Sol 500
MISSION LOG – SOL 500
Ever since the Black Spot, as we’ve been tooling along uneventfully across Mars, I’ve been regretting that I can’t pick up rock samples to bring home with us.
Think about it. The clays of Mawrth Vallis. The shock glass scattered around Crommelin. The sediments of the dry lakes of Thymiamata. The sands of the great lines of dunes (which we didn’t drive over so much as plow straight through) of Meridiani Planitia. And now, the broken rocks from the mesas and arroyos of the transition zone between Arabia Terra and Terra Sabaea. (Schiaparelli kind of straddles the line between the two.) There are a million geologists back home who would gladly die here if they could ship their body weight in Mars rocks back to Earth for study.
Me, I’m going the fuck home, but I still feel guilty. I’m passing up all sorts of scientific discoveries- possibly the first discovery of Martian fossils, or a rock with words carved on it: FOR A GOOD TIME CALL XENU 555-XXXX. NASA spent literal tons of money to send me here, and they’re spending extra tons of money to get me and my five magical friends back again. The least I could do is bring a few souvenirs of my prolonged involuntary vacation.
But it just isn’t feasible. Weight is everything right now. We’re up to seventy-four kilometers per day because we’ve lost weight. And our safety margin on Sol 551 relies entirely on making the MAV lighter. So no rock samples for me, as much as I’d love to.
But I have been taking photos at every stop. The cameras automatically time-stamp the digital files, so NASA will be able to place every photo with every stop. I spend about half an hour outside laying out solar panels and taking photos of anything that looks vaguely interesting. And digital files cost nothing to send back to Earth except electricity.
Today I took several photos of the view ahead. The horizon is bumpy again- really bumpy. Normally we can’t see farther than two and a half kilometers unless we’re on top of a mountain or crater ridge or something, but I think we’re seeing a lot farther than that as we look east.
In the next two and a half sols we’re going to climb about a kilometer in elevation. To give you some idea of what that means, it took us eight sols to climb the same amount of elevation coming up Mawrth Vallis. It took us even longer to climb only five hundred meters crossing Meridiani Planitia. Not that I expect the Whinnybago to have any problem, provided we stay away from really sharp grades or cliffs. My point is, the geography ahead is getting a bit on the spectacular side.
For the last sol we’ve been seeing more mesas and rock outcrops, and we’re leaving the sand dunes behind. I keep expecting to see a coyote running past the Whinnybago in hot pursuit of a road runner.
It’ll get even more impressive when we get to Schiaparelli. Most craters are pretty impressive, but Schiaparelli more so than most. The crater was a lake for uncounted millennia, and the bottom filled up with sediment… and even so, the rim in places is close to two kilometers higher than the bottom.
We’re lucky that parts of the rim are eroded, and luckier that Entrance Ramp exists. If the MAV were in Crommelin, or even in Trouvelot, we might never be able to get to it. The sheer drop into the crater would wreck the rover. And I don’t even want to think of trying to drive into Hellas Basin. Leaving aside that it’s on the opposite side of the planet from the Hab, Hellas is over seven kilometers deep, with steep dropoffs almost all the way around.
Anyway, I’m going to be taking a lot of pictures when we stop. But I don’t expect to have any spare time to do it while driving. From here on I’ll have to be even more careful than I’ve been. We’re entering the most dangerous part of the drive, and that’s counting the recent dust storm of slow suffocating death.
Anyway, Cherry and Starlight are putting in some serious work now, picking out the path forward. We’re trying to just drift a little south of true east, but not too far. There’s some more of those dry riverbed ridges ahead and, believe it or not, a couple of glaciers.
Let me repeat that: Mars has glaciers on its equator. If all the past log entries have somehow failed to convey what kind of frozen hell I’ve been stranded on all this time, that one fact ought to give you a clue.
Gotta go. Cherry and Spitfire are having another fight. Spitfire finally figured out she could borrow a good suit, and Cherry is damn well determined not to let her. Dragonfly and I take turns breaking it up. Later.
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Heh, was that Scientology poke in the original, or just your own creation?
"Spitfire finally figure out she could borrow a good suit"
"Spitfire finally figured out she could borrow a good suit"?
It's kind of sweet and funny. Mark is so used to his companions he doesn't even seem to think about how much more excited everyone on Earth will be about him bringing actual living aliens back over a bunch of rocks. Like NASA is losing out on scientific discoveries by spending time and effort to get them back to Earth.
For all Mark keeps talking about how much it costs to bring them home, and it's only right that he's grateful...
In terms of Return On Investment? For first contact with extra-dimensional aliens, the discovery of magic, confirmation of the multiverse, establishing diplomatic ties with a friendly political power in another universe? No amount of money could possibly be too much. Money is just stuff. This is all fundamentally transformative.
