9

Midpoint

Horizontal rays of the early evening sun slanted across the biome and bounced off the silvered hemisphere covering the eastern half of the bubble, reflecting a bright, midday-like sunlight onto the yard. Will paused just outside building 1’s revolving door to watch Lal Shankaraman pull hard vinyl panels across the swimming pool, covering it. “Hey Will, do you want to play some basketball? I need one more on my team.” Lal was wearing a tee shirt and shorts, the sort of outfit that, before the biome had been occupied, no one ever wore around the Outpost. The swimming pool, lying between the two baskets, would soon be a part of the basketball court.

“Thanks; maybe tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting to go to right now.”

“A meeting at 7 p.m.?”

“Well, it’s 10 a.m. in Houston right now.”

“Oh, of course.”

Will turned and headed across the yard between the buildings, then across the patio, where a dozen residents still sat and drank coffee after supper. The patio had become their permanent eating spot, facilitated by the relocation of the kitchen into building 1 last month. The first and garden levels of building 2 housed Silvio’s new store; only five meters by six, it was small, but neat. Silvio waved as Will walked by.

A short walk put him in Clarke Dome, 32 meters in diameter. Their old “park” was now devoted to agriculture, packed with vegetables and fruit trees, with a rice paddy and tilapia pond occupying one side. The only public space was a small, secluded paved area with a bench and flowers overlooking the pond. Lisa Kok was cleaning the pond’s filter; he paused while she finished, then they walked together. “What’s the topic of this meeting?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, but it sounds pretty urgent.”

“They aren’t complaining about the dacha, are they? That misunderstanding took you two sols to fix.”

“Well, I did other things during those two sols as well. No, they finally accepted the plan, and not just to humor us. We completely Yalta a month ago and we’ve started excavating the space for Catalina. We have plenty of people and equipment left over to set up the foundations for our dacha, and not much else to do with them right now.”

“I hope it isn’t the ecology here. I’m afraid the setup transition has been pretty difficult; the biome won’t be functioning at full efficiency for at least a year. The buildup of nitrogen oxides in the air has been particularly tricky and I think we’ll have to conduct another purge of the atmosphere in early June. It appears to be needed once every six weeks for a while.”

“I saw your memo. Don’t worry, I don’t think ecology is the issue of this meeting. And we’ll have Catalina pressurized in a few months, so we’ll have plenty of time to set up its agriculture. We won’t be rushed.”

“Then what is the problem?”

Will shrugged. “Public relations, probably.”

“It has been dismal, lately, and NASA’s support hasn’t been great, either.” Will nodded, and he judged Lisa’s comment as a bit extreme, but it was true they had not recovered from publicity damage done by the dust storm and their more complex social life. They continued through the habitats to his office in silence.

Roger Anderson, Pete Theodoulos, and Alexandra Lescov—the other three Will had invited—were already waiting for him. Will’s “kitchen cabinet” or senior staff was logically chosen: Roger was in charge of science and exploration, Pete the spaceport and all their space vehicles and was also chair of the Borough government, Alexandra their construction and manufacturing, and Lisa their environment and agriculture, or “ecology” as it was now being called.

I think the conference call has already started coming in,” Pete said, pointing to a red light on Will’s attaché that indicated it was receiving a message.

“Probably; they’re early,” agreed Will. He pulled his chair out from behind his desk while Lisa grabbed a spare chair from the bridge. They arranged their chairs around half of a table in the front of Will’s office, facing a large screen on Will’s wall. Then Will pushed a few icons on his attaché’s screen and the recorded video appeared on the screen.

A similar table in Houston appeared, with the Mars Commission’s senior staff: Douglas Morgan, the Commissioner; Louisa Turner, Director of Public Relations; Ginger Petropoulos, Director of Mars Sales; their old friend from Columbus 3, Pavel Rudenkov, who was the new Director of Technological Development; and Krister Soderblom, Director of Governmental Relations. Two tables of people guaranteed that something would be said most of the time in spite of the time delay.

