First Steps (Founding of the Federation) Page 5

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Luigi looked at the display and frowned. "Why so many satellites? Why are these two so far out?" He turned to Doctor Zubrin.

  "Well, these two are the sentinel satellites at the Martian L1 and L4 points. They are built to detect the pulse of light preceding a solar flare event," he explained patiently.

  Luigi nodded. "Lead time?"

  Doctor Roberts nodded. "With each event there is a flash of light that precedes it. The pulse takes twelve minutes to get to Mars. The L1 sentinel is the direct flight path, so the crew will have an eighteen minute warning."

  Luigi nodded crossing his arms. "And the L4?"

  Zubrin touched the small plastic model. "It is for the sideband pulse. It can pick up the pulse, but there is only a six minute warning."

  Luigi shook his head. "Damn. That's kinda tight doc."

  Zubrin nodded. "It's the best we can do, some warning is better than none."

  Luigi sighed. "Right. So get under cover during a solar flare." Solar flares were one of the biggest things they were worried about. It was right up there with a launch failure. Either one could ruin their day permanently.

  Doctor Roberts sighed. "It's not that easy. The Habs will have the central airlock as a storm shelter. We will wrap the shelter with a water jacket. They can also pile up sand bags around the habs and on the roof as additional protection."

  Zubrin nodded. "But that doesn't protect anyone outside in the rover or in a suit."

  Luigi scowled. "Can we add a layer of radiation protection? Lead liner? Water jacket?" he asked. Zubrin nodded.

  "Paint impregnated with lead will protect the exterior, but will add little protection for the crew. Lead lined glass too. Their best bet is to get to cover fast. A trench, or hillside between them and the sun."

  Luigi sighed. "It's a risk."

  Zubrin frowned. "A heavy one. That is why I was overruled on having a Doctor on board. If the crew is exposed to radiation, they will need someone to handle the medical care," he sighed, clearly frustrated. If someone was exposed to a lethal dose there was little a doctor could do except watch them die a terrible death. "I really wanted another geologist or specialist."

  Luigi waved his hand. "Not a problem doc, we can get a biogeochemist with some cross training. If necessary we can train the entire crew to paramedic level, with special courses on radiation care," he suggested. Roberts nodded.

  "So the other satellites are communication and weather sats?" Luigi asked when the other men didn't say anything for a short time.

  Roberts nodded. "There are six, four equatorial, two polar. We can shift their orbits if one fails. They also double as a crude GPS."

  Zubrin smiled. "Good point. I was planning on using the ham radio and star sightings."

  Luigi chuckled. "We can keep it as a backup doc. We can't wait until it gets dark to find out where we are if we are in a hurry," he said. Zubrin nodded and smiled wryly.

  "Back to the radiation thing, I seem to recall Mario and I watched a program on the science channel. A guy was making a roman vault for Mars?" Luigi asked. Luigi turned to Doctor Zubrin.

  He chuckled. "Yes I was on that. Yes, we can make bricks. They are the best in situ material for building structures; we can make bricks and cover them in dirt."

  "Like living in a basement," Roberts muttered.

  Zubrin looked over to him. "Yes the view would be... Spartan, but the radiation shielding would be worth it."

  Luigi rubbed his jaw. "Did the Mars society or..." He looked down at a paper. "The Mars Foundation come up with a simulated method of making brick?" he asked. Roberts shook his head.

  "Martin Marietta and Bruce Mackenzie played with simulated brick making methods in the 80's and 90's, but it was just wetting the simulate then letting it dry. They have a flow chart, but I don't think they got very far beyond the concepts and a test vault or two."

  Zubrin sighed. “In 2004 crew twenty two did a simulated vault with native stone.” Zubrin looked up at the books on the bookshelf. “On to Mars book two I believe.” He waved to it.

  Luigi got up and checked. “Yup, okay. Hmmm, no bricks though. And they used imported cement? Isn't that cheating?” he asked. Bob shrugged.

  Luigi looked up and smiled to Zubrin. "Let’s get this out as a contest. A fifty thousand dollar prize to the group or company that can make an automated brick and duracrete maker...."

