Teddy didn’t even apologize for being four minutes late. He strode into his office, placed his briefcase on his desk, sat down, and said, “I know you’re all very busy, so let’s make this quick. I need a status update on Project Sleipnir from all departments. Venk, let’s begin with you.”
“Proceeding on schedule here,” Venkat replied. “The only problem I have is that the Ares III and Ares IV presupply crews are competing over cruise and landing control of the probes. I’m letting them make their cases before I decide on one or the other, or whether to assemble a fresh crew. Unless they come up with a compelling reason otherwise, I’m probably going to go with the Ares III team.”
“Mitch,” Teddy continued, “how about the launch?”
The Ares flight controller shrugged. “Eagle Eye 3 cleared out their launch control room, so we’re good to go at Kennedy and here at Johnson. We’ll have Sleipnir 1 on pad 39A and Sleipnir 2 on 39B, so that we can send Sleipnir 3 out on the crawler the minute Sleipnir 1 clears the tower. After launch we’ll turn everything over to Venk’s team for cruise and landing.”
“Media?”
Annie looked up from her phone. “I’m giving daily updates to the media,” she said. “Google reports an uptick in searches on Norse mythology. We’re expecting public interest to peak as we get closer to launch day, so expect a lot more press inquiries in the next six weeks.”
“Encourage them,” Teddy said. “We need pressure on Congress to replace the Ares funds we’re spending on Sleipnir. What about opposition to the rescue- the ‘let them die’ crowd?”
Annie actually smiled. “They’re getting their fucking heads kicked in,” she said. “The BringThemHome tag outperforms them twenty to one. Gallup and Monmouth polls both show over 75% support in the United States for the rescue mission. And the online troll cesspools are actually policing their own on this. Apparently Spitfire has just been elected ‘alien troll queen.’” Her smile turned savage. “And a certain ‘Filthy Fred’ is posting nothing but angry response videos after his fellow shitposters turned on him. My department has counted over fifty videos doing to Fred what Fred does to other people.” Putting on an air of dignity, she added, “Of course, my staff did this research entirely on their own time.”
Teddy didn’t smile. “Of course,” he said. “Moving on.” He turned to face one of the two big monitors in the room. “Maurice, how are the boosters coming?”
Maurice Stein, Director of Pad Operations at Kennedy Space Center, frowned. “We’re behind,” he said bluntly. “Or I should say, SpaceX is behind. We took delivery of the first Red Falcon booster last week, and it’s going through final inspection now. But SpaceX is two weeks behind schedule on refurbishing the second booster, and they’ve barely begun on the third booster. They keep telling me they’ll make deadline, but damn if I see how.”
“So,” Teddy said, “no hope for an early launch?”
Maurice shook his head. “None,” he said. “The betting pool in my team puts the smart money on about a week’s delay of launch on Sleipnir II. Three weeks for Sleipnir III. More if JPL’s schedule slips.”
Teddy looked at the other monitor, where Bruce Ng stood in his office in California. “What about it, Bruce? Is your schedule slipping?”
Bruce shrugged. “We’ve had some setbacks,” he said, “but we had a bit of schedule budgeted for setbacks. We certainly won’t be early, but so long as we avoid any major screwups, we should deliver all three probes on time.”
“Sounds good,” Teddy replied. “What can you tell me about the loadouts?”
“All three Sleipnir probes use identical tumbler-landed supply casings,” Bruce replied. “They all contain transponders that the rover navigation system will identify, allowing Mark to drive his modified rover to each site.
“Each probe will deliver just under one metric ton to Mars- one-tenth the payload of a typical presupply flight. Five hundred kilograms of that will be payload. Four hundred kilograms of that will be food, providing a total of three hundred days of rations for four astronauts at full rations.
“The remaining hundred kilos will include a replacement radio system on both Sleipnir 1 and 3, a replacement flight suit and shatter-proof helmet for Watney on Sleipnir 2, replacement spare Hab canvas and resin on all three ships, plus whatever we can cram in the remaining space and weight.
“And finally, we’re configuring the onboard radio for all three probes so they can take the place of Hermes as radio relays for Pathfinder. It’ll only do any good for the last four months or so of the flight, but it’s better than nothing. After launch we’re planning software adjustments which will let us turn the three probes into a flying radio array that can error-check incoming transmissions and so increase bandwidth from Mars. Unfortunately the time lag between ships won’t let us do that in reverse.”