“Good sol to all of you,” exclaimed Morgan. “We’re convening this meeting because over the last month a serious situation has been developing here on Earth that must be dealt with somehow. To put it simply: we’re losing public interest and with it, financial support. And it’s not clear what we can do about it, though much of the solution probably has to come from Mars, not the Mars Commission. Louisa, you start.”

“Okay, Doug. You already know about the problem in public relations, so I’ll be brief. During Columbus 4 the public interest was so great, we were able to initiate the ‘message of the month’ and focus interviews of crew members, especially the Commander, on that theme. That way public education about the Mars Project around the world was coordinated and reinforced itself. Columbus 4 had some flashy media events, too; the top of Olympus Mons and both the North and South Poles. Exploration was going somewhere. There was also the birth of quite a few babies, which made life on Mars look like a more glamorous and exciting version of middle class life on Earth.

“But the last six months—after Columbus 5’s successful arrival lost its interest and the largest dust storm in thirty years descended upon the planet—have been a media disaster. We had some shots of astronauts bouncing around on Deimos, but the public bored of that pretty quickly, and the scientific exploration of Deimos does not make good t.v. There was a flurry of interest in the new science paper that purports to demonstrate where Phobos and Deimos were physically attached to each other and when they were captured by Mars, but obviously that has dissipated fast. The question of ‘dawn life’ has gotten old and the biologists have not made any new discoveries. The issues of divorce and homosexuality have not played out well in many areas of the world, as you can imagine. And interest in the biome has been tempered by the feeling that you all are no longer roughing it very much. Clearly, if we’re going to salvage things, we need to get the focus back on exploration, especially if we are to compete with Magellan, which has dominated space news lately. Also, a greater focus on human interest stories might help. Christina Csakany, by the way, has been very effective on Hungarian television, and Tina Hvitmer’s skills as a video journalist are excellent. She’s made Deimos about as interesting as is humanly possible.” She looked at Ginger, who apparently was scheduled to speak next.

“The decline in public interest has caused range land and fossil sales to drop,” said Ginger. “Columbus 4 saw the peak in sales: $225 million of real estate and $120 million in fossiliferous Mars rocks in two years. The peak seems to be an indication of market saturation. The price of Mars rocks has dropped by thirty percent and demand is fifty percent weaker, so sales since August have been only $12 million, roughly a third of what it would have been in a comparable period during Columbus 4. Range sales in the last eight months have been $40 million, half as much as during the same time period during Columbus 4. Overall, we’re looking at income from land and rocks of $120 million during Columbus 5 instead of $295 million during Columbus 4. We had projected $300 million, so we now have a $180 million deficit we had not anticipated.”

“And that’s not our only deficit,” added Morgan. “Let me talk about our relationship with NASA and the U.S. government. As you know, last year the eight-year Republican administration was replaced by a very different Democrat administration. They are very concerned that the United States gave up its dominance of the Columbus Project to an international Mars Commission and for a while considered taking the Mars effort back. When that proved unworkable, they asked NASA to plan a series of staffed asteroid missions, including at least one to an asteroid that goes beyond the orbit of Mars. Project Argo will involve landing on a series of at least two, and probably three or four asteroids, staying on each one two to three months to explore it thoroughly, making hydrogen and oxygen fuel from the rocks while there, then heading on to the next asteroid. The mission would last three to five years. It would also explore three or four more asteroids remotely or via flyby. The mission will aim to test interplanetary technology for longer periods of time; Jupiter and Mercury missions may very well be in the fifteen-year planning horizon. NASA has also been commanded to put more resources into Earth orbit industrialization; basically, helping U.S. companies to fly manufacturing experiments in Earth orbit. NASA is also supporting Boeing in its effort to build its own reusable shuttle like the Swift, but cheaper, if that’s possible.

“The Mars and Lunar Commissions will be gradually cut loose, at least partially so. The moon is now doing rather well, between a billion dollars per year of tourism and a billion dollars of leases of land with ice regolith and meteoritic nickel-iron to private fuel-making companies. It may be able to do more light manufacturing for low earth orbit, too. But Mars is much less able to handle its costs. In practical terms, it means that we will have about five hundred million per year less money for developing new technology for use on Mars, and we won’t be getting any more reactors. I doubt we’ll get any more Mars shuttles or ITVs, either. Krister, speak about government relations.”