  Zubrin chuckled. "Good idea. Farm it out, get some publicity. The universities will pick up interest. It is a pretty simple thing, mix water with fine soil and nylon, extrude under pressure, then dry."

  "I doubt MIT will. If it isn't robotic..." Roberts shrugged with a smile.

  "Okay...” Luigi made a note. ”We could also offer a plastic extrusion contest." He looked up to see Roberts looking startled.

  "Plastics? I thought you were going to bring sheets? I mean, on a follow up flight?" Roberts demanded. He was afraid they were throwing too much at the first ship and crew as it was.

  Luigi shook his head. "If we can make it on Mars, we save weight. We have the ethylene remember? So if we can process it into a sheet..."

  Zubrin nodded. "Or a sprayer. Spray the walls inside and out with a binary polypropylene plastic resin. We could even look into a spray on insulator."

  Roberts sat down suddenly. "Talk about thinking big. But why? I mean, we're going to get a couple missions, maybe three if we are lucky, then the public will lose interest!" He looked from one man to the next.

  Luigi shrugged but he couldn't quite hide a slight smile. "Just being thorough." He wrote the ideas down on his Iphone then looked up to see Zubrin hiding his own smile.

  Mario turned the little disk around in his hand. It was about the size of his hand. One side was rounded with a three digit LCD embedded in the center. He flipped it over to find a small finger sized cylinder. "Compressed CO two or Nitrogen?" he asked. He looked up to the tech.

  She adjusted her glasses. "Liquid Nitrogen. CO two isn't cold enough," she replied, looking down at her notes. "Five contacts?"

  He looked up. "For redundancy in case dust fouls one or more of them."

  She nodded. "They are easy to use; you just plug it into a piece of equipment, or a suit."

  She picked up a belt from the table. "That looks like batman's utility belt actually," Mario said with a laugh.

  She smiled. "Yeah, we get that a lot. It is a bit like it." She strapped it around her waist over her.

  "On each hip we have a battery port. We can also store one on the back here and here." She pointed the positions out. "We've added clips for the safety harness, and for hanging tools. The computer module is here." She pointed to a box the size of a pack of cigarettes. "Each superconductor battery can give a suit enough power for heating, life support, electronics, and lights for two hours. You'll have to swap them when they get low." She showed him how the battery unclips. "Now, we added a port here, on the left hip so you can plug in manually as you specified. We even added a power cable that can retract."

  She pulled the plug out, then pushed a button on the belt and it retracted. "Neat. Good, so two hours per, and we have two plugged in so, say four hours before we need a charge? And we can have what about two more batteries with us?" Mario asked. He looked over to the tech then to Dr. Roberts.

  "Yeah, that's about it, but we haven't had time to fully test it," Roberts cautioned. He wasn't happy about that, the simulated tests were all fine but they needed field time to do a real test.

  Mario raised a hand. "Not to worry Doc, we know no time estimate survived real world conditions," he said and then smiled. It was something every good engineer learned, that there was a big difference between the bench and the real world. A bench was clean and neat, the real world was messy with a lot of additional variables you just overlooked on the bench.

  The tech tentatively smiled as well. "This is amazing, a little dollar coin sized superconductor..." She shook her head. "The refrigeration, insulation, and electronics for it w
eigh more!" She shook her head as she held up the disk.

  "Yeah, but now we have a couple questions, battery life, and how many can you make before we launch?" Luigi asked. Luigi came in and sat down on a stool.

  "Mornin little bro, decided to wake up?" Mario teased as he handed him a cup of coffee.

  "For your information, I had a late night. I crashed...." He looked up at the clock. "Three hours ago," he replied dryly. He shook his head.

  Mario sighed. "Yeah, been there done that. Dr. Roberts and Mrs. Johnston were telling me about the battery life... It is about the same as the O two re-breather. So when we change the breather, swap the batteries too," he explained.

  Luigi yawned as he nodded. "Sorry. Yeah, I got the memo. Good to know," he sighed and stretched. "I take it the solar cells on the backpack and helmet won't help much?"

