THE BARTDON PAPERS - "Cancel all previous directives."

[KAL 9000]

28 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Shortly after Bartdon's previous entry, Fontanes One passed Jupiter at a closest approach of just under 2 million klicks (or just outside the orbit of Callisto). She gained a modest 3,5km/s assist from Big J. and is currently en route to Saturn. I can't remember the precise schedule off the top of my head, but she still has a couple of years to go, and will probably reach Saturn when Laroque is on her way home.

If everything goes as planned for Barty and the crew, of course...  

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

That's the thing with the outer planets... even with a huge 10km/s burn from inside the orbit of Venus and a gravity assist, these things take time. Getting a crew there is going to be interesting, and getting them back even more so, but I have a few ideas...

Cool! Can we see it?

Yeah, of course! I don't know how to embed it, though, and imgur isn't working for me now, so I'll try to upload it!

[KAL 9000]

Here it is!

Camwise Logs Mars Mission Patch

I didn't call it the ship name, because the comsats & stuff are part of the mission, too.

[UnusualAttitude]

16 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

Here it is!

Sweet! Can I use it for the Froemone Reports?

16 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

I didn't call it the ship name, because the comsats & stuff are part of the mission, too.

Good call. Laroque was designed to be reuseable for multiple missions. Having said that, this was the plan for Cernin too, but then life (and updates) happened.

[KAL 9000]

Of Course! 

[UnusualAttitude]

 

Spoiler

Thank you all for (still) reading this.

[Newtie]

I'm really starting to wonder if they are going to arrive at Mars and open the crew shuttle airlock to find Camwise floating around in a pile of snack wrappers...

[UnusualAttitude]

That would indeed be a hilarious twist to the tale, and would explain why Quissac's Earth Departure and Mars Injection burns used slightly more fuel than I expected...

But no, Camwise is still trundling around Antartica driving supplies to remote settlements and fixing rover wheels, as any level four engineer should.

Spoiler

He'll be back shortly, I don't doubt. As soon as things start failing to go as planned they will need, as always, his very special skill set.

[KAL 9000]

MOAR CAMWISE LOGS NAO!

[UnusualAttitude]

41 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

MOAR CAMWISE LOGS NAO!

Working on it, but Mars insertion has lead to some unexpected... unexpectedness. I think I can wriggle my way out of this, but it may lead to a few adjustments to the mission plans.

Expect Bartdon to be a bit worked up in his next log. If he stops snapping pencils long enough to write something, that is.

 

[chicobaptista]

On 29/09/2016 at 6:10 PM, UnusualAttitude said:

Working on it, but Mars insertion has lead to some unexpected... unexpectedness.

Yeah, space has this strange tendency of leading to unexpectedness. Because really, what could possibly go wrong in space?

Love this series, don't sweat with any scheduling updates and keep Bartdon working on that swing!

Cheers

[DMSP]

I think that this ship may not come home with everybody onboard...

Let's hope they make it out alive.

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 11, DAY 218. BARTDON.

Damn this whole business of going to another planet. Nine months in deep space and just when you think you've finally arrived, orbital mechanics spit you and your gear out into a mess of huge hyperbolic orbits, and you realise that it will be another six weeks until you can even start aerobraking. And after that perhaps yet another month until everything is finally in place and you can even think about getting boots on the ground.

Froemone had better be making good progress on those new propulsion systems if we want to visit the big boys one day. Having our crewed ships spending another six months dithering in some distant orbit of a gas giant just to make a blasted cheap plane change simply won't do. But this is what we must endure for now, with our inefficient fuel-guzzling rockets.

Our fleet, which had started in neat, orderly ranks when we set out from Earth, had started to arrive in a jumbled mess two weeks ago, with three of the six Carlucet probes going in first. With electrical propulsion and delta-vee to spare, they had made powered captures just above the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere, and had swung into elongated ellipses from which they could settle into their final orbits: polar for the scansats, and equatorial for the communications network.

Then it had been our turn, and Laroque had felt the touch of something other than hard vacuum for the first time since she was launched. Previous experience with Cernin had showed us that Mars was ideal aerobraking territory, but despite this we took things cautiously with our new ship. Laroque was rather less compact than her predecessor and loosely held together by a bunch of docking ports. There would be hell to pay if our ship was captured into orbit but my cabin and our food supplies were ripped off and kept on going into the asteroid belt beyond. We therefore spent just a couple of minutes in the upper atmosphere and relied mainly on a hefty blast from our NTR to pitch Laroque into a forty-day orbit that would allow us to swing into the plane of the Martian moons for just loose change, in twenty day's time.