“Sounds good,” Teddy repeated. “Keep me posted. Dr. Keller,” he continued, turning to look at the Ares III flight surgeon, “what issues will the crew be facing when the supplies land?”
Dr. Keller shrugged. “They need at least one, probably two harvests from their cave farm to even make it to landing,” he said. “We know nothing about nutritional problems for Dragonfly or Fireball. The ponies will probably have a sodium deficiency, but will otherwise be all right. Watney is our major concern.”
Keller adjusted his glasses as he continued, “Watney has gone to one food pack per day plus potatoes and a small amount of alfalfa leaves for his meals. Depending on how rigidly he sticks to this meal plan, his protein deficiency will range from nothing to serious, possibly severe. The biggest danger is that, faced with a monotonous diet, he’ll undereat. There’s very little we can do about that, except encourage the ponies to be his meal-buddies and make sure he eats everything he’s supposed to.”
“How will this affect his ability to retrieve the supplies?” Teddy asked.
“He’ll be weakened,” Keller replied. “How much I can’t say. Also, his judgment will be slightly impaired due to lack of vital fatty acids for repair of neural myelin. He’ll need help bringing the supplies back to the Hab. But in even the worst case scenario he should be able to do the job. Of course, the closer we can drop the supplies to the Hab, the better for everyone.”
“Will this do any permanent damage?”
“No way to know ahead of time,” Keller said. “Once he’s back on full rations for a month, then we’ll know.”
“All right.” Teddy made some notes. “Good work, everyone, and keep it up. And remember, if anybody can find a safe way to speed this up without further risking Mark’s life, I want to know about it immediately.”
TO: Venkat Kapoor (kapoor@ares.nasa.gov)
FROM: Michael Bendarek (mbender33@nasa.gov)
SUBJECT: Satcom Request
Tell Satcom we’ll have their orbital adjustments tomorrow during the day. My best man just went on vacation, and he has months of vacation days banked. It was that or fire him, and normally he’s too reliable to get rid of. But he’s got something in his head and won’t let go of it.
Sorry for the delay.
Mike
Astrodynamics
Wonder what Rich has in mind. It's got to be something big if he's taking vacation time so he can focus all of his considerable mental resources on it.
Mark need to get Starlight to gather the salt with her spell soon so he can tell NASA they don't need to send any his way. We are talking about at least 3 or 4 kilos of payload saved!
Wait, salt can be made with magic?
The plan for BFR is very sub-day turnarounds - hours at most, with minimal refurbishment.
2035 - sol 1 - would be 14 years or so after BFR first flight, so either it failed utterly, or it is now completely reliable, or has been superseded.
But - meh - story would be rather different if forty minutes after the amicitas crash, a BFS had landed right next to it and a couple of dozen people got out.
SpaceX is hopefully going to make Weirs timeline (which is rather more ambitious than NASAs) look pedestrian.
I unfortunately doubt they'll find ponies, whatever happens.
8813973
My theory is that he's still working the "flight of the phoenix" angle that Mike brought up on Sol 98. It'd explain why he's putting together alternate flight trajectories, as well as crunching the performance of the Sparkle Drive.
I'm not a fan of the fundamental failure to understand how Filthy Frank/Fred operates. It reads more like how a children's show or daytime television imagines online trolls to be like than what chan culture actually is.
8813998 The applicable part of troll culture is this: if you somehow put a foot wrong with fellow trolls, they will turn on you like a school of piranha. (Also, trolls tend to get REALLY whiny when they're the target.)
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"You don't wanna know what they call me."
...Huh. Fair play.
Aww!
8813998
Yeah. A Person like him would have already been subjected to that sort of troling from the start. If he is snapping at that then he would never have been able to become big enough to show up on Google or even get on NASA's radar.
8813776
Even among the aliens, these five will be the most important because they were the ones contacted first.
As far as friendships go, I think Starlight outdid anything her mentor, the Princess of Friendship, will ever do.
Very curious what Rich is working on. Also, SUCK IT FILTHY FRED! Annie rules, Fred drools!