  He turned to Roberts who shook his head in confirmation. "No, they'll give you a trickle charge, enough to run a fan and maybe some electronics, but we did a motion study, the only way they will do a lot of good will be if the person held still facing the sun," Roberts said shaking his head as he sat down.

  "Okay, it was a nice idea. Should we pull them?" Mario asked.

  "Yeah, we can save some weight," Luigi sighed and scratched a little. Mrs. Johnston looked away. "We'll keep the solar cells on the roof of the hab and rovers, but make the hab ones modular so we can pull them or adjust them," Luigi ordered. He nodded to his brother who nodded back.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Mario hefted the log and grunted. He looked over to the other side of the log and snarled. "Remind me to thank you good and proper for this," he grunted again as Luigi shifted his weight. All the teams were grumbling over this latest brainstorm. If he was lucky there would be a mutiny and his brother would be strung up.

  "Yeah. Yeah," Luigi sighed. He was aching in some unusual places. He had just thought he'd been fit.

  "All right you pussies, time to move!" The DI walked beside them. "I want a trot up the hill move it!"

  Luigi grunted. It was difficult compensating for Mario's shorter body. The teams were switching out as people were injured or exhausted. Several people had quit. He was sorry to see them go, but in a way glad. It was better that they quit now, when the project was beginning, then half way into their training. Of course the grueling training was starting to hit the public.

  "Pick it up!" The DI yelled in his ear. He grunted and shifted the load, trying to get it off the painful spot on his collarbone. Mario snarled something but the rain washed the sound out. They had two more days of this before they went back to shuffling papers. That is if they survived.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “All right, so both men and women are getting implants to sterilize them for five years. That will make it easier to regulate our periods too,” Wanda said, propping her wrapped ankle up. Wanda looked up at Latisha who grimaced but nodded. They'd gone through the training like the men and were heartily glad it was mostly over. They still had weekly exercises but now the teams were really coming together.

  "Should we make it mandatory that everyone get their appendix removed prior to flight?" Wanda looked over to the medical director who nodded.

  Latisha wrinkled her nose. "Maybe, but there was that study in 2009 that the appendix is actually a useful organ... Wait." She pulled out her Iphone and checked the web. "Got it. Yeah, it is a haven for friendly bacteria, and it is used to restock the intestinal tract after being flushed with diarrhea. It is also used in conjunction with the immune system." She looked up.

  "So that's a maybe," Wanda nodded. "Okay, good to know."

  Doctor Shelby shrugged. "Yeah, we need to know more, I'll have my assistant draw up a paper to go over later in the week," she said. Wanda nodded.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  "Commander Joyce Longfeather?" Mario looked up to the aid as she waved the short broad faced woman forward. She had a mocha skin, with classic American Indian facial structure. He was surprised that she had entered the military, and even more surprised that she had applied for and been accepted for the Mars program. Either someone was trying to keep a broad racial type in the crew, or she was an exceptional woman. Most likely both.

  He nodded and then turned. "Mario right?" her soft contralto asked. He smiled as he got up. "I'm Commander Longfeather, commander of the team. I think we crossed paths in basic training, but the teams weren't settled then," she said as they shook hands. Mario nodded. Wanda had tripped and twisted her ankle during basic, forcing him back to team three. Her recovery had put them back on team two, the backup team.

  "Nice to finally meet you officially Commander."

  She smiled. "Call me Joyce." She nodded to the aid. "I take it Latisha is already in the Sim?” she asked turning to the aid.

  The aid nodded. "She's been in there since team one cut out for lunch ma'am."

  The commander chuckled. "Yeah, she can't wait to get flight time, even if it is in a sim." She looked Mario over. "So what are you in for?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "The usual. All of us are getting a short run through the Sims to get a feel for the craft even if we aren't a pilot."

  She nodded. "Yeah, but it takes a pilot to do what I do." He nodded trying to keep a straight face. In truth computers were flying many missions. Remote piloted craft were even making inroads onto the battlefield, making many throttle jocks uneasy. You didn't need an aeronautical degree to fly, just a basic understanding and a heading now a days. "Well, let's see how you do." She waved him to the sim door.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  "What's this all about? Fitting?" Mario grumbled, tugging at the tight fitting body stocking.

