Jerry Hamric

5 May 2004

Mission to Mars: 2030

The Mars Mission Crew:

Dr. Daniel Morris—mission commander, ex-CIA chief space-technology analyst and pilot of Mars 1Lander

Colonel Janet Covington—pilot of Mars 1Orbiter and return vehicle

Colonel Philip McGee—pilot of the Mars 2 Orbiter, and copilot of the Mars 1 for the return phase of the mission

Dr. Mohammed Hussein—Mars 2 communications and computer systems specialist

Dr. Malcolm Lien—co-pilot of the Mars 1 Lander, environmental geologist and computer systems specialist

Dr. Elias Abata—co-pilot of Mars 2 for the flight to Mars, and chief medical officer for the mission

Dr. Denise McGee—Mars 1 Lander mission specialist in Mars geology

2030 CE

            The new Kowloon Spaceport was the pride of the Chinese National Space Administration. With five launching stations, and a complex of administration buildings housing most of the CNSA’s operations, it was the largest on Earth. The only larger space-related complex was Moonbase 1, which housed over 150,000 Chinese technicians, scientists, administrators, construction and factory workers, and their families. From the air the view of the Spaceport was magnificent with beautiful, brightly-colored towering buildings, giant launch platforms, and long runways for the huge Mao 3 reusable launch vehicles.    

            NASA and the European Space Agency had contracted with the CNSA to use two of the Mao 3s to transport the Mars 1 and 2 spacecraft out to the International Space Station since neither agency had any launch vehicle large enough for the task. The Mao 3s were technological marvels consisting of two independently piloted vehicles. The main launch vehicle was about twice the size of the old Saturn 5 that NASA had used in the early days to get to the moon. The Mao 3 Launcher could place a huge payload into orbit, return to be refueled within two orbits, reloaded with a new payload package, and launched again within forty-eight hours. The Mao 3 Orbiter was sat atop the giant launcher, contained the payload package, and once in orbit could be piloted virtually anywhere in the solar system. Moon flights were routine, and two were on their way out to the Belt to begin surveying for the Chinese Belt Mining project that would be initiated in 2035. The investment had been huge, but the Chinese needed the enormous capability of these vessels to build, service, and maintain Moonbase 1. As I looked out the window of the NASA Boeing 897 that we had flown in from Houston to Kowloon, I could see the two Mao 3s that already contained Mars 1 and 2 on their platforms and stood, ready for launch—my stomach tightened with envy at the sight of those tremendous ships.

            “Dr. Henry Chen,” the pleasant looking man introduced himself in a perfect American accent. He held out his hand for a western-style handshake. “I’ll be your liaison while you are here at Kowloon Spaceport. Your craft are in place, ready for launch, and you have been assigned quarters where you can freshen up after your long trip. You will leave tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, and in the meantime we would ask that you remain in your quarters for security purposes.”

            “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I replied. “My name is...”

            “Dr. Daniel Morris,” Dr. Chen interjected. “It is a great pleasure to meet you. Of course, I know all about you. Ph.D. in astrophysics from Princeton, professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake School of Space Sciences, and father of—three daughters and one son, I believe. And your companions are Janet Covington, command pilot of the crucially important Mars 1 orbiter and return vehicle, Philip McGee, command pilot of Mars 2 orbiter that will remain in orbit around Mars, unmanned and constantly monitoring the surface after the landing parties have departed, and Dr. Mohammed Hussein pilot of Mars 2 Lander. I assume the rest of your party will be with us shortly.”

            “That’s very flattering, Dr. Chen,” I said. “And more than a little intimidating, I must say. Bill Paterson the pilot for Mars 1’s Lander, and our mission specialists Drs. Abata, Lien, and McGee will be along shortly.”

            “Ah, yes. How do you feel about your wife coming along on this rather perilous mission, Colonel McGee?” Chen asked.

             Colonel Philip McGee had been around long enough to know better than to be surprised at anything Chen could throw at him. “Fine,” he replied smiling. “We get along great, Dennie is the best Mars geologist there is, and she always smells wonderful. You couldn’t ask for more in a space-faring companion.”

            The night was one of those too-long nights where sleep always seemed about to happen, but never quite did. As I lay awake, tossing and turning in my I could think of nothing but the mission. I was going over every detail in my mind, worrying over each one in turn. Had we really planned for every possible thing that could go wrong? No, of course not. We couldn’t even imagine all the things that could happen, and we had come up with some pretty unlikely scenarios. In the nearly seventy years men had been invading space, it had proven to be a hostile, deadly, but very profitable environment. The box car-sized crystals that we were growing in orbit for use in supercomputers generated enough profit alone to pay most of the costs of the Mars mission. Then there were the pharmaceuticals produced in orbit, the lunar mining operations that produced more aluminum more cheaply than could ever be produced on Earth, and now the Belt mining project of the Chinese would probably assure then of economic dominance over the planet for the rest of time. The exploration of space may be dangerous for a few people, but the benefits to humanity vastly outweighed the costs. My mind rushed and my thoughts seemed to swirl around....