8813973
Pretty sure the vacation time was forced since he was focusing on it so much he wasn't doing his actual job. So vacation or get fired.
8813998
8814013
Ehhhhhh. Trolls really don't lend themselves to nuanced portraits. Especially not in a story about stranded magical astronauts.
Sounds like Rich will be the first human to understand pony magic.
If BFR works, this story is moot. If BFR doesn't work - for example, carbon fiber tanks not lasting past one flight - F9 and F9 Heavy could still be flying. I expect Block 5 will make these delays look dated in another two years or so for single stick launches, except for a bottleneck in stage 2 production. The downer attitude about SpaceX and Blue Origin - who apparently aren't a viable heavy lift provider either - is probably my least favorite part of this story.
That said, keeping remotely close to the book timeline kind of requires Hermes, not Heart of Gold, and there's not been a great spot to infodump about why BFR and BO's rockets didn't pan out 100% or about what archetecture is being used instead.
Oh. And if any of the Sleipnirs make it to Mars, I hope no one forgets to avoid the cave. (Wow, buncha negatives.)
8814088
As amusing as that would be, if the cave lasts long enough for a resupply probe to crash into it they should all be fine.
8813997
That's what I'm inclined to think. He's figured something out, and taking vacation time was the only way he wouldn't be distracted with other tasks so he can work on it.
8814013
I think it's a matter of quantity-normally he can keep up with the ones he sees, but if 90% of what he gets has him in the crosshairs, then he could find himself doing nothing BUT lashing back at random targets who picked fights with him-and never long enough to really destroy any one target.
You might make more space fans happy (myself included) if you mention that the bottleneck is not the first stage of the BFR, but the second stage. Space could have an entire fleet of BFR first stage ready to go, but not be quite there on the custom Mars injection second stage. Or maybe say they recently had one explode on launch and the main limiter is finding the fault before they can launch again.
Based on how disaster after disaster usually came in the book, I'm betting that Slepnir 1 or 2 have a failure on the pad that destroys the other one on the adjacent pad. Then the third one is the only one that makes it, but it takes a long time to either get it to a new pad or repair the destroyed pads.
I ask again, if I got a reply I mised it... Have the Ponies tried seeing if they can send salinated water through their suits?
8814088
As they are doing staggered launches (my choice or by necessity), even if they have a failure like they had in the book they would be able to address it for the second probe. Even if they had to force them early and launch them as close together as they can they still would wait until one makes orbit before launching the second one just to keep things focused on each launch.
The odds of none of the probes making it are slim... so something else is going to have to go wrong.
8814138
I agree. If either of the first two launches fails (or rather, I should say that in the event of one of the launches failing), any remaining rockets will be grounded for further inspections. In the movie, the food sort of liquefied during launch, upsetting the balance of the rocket. Now, I don't know if that's how it happened in the book (I'm going to attempt to start the audiobook this weekend), but still.
Also, they couldn't just have packed a can of Morton salt? Salt goes great with potatoes!
(It also just occurred to me that Starlight could theoretically pull NaCl from the Martian soil (assuming there is any; I don't know), to supplement their sodium intake.)
Rich... what the fuck are you planning, my dude?
8813973
This doesn't seem like it was elective time off as much as it was forced paid time off.
It would be kinda funny to see Starlight ascend in front of all the humans, when she gets taken back to Earth. Establishing first contact with an alien species world seems like a princess worthy deed.
Humans are like, ' What the hell just happened?' When Starlight just disappears. And reappears with a set of wings.
SG: Well, I'm kinda one of our rulers/gods now.
I get the feeling Rich has managed to wrap his head around Starlight's magic equations and is going to come through with a new set of equations that begins to bridge the gap for getting the Sparkle Drive working. That seems to be the kind of mind he has.
8814000
SpitfireSlobberflame for troll queen!what every can be put into those probs........ given what room and wight left.... that give me a few idea meany this!
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The ponies have music players we know that but give them something that they saw before but look like something new. given that fact that cassette sales are getting back up to the point of the mid-90s soon i can see them being like today vinyl record. because of the fact they're cheap to make and cost less than a cd or a vinyl record to put your music on
8814143
that what i was thinking too
Since the ponies can get water from their side, would it be possible to dope the water with nutritional supplements? or like... send protein shakes through?
