that.
“We don’t have much time, and we can anticipate lobbying against the proposal, especially by the Russian Space Agency. Let me think how we can get Turner involved in that. But we’ll do our best. Bye.”
Will had to smile as the screen went black. Morgan was more convinced than he was. He hit reply. “Good sol, Doug. I think I’m more concerned about some aspects of the plan that you are. I’m particularly concerned by Pavel’s calculation that the construction will take at least as long and maybe longer than the duricrete technique, which we know works, and which much of the crew here has experience with.
“But the crew has experience with the sheetrock and metal beam construction technique as well, and we have experience with Mars domes. I will indeed work with Alexandra to resolve the cargo manifest issues. It may be easiest to plan for a fourth automated cargo vehicle; with over fifty human beings on Mars, I think it’s hard to avoid flying four of them, unless we can get more cargo on the ITVs. I suppose we’ll look into that, too.
“I am very excited working with you on this project; I have this feeling we may actually be getting to the point where the Mars and ground support teams will be united in their goals. It’s been a real struggle, as you know; the speed of light is just too slow. Maybe we’re creating a culture of communication that can overcome the barriers.
“On another matter, yestersol I emailed you about Silvio Diponte, husband of Julia Diponte, the robotics expert. Have you contacted him to see whether he might be interested in coming to Mars? He’s a lawyer, an accountant, and a businessman; exactly the skills we need up here. He was top of his class, too; he’s smart. And they’re both in their early thirties and childless; a perfect combination for Mars. I’d like to see him considered for Columbus 5.
“We’ll talk more later. Bye.”
Will sent the message and then videomailed Alexandra asking her to come by at 3 p.m. to begin the work Morgan had assigned to them. Then he began to review the cargo manifest; a deceptively simple list of items that fit together with each other, and with everything already on Mars, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. An hour later he got a call from Louisa Turner.
“Good sol, Will. Thought I’d let you know that Morgan has just asked me to spend next week in Europe, mostly Paris, to work on the Europeans about the new integrated design plan. It would seem there’s no one in the Mars Commission headquarters who can speak half decent French. What’s the world coming to; or at least, what’s le monde anglais coming to? I’m sure the French feel barbarians are sweeping across the world and closing in on the true center of civilization, that is, Paris. I’ll do my best. I wish you all had invited me to sit in on the panel discussion yesterday; now I have to watch six hours of videotapes and get two hours of briefings. When I get back I’ll be going to Houston to find an apartment; I plan to keep my house in Boulder, the mountains are just too beautiful. I’ll definitely split my time between the two places.
“One thing I told Morgan that I am sure he is ignoring; maybe you’ll pay attention. ‘Integrated design’ is a nice phrase for the philosophy, but it has to be accompanied by a name for the thing being built. ‘Dome’ and ‘habitat’ are taken. Even ‘hab’ is used. You need something else that conveys the sense of ‘house’ and the sense of ‘ecology’ or ‘space.’
“Otherwise, the media can’t talk about our plan easily, and that’s a problem. There was coverage about it today on one web page I check and it was titled ‘A House in a Bottle.’ The image they ran was of one of those old sailing ships in a bottle! It was clever, it was funny, and the article was favorable, but the impression was wrong. We need a name. Think about it. Bye.”
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Will and Alexandra reviewed the cargo manifest closely and came up with a few ideas, but none that would save enough mass. Lisa arrived and reviewed the consumables manifest; they could save mass there, but at the expense of quality of life, because many of the imports were of items they could not make or raise on Mars, like steak and toothpaste. Roger and Ethel came in and reviewed the scientific and manufacturing components, respectively. They had a few ideas that helped save about a tonne of imports, but at the expense of hours of additional work on Mars.
“This is not working,” said Roger. “I think we’ll have to fly a fourth ACV. Is that possible?”
Will shrugged. “Probably. There’s a backup unit available that could be used. But we’re talking about the cost of manufacturing the extra fifteen tonnes of stuff, which is probably fifteen million bucks; launching it into orbit is fifteen million; mating with the ion engine and ion vehicle operations is one million; maintenance and refurbishing of the ACV is five million; lunar propellant to push it to Mars is three million; altogether that’s 39 million bucks. If we can avoid that expense, and if the moon can use the cargo that’s already been manufactured, it’s a big savings.”
“It seems to me there is one solution to the problem,” said Ethel. “And that’s to be consistent. Are we confident in this new system or not? It’s based on the Mars Dome that we’ve been enjoying for over a year now and on the life support and agricultural systems we’ve been operating here for seven years. It isn’t a radical new technology. We can make the new system work one way or another. If unexpected things happen, we patch the dome, we jury-rig the life support, or whatever. We’re not dealing with rocket engines that can explode and strand us.
“So, my suggestion is very simple. Cut out the Mars dome that’s already scheduled. Why would we need a second one if this new integrated system is better? That saves fifteen tonnes and allows us to import one of the new eleven-tonne systems, with four tonnes to spare. If we eliminate the three tonnes of building parts we had planned to import for the new duricrete building, that’s seven of the eleven tonnes we need. Finally, we have these two six-tonne habitats for Phobos and Deimos, respectively. They come with micrometeoroid armor that makes them very heavy. But we plan to bury the habitats anyway, and the chance of them being punctured before burial is very small; furthermore, we can supply armoring here, and can patch small micrometeoroid holes anyway. So I’d replace those two habs with reinforced plastic bubbles lacking the micrometeoroid protection. That would reduce each to four tonnes, free up four tonnes, and raise our surplus to eleven tonnes. That allows us to import two of these new systems, which gives us plenty of redundancy.”
“That’s brilliant!” exclaimed Alexandra. “I would have never dared suggest it!”