Soderblom nodded. “My main job right now is ‘selling’ our 30 positions on Columbus 6. The United States has cut back its commitment to only four slots, and seems generally to feel that Mars doesn’t need any more people than it has now. Of course France won’t be flying anyone, since Magellan has had big cost overruns. The Europeans together will fly maybe four people. Russia will commit to four; I think they rightly see an opportunity to increase their position on Mars. The Chinese are also flying four. But that’s only sixteen, leaving fourteen more. I’m afraid you won’t get many couples, since the remaining countries can only afford to fly one citizen. So far, I’ve got ten commitments from Australia, Chile, Canada, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia. The other four are looking pretty hard to fill. The Mars Exploration Society may manage to fill one slot, and Muller Mining might send someone to work their holdings to export gold. We never thought selling slots would be so difficult, and many countries will be sending people who do not have experience here in the Commission, so the new residents will not have the same characteristics.” Soderblom looked at Rudenkov, who spread his hands.

“I don’t have much to add. With NASA cutting a billion a year from its Mars and lunar technology programs, we can’t expect a new generation of vehicles any time soon. The reactor development program has been suspended altogether; this administration is much greener than the last. The solid-core nuclear engines are getting regular use launching personnel from low Earth orbit to Gateway, though commercial carriers are refusing to consider them because of their cost. Apparently they’ll refuse them even when a Swift shuttle able to launch hydrogen cheaply starts to fly. The Russian and Canadian commitment to surface structures remains strong, and European commitments to ecology and medicine are unchanging so far, so we can still count on them.”

“I suppose the only good news we have is that the Swift Shuttle has been doing so well launching tourists to low Earth orbit,” noted Morgan. “It has already accumulated 258 launches, all safe. With experience and slightly larger payloads, the operating costs have now dropped to $700 per kilo. So launch costs all the way to Mars are now $1,500 per kilo, rather than $2,000. If Swift’s technology could be applied to a second-generation Mars shuttle, we’d have a much cheaper and more reliable vehicle. But no one will spend that money for some time; we may have to have a mission failure first, I fear.

“Declining launch costs means we can send 100 tonnes of cargo to Mars with Columbus 5 for about $150 million. If we extend the amortization schedule to cover the ITV and Mars shuttle costs to 26 years—12 columbiads—and cut back slightly on refurbishment costs, we can fly each person to Mars for about $50 million. This is roughly a tenth the cost per person of Columbus 1. The rate we’re charging—$100 million up front and $10 million per year for twenty years if the person stays on Mars that long—will cover our operating costs and leave some money for technology development. So the wolf’s not at the door, not yet. But as you can see, we’re in a potentially tight spot.

“What we’re asking you guys to do is help us solve the problem. We don’t expect answers right away; this is not a true teleconference. Let’s plan on meeting again in 24 hours—one day, not one sol—and see what progress can be made. Maybe a daily meeting for the next week or so will keep us moving forward.”

The image froze; the transmission had ended. Will was surprised that a response was not expected.

“We can be thankful they asked us, rather than telling us what to do,” noted Pete. “All of those people are bright and full of ideas, and they know our situation here in detail.”

“Morgan’s good that way,” replied Will. “I’m sure everyone will compare our ideas against their mental list. We’ll hear their ideas after they hear ours, I think.”

“We should be able to kick-start exploration very soon,” said Roger. “The global dust storm has been clearing steadily. Solar power output is up to 70% of normal, right?”

“Correct,” said Lisa. “It sounds like we’ll be using a lot more solar power, too!”

“Pete, what’s the thinking about the Elysium? That they should be able to land late next week?”

“Correct. The Apollonaris is scheduled to launch in three sols, visit Phobos, and pick up the rest of the cargo. Then both shuttles will come down. We had better be sure they land safely, too.”

“Once they’re back, let’s get at least one expedition out,” said Will. “And let’s make sure we include some spectacular scenery! Roger, I know science is your department and not scenery, but plan on both.”

