CHAPTER 7 – FINAL DECISION
14:13 (GMT)
Thursday, February 18, 2044
Ship’s conference room, H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP
Low Mars orbit
Janet Larsson, along with the scientists sitting around the conference table, studied for a long moment the detailed color picture displayed on the main viewer screen of the conference room. Roman Denisovich, the ship’s chief planetologists and geophysicist, who was the presenter at the time, waited patiently while Janet looked at the photo mosaic of the Melas Chasma region of the Valles Marineris, the huge, 3,500 kilometer-long, 300 kilometer-wide and up to ten kilometer-deep canyon running East-West close to Mars’ equator. The image on the display screen also included various types of data accumulated to date by the sensors of the ship and of the mapping satellites that had been viewing the surface of Mars for over five weeks now. That data, including spectrometer readings of the surface soil and altitude elevations established via radar mapping, was as important if not more than the terrain picture itself for the purpose of this meeting. The mission was now at a crucial turning point, with a final decision to be taken today on which exact spot on Mars should be the landing point of the ship’s manned lander craft. In that, there was no margin permitted for error, as the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP carried only one manned lander. Their planetary shuttle, while designed to land and take off repeatedly from Mars, had only a small cargo and passenger carrying capacity and no scientific research facilities aboard. If they sent down the manned Mars lander to a spot that would then turn to be a deception, then they would have wasted the major part of their mission. Denisovich, like Janet Larsson, was not ready to let that happen through undue haste, so he waited silently as the mission commander made her mind. Janet finally stopped gazing at the display screen and looked at the astronomers, planetologists and geologists assembled around the table.
‘’Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that our choice is now clear: the Melas Chasma region of the Valles Marineris is one of the most striking geological features on Mars and promises to reveal to us many secrets about its past. Its ten kilometer-high cliffs, with its stratified layers dating back 3.7 billion years, will provide us with a detailed geological history of the planet. Also, the abundant presence of hydrated soils at the bottom of the canyon, both sulfates and clays, is a clear indication that liquid water flowed through that part of Valles Marineris in the distant past. With luck, we will find in Melas Chasma where all that ancient water has gone. Here, I must emphasize again how important it is for us to find an exploitable source of water on Mars. If we don’t find such an exploitable water source, then the future of any Human colony on Mars will become highly questionable and we will then have to limit ourselves to exploring, with no attempt at colonization.’’
Jason Terlecki, the mining and base construction engineer assigned to the Mars Lander crew, then raised his hand briefly before speaking in turn.
‘’We still could choose to build our base at one of the poles of Mars, where there are permanent ice caps, with plenty of water ice for us to use. I know that, geologically speaking, the poles are far less interesting than the Valles Marineris and other regions around the equator, but we should not dismiss for good the poles as ultimate locations for a permanent base and colony. I thus propose that we reserve our Mars Explorer Drone Craft Two for possible surveying of the South Pole ice cap, in case that the Melas Chasma region turns out to be a disappointment after the sending of our first drone.’’
There were a few approving comments and whispers around the table as the scientists looked at each other. Seeing that there seemed to be a consensus forming about Terlecki’s proposal, Janet spoke up.
‘’I personally find Mister Terlecki’s proposal to be highly sensible and logical. Do you all agree with it, ladies and gentlemen?’’
The scientists present quickly expressed their unanimous approval to the proposal, to Janet’s satisfaction.
‘’Excellent! Now, to return to the Melas Chasma region, which is by itself a huge piece of estate with a maximum width of close to 300 kilometers and a length of over 1,200 kilometers. Exploring the whole of that region will be well beyond the capabilities of our ground team, so we will have to target only a specific portion of it. What are your opinions on this, ladies and gentlemen?’’
This time, it was Julie Deloncle, the ship’s chief geomatician, who spoke up first.
‘’I believe that we should target the westernmost part of Melas Chasma, southwest of Candor Chaos. That portion of the Melas Chasma is covered with thick depots of hydrated soil, thus holds many promises for us about finding sizeable quantities of water under its surface. Also, by concentrating our search on the southern cliffs of the canyon, which is nearly at its deepest in that region, we maximize the chances to find a cave, grotto or empty lava tube that could provide a safe environment against space radiations for our future base.’’
‘’Uh, while I find Julie’s opinion valuable, I would prefer that we concentrate our attention on the northern cliffs of that part of the Melas Chasma.’’ said Roman Denisovich. ‘’A number of ancient river beds running West to East end up at the edges of those northern cliffs. If anything, those northern cliffs could hold even bigger promises in terms of underground water layers.’’