The crew shuttle Quissac was hot on our heels, and this is where things started to go wrong. For a start, being the heaviest vehicle in a fleet of landers being pushed by identical tugs, she had the tightest fuel budget. I had insisted that the entire Mars fleet be controlled directly from Laroque's command station rather than from Omelek, and the telemetry we were receiving already told us that it would be a damned close-cut thing. I therefore ordered our pilots to take the shuttle as low as was safe into the atmosphere to make the most of its braking effect.

Quissac's insertion burn took place during a coms blackout, since we were still drifting back out on the other side of the planet. When she emerged from behind Mars and telemetry was reestablished, we realised that even more of her precious fuel had been consumed. Munvey remarked drily that the RCS thrusters had probably struggled to hold attitude during the burn in the relatively thicker air and wasted far more fuel than we could afford. Whatever the explanation, we were getting pretty close to the bare minimum that would be required to get us down to the surface safely, and the worse thing would be waiting until plane change, aerobraking and circularisation were complete before we knew what we would be dealing with. But at that point, it looked like Mars was slipping from our grasp.

In comparison, the Cadrieu lander and Espedaillac rover shuttle made more efficient and uneventful captures. Cadrieu, in particular, had a decent reserve of fuel in the tug's tank and would have no trouble reaching the Martian moons once we got round to it.

But this sure as hell won't be a repeat mission. That shuttle is going all the way to Mars even if I have to get the whole damned crew flapping their arms out of the windows to slow us on the way down.
 

YEAR 11, DAY 270. BARTDON.

Damn it to blasted Titania and back to Mother Earth on a truckload of damnation!

As you've probably guessed by now, things are still failing to go as planned. To be more precise, everything is going more or less as planned except for that damned crew shuttle.

Everything else is in place. Laroque made a series of Martian limbo manoeuvres, dipping gradually lower into the atmosphere until her final pass brought her to within fifty kilometres of the dusty surface below. Strapped in on the bridge, we watched the caramel and ochre dunes slide past time after time as the ship shuddered against the gentle pressure of the tenuous shroud of gas, until we had cancelled all of our excess orbital velocity.

A final short burn of the nuke and we could finally shut the damn thing down until we were ready to leave. We were at 300 klicks and circular. Laroque's drop-tanks were spent, but we'd kept them attached to increase drag during aerobraking. They would be ditched when we broke orbit at the end of our mission. And now we were in a stable orbit, we could spin the hub back up and enjoy our artificially created half-gee once more.

Our polar satellites were in place and already carving out swathes of data that would allow us to locate an optimal landing site with a good concentration of water. The relay satellites that would provide our areostationary network had slipped into their synchronised orbits and turned their antennas towards the Red Planet in expectation of our arrival.

Cadrieu and Espedaillac had also joined us in Low Martian Orbit, with enough fuel to accomplish their respective missions, but this morning I was joined in the lab by Munvey and Karanda for the final verdict on the sorry state of affairs with Quissac.

“So,” I snapped impatiently. The weeks of waiting had got to my damned nerves. “Shoot!”

Karanda cleared her throat and, without any preamble, broke the news. “Quissac's fuel level is critical. The LH2 level is acceptable, but LO2 is well below the required amount, even if we dump the excess fuel...”

“How much?” I cut in bluntly.

“Less than 4.5 tonnes.”

My limited knowledge of the shuttle's specs was sufficient enough to tell me that this was less than half a full tank. I turned to Munvey.

“Can it be done?”

He looked back at me blankly. “We never ran a simulation below 50%...”

“I don't care about simulations. Can you land that shuttle on Mars?”

Munvey replied without hesitation, “No, PI.”

“Then that's settled,” I said. “We bring Cadrieu over to Quissac and transfer her fuel. Too bad for Phobos and Deimos...”

Karanda interjected unexpectedly. “There is another solution, Bartdon.”

“What's that?”

“We go get more fuel. On Phobos.”
 

YEAR 11, DAY 272. BARTDON.

I waited for our rendez-vous with Cadrieu on the bridge with as much patience as I could muster, drumming my fingers on the control panel in front of me, already suited up for the untethered transfer over to what would be our new home for the next month. Our lander, pushed by its tug and following the inputs issued by Laroque's command station obediently, drifted slowly towards us as our orbits converged.

Finally, the two vessels lined up and Cadrieu nosed gently towards the forward docking port of our ship. On contact, a dull thud echoed through the hull and Laroque quivered for a moment as the vibrations propagated through her various modules before dampening out. The transfer window to Phobos was coming up. I made my way aft to the airlock, calling for Karanda and Lisabeth to join me.

“CE, STP, are you with me?”

They were, in fact, ready and waiting in the lab. Lisabeth went first, cycling through our tiny door into space and making her way over to Cadrieu to make sure that the empty, sterile crew modules of the ship had weathered their year in space with no ill-effects. Karanda went next to take her place at the engineers station behind the pilot's seat in the cockpit. I would have the crew module to myself for the transfer.