“Aye aye, Commander.” Roger sounded a bit disappointed, but recognized the inevitable.

“’We’ve got to increase exports,” noted Pete. “Every kilo to low Earth orbit is worth at least $700, which is the cost of using the Swift shuttles to get it to orbit.”

“We’ve already extracted some platinum-group metals from meteoritic nickel-iron,” exclaimed Lisa. “They’re looking into it on the moon.”

Will shook his head. “The problem is that typical M-class asteroidal material is about 35 parts per million platinum-group metals. That’s 35 grams—about an ounce—per tonne. Our equipment can maybe process fifty tonnes a year, 100 per columbiad. So that’s only 3.5 kilograms, worth about $75,000.”

“I’m skeptical the lunar plans will ever materialize,” added Pete. “It isn’t clear anyone will invest the half billion bucks to overcome all the problems. The technology has to be scaled up a hundred fold, the moon has to import large quantities of carbon, and it’ll need a lot of power.”

“The most valuable thing Mars has in quantity that’s readily available is gold,” said Roger, reluctantly. “And we know where a lot of it can be found, thanks to the detailed remote sensing we’ve done by sunwing and from orbit over the last ten years. It’s too bad the economics of gold export are so bad.”

“Bad?” asked Pete.

“The calculations were done five years ago, Roger,” said Will. “No one was sure about the Swift shuttle then, or the continuing maturation of the transportation system.”

“I think things have changed!” exclaimed Pete. “Right now gold is worth at least ten million bucks per tonne on Earth! If we could export fifty tonnes, the 500 million dollars would cover almost a sixth of the Mars Commission’s costs per columbiad. The more, the better.”

“Fifty tonnes?” laughed Roger. “That would take a lot of human resources, and that’s something we don’t have.”

“On the other hand, if the thirty newcomers could devote their first two years here to gold harvesting, surely they’d pay for their entire trip,” noted Alexandra. “Gold should be much cheaper to harvest here than on Earth because we’ll go after only the richest deposits.”

“We don’t have the equipment to pursue gold in large quantities,” objected Roger.

“Something for Columbus 6 to import,” replied Will.

“So much for science.” Roger scowled.

“They didn’t say anything about a high-speed trip here using the SCN-25,” noted Lisa, changing the subject. “I wonder if that’s out.”

“Probably,” replied Pete. “Nuclear engines cost too much money to build and operate; the combination of solar-ion engines to Gateway and lunar-manufactured chemical fuel for trans-Mars injection is cheaper.”

“And the current American administration is leery of nuclear engines anyway,” added Will. “I suspect we can use an SCN-25 for a late flight of additional personnel or cargo, though.”

“I think we need to get everyone involved in this discussion,” said Lisa. “We can trust the residents to keep it confidential.”

Will considered the idea. “Let’s give people the option. We’ll need the morning to collect background information. Let’s invite obvious people to join us, like Silvio. Others can participate if they want.”

--------------------------

They brainstormed an hour or so, then went home to think about the problem and invite others to help. After breakfast the next morning they took over the lounge outside the bridge in Habitat 2 and talked further, then divided into smaller groups to concentrate on specific problems.

“If you want to sell more land, you have to demonstrate the possibility of profit,” said Silvio to the exports task force. “Muller Mining has sunk 125 million bucks into mineral leases here, but Muller is an exception; he invested with a fifty-year return in mind. Most investors have to think in terms of ten years, and five is even better.”

“Demand for fossiliferous rocks is dropping, too,” added Will. “Gold seems to be the easiest, most valuable export we have.”

Silvio nodded. “I gather we’ve identified four gold-bearing zones. I’d send expeditions to all of them to prospect.”

“But we’re already planning some pretty exciting science,” replied Roger. “It would be a distraction to science to spend weeks prospecting for gold.”

“We’ll have to combine science with prospecting, just as we combine science with media coverage now,” replied Will. “This is a real world problem.”

“I know,” replied Roger with a growl in his voice. “We have to do what we have to do.”