That counter-proposal triggered a passionate group debate on the merits of each of the proposals, a debate that went on with many forceful arguments for nearly fifteen minutes, until Janet Larsson decided to wade in to settle the argument.
‘’Ladies and gentlemen, I see that both proposals have plenty of merit, along with many supporters. I thus propose that we concentrate on the westernmost section of Melas Chasma, but that we also have our reconnaissance drone explore in detail both the southern and northern cliffs of that region. Once we will have detailed imagery and readings for the whole target area, we will be able to take an informed, final decision about the desired landing point of our manned lander. Do I have objections to that? No? Then, we will launch our drone number one tomorrow, with the western end of the Melas Chasma as its target of interest. Misters Templeton, Denisovich and Walsingham, I will expect from you a detailed proposed flight plan for our drone craft by tomorrow morning, with a planned launch at four o’clock in the afternoon, Greenwich time. I now declare this meeting over.’’
15:58 (GMT)
Friday, February 19, 2044
Drone command compartment, core section of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP
Low Mars orbit
Jeremy Brown, an ex-U.S. Air Force drone pilot, smiled to Peter Walsingham as he floated into his seat next to the ex-British R.A.F. fighter pilot.
‘’Ready for your big flight, Peter?’’
‘’You bet I am!’’ replied Walsingham, who was reviewing his instruments panel in front of him and who also already wore his remote viewing helmet and visor. However, Peter’s visor was still switched off, so that he could look normally at his instruments before his drone’s launch. Jeremy buckled his seat harness, then put on his own remote viewing helmet, so that he could assist Peter during the flight of Mars Explorer Drone Craft One. Once both men were satisfied that the drone appeared to be fully online and functional, Peter pushed a button on his instrument panel.
‘’Opening the doors of Drone One’s hangar.’’
The one piece hatch closing one of the craft hangars situated around the outer edge of the main disk section of the ship opened, exposing to the vacuum of space a large conical object.
‘’Launching Drone One now!’’
The push of another button ejected at slow speed the drone from its hangar and into space, where it floated downward towards the surface of Mars. Next, Peter activated the automated flight plan of the drone with a radio command, making the craft’s attitude engines light up to rotate it into the correct flight axis. The main retro-rocket of the craft then came to life, making the drone cut its orbital speed so that it would go down and enter the very thin atmosphere of Mars, whose pressure was only one percent of Earth’s atmosphere. Both pilots closely followed the flight of the craft on their instruments, ready to take over manually if anything went wrong with the programmed descent of the drone. Thankfully, everything went smoothly and the craft’s base heat shield soon started to heat up from the friction with the rarefied Martian atmosphere, friction that helped decelerate the drone further. Both pilots however knew that, contrary to Earth’s atmosphere, which was thick enough to drastically cut by itself the speed of any de-orbiting object, Mars’ atmosphere was too thin to cut more than a small portion of the drone’s speed, so the retro-rocket engine continued burning for a few minutes, lowering gradually the speed of the craft. Then, when the speed went down to a secure level, a first parachute deployed from the nose of the conical craft. While big by Earth’s standards, that parachute was only barely enough to further decelerate the craft by a few more hundreds of kilometers per hour. Once down to low subsonic speed, another, much bigger parachute, deployed out of the nose cone, while the retro-rocket engine shut off. That parachute was however a rectangular one that could be steered, contrary to the round first parachute meant solely to slow the drone down. While positively huge and dwarfing the craft hanging from it, that parachute still left the drone falling down at an appreciable speed but quickly turned its descent into a nearly vertical one. That was when a large, thin balloon attached to the center top of the main parachute started inflating as helium gas at very low pressure was let in. Once loosely filled, the balloon helped the main parachute break further the downward speed of the drone. Back in the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP remote command compartment, Peter Walsingham smiled when the descent speed of the drone fell to a specific level.
‘’Gliding speed attained! Time for my magic touch.’’
Grabbing his flight control stick, the ex-R.A.F. fighter-reconnaissance pilot switched the drone craft to ‘parachute gliding mode’, then started sending command signals via his stick. Like standard directional parachutes used by free falling parachutists on Earth, the rectangular main parachute of the drone could be steered by pulling onto selected corner wires attaching it to the craft, making it turn left or right and either accelerating forward or braking its forward speed. In this case, remotely-actuated hydraulic pistons did the wire pulling under Peter’s control. Checking on the position and altitude of the drone via a mapping camera and radar, Peter steered slowly the craft towards the Melas Chasma as it started overflying at medium altitude the eastern end of the giant Valles Marineris canyon.