The sight of our two ships locked together, circling above the cratered wasteland of Mars was an impressive one, but we had neither time nor EVA propellant to waste, and I made my way straight over to the equally tiny airlock that was the only way to access Cadrieu.

Lisabeth had the lander powered up already, but we would first have to turn her around and redock with the tug. The engine of the transfer stage had not been designed to restart after Mars insertion, so we would be using Cadrieu's own tiny engine to propel us to Phobos.

The docking manoeuvre went as planned, and as we slowly rotated to present our upper docking port to the tug, I was granted a stunning view of our mothership bathed in the orange glow reflected by the Red Planet below. Her impressive size seemed suddenly insignificant against the immensity of the starlit void behind her, but she was nevertheless the lifeline that connected us to our homeworld. Our only way back.

“Transfer node coming up,” called Lisabeth from the cockpit. “All systems nominal. Go or no-go, PI?”

This was a gamble, and the sort of gamble I didn't like taking. If we pulled it off, we would have enough fuel to accomplish all of our mission objectives. If it didn't work, we would lose Mars and Deimos, and our six million funds spent on a three-year orbital sightseeing mission that would be terribly reminiscent of our previous debacle. Just how much of our damned planet's limited resources would we have to fling at this blasted red rock? This couldn't be allowed to fail, it was just too big.

“Go, STP.”

Moments later, the gentle thrust of our LV-909 kicked in and Laroque began to slide into the blackness as if drawn away from us by invisible strings. The seven-minute burn would push our apoareion up to 9,000 klicks, and if our calculations were correct, Phobos would be there waiting for us in just a few hours. Sufficient time for a nap, if I could manage to relax enough to take one. Muttering darkly, I drifted off as Mars slipped slowly away behind us.

I was returned to reality by the sweet song of Lisabeth's voice announcing our insertion burn and my eyes blinked open to the sight of a dull grey lump of rock, dust, and hopefully ice floating in space, just beyond the window next to my seat. Even from this distance, our relative velocity was clearly visible, and in just minutes it loomed forward until it almost filled the view-port.

We had to start our burn well before the tiny satellite's puny gravity became apparent, in order to scrub off half a klick per second and avoid shooting straight back out into Martian orbit. It was a close-cut manoeuvre, but Lisabeth nailed it and Cadrieu, along with her fuel tank, was soon drifting in an orbit of tedious, almost infinite slowness some fifteen kilometres above the moon's highest peak.

Two days of scanning the surface, looking for a suitable place to put down, awaited us. Somewhere near the Phobian North Pole where the ice we expected to find would be closer to the surface. The lower we could go, the better. One of the grooves, or a crater with a flattish bottom and sufficient sunlight to power our operations in the northern summer.

Well, at least the views are alright, I thought as I gazed down at the desolate surface below. I began muttering once more.

“You'd better have water for me, you blasted potato moon. Or I will kick you out of orbit myself...”

There was a titter from the cockpit and I realised that my channel was still open. “Glad to have you back with us, PI. And glad you've stopped snoring,” came Karanda's voice.

Watch it old gal, or you might be mining ice with your own two gloved hands.

YEAR 11, DAY 278. BARTDON.

Cadrieu had touched down in Flimnap crater four days ago. After leaving our cumbersome hydrolox tank in an orbit we hoped would be stable, the descent had been slow and uneventful. Lisabeth had skilfully put us on an almost perfectly flat terrace near the bottom of the crater, allowing the lander to kiss the surface lightly before settling onto all four legs in a puff of dust. No need to use the main engine; the vehicle's attitude thrusters had been quite sufficient to bring us to a soft landing, avoiding the cloud of regolith Karanda feared would compromise her operations.

We were at a fairly high latitude, close to the moon's leading apex. As a result, Mars loomed up and down above the southeastern rim of the crater, the planet's libration visible with each passing minute, as Phobos fled swiftly through its eight hour orbit around the parent body.

Omelek reported a favourable lack of solar activity, and we still had a couple of hours of sunlight ahead of us, so we got to work straight away. I got the flag-planting business done right off the bat, and returned to Cadrieu to help Karanda set up the drilling rig.

Working in mere milli-gees of gravity turned out to be a nightmare. It was barely easier than floating in deep space. Every step had to be accomplished with caution, and every manual operation came under the merciless scrutiny of the laws of motion. Our KMU jetpacks were absolutely vital, but every movement was haunted by the spectre of our limited supply of fuel for them. If we ran out during our stay on Phobos, we would be helpless.

Cursing and muttering at each new seemingly impossible task, Karanda and I moved the mount and the girder for the rig into place. In order to access the second cargo pallet easily, and move our equipment over as little distance as possible, Lisabeth deftly lifted our lander just a metre or so above the surface, and used its attitude jets to rotate it on the spot, putting it back down on a dime next to the rig.