“I think we can harvest quite a lot of gold, even with the existing equipment, if we find the right lode,” exclaimed Érico. “Earth has a history of incredibly rich spots; Mars should be the same. Even now we could send out a team of six or eight to harvest gold. I see no reason why we couldn’t harvest ten tonnes.”

“I agree,” said Lal. “The deposit at Candor Vallis is still rich, even if we have recovered the richest spots.”

“Remember we only have capacity to send a hundred tonnes back to Earth every columbiad,” warned Roger.

“Not necessarily,” replied Pete. “I’ve been doing some calculating. The automated cargo landers only have to burn off 700 meters per second of velocity to settle into orbit around Earth. That’s less delta-vee than aerobraking into Mars orbit. The 2.4 tonne aeroshields can put 24 tonnes into orbit at that delta-vee, and if we spray on ablative compounds to thicken the shields they could haul 30 or 40 tonnnes.”

“But how will we get it up there?” asked Roger. “It’ll burn out the shuttles!”

“A shuttle can launch with 150 tonnes fuel; enough to put it and over forty tonnes of cargo into a low Mars orbit, with enough fuel left over to land an empty shuttle here safely,” replied Pete. “The shuttle could be greeted in low orbit by a Lifter; fully fueled on Phobos, a Lifter can reach low Mars orbit with 48 tonnes of fuel, which is enough to push the cargo all the way to Earth. The Lifters are much simpler technology than the shuttles, so we have to minimize the stress on the shuttles and maximize the use of the Lifters.”

Will nodded. “So, you think we can use an ACV to carry up to forty tonnes to Earth?”

“I think so, if we reinforce the heat shield so that it can use repeated incremental aerobraking to reach a low orbit. The reaction control system will be rather weak and would need some reprogramming, but it would be adequate. The navigational system doesn’t care whether it’s guiding ten tonnes or a thousand. Gold is dense so it doesn’t take up much volume.”

“It may take some work to convince Mission Control, however,” said Roger. “What’s the life of the Lifters? Ten round trips each before reconditioning?”

“The big issue for us is number of years before reconditioning,” replied Pete. “The Lifters were designed for ten round trips between the lunar surface and Shackleton. We keep them here three columbiads—about seven years from Earth departure to Earth return—and in that period we never use their full flight capacity.”

“But we can come close,” noted Will. “In addition to the flight to Mars and the flight back to Earth, they have to fly from Phobos with fuel every time a mission arrives and every time it leaves,” noted Will. “That’s eight uses in three columbiads. But you’re right, this is much less demanding than taking off against lunar gravity. Except for trans-Mars injection and trans-Earth injection, the other maneuvers are low-powered.”

“If we used one engine for everything but the interplanetary flights, we could extend the number of firings,” suggested Pete.

“Not if we’re using the engines to push forty tonnes of cargo; that’ll require a pretty long burn,” replied Roger.

“Never mind; we’ll resolve these details later,” said Will. “Roger, can you send out expeditions to the various gold deposits? A six week exploration of the upper Marineris system would get gold and great video.”

“We can do it,” he agreed, reluctantly. “We could use the gold deposit as a base of operations and explore while part of the team runs the equipment. One deposit east of Cassini Crater is near fretted terrain in Deuteronilus, an area we’ve wanted to visit for some time.”

“Let’s plan on it,” agreed Will. “Of course, science oriented around gold digging probably won’t generate great publicity.”

“I think we can partially solve that problem,” said Silvio slowly, thinking through his idea. “What we do is send out two teams, one for science and one for gold recovery. This is what we really will be doing, too, since one is stationary and the other mobile, and one will consist of geologists while the other will be technicians. And to underline the difference, we need to set up another department here: a department of natural resource recovery. It would be responsible for excavating all natural resources, whether it’s duricrust to make duricrete or gold nuggets. It would send out the gold recovery teams.”

There was a silence. “It would resolve the gray area we have right now about the responsibility for obtaining resources,” commented Roger. “Right now, sometimes it falls on my people and sometimes on Alexandra’s.”

