4

Pax

The image was ghostly and black and white, unlike the photography one usually expected in the mid twenty-first century. But the outline of the crater was clear enough. The rim, silhouetted against the stars, was bouldery in a few spots; one side of the crater was enclosed by basalt cliffs bent and upturned by the cataclysm that had blasted the great hole, while the other half of the circle was barely traceable, the rim being erased by later forces.

The camera on the ranger panned toward the north where the rim was missing and the entire crater floor suddenly became visible. “My God!” said Will. “Are my eyes deceiving me, or is the entire floor covered with ice!”

“I think so,” agreed Ruhullah. “It’s supposed to be, that’s what the orbital radar showed.”

“That’s what I thought I had heard.” Will stood up and walked closer to the wall screen to scrutinize the image more closely. “You know, you can see parallel cracks in the ice sheet!”

“Huh. You’re right. Glaciers at Mercury’s north pole.”

“Amazing. When astronauts land there in nineteen months they’ll be able to do something we haven’t done and the personnel at the lunar south pole can’t do; go skiing!”

Ruhullah chuckled. “Pax crater’s supposed to be filled with up to fifty meters of ice, and the sheet flows very slowly northward, where it escapes gradually out of the shadow formed by the southern rim and evaporates away.”

“So, it is a glacier. And it is replenished by comet impacts?”

“I think Mercurian volcanism is the main source. The planet’s more active than anyone thought.”

“That’s not saying much. Why did they name it ‘Pax’?”

“Every crater in the area is named for ‘peace’ in the different languages of the world. There’s a Salam and a Shalom,” replied Ruhullah.

Will nodded and looked at the screen. The camera had panned back around to the south, revealing the Hermes shuttle, sixteen meters tall and six meters in diameter, standing on five landing legs. The cargo bay door was open, revealing an interior filled with thirty tonnes of cargo, mostly scientific and construction equipment. A mast with a solar array had been deployed upward from the top of the shuttle several hours earlier, right after landing; its top glowed brightly in Mercury’s intense sunlight.

“I hear the ranger can deploy most of the cargo automatically; even the hab,” said Will. “The software’s a lot more intelligent than anything we had with the first Columbus mission.”

“Columbus Zero was eighteen years ago,” replied Ruhullah. “Artificial intelligence has come a long way. The ranger has to clear a road to the top of the south rim around all those boulders and deploy six solar arrays in the perpetual sunlight; that would be a challenge for a mission with a crew on hand. Then it has to haul the habitation up, deploy it, and bury it.”

“That could always await the crew,” said Will. “I never would have thought I’d live to see the day humans will walk on Mercury.”

“Well, we made it possible,” replied Ruhullah. “They’re using modified Project Columbus hardware. The four billion spent over the last two decades on improving radiation shielding has been key.”

“And the new ion propulsion.” Will nodded. “Europe spearheaded this project; they can be proud. Now they have an entire world to explore by robotic rover; exotic minerals to discover, Helium-3 resources to develop, vast sheets of ice and dry ice to exploit, and who knows, there may be colonies there some day.”

“Colonies who will buy Martian nitrogen and argon?”

Will smiled. “And probably Martian aluminum, specialized plastic products, steak, and who knows what else. We’ve supplied Magellan Station with twenty tonnes of water for radiation shielding and five tonnes of carbon dioxide and nitrogen for the greenhouse. It’ll be the same for the asteroid belt, and maybe the Galilean worlds as well.”

“Speaking of asteroids,” said Ruhullah, looking toward the door. Will turned and saw the crew of the Quirinus mission standing there.

“Ah, you’ve arrived,” he said. “Come in.”

Hutan Hijazi entered, followed by Daichi Furukawa, Kurt Hollingworth, and Andrea Shelton. “I hope you all had a chance to rest well?”

“Yes; it’s good to be home,” replied Hutan.

“Sit down,” said Will, directing them to the other seats around the conference room’s table. “We’re all immensely relieved you’ve returned safely, and we’re very grateful for what you’ve done for Mars. I suppose you heard that three weeks ago the courts ruled that Quirinus is now under the jurisdiction of the Mars Commission. This ends a long legal fight over asteroid ownership.”

“Yes, though the distinction between jurisdiction and ownership seems arbitrary,” said Hutan.

“But important,” replied Will. “A company can own; a government or an intergovernmental agency has jurisdiction, which gives us the power to settle colonies and set up civil governments in them. Since the new international treaty now being ratified specifies that companies cannot own solar system bodies larger than twenty-five kilometers in diameter, and Quirinus is 25.6 kilometers, if the ownership clause applied to us we could not the entire worldlet. Since we can have jurisdiction over all of it, however, we can sell all of its mineral rights, which are potentially worth trillions,.”