‘’Jeremy, unmask the drone’s in-flight cameras and sensors. Be ready to study the pictures we will be receiving, guys, and tell us if you see something worthy of a second look.’’
The ‘guys’ in question were a group of seven geologists and planetologists sitting at viewing stations set around the two pilots’ stations and waiting anxiously to see what the drone’s cameras would show them of the Valles Marineris. Their viewing screens soon filled will high definition color pictures of the terrain under and on both sides of the drone, now gliding slowly westward above the giant canyon. The scientists kept relatively silent at first as the drone flew over the eastern parts of the Valles Marineris, Capri Chasma and Coprates Chasma. Their excitement shot up when they started getting pictures of the Melas Chasma, the huge central portion of the canyon that was their main target of interest.
‘’There’s the Ophir Labes, on the right! I see some interesting strata above the level of the landslide slopes. With the old alluvial beds on the surface nearby, they could contain some water frozen within the dirt and rocks.’’
‘’Indeed! But the bottom of the canyon on the left side, opposite the Ophir Labes, seems to be really rich in hydrated soil depots. This whole region saw a lot of water flow through it in the distant past. The big question now is: where has all that water gone? I’m not ready to believe that it all evaporated into the atmosphere.’’
As the planetologists and scientists discussed that point and others while viewing the images sent by the drone, which continued to glide down at a slow rate under its combined parachute and balloon, Peter Walsingham watched carefully the ground relief the drone was overflying, with the elevations mapped and recorded by its mapping radar. After half a hour of gliding over the canyon, he noticed something previously recorded by the mapping radar of the H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, but now visible in much better detail.
‘’The ground in this part of the canyon is now getting progressively deeper towards the center of the Melas Chasma. The depth of the floor is now 8,640 meters below the top of the cliffs on either sides, with the depth increasing as we fly westward. Could water have gathered at the bottom as the rivers dried out, thus forming a sort of lake in the center of Melas Chasma?’’
‘’That is very possible, Mister Walsingham.’’ said Roman Denisovich. ‘’With the vast expanses of hydrated soil visible to the left, there could very well have been a lake here, millions of years ago. I would love to be able to drill a deep hole there to check for possible underground frozen aquifer strata under all that red dirt.’’
‘’I always could make the drone land there after it will have flown over the portion of canyon of interest to us and performed a ‘U’ turn to come back eastward, Doctor Denisovich. The drone has a belly drill that it can deploy once landed.’’
‘’An excellent idea! Mark that spot on your navigation map as the drone’s landing spot of choice. Hopefully, it will have enough altitude left at the end of its run to come back to that spot.’’
‘’Don’t forget that the drone has a small rocket motor that I can use to sustain or increase its flying altitude. As things are going now, I believe that our chances of landing the drone there are fairly good.’’
‘’Excellent! Can you start flying closer to the left, to get near the southern cliffs of the canyon?’’
‘’No problem, Doctor.’’
Steering the drone towards the left, Peter slowly made it approach the southern cliffs of the center part of the Melas Chasma, until it flew parallel to them from a distance of a mere ten kilometers. By then, the pictures they were getting were of unprecedented detail and definition, making the scientists ecstatic.
‘’These images are superb!’’ exclaimed Yves Dorval, a Canadian geologist and prospector slated to be part of the Mars landing team. ‘’This is like reading an open book on the geological history of Mars.’’
One of the other geologists, Thor Vaslung, suddenly raised his voice in excitement while pointing at a feature visible on his screen.
‘’I see the entrance of a cave or tunnel, about two-thirds down the slopes!’’
‘’I see it too!’’ said Steve Larkin, the senior geologist. ‘’It looks like the entrance of a lava tube.’’
‘’It definitely does look like a lava tube.’’ said Denisovich after examining the feature for a few seconds. ‘’It also opens up at the level of what is clearly a volcanic strata. From the field of hydrated soil at the feet of the cliff, under that opening, I would venture that water once circulated inside that lava tube, washing out all that volcanic dirt. Too bad that this tube is situated so high in the cliff. I would have loved to explore it. With luck, we will see more lava tube entrances, hopefully near or at ground level. Keep your eyes open, guys!’’