Brinnnng...brinnnng...brinnnng

“What is it,” I sat up, confused for a moment. The alarm clock, It must be the alarm clock. I must have dozed off. Then it all came flooding back to me. The day—the launch—the mission—today! I reached over to shut off the alarm clock and realized it was the telephone. “Hello,” I said, feeling a little flustered.

“Dr. Morris,” the voice on the other end said in a slightly British accent. “Would you be so kind as to join us in the ready room. It is time to prepare for your launch.”

“Of course, I was just getting ready to come down,” I lied, hoping it sounded at least a little like the truth.

The Beanstalk

            The Beanstalk Launcher had been constructed by the Chinese for the European and American space agencies from materials mined on the moon, launched into the L-4 zone where the gravitational pulls of the Earth and Moon were so balanced that an object placed there was so stable that its orbit would neither deviate nor decay. The round hub of the giant structure had been constructed by the same means as the International Space Station, but the giant launch arms that extended outward from the middle of the hub were built by nanobots specially designed for the task. The nanobots worked independent of human control, spinning a tube of graphite fiber-reinforced steel. The two tubes were each five miles long, a hundred feet across where they joined the hub, and then narrowing down to just twenty feet where a spacecraft to be launched would be positioned. The giant launch arms were the first such structures ever built in space by this method, and it seemed like a scientific miracle to the crews who had risked their lives welding structural members while fighting the cold and the heat, the zero gravity, the vacuum, and the enormous mass of the girders of the other space structures.

            As we approached the Beanstalk, I was taken aback by the beauty of the structure with its mile-wide, silver-colored habitat hub, and bright orange arms. It was truly a work of art on a scale heretofore unattempted by man.

“Mars spacecraft prepare to surrender control to our automatic docking systems on my mark...and...mark.” The launch controller made it all seem routine, even though this was only the second series of launches conducted by the crew, the first being the Chinese Belt mining craft that had been launched just weeks earlier.

We turned over control to Beanstalk Central Control and our two craft docked with the stationary hub, and they were then shifted to the bright orange launch arms and were driven out to the ends as if they were on an escalator. The giant launch arms then slowly began to rotate about the hub on a movable collar that circled the hub. We never even met any of the thousands of people who worked and lived inside the hub section of the giant Beanstalk. The advantage of a system like the Beanstalk was that we would not have to carry as much fuel. The launcher would propel us towards our rendezvous point with the red planet, and very little of our onboard fuel would have to be expended. We would only need to make minor course corrections on the outward journey, and then a little more to obtain orbit. The rest of our fuel would be used for the Mars landing and takeoff, and the return voyage of the main section of Mars 1. This allowed us to substitute the weight of the fuel that would have otherwise been needed with extra radiation shielding to protect not only us, but the crucial computer systems that would be responsible for piloting our spacecraft to Mars.

While our two spacecraft were being moved to the launch platforms at the ends of the Beanstalk’s launch arms, Dr. Abata proceeded to run a series of checks on our cold-sleep coffins. The coffins, as they were nicknamed by the crew and technicians, were where we would be spending most of the outward journey to Mars. They would protect us from the horrific radiation exposure that we would otherwise have been exposed to on the trip. While Abata was running his checks, the rest of us suited-up into our protective suits, and we took our places in the launch seats that would protect us from the g-forces we would experience on launch. In what seemed like days, but was in fact only ten hours, the arms had come up to speed and first one, then the other of our craft was released at a mind-numbing velocity towards Mars. We were on our way.    

The Voyage

            Perhaps the most innovative aspect of our journey was to be the new cold sleep system that was being employed for the first time. We would spend most of the year and a half long voyage in a state of drug-induced suspended animation in a nearly frozen state in the coffins. Our metabolic functions would be slowed, a new kind of nanobots would be injected into our bloodstreams to keep our organs functioning properly, and we would be constantly monitored by our onboard medical computers. Our muscles would be electrically stimulated at periodic intervals to keep us fit and prevent muscular atrophy, and the scientists who pioneered the system assured us we would be unaware of our state. I wasn’t completely convinced, but the test subjects had all seemed unaffected, and emerged fit and well. Some were even improved by the experience because the nanobots methodically destroyed any cancerous cells, and repaired cellular damage to the body done by everything from alcohol abuse to solar radiation. Eventually, the scientists assured us, that this technology was not only safe, it would eventually enable us to extend human life for decades, if not centuries. The problem with making the technology of the life-extending nanobots public was that with the Earth’s population reaching unsustainable levels, and overcrowding on the planet reaching near-catastrophic rates, the technology was being kept secret, and was only available to a select few—and we were part of that privileged few.

            Once underway, our pilots, Colonels Janet Covington and Philip McGee had to execute the crucial docking procedures that would join our two vessels as one, for the trip to Mars. Once in orbit around Mars, Mars 2 would undock, take its place as a communications and observation relay, and Mars 1 would separated into the return ship, and the lander section. Mars 1 was by far the largest of our vessels, containing not only the lander, but also the crucial life-support coffins and our computer systems.  