“It’s a nice little place,” said Daichi. “And I wouldn’t mind going back some time. I suspect it’ll be a while before the technology to mine it will be profitable, though.”

“No doubt; they will have to compete against us, the moon, and soon Mercury,” agreed Will. “But the sol will come.”

“At least we found the perfect spot for a station,” added Andrea. “And the next mission should come to a spot with full water tanks and a good supply of methane and oxygen.”

“Not to mention the caves,” added Charles. They had found several massive fractures in the asteroid that were a hundred million years old and thus highly stable; one was essentially a cave system in which a station could be built.

“Your exploration was thorough and very creative,” continued Will. “Furthermore, the four of you worked as a team incredibly well. I think that impressed us better than technical aspects of the mission.”

“We had excellent leadership,” said Charles, looking at Hutan.

“That’s true, but all four of you worked together very well. That’s harder to achieve than building more reliable and efficient machines. I think our training programs are getting better, but still, the four of you have a lot to do with it. Gradivus did an excellent job at exploration, but the team dynamics were not of the same caliber.”

“That’s why we want to give the four of you an award,” said Ruhullah.

Will nodded. “This Satursol evening after the big welcoming dinner. The Commission is establishing an annual award for teamwork called the Crimson Circle Medal. A circle stands for a lot of things: unity, cooperation, feedback, closed cycles; hence the shape. And crimson is for Mars and for the red color of life. Your team will get the first metal.”

Hutan was surprised. He looked at the others. “Thank you, Commissioner! But we just did our job.”

“No, not ‘just,’” replied Will. “That’s why we wanted you to come see us. So, what next for the four of you?”

“Rest!” replied Hutan. “And after that, we wouldn’t mind going back out to another assignment.”

“Though Deimos might be more convenient for our families!” added Andrea, who was the mother of a two year old.

“Or the poles,” added Charles. “We could do a south polar station for four to six months.”

“That’s a possibility, though there may be more than four people involved,” said Will. “Of course, if we had proper radiation shielding, as we are considering, maybe your four families could go somewhere together.”

“That would be interesting!” said Daichi.

“At any rate, give us three or four months of assignments here, first,” suggested Hutan. And the others nodded.

“Alright; we can accommodate that,” said Will. “I understand all of you are going to the Dacha together with your families next week, and after that there’s a lot of science to write up. We’ll talk again early next year.”

“Thanks, Will,” said Hutan. Then the four of them turned and headed out the door.

“They’re good people,” said Ruhullah, after the team left. “I wonder whether we should send them back to Quirinus.”

“I doubt it; the next mission, if there is one, will last a year and will do extensive mining and recovery of platinum-family elements. It’s a shame we aren’t in the position to send families. It would make the work so much easier.”

“A caravel will make that possible, though,” noted Ruhullah. He glanced at his watch. “Your next appointment will be here in fifteen minutes.”

Will nodded. “Johnny. I’ll wait here for him and take care of communications. Why don’t you come in when he arrives.”

“Alright.” Ruhullah stood and carried his electronic pad with him across the hall to his office. Will turned to his attaché. He cleared the picture from Mercury off its screen; it was still visible on the room’s main screen. He glanced at it briefly and noted that the ranger had driven fifty meters autonomously during the Quirinus team’s visit. Then he turned to the attaché. He had a video message from someone named Dharmapala Peres. He right-clicked on the name and popped up a web page with the man’s biography: he was forty-six years old, from Sri Lanka, in the NASA astronaut Corps sixteen years, had a doctorate in lunar geology, was a pilot and a specialist in life support systems and propulsion systems, had led two three-month expeditions on the moon, had commanded NASA’s new astronomical station at the lunar north pole, and had accumulated a total of sixty-seven months on the moon and eighteen more at the International Space Station II or the new Salem International Station in a low-inclination orbit. He was married, with a son; his wife was a professor of English literature at Rice University. Intrigued, Will pushed play.

“Good sol, Dr. Elliott,” began Dharmapala. “You don’t know me; I’m Dharmapala Peres. My wife Maya and I already have our names in for Columbus 10 via the early entry process. I’m a geologist with extensive lunar experience and a long list of publications that I won’t describe right now. Maya’s a professor of English literature and a poet. We’re interested in Columbus 10 because our son, Rahula, will be graduating from high school next year and will be a student at Rice after that, so we will be free to emigrate.

