From the Files of Mark Watney
Car Trouble
(Moderator’s Note: ~220 Days Before Sol 6)
Dear Mom
Sorry it took me so long to write. Training has been kicking my ass. It’s pretty much non-stop, especially now that we’re three months from launch, and I’m almost a full day behind because my car is a piece of crap.
I was driving from Site 14 back to Johnson Space Center, which is a four-hour drive through Texas wasteland, when the car just died. No overheating, no warning, nothing. It just stopped working and I coasted to the side of the road. I checked out the engine and there wasn’t anything obviously wrong. I later learned it was a critical fault in the computer. The damn thing just died. I hate computers.
I know what you’re thinking. No problem. Just call NASA. They’ll send a helicopter or something because you’re a big important astronaut. Problem is I was stupid when I packed for the trip, so I had the phone’s data cable instead of the charger. I had been at Site 14 doing EVA drills for the last four days and in that time the phone had run out of juice. The road was dead. No cars anywhere. And it was 20 miles to the nearest gas station.
But fear not. Your boy is a clever one. I used my pocket knife to cut open the data cable’s USB connector. The pins on the far left and right are the ones that carry power. The wires that led to them were red and black, so I assumed red was positive. That was a risky assumption, but I had at least a 50% chance of being right, and the phone probably had a diode to prevent power going the wrong way.
Anyway, the phone wants 5 volts of power, so if I attached it to the car’s 12-volt system, it would fry. Lucky for me, most cars have some stock electronic parts that require 5 volts. One such system is the throttle position sensor, or TPS as car geeks call it. That’s how the computer knows the current throttle setting. The TPS is in the engine bay, so I had to do everything while hunched over a still-hot engine block. But, I managed to cut the TPS’s power lines and twist them together with the data cable’s power leads. Then I plugged my new makeshift charger into the phone and prayed I got the polarity right.
Turns out I did. After a few minutes of charging, I was able to boot up and call for a tow. Dealing with the towing and mechanic cost me hours of time I didn’t really have, and the mechanic seemed pretty mad about the hatchet job I’d done to the TPS.
But it was worth it to save myself an all-day hike through the Texas sun. Things will be a lot simpler for me once the mission starts. I’ll have top-quality equipment everywhere. I won’t have to deal with problems like this.
Love, Mark
Diary of an Ass Can
June 8th
(Moderator’s Note: 158 Days Before Sol 6)
Missed Orbit Scenario.
I will never in my life hate anything more than I hate Missed Orbit Scenario.
My crewmates and I were chosen partially because the psych team figured we’d work well together. And they were right. We’ve been through rigorous training, travel, sleep deprivation, and constant fatigue together. It’s made us stronger and brought us closer together. We’re like war buddies. We would literally die for each other.
But I swear to God if I see any of them in the next few days, I’ll strangle them.
Missed Orbit Scenario is a situation that could come up when we return to Hermes (our main ship in orbit) from the surface of Mars. We’ll get to orbit in the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). There’s all sorts of stuff that can go wrong with an MAV launch, and one of them is that it could end up in a much lower orbit than intended.
If that happens, we’ll have to sit tight in the MAV and wait for NASA to remotely control Hermes to come to us. Problem is, Hermes is powered by ion engines. They give a slow, constant acceleration rather than a powerful point-thrust like chemical rockets. So that means it’ll take a long time to get it to us.
To prepare for this possibility, we have to practice what we’d do in the MAV during the THREE FREAKIN’ DAYS it would take to get Hermes to us.
Doesn’t seem like much, does it? Three days in a ship. Hell, we’re going to be in various spaceships and tiny accommodations for over a year during this mission. What’s the problem with three days?
Well, I’ll tell ya.
The MAV is designed to get us from Mars’s surface to Mars orbit, a trip that takes twenty-three minutes. So the crew compartment is small. It’s basically like being in a minivan. Just six seats and some control panels.
Pick your five favourite people and then sit in a van with them for three days. And not like a road trip, either. For this trip you don’t get to leave the van. Need to go to the bathroom? Get a bag and ask people to look away. Need to sleep? Better hope there isn’t a big German guy snoring next to you. Want to make light conversation? No you don’t. I can’t explain why, but you don’t.
Pretty soon, things get on your nerves. Everything someone says or does pisses you off.
We kept things professional, but we were all seething by the time it ended. Frankly I’m surprised we didn’t get into fistfights. But we kept it together.
We’re all separated now. Each of us enjoying some solitude. And they gave us the weekend off. I called Karen Rhodes (mechanical engineer for Ares 1) and asked how she handled Missed Orbit Scenario testing. She groaned and told me it was just as bad as I’d had it. So I feel better about that. However, one good thing came out of it: I have even more respect for Lewis than I did before.
As commander, Lewis has a lot of responsibilities. Arguably the most important is making sure the crew gets along. And she didn’t try a “camp councillor” approach by being artificially cheerful or positive. She showed her annoyance as much as the rest of us, but kept professional and levelheaded the whole time. Plus, she didn’t take sides when the crew started to bicker. Instead she admonished us all, and subtly made herself a more imposing problem than our petty squabbles with each other.
And it worked. I guess it’s to be expected; she’s an officer in the US Navy. She knows how to make people get along in small spaces.
I think we’re stronger now than we were before. We’ve seen each other at our worst and been at each others’ throats.
And we pulled through. Overall, Missed Orbit Scenario was a worthy cause.
Just the same, I’m steering clear of news websites for the weekend. We’re in the news a lot as the launch date approaches. And if I were to see any of my crewmates in a picture or video… I’d probably put my fist through the monitor.
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