“That may continue,” replied Will. “Because some resources are needed in bulk and are close by—like sand—while others are far away and require our exploration equipment. But I like that idea, Silvio. If exports are to become a big part of our work here, we’ll need to have a department of natural resource recovery.”

“I think we need a department of exports, too,” said Silvio. “With a head here and a head on Earth. The terrestrial functionary would sign contracts with companies to extract resources from their Martian property and export them to the Earth for the companies to sell. And the place to start is with Muller Mining, A.G. Hans Muller had the foresight or generosity to purchase 125 million in range land. If he could send equipment, we could use it and get him a product to sell. Then more companies would be clamoring for a chance to invest here.”

“That’s true,” said Will. “And our export costs are pretty low, especially if you attribute the shuttle costs to the outbound flight and not the return. Those are excellent suggestions, Silvio.”

“Thank you; sometimes it takes a businessman. But don’t ask me to run exports; between the store, the bank, and inventory, I’m fully occupied!”

Everyone chuckled. Will turned to John Hunter, Enlai Tang, and Martha Vickers, who had walked up to the circle. They had been talking about science goals.

“We have a radical idea,” said Martha.

“That’s probably good, right now.”

“Quite a few geologists and eobiologists here teach courses by video link and email on Earth. We also have a dozen people here with Master’s degrees who are working on doctorates or want to work on doctorates. We’ve already offered tutorial courses to several of them for credit at their respective universities. So we were thinking that, with about thirty Ph.D.s here, we should establish a university.”

“Well, not any sort of university; the ‘Mariner Academy,’ like a military academy but for space exploration,” added Enlai. “Obviously, it won’t amount to much right now; it’ll be small and poor. But it has specialized resources, since the thirty of us have very remarkable training and experience.”

“But we’d have almost no students!” noted Roger, and he even laughed a little.

“That’s not such a problem,” said Martha. “We can videotape lectures and answer questions by videomail. If we have good ground support on Earth, we could have a fair number of students, and they could be located all over the Earth; the time zone would be irrelevant.”

“We’d offer the courses in collaboration with other institutions, then,” said Will.

“Of course, through a distance-learning consortium, like MIT’s or the Sorbonne’s. They’re already reaching hundreds of thousands of students,” said Enlai.

“It wouldn’t raise much money,” noted Silvio. “But it would be good outreach for Mars.”

“I don’t know that I like the image,” commented Lal. “Space exploration doesn’t need a Sandhurst or West Point. Perhaps ‘Mariner Institute of Technology’ would be better; a science and engineering oriented university based here in the Mariner Valleys.”

Will smiled. “So, in one sol we’ve founded Mars’s first export firm and its first university!”

The others laughed. “Why not,” said Boris Ivanov, who was a sociologist. “This world needs institutions, too. And just because we only have forty-seven adults here is no reason to wait. Our forty-seven people have the technology and education to accomplish as much as a small city in the past.”

“I’m afraid one thing this means is that all of us will have to work harder,” commented Pete. “Especially those of us who are single or who have left our families on Earth. The last month has been a peaceful and lazy time; the biome has been finished and the storm has kept us confined here. We started on the dacha, but not Catalina. But now that has to change.”

“I think so,” agreed Will. He looked at Silvio. “And pretty soon we may have a few other changes, too; we may have to institute use fees for things like electricity, water, even the cafeteria. If we do that, I’ll see to it that we get raises to cover the costs as well. If we work longer hours, that will be an easier transition.”

“Why would we need such fees, though?” asked Érico, suspiciously.

Will spoke slowly, because the capitalism/socialism clash was a longstanding one. “We appear to be moving toward a time when not everyone living here will be working for the Mars Commission. We may have employees of mining companies living here, for example. And those of us who have lived here four or six years, possibly, could acquire the right to retire fully or partly and start our own consulting businesses or mining outfits. Or for that matter, someone might want to open a restaurant or some other small business. Under those circumstances, everything can’t be free; the non-members of the Commission shouldn’t get a free ride, and restaurant owners would face competition from a cafeteria that didn’t have to cover its expenses.”