“But we were just looking at the Columbus 9 passenger list and the position openings. You are having a lot of trouble, I see, figuring out how to fill some of the simplest positions: day care providers, kitchen workers, sanitation workers, and agricultural workers, for example. Robots can only do so much. So I have a suggestion: why not consider the college-age children of astronauts? There are quite a few couples like us who have one or two children completing high school and starting university who are old enough to fly to Mars but lack the qualifications to apply. Couples like us have raised families on Earth and have accumulated a lot of space-related skills and experience. Our parents mostly have died and no longer anchor us here. We would consider emigrating to Mars if our children could come; we could watch them go through university there and could provide grandparenting to their families. And we have at least twenty years of adult work left. So I am calling you not to ask for a favor, but suggest that you consider a new program to attract experienced middle-aged immigrants. You probably would have to change your seniority system to include lunar and other space experience. It would get you more experienced hands as well as more youth and more entry-level people. Bye.”

Will watched Dharmapala’s face fade from the screen. He thought about the suggestion for a minute, then hit reply.

“Good sol, Dr. Peres. I’m intrigued by your suggestion. We are indeed having trouble with the jobs that don’t require a Ph.D.; we try to get spouses of astronauts, but there aren’t enough of them applying. The post-university personnel we get promise to serve as day care or kitchen workers, but switch out of those vocations as fast as they can. If we had a dozen late high school and college-age kids arriving every two years, that could indeed help a lot. We haven’t done a study of the minimum age for flight here. I think the youngest person to arrive here was twenty-six. Until Columbus 8 the flight took six months. Now we’re planning for 4.5-month flights and we have more radiation protection on board. Certainly eighteen year olds could come; maybe with special radiation precautions we could lower the age to sixteen.

“So my suggestion is, why don’t you add your son to your Columbus 10 application? And while you’re at it, the three of you can still apply for Columbus 9. We’ll be filling the last vacancies in three or four months. Let the personnel office wrestle with the proposal. No doubt the issue will trickle up to me eventually and we’ll have to consider a modification of our existing policies. That’s easier to do when there’s a specific case.

“Thanks for calling. I glanced at your resumé; very impressive. I hope we can attract people with the sort of experience you have. I suppose Sebastian will be furious at us for snatching so many qualified people from the Lunar Commission. Right now space specialists fall in two career tracks: they have children on Earth and work for the Lunar Commission, or they postpone starting families and work for the Mars Commission. There are exceptions, of course; every flight here involves a few specialists who plan to stay only a columbiad or two. Our retention rate, 83%, is less than our goal of 90%. Both Commissions have veterans from the other. Bye.”

He sent the message and turned to his email. He answered a few routine matters, looked up, and saw that Johnny Lind and Ruhullah were at the door.

“Ah, come in.” Will rose and extended his hand. Johnny looked nervous; he shook Will’s hand.

“Thanks. I see you’re watching the Mercury landing. Quite something, isn’t it?”

“Really incredible. A great sol for humanity, and probably historic for us, too. Sit down.” Will pointed to a chair. Johnny sat; Ruhullah sat next to him and pulled out his stylus and electronic pad. “Yestersol Lal and I had a long talk about the Meridiani expedition, and he told me how effective you were with both the geology and the construction teams. The quality of the work, in both cases, was quite high. He said you were writing up a lot of the geology work and planned to use some of it in your dissertation.”

Johnny nodded. “The dissertation is about ore formation in the Pretoria Formation, Cassini. The processes in the Ashanti Field are very similar, so I’ll be including some about it.”

“When will you be finished?”

“Pretty soon, I hope, because the deadline is March for the June graduation! It’ll be a joint Mariner Institute of Technology and Caltech degree.”

“Good. And the timing is good. We have a July 15 launch scheduled for an expedition to 2031KL12. It’s not much of a destination: a burned out comet nucleus about 500 meters across. There’s barely room for two shuttles to land on it. It passes just a half million kilometers from Mars on September 21. The Tharsis and Apollonaris will fly out, adjust their orbit, land about September 1, then take off on September 15, aerobraking back into Mars orbit on September 21. A rather fast expedition, but no one has landed on a comet nucleus before, so there’s some good science to be done. Do you want to command it?”

“Command it?” Johnny was startled. “Yes, sure!”

“I thought so. You’ve been here three years and have a lot of excellent experience. Above all, you’ve demonstrated an ability to build a team; that’s the key. We’re giving the Quirinus team our first Crimson Circle Award this Satursol evening for their very close and creative collaboration. Your team will be eligible for next year’s award, if you earn it of course. We plan to finalize the team—four people—in late March so that you can train together continuously for three and a half months. That’ll include a one-month visit to Deimos.”

“Who chooses the others?”

“You do, in collaboration with Roger and Érico, based on certifications.”

Johnny nodded. “Thank you, Governor. I really appreciate this opportunity; this vote of confidence.”