With the girder in place, fitting the solar panels and the drills themselves became easier as we now had something to hold onto to counter the torque of lifting and bolting. With a final curse, Karanda got the last port into place and connected the pipe that would pump steam from the melted ice into our tanks. It was done, and I now considered myself sufficiently familiar with patois slang to pass for a native.

Then, the long wait as the dills did their work, disappearing into the dark regolith to tap into the ice that our density calculations showed was down there somewhere. Hopefully within twenty metres of the surface, or we would be going home empty-handed.

The news came in two hours later, just before the sun dipped below the horizon. The first drops of water condensed from the steam of vaporised ice dribbled into Cadrieu's tanks. But now we were in the dark, we would have to shut things down for the short Phobian night and try again in four hours. We held a hasty conference in the crew module.

“How much?” was the only thing I was interested in.

“Difficult to say from what we've got so far, but I can't see us taking more than 200 litres per day cycle. About 600 per Martian sol,” Karanda admitted. “This is just a test rig: it doesn't have the radiators you will use on Mars to get a more efficient rate. And we still need to process it once we fill up the tanks, although we can do this on the fly, at a pinch.”

We had about a month's worth of food to go on, so things were starting to look feasible. The good news was that the system actually worked. However, I couldn't think of a worse place to be watching a tank of water slowly fill up, litre by litre, hour by endless hour. One can't even stretch one's legs on this damned rock for fear of floating off into orbit.

“Right, fill her up as quickly as you can. We might have time for a second trip.”

That was three agonising days ago, now, and this morning I flipped. I just couldn't bear the close proximity of my crew members and the smothering walls of the crew capsule anymore. I urgently needed to take my fuming temper elsewhere. May our lack of EVA fuel be damned, I took a KMU and made my way over to the crater's eastern rim with the excuse of gathering samples, but in reality I just wanted some time alone to think. Neither Karanda nor Lisabeth challenged my decision to go off on a solo EVA.

Hopping across the surface, I made my way up a crest that overlooked our landing site. Turning, I stopped to gaze back down at our capsule, its pool of floodlights and the little drill head next to it. A minute haven of life on a distant world. I continued on up the slope to the summit.

By now, I had mastered the art of drifting lazily along a few metres above the surface, using my fuel sparingly to keep myself airborne but not rise too far from the ground below. Mars rose lazily into view above the horizon until the entire disk of the planet came into my field of vision. It was an awe-inspiring sight, and I could see many of the surface details with absolute clarity, including the region in which I intended us to land, just north of Tithonium Chasma.

The three great extinct volcanoes of Arsia, Pavonis and Ascraeus were clearly visible, just coming into the day side of the planet. Even Tharsis Tholis could be seen, the closest major feature to the anomaly I planned to pay a visit to. And further to the Southeast, the great impact basin of Argyre Planitia. The planetary investigators say it was once a great lake where, billions of years ago, life may have existed. If there is any trace of life down there still today, I intend to find those blasted microbes.

“You almost had us for a while back there, Mars,” I said looking up at the Red Planet. “But we're coming, don't you damned worry.”

And uttering a colourful oath I'd borrowed from Karanda under my breath, I turned to make my way back to the lander.

 

Edited October 10, 2016 by UnusualAttitude
Destretchification.

[UnusualAttitude]

So there you have it. This detour to Phobos before going down to Mars certainly wasn't planned, and I'm sorry if it's a little redundant with Camwise's previous mission, but the views are as awesome as ever (much better, in fact with my new textures). And it is good to know that they won't be going in on fumes. You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them, would you now? 

[KAL 9000]

YAY!

[DMSP]

4 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to them, would you now? 

Uh oh...

Some wonderful stretched shots our there.

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, DMSP said:

Some wonderful stretched shots our there.

Found and fixed at last. At some point a while back my screen resolution decided it would switch to something else without telling me. 

If the following shot is OK, then future episodes of the Logs should be 100% less stretchy. Circles will once again be round.

Spoiler

Thanks for pointing this out. 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

2 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Found and fixed at last. At some point a while back my screen resolution decided it would switch to something else without telling me. 

If the following shot is OK, then future episodes of the Logs should be 100% less stretchy. Circles will once again be round.

  Hide contents

Thanks for pointing this out. 

Looks round to me.

And I can't wait to see what happens when they land!

[UnusualAttitude]

It is time.

Spoiler

 

Edited October 10, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[UnusualAttitude]

YEAR 11, DAY 310. BARTDON.

It's a damned fine morning on this cursed clump of gravel. Not that the concepts of morning, evening, or night have any meaning here. How the blazes is one supposed to keep track on this sorry excuse for a natural satellite? Day... night... it changes its blasted mind every four hours! But whatever tiny slice of the insane Phobian day now falls into, it is a fine one. That's because we're getting the hell out of here as soon as Karanda gets back inside.