The other scientists didn’t have to be told twice and glued themselves to their viewing screens, commenting each feature of interest between them as Peter Walsingham kept flying his drone westward. By now the drone was about to go lower than the nearby top of the cliffs and he was doing his best to minimize as much as possible its descent rate. In that he was greatly helped by the helium balloon attached to the drone’s parachute. If not for it, the drone would have hit the bottom of the canyon already. More excited comments shot up fifteen minutes later, as the drone was flying just below the top of the cliffs.
‘’I see the entrance of another possible lava tube. It is nearly at ground level, just above a cone of dirt formed by a landslide. Could we launch one of the mini-rovers now to explore that opening?’’
‘’Don’t forget that the drone carries only four mini-rovers, gentlemen.’’ cautioned Peter. ‘’Make sure that we use them wisely.’’
‘’This actually looks more than interesting enough to rate a mini-rover.’’ replied Denisovich, who was gleefully examining the cave opening now visible on a screen. ‘’You may launch a mini-rover now, Mister Walsingham.’’
‘’One mini-rover, coming up!’’ said cheerfully Peter before looking to his right at Frey Thorvalson, one of the two rover drivers slated to go down to the surface of Mars. ‘’Be ready to drive mini-rover number one once it will have landed, Frey.’’
‘’I am ready, Peter.’’ replied the big Icelandic technician.
‘’Alright, launching mini-rover number one now!’’
A small, wheeled vehicle the size of an all terrain vehicle was soon dropped from the gliding drone, to have its fall nearly immediately braked by a large parachute. Being designed to be as light as possible, the mini-rover flew down at a moderate speed, its impact on the ground being further diminished by the last second firing of a set of small solid propellant rockets. The four oversized, low profile wheels and their independent suspensions easily absorbed the remaining downward velocity, with the parachute detaching itself from the mini-rover after touchdown. Frey Thorvalson then took control of the small robotic vehicle, scanning first around its landing point with the help of its swiveling camera head mounted atop a short mast, before making the mini-rover start rolling towards the wide cone of dirt under the lava tube’s opening. Having landed less than a kilometer from that opening, the mini-rover took only five minutes to get to the bottom of the landslide mound, while the reconnaissance drone continued gliding westward overhead. Driven expertly by the big Icelander, who had spent much of his life driving vehicles around the rough, denuded landscape of Iceland, the mini-rover slowly climbed the mound, which was fortunately free of large rocks on its slopes, arriving at the intersection with the vertical rock wall formed by the cliff. There, Frey was faced with a problem: the opening of the lava tube was about four meters above the top of the mound, forming an apparently insurmountable obstacle for the small robotic vehicle. However, the designers of the mini-rovers had planned for the need to possibly have to effect short jumps around and had incorporated to the vehicles a system of low thrust rocket thrusters with directional capability. The low gravity on Mars, which was only 37% that of Earth, had facilitated the design of those thrusters. Still, those thrusters had fuel for only a few seconds, something Thorvalson was well aware off. Calculating carefully his jump, Frey then lit up the thrusters of the mini-rover to half power, making the vehicle rise at once at the vertical. Just before getting level with the opening, he oriented the thrusters to create a horizontal acceleration. The moment that the mini-rover was inside the lava tube, he cut the thrusters, saving the leftover fuel for later.
‘’I’m inside the lava tube! I am now going to plant a radio transmitter relay box near the entrance and will start winding out its fiber optics cable, plus will switch to low light cameras and headlights.’’
‘’Great job, Mister Thorvalson!’’ said Denisovich, pleased. ‘’Now, let’s see what we will find inside that lava tube. Steve, you concentrate on the view from our mini-rover while I keep watching around the drone.’’
‘’Got it! You may roll, Frey.’’
Frey didn’t have to be told twice and made his mini-rover roll slowly forward inside the lava tube, which had an internal diameter of at least forty meters.
‘’This lava tube could easily house the prefabricated modules of our fixed base and will certainly protect it from the radiations showering Mars’ surface. The one thing left that we need would be water.’’
‘’How much radiation is the mini-rover detecting now, Frey?’’ asked Jason Terlecki, whose main job would be to build a fixed base on the surface. One glance at his instruments made the Icelander smile.
‘’In contrast with when the mini-rover was still in the open, it now can barely detect any radiation. The counter registers a mere 0.0009 milligrays per hour and it is still close to the entrance.’’
‘’That’s to my liking.’’