“Call me Will; people have gotten away from that in the last year or two. I am confident in you thanks to Lal’s recommendation. We’ve got to improve our techniques for creating strong teams. There’s an expert coming on Columbus 9 and she has already started collaborating long distance with us. You should sit down with Hutan and get his advice; he was very successful. Lal was, also.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I think, frankly, that the notions of teamwork we create here have to trickle outward to our politics as well. It’s hard to overcome old habits; on Earth, and particularly in the U.S., we tend to view politics with suspicion as a gigantic game of influence and selling of image. Elections and separation of powers were inaugurated to fight corruption, but elections on Earth have become an enormous source of corruption; consider how American elections basically involve two huge influence machines that spend vast amounts of money every two years to fool the public into voting for them and against the others. Truth is disguised in the process, images of politicians are created, and huge lies about them and about what they will do are told by both sides. Up here, we have to do better. If we can manage to elect basically honest people and create a culture of governing that reduces temptations to lie and sugar-coat the truth, we will have accomplished something that has never been accomplished on Earth before.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?” asked Johnny, skeptically.

“Let’s hope so, for our sakes! We can’t afford a revolution, riots, terrorism, and all the other spin-offs of the terrestrial governing process. They are simply not thinkable. Why can’t we use techniques of teamwork in our elections? Why not stress the individual’s right to vote his or her conscience unfettered by outside influence—corrupting influence—rather than stress the right of candidates to their free speech?”

“But Governor—Will—you’re taking away free speech when you block campaigning.”

“Johnny, when you campaign, you take away my right to vote my conscience. It does no good to vote for someone because you feel the person has the best personal qualifications—based on experience, honesty, fairness, the ability to listen, and a dozen similar qualities—if you know they won’t be elected because the choice is really between two people who are essentially lying to you about who they are and what they will do. If the right of the voter to vote his or her conscience is to be respected, then everyone must modulate their speech. Debate of ideas what is needed, and a demonstration of one’s character in the process.”

“I see.” Johnny considered Will’s perspective, though skeptically. “I’ve never thought about the matter that way; in fact, I’m not sure I can. Half an hour after I leave this room I’ll have trouble remembering that perspective.”

“People aren’t used to thinking that way. It’s a different cultural value. But it’s also teamwork because it values people, treats them honesty, and empowers them to think about the future, and it doesn’t tear down other members of the team.”

“Hum.” Johnny thought about that for a moment. “I see your point about tearing down; it undercuts the respect that any leader needs to lead.”

“Exactly. Suspicion of government can do as much damage as good, sometimes. Anyway, talk to Lal, talk to Hutan, and talk to this consultant who’s coming here in fifteen months. I look forward to hearing reports about your plans.”

“Thanks, Will.” They both rose and shook hands.

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

The next three sols were devoted to preparation for a large semiannual heads of staff meeting. Will convened the gathering in Mars Control Wednesol at 10 a.m. “Because of the time delay, I’m conducting two separate head of staff meetings,” Will noted. “This morning we’ll meet and late this afternoon—early afternoon Paris time—the terrestrial heads of staff will meet by teleconference, review our discussions, and give their reports. You’ll be able to view a compressed version of their meeting this evening. We’ll have another fast meeting tomorrow morning if needed to review our plans in the light of discussions on Earth. Alexandra, have you a report about biome construction?”

“Well, perhaps a gentle correction, Will. Last week you noted that construction was on schedule in spite of staffing shortages. In fact, we are slightly behind schedule. Shenandoah was opened in March, Dakota on July 2—a week late—and Oregon inflated on October 8, almost two weeks behind schedule. But I think we can catch up with Kauai; our goal it to inflate it before New Year’s, and with increased staff and experience it should be possible. Then Columbia and Cochabamba, the housing biomes with special foundations, will be completed by the end of 2037 and will be ready when Columbus 9 arrives in December of that year, unless the caravel schedule takes precedence. Tentatively, 2038 will see two biomes just for bioarchive—both B-75s—and with construction of an annex to the Vandevelde Industrial Building.”

“When will we shift from B-75s to B-100s?” asked Érico.

Alexandra shook her head. “That’s postponed a few years because the Caravel Project will soak up too much staffing, especially the design and planning work.”

“Let’s turn to the caravel, then,” said Will. “There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that Sibireco, Muller Mining, and Consolidated have signed contracts for the mineral rights of the Meridiani region and the two billion euros we’re getting over the next five years can be devoted to the caravel. We’re also devoting some of the ten billion euros we got for last year’s gold. The bad news is, the current U.S. administration is poised to lose big in midterm elections and will almost certainly lose control over both the House of Representatives and the Senate, so their continued interest is in question.”

“And it serves them right,” added Érico.

“Well, they’re learning a lesson about internationalism, aren’t they?” said Will. “But the consequence for us is an almost certain delay in Project Odyssey. We’ll lose their potential funding. But we’ve already replaced it.”