  "Cut it out Mario your stretching it," Wanda ordered. He stopped and sighed.

  "Mario, chill. We're getting fitted for our skin suits," Commander Longfeather replied, sitting back.

  "Skin suits. Great," Mario grumbled. "Better not give me a wedgie," he grumbled. Wanda snickered; she knew he preferred boxers over briefs.

  "You better pay more attention to the front end mate, too many late night pizzas and you'll burst first time you try the suit on," Latisha teased. He grimaced as Wanda and Joyce chuckled.

  "Oh ha ha," he sighed. "So we’re going to get what? Laser scanned she said?"

  He looked over to Wanda who nodded confirmation. "They're also going to use the data for our avatars and our video game characters," she replied.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, closing his eyes and trying not to think of that. "Great. Guess I can't ask them to cut a few pounds off here and there and make me all muscles can I?" he finally asked, striking a weight lifters pose. "Not that I already don't have the build of a Greek god," he joked. Latisha snorted. Wanda chuckled. He mock glowered. "It's not nice to pop men's fantasies ladies," he mock growled. Latisha looked over to Wanda who started to grin.

  "But it's so much fun!" Wanda chuckled turning the grin on him. He sighed.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  "Did I miss the intro?" Luigi asked coming up behind Mario. Now that fittings were over they were getting to the little things. They still had a couple of test flights to go. So far the basic hardware had passed. Nothing critical had been in need of redesign, just tweaking.

  Mario scowled. "No, you just made it," he answered. He looked around the desert area. Arid Arizona, go figure.

  Luigi sighed in relief. "Good, I got lost." He shook his head. "Way out in the boonies!" He looked around to the barren landscape. Some hills in the distance, the vehicles, a tent, chairs, porta potty, and a pile of bricks were the only landmarks.

  "Why are we here again?" Joyce asked. Mario chuckled.

  "Mars Foundation is running a homesteader workshop on building a base," Mario replied. He shrugged as he looked around. About twenty people were in the audience. They were the die hards, the people who really wanted to make this happen.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mars Foundation's hands on presentation on building a Mars
vault. Some of you will be walking on the red planet, and it is our hope that you will open the way to future generations by employing some of the techniques we are about to show you..." Bruce Mackenzie waved to the pile of bricks. "We've set up two demonstrations; the first is how to make bricks if you'll follow me..."

  He paused. "Oh, you may want to change if you’re not dressed for it, you’re going to get dirty," he grinned. Mario chuckled rolling up his sleeves. His brother took his jacket off and hung it on the back of a chair.

  "Just the way we like it," Luigi started rolling up his own sleeves.

  "Solar kiln?" Joyce asked as he fiddled with the Mylar covered sheets. She seemed to be getting the hang of it all. She was glad they were doing this out of their suits though.

  Mario grimaced. "Yeah, but getting the angles right is a pain. The energy may be free, but we still have to expend user energy moving the damn panels," he sighed as he adjusted a panel.

  "We're taking a small one to Mars; I don't think it will work out though. It needs way too much user input every ten to twenty minutes," he grumbled. He sat back on his haunches and sighed.

  "It is good to know. Testing here is good. Now we know not to bring it to Mars." She waved to the sky and surrounding area.

  He nodded. "Right. Okay, well, I have a whopping eight minutes before they have to be adjusted again, let me see if I can make a couple bricks in that time..." He walked off to the pile of bricks.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Wendy looked up a little nervous. Luigi nodded politely to her. "Wendy do you have something?" She nodded. The weekly meetings were starting to bear fruit, slowly, ever too slowly to Luigi's way of thinking.

  "Yes, we've been getting some interest from the business sector. Several companies have approached us with advertising contracts," she replied. Mario grimaced.

  "What sort of advertising?" Luigi asked.

  "Well, for instance patches and brands on the skin suits and vehicles." She looked down at her notes then back up. "Ad links on websites, testing and promoting commercial products, and even a rather large inducement to build the first billboard on another planet," Wendy finished.