The Martian

“Suffice it to say,” Venkat interrupted, “It would be very difficult and dangerous. But we have a lot of clever scientists to help him trick out the rover. Also there would be MAV modifications.”

“What’s wrong with the MAV?” Mitch asked.

“It’s designed to get to low Mars orbit,” Venkat explained. “But Hermes would be on a flyby, so the MAV would have to escape Mars gravity entirely to intercept.”

“How?” Mitch asked.

“It’d have to lose weight… a lot of weight. I can get rooms full of people working on these problems if we decide to do this.”

“Earlier,” Teddy said, “You mentioned a supply probe for Hermes. We have that capability?”

“Yes, with the Taiyang Shen,” Venkat said. “We’d shoot for a near-Earth rendezvous. It’s a lot easier than getting a probe to Mars, that’s for sure.”

“I see,” Teddy said. “So we have two options on the table: Send Watney enough food to last until Ares 4, or send Hermes back to get him right now. Both plans require the Taiyang Shen, so we can only do one.”

“Yes,” Venkat said. “We’ll have to pick one.”

They all took a moment to consider.

“What about the Hermes crew?” Annie asked, breaking the silence. “Would they have a problem with adding…” She did some quick math in her head “533 days to their mission?”

“They wouldn’t hesitate,” Mitch said. “Not for a second. That’s why Venkat called this meeting.” He cast a disapproving glare at Venkat. “He wants us to decide instead.”

“That’s right,” Venkat said.

“It should be Commander Lewis’ call,” Mitch said sternly.

“Pointless to even ask her,” Venkat said. “We

need to make this decision; it’s a matter of life and death.”

“She’s the Mission Commander,” Mitch said. “Life and death decisions are her damn job.”

“Easy, Mitch,” Teddy said.

“Bullshit,” Mitch said. “You guys have done end-runs around the crew every time something goes wrong. You didn’t tell them Watney was still alive, now you’re not telling them there’s a rescue option.”

“We already have a rescue option,” Teddy said. “We’re just discussing another one.”

“The crash-lander?” Mitch said. “Does anyone think that’ll work? Anyone?”

“All right, Mitch,” Teddy said. “You’ve expressed your opinion, and we’ve heard it. Let’s move on.” He turned to Venkat. “Can Hermes function for 533 days beyond the scheduled mission end?”

“It should,” Venkat said. “The crew may have to fix things here and there, but they’re well trained. Remember, Hermes was made to do all 5 Ares missions. It’s only halfway through its designed lifespan.”

“It’s the most expensive thing ever built,” Teddy said. “We can’t make another one. If something went wrong, the crew would die, and the Ares Program with them.”

“Losing the crew would be a disaster,” Venkat said. “But we wouldn’t lose Hermes. We can remotely operate it. So long as the reactor and ion engines continued to work, we could bring it back.”

“Space travel is dangerous,” Mitch said. “We can’t make this a discussion about what’s safest.”

“I disagree,” Teddy said. “This is absolutely a discussion about what’s safest. And about how many lives are at stake. Both plans are risky, but resupplying Watney only risks one life while the Rich Purnell Maneuver risks six.”

“Consider degree of risk, Teddy,” Venkat said. “Mitch is right. The crash-lander is high-risk. It could miss Mars, it could re-enter wrong and burn up, it could crash too hard and destroy the food… we estimate 30% chance of success.”

“A near-Earth rendezvous with Hermes is more doable?” Teddy asked.

“Much more doable,” Venkat confirmed. “With sub-second transmission delays, we can control the probe directly from Earth rather than rely on automated systems. When the time comes to dock, Major Martinez can pilot it remotely from Hermes with no transmission delay at all. And Hermes has a human crew, able to overcome any hiccups that may happen. And we don’t have to do a reentry; the supplies don’t have to survive a 300m/s impact.”

“So,” Bruce offered, “We can have a high chance of killing one person, or a low chance of killing 6 people. Jeez. How do we even make this decision?”

“We talk about it, then Teddy makes the decision,” Venkat said. “Not sure what else we can do.”

“We could let Lewis—” Mitch began.

“Yeah, other than that,” Venkat interrupted.

“Question,” Annie said. “What am I even here for? This seems like something for you nerds to discuss.”

“You need to be in the loop,” Venkat said. “We’re not deciding right now. We’ll need to quietly research the details internally. Something might leak, and you need to be ready to dance around questions.”

“How long have we got to make a decision?” Teddy asked.

“The window for starting the maneuver ends in 39 hours.”

“All right,” Teddy said. “Everyone, we discuss this only in person or on the phone; never email. And don’t talk to anyone about this, other than the people here. The last thing we need is public opinion pressing for a risky cowboy rescue that may be impossible.”