“What does that do to the economics, though?” asked Yevgeny.

“We’ll get the details this afternoon. We’ll pay a larger fraction of the cost of the project. On paper that may mean the caravel will be more expensive than our current system. That means it may be controversial.”

“But the current system has reached its limit,” said Alexandra.

“Exactly,” agreed Will. “Louise, how’s the project going?”

“Very well.” Louise Tremblay pushed a button and a slide of the flying saucer-shaped caravel appeared on the room’s large screen. “The vehicle’s dimensions have been refined a bit from the initial design. Its diameter will be thirty-four meters and its thickness will vary from nine meters on the outer edge to fifteen meters at the center. The variation in thickness is due to the heat shield’s hemispheric shape. The interior wheel, which will rotate at four rpm, will vary in thickness from eight to fourteen meters; it will be thirty-two meters in diameter. The interior has 2,150 square meters of floor surface. The central docking module will be six meters across and ten meters high; it will be non-rotating.

“We’ve looked at the Mars passenger application extensively. A caravel can fly to Mars with six ITVs docked to the docking module to provide lifeboat capacity. The ITVs would be able to accommodate four additional passengers each. Alternately, a flight to Mars would involve two caravels docked together and able to provide each other with backup. I should add, however, that each caravel has internal redundancy, because it is divided into six airtight compartments and has three life support facilities, each able to provide for half the vehicle. As a result, caravels can operate autonomously.

“We haven’t studied the exploration application as closely, but it appears each vehicle can accommodate a crew of 25 to 28 for up to five years. Again, we’d recommend redundancy; two caravels and a total of 50 personnel for asteroid expeditions, four caravels and a total of 100 personnel for expeditions to Jupiter or Saturn.

“The design phase will last eighteen to twenty-four months and is somewhat compressed; it’s possible because there have been so many studies we can rely on, and so many experienced people we can draw on. Terrestrial subcontractors will supply life support, avionics, and many of the items we can’t make here. They will generate much of the cost of the caravel. The Mars Construction Institute in Moscow should be able to do much of the design of the structure and interior, since we’ll be making those parts and they know our capacities.

“The timetable requires that we begin now or postpone completion of the first vehicle for two years. Alexandra will cover that.”

“I’ll only hit the highlights; you can read the rest,” said Alexandra. She projected a slide with a timetable on it. “Between now and June 2037, when Columbus 9 leaves Earth, we focus on two tasks: completing the first phase of the design and ordering the necessary equipment and materials to complete two caravels. Some cargo can be launched to Mars as late as early September and we recommend a late flight to maximize our ability to get the needed stuff here. We have to order and obtain about forty tonnes of new manufacturing and construction equipment and materials on top of the eighty we already planned to import. Fortunately, Vandevelde is rated for use of most ordinary terrestrial manufacturing equipment, so we can purchase off the shelf equipment. If we have the time, the forty tonnes can be stripped down to about twenty tonnes and we can manufacture the removed items here. We’ll also reexamine the eighty tonnes we already have ordered and try to reduce it seventy.

“Vandevelde will need a large construction area. In the next fifteen months we’ll erect a B-60 biome named ‘Pittsburgh’ modified by adding a twenty by twenty by twenty meter airlock. We’ll be able to use it to work on shuttles as well, increasing our vehicle repair capacity.

“Columbus 9 arrives on January 2, 2038, with 100 passengers, at least fifty of whom will be construction and fabrication specialists. By February we will have them oriented and trained and the cargo will have arrived, so we’ll be able to start construction of our first caravel. The design as it stands currently maximizes use of an inflatable structure of advanced plastics and composites and takes advantage of the fact that we can place over four times as much mass into Mars orbit as the Swift Shuttle can into Earth orbit. Consequently, we have capacities that the Earth lacks; we can make the entire forty-tonne hull of a caravel, launch it into Mars orbit as a compressed and folded object, and inflate it there. The design for such a vehicle is immensely complex, but not as complex as it would be if it had to be assembled in Earth orbit. Several teams on Earth are studying the order in which we will assemble the vehicle and how to assemble something where ‘down’ is oriented ninety degrees from the final configuration. We can’t assemble a structure made of forty separate layers, each hand-sewn together, and collectively 40 centimeters thick, like our ITVs and habs; what we make will have to be simpler. But technology has advanced immensely since they were designed. The annexes, for example, have only sixteen layers. Caravels will be made of twelve layers of different materials, all robotically sewn and glued together.