“We dejustify the Mars Exploration Society’s contribution,” said Will. “That’s a problem. But we need to sell this not as a rejection of their system, but as a child of it.”
“Of course,” agreed Alexandra. “This new system would have been impossible without their dome.”
“You haven’t completely balanced the manifest, though,” pointed out Roger. “Because there’s still six to ten tonnes of cargo on the ‘priority 2’ list. If you eliminate some of the items on the ‘priority 1’ list, people will want their stuff on the ‘priority 2’ list to be flown instead.”
“That’s true; we make enemies by bumping some priority 1 cargo and we make more enemies by rejecting their ‘priority 2’ cargo.” Will pondered the problem.
There was a long, discouraged silence. “I have always wondered why we didn’t fly more on the ITVs, though,” said Lisa. “They can safely aerobrake sixteen tonnes into orbit. That’s supposed to include up to four tonnes of consumables, but the consumables are scheduled for consumption on the flight out. It does give the ITVs spare aerobraking capacity to go into orbit. But why not fly out more consumables on the ITVs? If the mass is too much for aerobraking, jettison some of it.”
“That would increase our total transportation capacity sufficiently,” agreed Roger. “No one would have ever agreed to that suggestion in the past, but these ITVs have been flown several times. They’re known to be reliable.”
“They could always spray an extra half tonne of ablatant onto the aeroshield,” added Ethel. “They know how to do that. Yes, it’s additional mass. No one would have dared do something like that on Columbus 1 or even Columbus 2. But this is Columbus 5.”
“The technology is better,” agreed Will. “Of course, each tonne of cargo needs about two cubic meters of volume, and you are decreasing the housing space on what will be a crowded flight. But that’s easier to fix. There’s usually extra cargo volume on the shuttles. Either it could be used for housing, or it could store cargo until a week before the aerobraking maneuvers.” Will nodded. “Yes, that might work. I’ll propose it.”
“And the deliberation will go on for two or three months,” growled Roger.
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The entire outpost was abuzz at supper that evening about how to resolve the cargo problem. Will also told everyone about the problem of a name for the integrated system, but the various suggestions, like “habidome” did not seem right.
As supper wound down, Rosa and Neal Stroger rose and started to walk around the Outpost. Rosa was overdue by a week and she wanted the baby—a boy—out. The walking helped start some contractions. Soon everyone heard that she had headed for sick bay. The Great Room in Habitat 2 became a large waiting room. All night people came, drank a cup of mint tea, heard the latest, then left.
The next morning, the baby was still not born. People brought their breakfasts to sit and wait a while, then went to work. The same happened at lunch and supper; it was a long labor.
“Poor dear,” said Ethel, shaking her head. She looked at her watch. “It’s now twenty-four hours.”
“I’m glad I’m never going to have a child,” said Alexandra.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” replied Madhu. “And look at me!”
“Well, I’m now 42 and being careful,” replied Alexandra. “And neither of us wants a baby. And I love my work.”
“‘Lieben und arbeiten,’” said Ethel, quoting Freud’s famous “love and work” adage that had been quoted at the “Living Well” conference. “Say, Alexandra, speaking of work: how do you like the term ‘oasis’ to describe the dome-habitat combination?”
“‘Oasis.’” Alexandra pondered. “A possibility, I suppose.”
“Except we’ve been using ‘oasis’ to refer to places where we may establish temporary bases,” noted Madhu. “The term’s already used.”
“I personally wish we could call them ‘mirs,’” exclaimed Alexandra. “A ‘mir’ is a marvelous Russian term; it means peace, but it also means a peaceful place, a peaceful community. It has utopian connotations.”
“But it’s language specific,” noted Madhu. “Which is a problem.”
“And the term will remind everyone of the old Mir Spacestation,” added Ethel.
“I rather like ‘dome,’” noted Madhu. “It’s too bad we’ve already used the term. It means ‘house’ in Russian, after all, so it has connotations of space in English and home in Russian. The word’s widely used in French and other romance languages as well.”
“The term ‘Mars Dome’ has killed it,” said Ethel, shrugging. “Which is too bad. I never liked ‘Mars dome’ anyway. It worked well for the Earth media, but sounds strange when we use it here!”
“There’s always ‘habidome,’” said Alexandra. “But it’s long, it starts with a sound that many languages—including Russian—lack, and it feels clumsy.”
“How about ‘biodome’ then?” suggested Madhu. “It eliminates the ‘h’ and captures the life aspect of the structure.”
“Still rather long,” replied Ethel. “And it stresses the agricultural side at the expense of the life side. ‘Biohome’ would capture both, I suppose.”
“But it has an ‘h’ and a word from one language,” noted Alexandra.
“Yes. Hum.” Madhu thought. “Then what about ‘biome’? It’s a system integrating life together; plant life, animal life, human life. And it has a certain climate; each one of our domes will have a climate and appropriate vegetation for that climate. And it’s a scientific word widely used in most languages, or readily translatable. Doesn’t that capture what we’re talking about?”
Alexandra smiled. “Biome! I like it! Short, and it works in a vast number of languages!”
Ethel nodded. “I agree. It’s something we might be able to use.”
“Thank you, Madhu!” exclaimed Alexandra. She stood up. “I think I’ll go tell Will. Where is he?”
“Putting the kids to bed; you’ll have to wait. Marshall will want him to read at least four stories and won’t want to say his prayers without mama.”
“Okay.” Alexandra sat, disappointed.
There was the sound of a baby crying. All three of them leaned forward at once. “That’s coming from the sick bay,” said Madhu.
“I think so,” agreed Ethel. “There’s an announcement to make!”
“Richard Allen Stroger has greeted the world,” agreed Alexandra.
© 2004 Robert H. Stockman