“Ultimately, fees for products and services is the only efficient way to run an economy,” agreed Silvio. “And while we’re still rather small, we’re just about to a point where we can say that Mars has an economy.”

“Strange, to think we have an economy,” said Kim Irion, who had been sitting and listening so far. “Maybe we should hoist the Mars flag above the Outpost after all!”

Just then Ethel, Lisa, and Alexandra approached. They had been off talking about construction, ecology, and fabrication. “Oh, you have results too?” asked Will.

“Each of us,” agreed Ethel. “The carbonyl metal processing unit can turn out tonne of nickel-steel per sol and has been operated half time for the last year in order to make the metals needed for construction. In the process of making one hundred tonnes of nickel-steel from iron meteorites, it has purified 3.5 kilograms of platinum group metals worth $75,000 dollars. There has been a lot of talk on Earth about exploiting the resources of asteroids; well, Mars is littered with them, and we’re already here, with the equipment to exploit the resources. If we run the metal carbonyl unit continuously, we can make about two kilos more platinum before Columbus 5 returns to Earth. If we import a bigger unit on Columbus 6—a ten tonne per sol processing unit—it would make 120 kilograms of platinum per year and cover its costs in one columbiad. It would lay the groundwork for an even larger unit.”

“Another task for the resource recovery department; they’d have to find and haul in a couple thousand tonnes of meteorites per year,” commented Will, nodding.

“And think of the vast quantity of nickel-steel we’d have,” added Alexandra. “A virtually unlimited supply that is virtually free, since platinum recovery would cover its costs. We could do a lot of building with it.”

“Good,” said Will. “What else?”

“My ecology team had a brief meeting this morning and we’re going to get together again right before lunch,” said Lisa. “We’re determined to lick our ecology problems, even if it means working longer hours. The biome can be made to work; there’s no question about it. We can resolve problems of too many microorganisms in some soil units and too much nitrogen oxides in the air. The biological productivity can increase at least twenty percent, and we’ll figure it out. So our contribution is not a new idea as much as a new determination to get our work done. Ecology is the basis on which everything here is possible. Without it, we’d have to import ten tonnes of supplies per person per columbiad. With it, we don’t have to import practically any food.”

“Not to mention the morale element,” added Boris. “Our food has been of very limited variety in the last six months because of the low productivity. All of us will welcome higher productivity as well.”

“Good,” said Will, looking at Alexandra. “What can you report?”

“My people are busy right now looking at other items we can build. The idea is to compile a list in collaboration with everyone else here and develop a website with specifications and plans, so we know what our capacities are. We’re also assuming full time operation of our metal carbonyl unit starting this month. We’re looking at two items right now: tanks for storing liquid oxygen and methane, which are possible with plenty of nickel steel, spray-on foam insulation, and burial under a dust layer; and simple heat shields. No doubt we can think of more. We’re also looking into the question of whether it is practical to request a unit able to manufacture kevlar. It’s a fairly complicated and expensive process, though there have been some manufacturing breakthroughs lately. If we can make our own kevlar, obviously that makes construction here much more flexible. Finally, we’re looking at the question of making solar cells. There has been a lot of progress in making equipment to manufacture them on the moon, but the lack of certain key materials on the moon has hampered the production of the really efficient cells. Maybe we can do better here.”

“How many people are you talking about?” asked Silvio.

“Two or three times the number we have in fabrication and construction now,” replied Alexandra, without blinking.

“But we’re all thinking along very similar lines,” said Will. “This is really remarkable. We’ll resolve the staffing issues later.”

--------------------------------

The discussions continued for ten sols, with everyone in the Outpost contributing ideas. It was just about the usual time for a review of their goals anyway: April 15, 2030 was conjunction, and also happened to be the end of the dust storm season. The media picked up on the review process and covered it, ironically solving their media problem temporarily. The Mars Exploration Society got its members involved in long term planning as well, vetting a few good ideas from the thousands proposed. All land owners were asked to comment about the future direction of Mars exploration as well. Each evening Will and his team met with Morgan and his team for an exchange of progress reports. One evening a town meeting reviewed the entire situation.