“We’ve spent a lot of time studying the on-orbit assembly aspect of the project. For a long time we thought we’d have to place a drydock on Phobos or at Embarcadero, which would be complicated, time consuming, and expensive. Now it appears we can minimize that aspect of the project and get most of the assembly finished here on the surface. One shuttle will carry the caravel structure to Embarcadero, another will carry sixteen workers, and a third will carry twenty-five tonnes of supplies. The shuttle with the caravel will refuel in low Mars orbit to get to Embarcadero; the other two will be light enough to fly up directly. At Embarcadero, the crew will inflate the caravel and assemble the hub where its rotating and nonrotating parts join together; the hub, by the way, will largely be made on Earth for the first few vehicles because of its precise machining and exotic materials. Once the hub is assembled, the interior of the caravel will start to rotate. The crew will be able to set up the life support system and complete the interior in a gravitied shirtsleeve environment. Once construction reaches a certain point more workers can fly up and they’ll be able to live inside the caravel as they finish it.

“The last phase will be installation of the heat shield. The caravel structure will arrive in orbit with an inflatable low-pressure membrane around it, allowing workers in space suits to work outside the vehicle freely without worrying about drifting away and able to use glues, epoxies, and other substances that require a low air pressure to cure properly.

“Our goal, by June 2038, will be to complete one caravel; that’s twenty-nine months from now. It should be possible, but it’s still difficult to be sure. That’s the date it would need to leave Mars for Earth, where it can be checked out and prepared to fly back to Mars as part of Columbus 11 in 2042. We may be able to fly a second or even a third caravel to Earth via Venus starting in late spring 2040, and it would arrive on time for Columbus 11 as well. After that our goal will be to build two every twenty-six months.”

Alexandra looked back at Louise. “Project Odyssey may require a very different kind of caravel, but NASA isn’t looking to buy any until 2042 or 2043 anyway, at which point Mars will have twice the population it has now and twice the capacity to build something more complex,” add Tremblay.

“So we’re talking about developing a capacity for immigration that increases by 200 people every columbiad?” asked Will. He scribbled a crude addition on his computer screen. “With natural increase, that’s gives Mars about 350 people in 2037, 480 in 2040, 630 in 2042 when we have one caravel, 1,000 in 2044 with three caravels, 1,600 in 2046 with five caravels, 2,400 in 2048 with seven caravels, 3,500 in 2050 with nine caravels. . .” He laughed. “I have no idea how we will make Mars economically viable with a population like that!”

“Gold won’t be enough,” agreed Yevgeny. “We’ll have to export caravels, or send out our own.”

“We can certainly export more platinum-group metals; as our population and resources grow, that will be more practical,” noted Will.

“A lot of the Martian economy will have to be geared to meeting internal needs; manufacturing mobilhabs, for example,” said Alexandra. “It’ll be impossible to import at our current rate, even with solar sailing vessels. It will be an incredible headache to expand at that rate.”

“And a challenge,” said Will. “I hope NASA buys some caravels early on! What are the costs?”

“Our work to manufacture and assemble will cost one hundred million euros, plus two hundred fifty million of equipment imported from Earth, including flight costs. Design, development, and set-up will cost ten billion euros. If we assume manufacturing of twenty vehicles over twenty years—half for us—the vehicles will cost about $800 million each. That’s what we’d charge NASA; we’d write off some of the development costs for the caravels we use. If each has a lifetime of ten flights and carries 100 passengers each time, that’s five million euros per passenger per round trip.”

“We figure when you include importation of two tonnes of equipment per immigrant and assume each vehicle is flown ten times, we will be able to fly immigrants here for eight to ten million euros each,” added Yevgeny. “It’s a revolution in costs.”

“But are we sure we can develop the caravel for ten billion?” asked Will.

“If NASA did it, they’d need two or three times as much. We are not a government agency and thus can write contracts more like a private business. Furthermore, the depression has made the aerospace industry desperate for business, so we can negotiate better rates, especially if we do all the work in the next few years when the dollar’s value is low.”

“That makes sense,” said Will. “Of course, even the Hermes class shuttle won’t provide enough launching and landing capacity to handle so many people. We’ll have to stretch out the arrival of people and cargo over as long an interval as possible.”

“We’ll have to export a wider variety of things, too, and in larger quantity,” added Yevgeny. “We’ll also have to seek national sponsorships and export more services, such as services to land owners.”

“We’ll want to upgrade Dawes into a major spaceport, to share the load,” noted Alexandra. “And we’ll want to do more exploring. Caravels could even be used for asteroid mining.”

“This requires a lot of thought and planning,” said Will. “Louise, Alexandra, anything to add?”

“Just that this is an immense privilege to work on,” said Alexandra. “In fifteen years people may be living in caravels on Callisto and Titan.”

Will looked around. “Questions?”

“I don’t want to be a devil’s advocate,” exclaimed Ruhullah. “But this very big project will such up a lot of human resources and capacity. How many people are we talking about?”