Also, thought in passing. The results of Twilight Sparkle's initial random-hop dimension scans with the probe are going to wind up being foundational to the map of the Multiverse for the next couple of centuries aren't they? Mostly because no-one realized just how INSANELY DANGEROUS that was to do until she stumbled on old Gnarly. Developing safe ways to scan alternate dimensions before you poke your nose in is NOT something you figure out overnight.
One note: Soils micromorphology can do *amazing* things with microscopic soil samples. If only he had a box of soda straws. At each stop, fuse one end closed, stick it into the dusty dirt, fuse the other end closed and store in a box. And label. Fifty or so to the pound, and they've all lost weight...
They should draw straws.
Don't feel guilty, Mark, I'm pretty sure the transdimensional aliens you're bringing along will more than make up for it.
Home stretch!
Why can't he give the camera to one of the ponies to take pictures with as they move? Cherry Berry and Starlight are still roaming ahead of the Whinnybago to scout the path. They could take pictures as they do.
Well I was going to make a comment ranting about how Markiboy doesn't realize that he's got several holy grails worth of scientific achievement riding shotgun and that his name will be forever cemented in the history books because all he did was answer a door, but everyone else has already done that.
9168139
Lack of fingers to use it.
9168134
Ummm... what?
9168139
Thumbs
9168092
I knew I recognized that name.
9168172 The moment I saw it I started giggling.
9168168
Sorry was on mobile at the tiem
Liek hasbro having a Whinbago toy playset and a Ares 4 lander launch toy. and then a survial vidoe game
I feel for you. The first drive I gave my tech was DOA (MicroCenter has promised to replace it free of charge), and the replacement for the replacement was misplaced by FedEx, only to be found again and then tossed into the US Postal service for delivery. A Monday delivery became Tuesday, became "Ooops? Did we say Tuesday? We meant Saturday. Yup. Saturday all along. Honest."
I literally couldn't call my computer tech to tell him until the next morning, because I was choking on my own rage and actually could not speak.
SO... assuming that there's not ANOTHER delay, I deliver the replacement for the replacement to my tech Saturday evening, pick up the dead-in-the-box drive to mail back to MicroCenter for no-cost replacement, and presumably, seven days from now, I'll have all my personal data restored to the new box.
( Which is a six core machine rocking twelve simultaneous threads, so when I hit the powerswitch it lights up so fast I get whiplash from the login screen... sweet. :) )
None of that matters, Mark. You're bringing back first contact to Earth. This is one of the most significant events in the entire history of humans as a species. Confirmation, proof, knowing that we're not alone the universe.
Oh and by the way, magic that will probably change just about every industry on the planet.
Don't worry about the rocks.
9168270
In point of fact, Mark hasn’t proven that humanity is not alone in his universe, since the Amicitas and its crew did not originate in it. He has, however, proven that:
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Ponies manage all sorts of things that would normally require thumbs with their hooves. They've very dexterous somehow.
Even if they can't manage it because of their space suits they could have Dragonfly or Spitfire do it from inside the Amicitas through the windows since they aren't doing spacewalks anymore for health reasons.
Meh, just keep aside a small portion of the quartz you're bringing to keep Fireball healthy. Even if it is a common crystal, it's still Martian quartz.
Now all I can imagine is them trying to use an ACME rocket to get off of Mars instead of the MAV.
9168270
"Familiarity breeds contempt."
Mark's been stuck with the magic ponies for a year and change. The magic's lost it's, aheh, magic.
To him, what was strange and even frightening is now the norm; Pastel ponies, magic, and a murderous Mars.
Situations that would, to a normal person, be not just unbelievable but impossible, have been his every day life for almost 500 days now. So to him, the ponies aren't aliens any more, and magic isn't an unknowable force. They're his friends, and another tool, respectively.
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9168120
Two comments about straws one right after the other!
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Proof of Pinkie Pie?
Wonder how long its going to take Mark to realise that due to the massive magical launch pulse, if it rains on Mars, all those totally megayear pristine samples, are going to be washed away, dissolved, corroded etc.
Last chance to get samples before Mars finds out what its like on Venus during total crustal inversion, equivalence?
This is what porn is if you're Maud Pie.
Those other craters you mentioned, with sheer sides, were they lakes too? Or more like meteorite impacts or cave collapses? Strange to think of a lake eroding sheer sides, but then one gets plenty of cliffs on Earth, so why not?
I'm rereading CSP.
Is Marked Knee a reference to Mark Watney, or just a coincidence they have similar names??
9168531 Marked Knee = Marconi, the Italian tinkerer who developed radio.
9168472
Hmm, one sample of Mars that might make it into the personal items. Starlight's Martian Death Dice. Though her shaping 'contaminated' them?
C-beams glittering off the Tannhauser... Wait, sorry, wrong script.