We've been squeezing pitiful amounts of water from this awful place for more than a month now, and we have already made two trips back up to our tug to offload the goods. These were the only breaks from a monotonous grind of round-the-clock shifts, taking turns to watch over the ice drills, making sure that not a second spent in this insufferable purgatory goes to waste.

The trip upstairs doesn't take long: half an hour or so to rendez-vous, about twenty klicks overhead. We leave our rig here on the surface since there's no point in going through the fiasco of tearing it down, just to rebuild it a couple of hours later. Besides, Lisabeth has mastered the point-and-shoot method of navigating in this pathetic gravity. Aim for your target, accelerate enough so that it is still there when you arrive, then slow down when you approach. She put us back down in the marks our landing legs left in the regolith each time.

Our Chief Engineer has calculated that once we return to Martian orbit, if we aerobrake efficiently, we will have made a small net gain in available propellant for our descent to Mars. Not much to show for nearly five week's work but, crucially, we will have enough liquid oxygen to burn all of our fuel.

We even took a couple of hours to go sightseeing on the sub-Mars side of Phobos. Well, actually we were taking seismic data for the Board back home. Now they've caught on to the fact that there's ice here they want more readings, just to be sure there's enough for all those blasted gin and tonics that will be served when they turn this place into a holiday resort, or a gas station for luxury cruises.

Dammit, they might even give me a room in a retirement home here. Well they can stuff that offer up Stickney crater and like it. One can't even tap-in a putt here without sending the damned ball into orbit. That would be something to tell the old boys back at the Tanegashima clubhouse, though. Unfortunately my sticks are still orbiting Mars in the belly of a shuttle.

It has been hard on all three of us, packed into this sardine can on a dull, airless world. It's a small wonder we didn't end up at each other's throats at the end of the first week. At least Karanda and I have had excuses to sacrifice some of our EVA fuel and stretch our legs but Lisabeth has barely left the ship since we first touched down. So, yesterday I took her with me on a quick jaunt up the crater wall looking for samples.

We didn't go out of sight of the lander, just up to one of the higher terraces overlooking our base. It was just after dawn, and a thin crescent of Mars loomed, red and menacing, over the peaks facing us from across the cavernous gulf of the crater. Lisabeth hadn't had the chance to get accustomed to moving around in the negligible gravity and she was still struggling a little to make it up the slope on her two feet. We stopped to catch our breath and look down at Cadrieu below. I seized the opportunity, shut off the open channel and turned to face her.

“So, STP. How are you holding out up here, gal? Not regretting the trip already, I hope?”

“Just doing what the Board pays me for, PI. And I'm glad to be along for the ride,” said Lisabeth looking at me for a moment, slightly puzzled. Then she broke into a her usual disarming grin, “I do miss having up and down though...”

“It doesn't seem to affect your flying though, gal. You're doing just fine.” I wasn't one for handing out compliments easily, particularly of late, but I was genuinely concerned for the youngest member of our little crew, and there was something else I wanted to talk about.

“Look, Lisabeth. About Camwise...”

Despite the bulk of her suit I could see her tense up the moment I mentioned the name of our former Senior Engineer.

“...you do know that he is alive and... safe?”

“Yes, PI,” she said a little too quickly, “I got the letter you sent to me when the crew of Cernin returned to Earth. But what I don't understand is why he took an engineering assignment in Antartica immediately after they got back...” her voice trailed off and she dropped her gaze as she realised that she might have betrayed the fact that she knew more than she ought to.

I looked at her as reassuringly as I could. “Your sister managed to wrangle that out of Froemone I'll bet, eh? Good for her! The reason Camwise accepted an assignment in Antartica is because he was given no damned choice. The Boards of the various companies that sponsor our venture believe that he was some way involved in the events that lead to the near-loss of Cernin and the death of PlI Margaret. Because of this, it was either his present job, or imprisonment.”

Various conflicting emotions seemed to battle within her for a moment, but then it looked as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She raised her head and stared straight at me, “That doesn't sound like Camwise at all.”

“I know, Lisabeth. That's exactly what I thought myself, and I don't understand either. If we're going to make any damned sense of this mess we've been sent to investigate, we're going to need as many good people on our side as possible. Look, if you would tell me what you know about the poor boy, it might help.”

“Well...” she began hesitantly, “I didn't actually get to know him very well. We used to hang out when he and Cat were training together, but...”

“It's OK, Lisabeth. The precise nature of your relationship is none of my damned business. But did you spend time together before he left on Cernin?” I insisted.

“Yes, actually we did, but we didn't talk about the mission or its objectives at all. I don't think I will be able to tell you anything useful. I reckon he just wanted some company for his last few days on Earth. He can be such a fun, sweet gentlekerb. But he can also be a bit... weird, though, at times.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, suddenly intrigued.