“Initially, seventy, between fabrication and construction,” replied Alexandra.

“For two years; that’s 140 person-years of labor,” noted Ruhullah. “One third of our capacity. That’s a huge decrease in our capacity to produce consumer goods.”

“And it causes delays in other projects,” added Lisa. “Making Pittsburgh delays completion of Cochabamba, which means housing is tight, and it slows the biome construction schedule.”

“It cut into bioarchive, not our essential needs,” responded Alexandra.

“But we have obligations to bioarchive, which is expecting the equivalent of two entire biomes in the next two years,” continued Lisa. “I know your construction schedule gives them one and promises a second just before Columbus 10 arrives, but you admitted the construction schedule for the caravels is very uncertain, and that rarely means the work is finished ahead of schedule. It sounds to me like bioarchive will get only one.”

“With my regrets,” added Alexandra.

“But that is a problem,” exclaimed Will. “We do need to meet our obligations, Alexandra. We’ve delayed that project to the point of damaging our reputation.”

“Will, we can catch up if we can fly another hundred people here. That’s a lot of capacity.”

“True, but we may have damaged our reputation to the point where no one will buy some goods and services from us. The schedule has to be reconsidered.”

Alexandra shrugged. “Alright. Perhaps we can obtain more people from other departments or lengthen work hours for a few months.”

“You can’t have my people,” replied Roger.

“And people work too long already,” added Ruhullah. “That won’t work.”

“Then I’ll stretch out the schedule.”

“Thank you,” said Will. “I take it that’s it? Roger, give us the exploration report.”

“Sorry, I don’t have slides,” replied Roger. “As you all know, two months ago Clara Forsyth asked why we can’t design our expeditions and their vehicles so that children can be brought along. Alexandra approached Will and me, and he appointed a task force of Vanessa Smith, Martha Vickers, Neal Stroger, and myself to consider expeditions in general.

“The timing really proved to be perfect. We have completed four east-west trails: the Circumferential, Pisces, Virgo, and Arctic. Hellaspontes-Argyre is a partial Antarctic trail. We also have three completed north-south trails: the Polar Trail that runs pole to pole through here, Cassini-Dawes with its north and south extensions, and Tharsis. Meridiani and Elysium have been added to these, giving us 120,000 kilometers of roads. No part of Mars is more than 700 kilometers from a road. If you consider everything within 100 kilometers of a trail to be properly explored, we’ve reached fifteen percent of the surface. Except for another 5,000 kilometers of Antarctic Trail, scheduled for next year, our trail system is complete.

“That means we now must begin a different phase of exploration, one that widens the trails, establishes oases, and carries out intensive local exploration. This phase is well suited to larger expeditions that stay out longer; expeditions with more laboratory equipment to do their own analyses and their own mobile clinic; expeditions that could indeed accommodate children.

“So our recommendation is that starting next year, our expeditions involve two mobilhabs, two conestogas, two rangers, and sixteen adults. One mobilhab will be equipped as a clinic and will have a tonne of extra radiation shielding; it’ll also have extensive geological equipment. That way, the people watching the kids can also run lab tests. The other mobilhab will serve as an expedition headquarters. The mobilhabs will stay together—the one with the kids will usually be docked to another vehicle—and serve as a base of operations. They’ll have a microwave rectenna nearby to receive beamed power for the expedition. They’ll often be based at an oasis where an inflated shelter will provide additional housing space. The conestogas and rangers will range outward from base for as much as two weeks at a time.”

“So, the plan involves one additional mobilhab, modified, and two additional people,” said Will. “We can do this; do we want to?”

His words hung in the air and no one replied right away. “I wouldn’t take Boris,” said Alexandra. “Besides the safety issues, I can’t imagine being stuck in a little mobilhab with a screaming baby, with the crying echoing off the walls!”

“Samie’s thrilled by the idea,” added Roger. “But there’s no way I’d take a ten year old into the field!”

“I agree,” said Will. “Marshall’s eleven; no thank you. He’s too active to confine to vehicles and too young to take outside all the time.”

“Vanessa’s torn, also. She thinks babies and toddlers are manageable if they’re reasonably quiet. Maybe that’s true,” said Alexandra. “But this is a feminist issue. Right now, most of the time the men go out in the field and the women stay at the outpost with the babies.”

“But some of that is the arrangement the couple has made,” replied Roger. “Madhu has raised Sam more than I have. She’s satisfied with that arrangement.”

“Is she?” asked Alexandra. “Isn’t there something wrong with our culture if most couples here agree that the man can go out to work and the woman stays at home?”

“Is there?” retorted Roger. “Women have a natural connection to babies that men inevitably lack.”

“Yevgeny has made up for that pretty well.”