In any case, I certainly can't blame Mark for thinking of mineral samples even as he's the token universal native on this crew. After all, the mission called for bringing back rocks, not ponies, and while the latter are Earth- (and Mars-)shaking revelations, they're not what he set out to collect.
9168584
Haha, better yet, what he DID set out to collect was plant data and... well we got Groot, so I call mission success!
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Proof that magic exists, which they will take worse (once confronted with it) than Twilight takes Pinkie Pie :)
Also yes.
9168487
I actually can imagine Maud asking Starlight for a date with Mark after reading that.
9168542
SOME part of Earth believes that Popov invented radio.
No, I'm not talking about ensign Chekhov. Technically , first public demonstration was Popov's, but Marconi filled patent less than year later and had funding.
There was similar story related to invention of laser, with two american companies in that case. One side lost priority due to clerical error where patent request was denied "because it is not real".
Both Marconi and Popov numerously were called quacks, before then inventors of phone devices met same reception. Accept or not an invention was often in hand of ignorant clerks.
9168354
Number 2 should have humanity rightfully scared of that old proverb, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it." Case in point, that extra-dimensional kid with a magnifying glass and we're all just ants.
Just spent a few hours catching up on the past 2 weeks worth of updates. Man.... Spitfire becomes second to perform a sonic rainboom (fireboom?) Albeit assisted. Awesome.
9168134
You have a stroke while typing that?
9168831
I didn't know any of this, that's really interesting.
9168831 You'll notice that I said developed, not invented.
I didn't give the yak Popoff any lines, but he's mentioned, too. The one place the yaks had significant input on the space race (besides the chapter currently in progress) was in electronic development, and specifically in radio. Marked Knee is more about designing circuits and integrating electronic systems, using George Bull's logic trees.
Internet at my hotel is optimized for smartphones, not for Windows 7, and as such really unreliable for my travel machine. I should get in an update tonight, but we'll have to see about the weekend...
OHHHHH that's what he meant about her 'not needing to take her suit out'. XD I thought he meant not needing a suit at all, totally misunderstood there. Oh dear, poor Cherry Berry. Although honestly I can't see why she'd argue against it's TOO much since the higher survivability would be a decent tradeoff for the shorter EVA time.
*considers what part of the original Martian book they might be coming up on*
*tenses up*
9168887
Well , it did take several key stokes to make -rimshot -
9168110
Props to Twilight; though, since at least she had the presence of mind to send probes instead of actual life forms. Not a perfect solution, certainly, but not a bad effort.
9169387
Yep. And now they have dimensional coordinates for hundreds or thousands of dimensions which, while not necessarily safe, are at least habitable and not full of eldritch forces ready to snack on souls. That should be enough to keep them busy for a couple of lifetimes at least.
Starting with Starlight's Nightmareverse being worrying, but potentially a great ally if Luna can talk Nightmare Moon around. The United Federation of Dimensions is coming...
9168870
Release valves become more complicated for near-vacuum environment and they are generally avoided. Aside from failure chance, there is the factor that in vacuum things... stick together. As in they become welded together under pressure. Special materials and construction would be required.
9168838
The CSP and EqSA already ran into that possibility for the first time during the Angel 16 mission playback on Sol 479. Thankfully, Pinkie intervened—but in a way consistent with the rest of the chapter.
9169560 Well, A Pinkie intervened. CSP/Maretian Pinkie was just as flubbered as the rest of the mortals.
9169568
Considering who all was in the room at the time, it's as I said -- in a way consistent with the rest of the chapter.
9168110
Well, if we put our cynical economist hat on, then it depends on whether all those nice benefits would be exclusive for the side that paid for all that or not. In former case that's really an incentive to pay, in latter one cost-benefit analysis goes like that:
Hello, Nash equilibrium. Of course USA government would likely pay even in that case, just not because of that reason.
9169680
I don't find arguments like that convincing. Even if other people also benefit from a transformative technology or information, you'll get it as well. The benefit in this case is not from exclusive control over the new resource, it's from the opportunities created by it's availability. Or for the simplistic metaphor, it's a case where instead of paying for a larger piece of the pie you're paying to make the pie bigger. Both benefit you, and other people benefit as well in the second case.
And, of course, if the benefit isn't exclusive to you then it also creates further opportunities as people take advantage of it. It's similar to how externalizing costs by underpaying foreign workers is short sighted. Sure you're saving money in the short term, but in the long term if all those people had more money it will create more opportunities. For them yes, but also for you. Especially in a global economy.
9169700
The problem here is that letting other guy to pay for it benefits you even better. Although the fact that this logic is hard to grasp is kinda good thing: humans are surprisingly altruistic (despite the fact of all that stuff being prominently present in human behaviour too).
Although not everything is completely awful: actual Nash equilibrium here is each player paying with approaching zero probability (as number of players increase), but probability of at least one guy paying is
\mathcal{O}(1)(detailed analysis may be found here from page 22).