8814052
they did say to put engery into magic cost too high but given human history of getting free engery from the sun and we have nukes.... i say we can
8813975
and replace that with something worth more wild like seeds a hab farm or something better
On the other hand, the Block 5 Falcon 9s should be capable of a 24-work-hour refurbishment, although it'll likely remain longer than that until they get used to doing it, find better ways of doing it, etc. Plus, it should only need slight refurbishment to get it running again, compared to the significant refurbishment in comparison required for the older versions.
To be fair though - if SpaceX was in the book at the capacity that they are at today and will be soon in the future, then the story would have been rendered moot, so there's that.
Even though I'm going on about this, I really do love this story! I've been constantly checking back on it, can't wait for the next chapter!
8814157
i'd point out this time NASA's had more then a weeks extra notice on this, there not cutting corners like they where before, it's entirely possible the launch could go fine, the worry seems more likely to be in the trip to mars.
8814315
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Rich, whacha doin? ...Something about Magic Carpet Ride? (That's pretty obscure... don't feel bad if the reference makes no sense).
The NASA chapters remain entertaining; the Mars crew has a hell of a support cast down there. I love Teddy's characterization, honestly. "I'm Teddy, I'm head of NASA." Was such a great line in the movie, and that sort of subtle, in charge humor carries through here. ...As soon as the book arrives from Amazon, I'll find out if it's consistent to the novel as well.
Speaking of spending money, I don't do most cons, but Bronycon I plan to go to. Will you be there? What do you sell at cons?
8814138
8814157
or for better or worst it will land next to... the king of the rovers....... opportunity!!!
Something for Spitfire and Cherryberry if they ever get the bandwidth:
8814315
Nothing with carbon bonds, so food is a no-go. Salt would be fine.
8813994
That concept is closer to a media hack than to reality, almost no rocket made under 24h turnaround, and most of them are never used after that stunt.
The BFRs first launch also very questionable, the F9 had a development time from concept to first test flight of over 4 year, BFR will not be less considering the much more complex nature of it. It probably won't fly before 2025, and regular launches are realistic around 2030, not before. If everything goes well.
Its amazing how much vibration mitigation a few mm of foam and elastomer can apply. I use bouncy shells on my hand held consoles and they drop the floor impact peaks by a factor of ten.
That, and given plant gel, shear wave earthquakes cant propagate through liquid, and the large density variation between the gel and even fibreglass, never mind metal containers causes reflective impedance mismatches.
Sort of like this idea Stub Matching but in rejection mode and using the mechanical properties with sound propagation variation. Used for computing metamaterials for directing forces around volumes like in woodpecker skulls. Woodpecker Skull
Hmm, I cant find the article about the WW2 testing ground bunker which survived a Grand Slam test drop because the bunker was being trialed for multilayer shock deflection designs. I cant remember how by much it survived, only that the last was so powerful that the whole structure moved.
If shock absorbing had been used ealier to reduce the stresses on the payloads, then fragmentation, particulation and liquifaction of various shock absorbing materials would have been found, and therefore non shock focusing designs researched?
After all, those launch couches are very well padded.
8814323
That was also a point I wanted to make, just didn't know how to phrase it right, but yeah. So long as the cave farm can be sustained, and the food supply (relatively) constant, there isn't as much a sense of urgency to get supplies to Mark and Co. as there was in the book.
8814337
Worst case scenario, it literally lands on, and breaches, the cave farm.
8814555
That would be a shame, but if they've survived up to that point they could likely make it the rest of the way with just the rations in the supply drop.
The real worst case would probably be if another freak storm makes it land on, and breach, the HAB.
8813983
Food salt can probably made with the local materials and magic, if you don't mind blowing your mana reserves.
8814731
Starlight could just modify the spell she used to extract all those perchlorates from the cave. Lower the radius and make it extract simple NaCl instead. I'm not sure how abundant that is on Mars though.
8814315
Apparently, the long-range teleportation process ends poorly for anything with carbon, so damn near anything organic (and a few inorganic things besides) is a no-go. They could still send basic crap like salinated water though.
I'll mention that spacex's first block five falcon nine is going to launch in a couple weeks. That is the one that is supposed to be quickly refurbished.