Will raised his hand. “I think the cultural issue Alexandra has raised needs some study, also, and some action. But let’s not discuss it now. I take Alexandra’s point to be that we are providing choice. It will be possible for women, or men, or even couples, to go in the field with their child or children. It seems to me that’s the reason to do this.”

“Has your task force considered what rules to establish?” asked Yevgeny. “Like, how many kids will be allowed on an expedition? I assume we won’t send Eammon, Irina, and their five kids.”

Everyone chuckled. Roger nodded. “We have started on that issue. We’d recommend no more than two children on an expedition, there always has to be two adults available to watch the child or children, there always has to be two vehicles docked or in close proximity. But there need to be rules about noise and collaboration over the children, and we haven’t developed them yet.”

“I’d say, move forward on the rules. They’re essential,” said Will. He looked at the others. “Anything else on this issue? No? Okay, Yevgeny, how are exports?”

“Improving. Gold production has hit twelve tonnes per month and may reach thirteen; exploiting the richest deposits in Meridiani has helped noticeably. Even so, gold production will almost certainly be less than in the last columbiad because the deposits are not as rich. Fortunately, the price of gold has declined only slightly and is still three times as high as it was two years ago. We’ll also be exporting almost one hundred tonnes of argon, fifty tonnes of nitrogen, and one hundred tonnes of methane. If we could, we’d be exporting oxygen as well, since it’s become scarce in Earth orbit. It’s quite amazing how fast demand for cryogenics has grown, in spite of the economic downturn. The moon is buying most of the nitrogen and methane, the latter as a carbon source for their platinum group metal extraction efforts. We’ll export about five tonnes of platinum group metals. Finally, Muller Mining is negotiating to buy the mineral rights of Quirinus. They want to put down a one hundred million euro deposit—very small—and pay us two thirds of the profit, assuming we provide half the personnel and the vehicle to get them there. It’ll be some months before the contract is finalized.”

“It’s a tricky negotiation,” agreed Will. “There are so many unknowns. I think that’s it.” He glanced at his watch. “Any other matters to review?”

“Just one, Will,” said Érico. “Last week I was talking to a group of people in the patio and it became clear that the matter of nuclear power has remained a hot topic, and if anything will become hotter again, now that we have a report saying that geothermal power is available at Hellas. We already had the capacity to make all the solar and wind power we needed; now we have an even bigger power surplus. I think it’s going to be very hard to justify fifty-thousand kilowatt nuclear reactors.”

“Not to mention lingering suspicion of the United States,” added Alexandra. “In the last two years they have behaved like no civilized nation should. No one can trust them with nuclear power in space.”

“Well, one can’t go to Jupiter and Saturn without it,” replied Will. “And no one can stop them from trying. Rather, it is best if other nations get involved so they can keep an eye on it and moderate any extreme behaviors. And it is best if Mars is involved, because our future as a nation—and I use that word deliberately—lies in human expansion outward.”

“But Will, what are we going to do with a fifty thousand kilowatt reactor?” asked Érico. “It’s nuts! Right now we can’t use a twentieth of that output! And if our population increases ten fold we still won’t be able to use it all!”

“And a fifty thousand kilowatt reactor won’t produce all that much plutonium, either,” added Alexandra. “What they need is even bigger.”

“I think we have to trust international mechanisms to prevent nuclear powered space weapons,” replied Will. “Such weapons have been promised for almost fifty years and the U.S. still doesn’t have any, even if the costs have fallen ten fold. We have the option of pulling the plug on them, too. That’s one reason I’m pushing the Elysium Geothermal Expedition and why we conducted the Hellas Geothermal Expedition; they can provide backup sources of power.”

“Will, we don’t even need them,” replied Alexandra. “Our manufacturing capacity can make all the solar panels and wind turbines we need, and much more cheaply.”

“True, but we may need a large power source some day, especially if we want to produce platinum-group metals; those processes are power hogs. And we will need an alternative to nuclear.”

“Will, I want to bring this matter to the Mars Council,” exclaimed Érico. “Public opinion is not resolved about nuclear or geothermal power. Both already are controversial. The Council should have a say over the use of nuclear power on Mars and over the creation of parks. Geothermal areas are potential parks.”

“This is a matter the Commission has negotiated with the United States government for months, without involvement of the Council.”

“That’s true. But this isn’t just a company town. It has its own civil society, Will; you know that, you helped build it.”

“We can’t leave out the people, Will,” urged Ruhullah.

“Well, that’s true.” Will was not happy. He looked at the others in the room; Roger looked sympathetic, but the others clearly disagreed with him. “Okay. Take it to the Council. And hold public hearings. I agree, this is a matter that has to have public consensus, and it doesn’t right now.”

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