Larkin and Terlecki kept their eyes glued to their viewing screens as Thorvalson made the mini-rover advance further inside the tunnel. As it went deeper in the lava tube, the diameter decreased very slowly but it was still over 34 meter wide after the vehicle had rolled a good hundred meters inside the dark tunnel. After rolling for about 230 meters, Frey stopped his mini-rover as his vehicle’s cameras suddenly saw a dramatic increase in the tunnel diameter. Switching to white light headlamps, which had more range and power than the infrared lights, he and the two specialists contemplated the image of a vast underground rotunda, in which walls they could see the openings of two other lava tubes, respectively to the right and ahead.
‘’My god! A lava chamber! It must have a diameter of at least 150 meters and a maximum height of sixty meters.’’ said Terlecki. ‘’It would be a perfect place to build our base.’’
‘’Yes, but we still need to find some water.’’ Larkin reminded him. ‘’Frey, go take the larger tunnel, the one to the right of the rover.’’
‘’On the way!’’
Piloted by the Icelander, the mini-rover started rolling on the dusty surface of the rotunda’s floor, heading towards the larger lava tube. At one point, as he steered to avoid a large rock that had apparently fallen from the ceiling, his rover made a sideways motion, as if it had slid on a slippery floor.
‘’What the…? The rover slipped on something!’’
Braking his rover made it slide again, this time forward. Now truly mystified, he decided to try something and put his rover in high gear, then went for maximum acceleration for a second. The result left him stunned.
‘’The wheels: they spun on the spot! It’s as if…’’
Making the camera head of the rover look down, he then made the vehicle turn around, so that he could look at the tracks left in the dirt by its wheels. A white, shiny surface reflected at once the light from the headlamps, making Frey’s heart skip a beat.
‘’ICE! THE ROVER SLIPPED ON ICE!’’
His excited shout immediately attracted all the scientists present to the screens showing the images from the mini-rover. Roman Denisovich felt blood rush to his brain when he saw that Thorvalson was right.
‘’It does look like ice! The question is now: how deep is that ice crust? Could there be another lava tube below this lava chamber, a tube filled with ancient water? Frey, power the seismic radar of your mini-rover.’’
All eyes went to one of the side screens of Thorvalson’s station, on which the radar picture was due to show up.
‘’Switching the radar now.’’
Everyone in the compartment held their breath as the first radar wave travelled downward from the mini-rover. More than one of the geologists felt exhilaration on seeing the radar return picture now on the screen.
‘’It’s nearly bottomless!’’ exclaimed Sergei Krulov, one the geologists and prospectors due to land on Mars. ‘’The rover is sitting on top of a vertical lava tube filled with ice.’’
‘’Not all ice!’’ replied Denisovich while pointing at a barely visible change in the picture some twenty meters under the rover. ‘’The ice seems to become liquid around that level. This is truly a sensational find. Maybe that water and ice-filled lava tube is going down all the way to a deep aquifer layer, in which case we just found more than enough water for our base, or even for a colony. Maybe the other tunnels will also lead to ice. Mister Thorvalson, get into that tunnel you were heading for when you slipped.’’
‘’With pleasure, Doctor.’’
As Denisovich excitedly called up Janet Larsson to give her the good news, Frey piloted his mini-rover into the right-side tunnel, which was about as wide as the one that led outside. Still dispensing a thin fiber optics cable behind it, the vehicle started following a gentle downward slope, surrounded by walls made of dark volcanic rock. The tunnel proved to be mostly straight, while the downward slope became gradually more severe, to the point where Frey started worrying about having enough traction to climb back up. He then decided to use another special feature of the rover.
‘’I am going to plant a peg now, so that I can winch my way back up afterwards.’’
‘’How much cable length does your winch has?’’ asked at once Terlecki.
‘’A hundred meters. Once at the end of it, I will have no choice but to come back up: the fuel cell of the rover will be good for another hour at the most before it will need to electrolyze its waste water back into hydrogen and oxygen. The rover thus must be back at the entrance before that, so that its solar panels can supplement its isotopic generator.’’
‘’Understood!’’
Pressing a button, Frey made the mini-rover fire down a thin steel peg attached to a thin cable spun around a winch drum. The peg planted itself solidly in the ground, allowing Frey to resume the rover’s advance with more confidence. However, to his disappointment and that of Jason Terlecki, the rover came at the end of its winch cable without finding anything than more of the dark tunnel.
‘’Damn! I wish we could have gone all the way down to whatever is there at the bottom.’’
‘’Don’t feel too bad, Frey.’’ said Jason while patting his shoulder. ‘’Your rover already found plenty and we still have another tunnel to explore.’’
‘’You’re right!