Chapter 4 

LOG ENTRY: SOL 32 (Dec. 8, 2035)

So I ran in to a bunch of problems with my water plan. 

My idea is to make 600L of water (limited by the hydrogen I can get from the Hydrazine). That means I’ll need 300L of liquid O2. I can create the O2 easily enough. It takes 20 hours for the MAV fuel plant to fill its 10L tank with CO2. The Oxygenator can turn it in to O2, then the Atmospheric Regulator will see the O2 content in the Hab is high, and pull it out of the air, storing it in the main O2 tanks. They’d fill up, so I’d have to transfer O2 over to the rovers’ tanks and even space suit tanks as necessary. 

But I can’t create it very quickly. At 1/2L of CO2 per hour, it will take 25 days to make the oxygen I need. That’s longer than I’d like. Also, there’s the problem of storing the hydrogen. The air tanks of the Hab, the rovers, and all the space suits add up to exactly 374L of storage. To hold all the materials for water, I would need a whopping 900L of storage. 

I considered using one of the rovers as a “tank”. It would certainly be big enough, but it just isn’t designed to hold in that much pressure. It’s made to hold (you guessed it) one atmosphere. I need vessels that can hold 50 times that much. I’m sure a rover would burst. 

The best way to store the ingredients of water is to make them be water. So what’s what I’ll have to do. 

The concept is simple, but the execution will be incredibly dangerous. Every 20 hours, I’ll have 10L of CO2 thanks to the MAV fuel plant. I’ll vent it in to the Hab via the highly scientific method of detaching the tank from the MAV landing struts, bringing it in to the Hab, then opening the valve until it’s empty. 

The Oxygenator will turn it in to oxygen in its own time. Then, I’ll release Hydrazine, VERY SLOWLY, over the iridium catalyst, to turn it in to N2 and H2. I’ll direct the hydrogen to a small area and burn it. 

As you can see, this plan provides many opportunities for me to die in a fiery explosion. 

Firstly, Hydrazine is some serious death. If I make any mistakes, there’ll be nothing left but the “Mark Watney Memorial Crater” where the Hab once stood. 

Presuming I don’t fuck up with the Hydrazine, there’s still the matter of burning hydrogen. I’m going to be setting a fire. In the Hab. On purpose. 

If you asked every engineer at NASA what the worst scenario for the Hab was, they’d all answer “fire.” If you asked them what the result would be, they’d answer “death by fire.” 

But if I can pull it off, I’ll be making water continuously, with no need to store hydrogen or oxygen. It’ll be mixed in to the atmosphere as humidity, but the Water Reclaimer will pull it out. 

I don’t even have to perfectly match the Hydrazine end of it with the fuel plant CO2 part. There’s plenty of oxygen in the Hab, and plenty more in reserve. I just need to make sure not to make so much water I run myself out of O2. 

I hooked up the MAV fuel plant to the Hab’s power supply. Fortunately they both use the same voltage. It’s chugging away, collecting CO2 for me. 

Half-ration for dinner. All I accomplished today was thinking up a plan that’ll kill me, and that doesn’t take much energy. 

I’m going to finish off the last of “Three’s Company” tonight. Frankly, I like Mr. Furley more than the Ropers.