“Well, the very last evening we spent together he got a bit drunk...”

“That can happen to the best of us,” I admitted.

“...yeah, but you know he was hearing things since he found that ship up on the Moon, right? He also told me about some of the dreams he'd been having. He'd been seeing the strangest things in them. As if he'd travelled all over the system. Just floating around...” she waved an arm in the general direction of space, “...out there.”

I began to wish I'd never asked her about Camwise in the first place, but there was no stopping her now.

“He said that the dream always ended in the same way, with him falling towards the Sun. He would be bathed in a brilliant, endless light that he could feel, almost touch... and then...” she faltered.

“And then what?”

“That's it, he would wake up.” She fell silent for a moment before continuing. “Camwise has nothing to do with Margaret's death, PI. He can be a big kerbelle's blouse at times, but when things go wrong, he's always been the one who finds a way to clean up the mess and get the team home. He brought my sister back from the Moon despite orders to leave her behind, and I'd bet my licence that Cernin would never have made it home from Mars at all without him. You know it, and you need to find some way to get him back.”

“You must understand,” I said defensively, “that if I hadn't been there to intervene, Camwise would almost certainly be in a prison cave right now.”

Lisabeth looked off into the distance sadly. “On the morning Cam left, he sent me a note that read would you mind looking after the plant in my office for me while I'm gone?”

I couldn't help but chuckle. “He may be damned good at building dual-cycle rocket engines, but his love letters could use a little improvement. Not that I'd be able to help him out with that sort of thing.”

“That's not all. Back then, I had just applied for Test Pilot status for the third time. Because of the huge number of candidates, I was still on the waiting list. He told me something else.”

“What's that?”

“Never give up.”

With that she kicked off down the slope, back towards Cadrieu. I watched her go for a minute, mulling over what she had said. The problem was that she was probably damned spot-on, but at the moment, from two hundred million miles away, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

YEAR 11, DAY 314. BARTDON.

After burning away from that blasted moon and making six aerobraking passes to bring our orbital velocity down, we have at last encountered Laroque once more. We won't be stopping for blasted tea and cakes, though. This is just to swap over the crew. Karanda and Lisabeth will be staying on board Laroque, and Munvey, Mitzon and Desfal will join me on board Cadrieu to transfer to our shuttle Quissac.

While we had been away, Desfal had not been idle. Thanks to the telemetry from the polar scansats, he had identified a string of potential landing sites that stretched from Tithonium Chasma all the way to the northern reaches of Lunae Planum. All of these showed signs of high ice concentrations and lined up along our orbital inclination, offering us a wide range of options as we entered the Martian atmosphere.

All that remained was for us to accomplish the transfer between Laroque and Quissac, but the shuttle was trailing in a similar trajectory several hundred kilometres behind us. We would have to raise our orbit again slightly to allow her to catch up and fuel was more precious to us than time, as always. I would have to contain my impatience for another five days before we reached our ride down to the surface.

After this unscheduled detour to Phobos, Mission Control was understandably eager to have boots on red ground too, and apparently the Board was howling for us to make a beeline for the nearest anomaly as soon as we hit the surface. Well, they can howl as much as they please, and read the sweet science reports I will be sending them from as many locations on the Martian surface as I can drive to first. And they can damned well like 'em.

YEAR 11, DAY 319. BARTDON.

Quissac appeared out of the gloom as Munvey steered us to meet her on the planet's nightside. I was once again impressed by the size of this hulk of a ship. With her sleek but squat shape jutting fins and engine pods, and her forward docking port open like some gaping maw, she looked like some ancient sea monster of the depths. But she would be all things to all kerbs for the next twelve weeks.

Once again we left our lander's tug drifting as we finally lined up to dock. Mitzon was the first to go over, opening the doors to the cargo bay and our only way in to the ship and powering up life support systems for the first time after many long unoccupied months. Fortunately, he was greeted by a smattering of green lights across the board.

Desfal and I followed him, jumping the gap between our lander's airlock and blundering around in the cluttered chaos of Quissac's vast cargo bay. The sun had risen and light poured into the cavernous space, but I still managed to bump against auxiliary fuel tanks, cargo pallets, the wheels of the small servant rover and ISRU equipment before finally finding the hatch that gave access to the main crew compartment.

After we had transferred enough fuel to get us down safely, Munvey undocked Cadrieu and flew the lander back over to the tug that would contain our stash of remaining propellant for future operations. A trip to Deimos was still on the cards. Once the two modules were secured, he made the final untethered spacewalk to join us on Quissac.

We settled into our new quarters, but there was no time to nap. After a couple more orbits it was time to get rid of Quissac's tug. The empty stage was now simply debris, and would eventually fall victim to orbital decay.

The mark for our re-entry burn was approaching. Now it was just us and Mars.

