The Martian

Today’s an Air Day and for once, I don’t want it. I’m so close to Schiaparelli, I can taste it. I guess it would taste like sand, mostly, but that’s not the point.

Of course, that won’t be the end of the trip. It’ll take another 3 sols to get from the entrance to the MAV, but hot damn! I’m almost there!

I think I can even see the rim of Schiaparelli. It’s way the hell off in the distance and it might just be my imagination. It’s 62km away, so if I’m seeing it, I’m only just barely seeing it.

Tomorrow, once I get to Entrance Crater, I’ll turn south and enter the Schiaparelli Basin via the “Entrance Ramp.” I did some back-of-the-napkin math and the slope should be pretty safe. The elevation change from the rim to the basin is 1.5km, and the Ramp is at least 45km long. That makes for a 2-degree grade. No problem.

Tomorrow night, I’ll sink to an all new low!

Lemme rephrase that…

Tomorrow night, I’ll be at rock bottom!

No, that doesn’t sound good either…

Tomorrow night, I’ll be in Giovanni Schiaparelli’s favorite hole!

Ok, I admit I’m just fucking around now.

For millions of years, the rim of the crater had been under constant attack from wind. It eroded the rocky crest like a river cuts through a mountain range. After aeons, it finally breached the edge.

The high pressure zone created by the wind now had an avenue to drain. The breach widened more and more with each passing millennium. As it widened, dust and sand particles carried along with the attack settled in the basin below.

Eventually, a balance point was reached. The sand had piled up high enough to be flush with the land outside the crater. It no longer built upward, but now outward. The slope lengthened until a new balance point was reached, one defined by the complex interactions of countless tiny particles and their ability to maintain an angled shape. Entrance Ramp had been born.

The weather brought dunes and desert terrain. Nearby crater impacts brought rocks and boulders. The shape became uneven.

Gravity did its work. The ramp compressed over time. But it did not compress evenly. Differing densities shrunk at different rates. Some areas became hard as rock while others remained as soft as talc.

While providing a small average slope into the crater, the ramp itself was rugged and bitterly uneven.

Upon reaching Entrance Crater, the lone inhabitant of Mars turned his vehicle toward the Schiaparelli Basin. The difficult terrain was unexpected, but looked no worse than other terrain he routinely navigated.

He went around the smaller dunes, and carefully crested the larger ones. He took care with every turn, every rise or fall in elevation, and every boulder in his path. He thought through every course and considered all alternatives.

But it wasn’t enough.

The rover, while descending down a seemingly ordinary slope, drove off an invisible ridge. The dense, hard soil suddenly gave way to soft powder. With the entire surface covered by at least 5cm of dust, there were no visual hints to the sudden change.

The rover’s left front wheel sank. The sudden tilt brought the right rear wheel completely off the ground. This in turn put more weight on the left rear wheel, which slipped from it’s precarious purchase into the powder as well.

Before the traveler could react, the rover rolled on to its side. As it did, the solar cells neatly stacked on the roof flew off and scattered like a dropped deck of cards.

The trailer, attached to the rover with a tow clamp, was dragged along. The torsion on the clamp snapped the strong composite like a brittle twig. The hoses connecting the two vehicles also snapped. The trailer plunged head-long in to the soft soil and flipped over on to its balloon-roof, shuddering to an abrupt halt.

The rover was not so lucky. It continued tumbling down the hill, bouncing the traveler around like clothes in a dryer. After 20 meters, the soft powder gave way to more solid sand and it shuddered to a halt.

The rover had come to rest on its side. The valves leading to the now missing hoses had detected the sudden pressure drop and closed. The pressure seal was not breached.

The traveler was alive for now.

Chapter 24

The department heads stared at the satellite image on the projection screen.

“Jesus,” Mitch said. “What the hell happened?”

“The rover’s on its side,” Mindy said, pointing to the screen. “The trailer’s upside down. Those rectangles scattered around are solar cells.”

Venkat put a hand on his chin. “Do we have any information on the state of the rover pressure vessel?”

“Nothing obvious,” Mindy said.

“Any signs of Watney doing something after the accident? An EVA maybe?”

“No EVA,” Mindy said. “The weather’s clear. If he’d come out there’d be visible footsteps.”

“Is this the entire crash site?” Bruce Ng asked.