The process reached a culmination on April 10, when the crosswinds dropped enough to let both shuttles land on Mars. The Elysium came down first, making a perfect landing on pad number 4. The crew received a joyful welcome.

“You’re finally here!” Martha said to Charles. There were tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Charles replied. He reached to embrace her, but her big belly—she was eight months pregnant—made it difficult. He held her gingerly and kissed. “At least I’m here for the baby.”

“Yes.” And she began to cry. He just held her, with tears welling up in his eyes as well.

Yevgeny came out next, and Alexandra hugged and kissed him as well. He smiled and hugged her; they had missed each other and were delighted to be together again. Andries and Tina came out of the ranger next; Lal, Roger, Érico, and Will were there to shake their hands and welcome them.

“Five months on Deimos,” said Will. “At least it wasn’t the entire dust storm season! Is there any part of the moon you haven’t seen?”

“I don’t think so!” replied Tina, with a laugh. “When you fly over the moon now, you see footprints every hundred meters or so.”

“We sort of walked all over it,” agreed Andries. “Deimos ain’t so small when you’re walking on it; a couple hundred square kilometers. Pole to pole is fifteen klicks. You could get lost on it!”

“But there’s probably no science left to do there for a long time!” added Tina. “It’ll be four years before anyone can think of a new question to ask about the place for which data is missing! We have mapped every fracture inside the moon, for example.”

“Phobos is almost as well explored,” noted Will. “I’m glad we figured a way to bring the shelter down; we’ll need it here.”

“We ate so much from the supplies, we had half the necessary capacity!” laughed Andries. “It was a funny diet; filet mignon, exotic frozen vegetables, chocolate, but no fresh vegetables and not much starch! It pushed up my cholesterol.”

“Oh, your cholesterol’s fine,” scowled Tina. “I’ve been monitoring everyone. Our health up there was really good; we figured out how to use the artificial gravity of the ITVs a few sols a week to counteract the zero-gee when we were exploring Deimos. I’m walking almost normally; no wobbles at all.”

“You all look very healthy,” agreed Will. “And I gather there’s a bit of romance that bloomed up there. . .?”

“Oh, Commander, there are some things you always like to stick your nose into,” said Tina.

“Well, I hope we’re building something different from western civilization; something with a better balance between the individual and the community than we’ve achieved in the past.”

“People joke it’s a romance made in heaven, and then I remind them Deimos means ‘terror.’” quipped Andries.

Tina poked him in the ribs. “It’s getting to be an old joke; he’s said it a dozen times.”

“Well, part of romance is getting used to each other’s bad jokes. But seriously, I need to talk to both of you privately.” Will looked around. “Let’s go into Renfrew.” He took Tina’s dufflebag for her and she helped Andries with his; after partial gravity, they were heavier than Tina had thought. They walked through the airlock and into the old great room, which was now partially subdivided into offices.

“Wow; it looks so strange,” said Tina.

“I can’t wait to see Yalta; the virtual reality walkthrough just isn’t the same,” said Andries.

“That’s right; both of you participated in the lottery, one of you got a unit in Yalta, and neither of you have seen it! I’ll be quick.” He looked at Tina. “We need to open a press office here in the Outpost to work with the press office in Houston. Can you do it? It’ll be half time.”

She was surprised. “Sure. Of course. That’s my training.”

“Excellent. You and I will meet with Louisa and Morgan by video in the next sol or two. Andries, we need to set up a Department of Natural Resources; it’ll be responsible for exploiting Martian resources, everything from the water wells and hauling sand here for construction to copper and gold mining. Do you want to direct it?”

“Is this a full time thing?”

“Probably not yet, but it may grow to be full time. If we want Mars to grow, we have to export more.”

“So, am I in charge of exports?”

“No; last night Yevgeny and I talked and he agreed to do it. The Commission is appointing someone on Earth as well, and you and I will meet with Morgan and that person at some point. You’ll have a complicated job; we don’t have enough resources to do all the exploration, construction, and exports that we want.”

“From the discussion of the last ten sols, it sounds like we’re going to have a complicated and busy nine months.”

© 2004 Robert H. Stockman

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