“Gentlekerbs, this is it,” I called out as the sun dipped towards the horizon for our final trip through the Martian orbital night. “Mitzon, make sure nothing stops working on the way down, will you boy? And Munvey, put us down somewhere nice, please. We'll have to put up with the damned place for the next three months.”

A few minutes later Quissac's four engine pods rumbled into life for the first time for just a few seconds. This was all it took to ensure we would re-enter during our next passage across the planet's dayside. And then, an endless wait, drifting down through the blackness from 300 klicks to the very top of the atmosphere.

It was all up to Munvey now, and even he had a blinkered view of the proceedings, relying solely on his instruments and the external cameras mounted on the hull of the shuttle. We were now merely passengers, strapped into the back seat. Our only view of the world was through the tiny windows set into the top of Quissac's hull, and this would give us no inkling of how well the landing was going. For the time being, we could see only stars beyond the thick, laminated glass.

We did, however, feel the shift in the shuttle's attitude as Munvey aligned the vessel along our flight path and pitched the nose up to let her belly face the approaching onslaught of Mars' atmosphere.

“Re-entry alpha set, sunrise coming up,” Munvey announced blandly.

Our flight profile would take us nearly a quarter of the way round the planet from our point of re-entry to the location at which Quissac finally touched down. The goal being of course, to bleed off as much of our 3.5 klicks per second as possible before the ground finally rose to meet us, and then scrub off the rest with our thrust-vectoring engines to bring us to a hovering final descent that would hopefully allow us to choose an ideal spot.

“Level four-six-oh, three-point-one-five klicks per second.”

Our path took us south of the Tharsis Montes, and had the cabin been fitted with lateral windows, I would've have spotted Arsia to our port side, I mused as the jetstreams began to buffet Quissac from side to side.

“Level two-nine-oh, two-point-six-five metres per second,” droned Munvey.

The air was starting to bite. Up and down started to make sense once more, and we began to be aware of the nose-up attitude of our shuttle. The jumbled chaos of Noctis Labyrinthus would now be sliding past to our left as Quissac pitched up still further to flatten out her descent and lose yet more speed before the final, deadly few thousand metres of slippery air. I turned to look at my companions: Desfal looked pale, and even Mitzon – a veteran of several re-entries – had nothing to laugh about for once.

We shot over the Martian canyons, still twenty thousand metres above the dusty red highlands surrounding them.

“Predicted overshoot of primary landing site, switching to alternative site A,” remarked Munvey, as if commenting on the weather. “One-point-eight klicks per second.”

During a brief moment of grace, Quissac achieved enough lift to glide along horizontally through the Martian atmosphere, still tanking along at hypersonic speed. Then gravity gained the upper hand again, and she resumed her plunge towards the surface.

“Angels ten, one-point-two klicks per second. Main engines engaged, thrust vectoring to vertical.”

A hum vibrated through Quissac's hull as the engine pods rotated into position followed by a jolt as they fired for the first time. The ship pitched up even more as our pilot used the attitude thrusters to raise the nose and offer her huge, flat belly to the thin air. This was the narrow window where we would have to cancel our remaining forward velocity, or we would be dashed to pieces by the next low hill.

“Angels two, subsonic, landing legs deployed. Four greens,” Munvey rattling off his shopping list.

More humming and whirring of machinery as the shuttle's long, spindly legs locked into position.

“Bay doors open, I have a clear visual of the surface. Looks good, terrain slope moderate.”

There was a final lurch as Munvey throttled up Quissac's engines one last time, bringing her to a halt just a few metres above the surface. Then, just a few seconds after 16:40 UT he lowered her down to rest on a slight incline between two low ridges in the southern reaches of Lunae Planum. Her four landing pads hit the ground with a hefty thump.

“Contact,” he announced superfluously. “Engines off.”

We had made it to blasted Mars, dammit!

I clapped Desfal on the back and shouted at our pilot over the intercom, “Well done, boy! Now, stow the engines, drop the gear and release that rover so we can get outside. We have a well-deserved flag to plant, I believe.”

Karanda chimed in from Laroque to enquire whether we were still alive or not, and if we were ready for her to take command of the servant from her remote station.

The servant rover in the rear of Quissac's cargo bay would hinder any attempt to egress from the crew cabin, so the first thing to do was to lower the shuttle onto her wheels and drop the little thing onto the surface so that she could be parked out of the way for our first EVA. Only then could we drop the ladder and make our way down to the surface.

There was another delay of a few minutes as the uplink from the servant was rerouted correctly through our orbital coms network. By the time Karanda got a clear signal and had parked the servant behind the shuttle, I was already on the ladder and clambering my way down to the surface below.

I put out a tentative foot and walked upon the fourth planet from Sol for the first time.

Hello, Mars. I believe you have some secrets to share with me.

Some time later, the entire crew of Quissac lined up along side our ship as I fumbled with the flag for what seemed like minutes on end before I finally managed to spear the blasted pointy end firmly into the dust.

“We have come a long way, all of us, and our space venture has made quite a comeback,” I told my crew. “Gentlekerbs, thank you for being here with me.

“Now, to work.”

 

[KAL 9000]

That's one small step for Kerb, one giant leap for Kerbalkind!

[UnusualAttitude]

8 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

That's one small step for Kerb, one giant leap for Kerbalkind!

...and it's a pretty significant achievement for @UnusualAttitude too, since I started designing this mission back in July.  I know, I'm terrible. I take my time with these things.

One more thing: if all goes well, Bartdon will have his rover on the ground in a couple of days. He intends to embark on a most epic Martian science field trip. In the interests of science, he is also open to suggestions for locations to visit and you are welcome to submit your own request. 

Here, take a look at this map below.

The red dot is where Quissac touched down. 

Arcambal Mars, or Areocambal as she is affectionately known, can sustain a crew of two for nearly fifty days. The exploration of the surface of Mars will therefore be split into two phases.

The yellow area will be investigated first and includes Valles Marineris (Melas Chasma, in particular), the chaotic regions to its East and Noctis Labyrinthus to the West. The tricky part will be finding a way down into the canyons, but I'm sure he'll find a safe path, perhaps via Shalbatana Vallis or Ganges Chasma. If he makes good progress he will continue towards the shield volcanoes to the West and visit at least one of the Tharsis Montes. Olympus Mons would be cool, but it might be a bit too far.

The green area will be investigated during a second outing, and includes the anomaly Bartdon spotted (the blue dot), Acidalia Planitia, Vastita Borealis etc... If he can make it to the polar caps, that would be awesome, but ambitious.

If the place you would like to see is within one of these zones, then it's fair game. If it's close, I can't make any promises, but I will consider it.

I also can't promise spectacular results, but I will switch my graphics up to full and take some panoramic shots. Just post your request below or send a PM. If you like, you can include a short explanation of why you think the site is scientifically interesting.

Onward into the unknown...

Edited October 10, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[KAL 9000]

The part of Acidalia Planitia within the green circle appears to contain the Ares 3 landing site! You must investigate... The Viking 1 landing site is just outside the green circle, maybe you could make it?

[Starman4308]

I have to say, I'm kinda impressed. I doubt I'd have the patience to take a rover several hundred kilometers. I've most enjoyed this; I hope you keep it up.

[UnusualAttitude]

1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

The part of Acidalia Planitia within the green circle appears to contain the Ares 3 landing site! You must investigate... The Viking 1 landing site is just outside the green circle, maybe you could make it?

Quite possibly, and maybe we could push a little farther still to the East and poke at the haunts of a certain @Cydonian Monk ? However, you do realise that there will be nothing to see in particular at these landing sites? By definition, if they are sites chosen for safe landings by probes and landers in our universe, the terrain should be relatively flat and unremarkable. I was thinking more of interesting landscapes such as valles, craters and montes. Grab a map of Mars and take your pick.

Having said that, Bartdon will definitely visit Acidalia Planitia. Investigating the bed of a mile deep ocean that dried out billions of years ago: what's not to like?

1 hour ago, Starman4308 said:

I have to say, I'm kinda impressed. I doubt I'd have the patience to take a rover several hundred kilometers. I've most enjoyed this; I hope you keep it up.

We're looking at thousands and thousands of kilometres here. A Martian road trip next to which all stock Elcano challenges fade into insignificance. I am patient; in fact I am the Chuck Norris of patience, but I am not that patient, and have yet another guilty secret up my sleeve. Fortunately for my family and social life, there is no other way to do this: Quissac's ISRU system cannot run autonomously in the background, so I must spend at least part of my time focussed on refilling her tanks while Bartdon autoroves to the next place of interest.

He is still limited by life support (about fifty days) and the sedate pace of Arcambal's autorove speed (5m/s during daylight hours only, of course).

Glad you like The Logs, though. And I fully intend to scour the Real Solar System for its secrets before I am done. Welcome. 

Edited October 11, 2016 by UnusualAttitude

[Cydonian Monk]

2 hours ago, UnusualAttitude said:

Quite possibly, and maybe we could push a little farther still to the East and poke at the haunts of a certain @Cydonian Monk ?

Cydonia Labyrinthus and Cydonia Mensae are both remarkably rugged, much more so than Acidalia Planitia. Though I doubt the [lack of] precision in RSS/RO is enough for them to look as rugged as they actually are. Mensae, perhaps. That's one of the things that bugged me about the setting of the film version of "The Martian" - it actually made sense for some of the neighboring territory, but not so much for Acidalia. At least Weir got it right in his book.

Enjoy Mars. I'll get there eventually.

Free Mars!