Mars

            “Mars 2, this is Mars Lander. Do you read? We have a problem. Our readouts of the planet’s atmospheric and surface conditions are not...I repeat not coming through.”

            “Dr. Morris, Daniel, this is Mars 2. Philip here. I am receiving your transmission. I show no problem on our side. We appear to be transmitting telemetric data to your craft. I suggest you abort landing and return to orbit. Over”

            “Philip, I’m glad to hear your voice, but I can’t abort. I’ve lost about eighty percent of my controls, and I’m flying this brick with a lead stick. I’m going to go in hard and fast.”

            “Dan, can you execute a retro burn?’

            “That’s a negative, Philip. I have no throttle control, I’m dead stick all the way,” I said as calmly as possible, trying to mask the fear with the standard pilot’s professional jargon. “I have no readouts on velocity or altitude, but I can see the ground, and it’s coming up fast.”

            “Dan, I want you to shed some velocity by pulling up on your yoke.”

            “Way ahead of you, Phil. I’m doing the old Space Shuttle approach right now. My nose is up. Gear are down and locked, but I’m still really hot. Look, things are a little hectic right now. Dan and I are going to do our best with this thing. I’ll be back with you in a little while—after we land.”

            I tried to sound as optimistic as possible, but it was pretty obvious to both of us that this was going bad fast.

            “Look, Mal,” I said to my copilot, Malcolm Lien. “Hold your yoke tight, pull up, and pray. I don’t think this is going to work out well.”

            “I’m with you. It’s going to be a tough one.”

            I was vaguely aware of alarms going off in the cabin.

            “We’re losing all cabin pressure,” said Lien with much more calm than I felt.

            I was vaguely aware of Dennie McGee, who was sitting in the jump seat behind me, turning on my suit air. To be honest, I had all but forgotten she was sitting behind me. “Thanks,” I managed to mutter.

            “No prob, Cap. Just get us down in one piece,” she said.

            “Phil....” I never finished.

            I must have been out for a while because I woke to the drone of the computer simulated voice calling, “Mars Lander, please respond. Mars Lander, please respond....” Phil wouldn’t have turned it on unless he had given up trying to reach us. Looking around I could see that we were torn up. Mal was obviously gone; his helmet was cracked wide open. I tried my best not to look at his face. I turned my attention to Dennie. I can’t express how relieved I was to find her alive.

            “Dennie,” I implored. “DENNIE!!!” I shouted.

            Phil McGee must have been monitoring my suit radio, because he spoke up almost immediately.

            “Dan.” I could hear the relief in his voice “You can’t believe how good it is to hear your voice. Is—is....” His voice trailed off, but I knew what he was asking.

            “She’s alive, Phil.”

            “Thank God.”

            I knew how close they were, even though they were not the kind for public displays of affection. There was something in the way he looked at her that bespoke a deep love, and when she didn’t think any one was watching she had a way of touching Phil’s arm or shoulder that was soft and tender and was meant for him alone. I always envied that kind of love—the kind of love I had never known.

            “Philip?” Dennie’s voice was just a whisper.

            “Oh God, Den” he shouted. “I thought you were gone. Are you alright?” He asked tenderly, almost reverently.

            “I’m OK. Just a little shaken up is all. Phil, Mal is dead.” She was looking at Mal’s lifeless body, and I knew how she felt—I felt that way too.

            “Look guys, I’m not going to candy-coat this thing. Things have gone south up here too. 1 is gone,” Phil said in his professional voice.

            “You mean Janet’s left us? I don’t believe that,” I said. I had known Janet Covington since I was in Kindergarten. We had both grown up in Nassau Bay together, and she would never do a thing like that, at least not willingly.

            “No,” he replied sadly. “I mean she’s gone, Danny. I know you guys were close, but she’s just gone. Right after you went down I saw the flash. The ship must have gone up almost instantly; there was a huge explosion. If it means anything I’m sure she didn’t feel anything.”

            “Damn,” I muttered under my breath. “That means you are as stuck here as us.”

            “Yeah,” he said almost nonchalantly. “But it gets worse.”

            “How could it get worse than all of us “cratering” out here in the middle of nowhere?”

            “It was Elias.” Philip paused for a moment to let it sink in. “He was evidently—no, he was a Fundie. And, he’s killed Mo. He killed him while I was talking to you while you were going down. Injected him with some shit that offed him instantly. Came after me right after you went dark, but I managed to stick him. He went down like a ton of bricks.”

            Fundie. I couldn’t believe he could be one of those freaks. Religious fundamentalism had almost ruined it for all of us, and not long after the Chinese took over control of near-Earth space they told the world in no uncertain terms that it didn’t matter to them if you were Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, or whatever, as long as you kept it to yourself, didn’t try to force your beliefs on anyone else, and behaved. A group of Christian Fundie radicals out in Salt Lake City joined up with some Islamic Fundies and bombed the Chinese embassy in San Francisco in response to the Chinese edict. They were used to dealing with the empty threats they had heard for years from the rest of the world’s governments. The Chinese weren’t fooling around. They dropped a couple of big rocks—one on Salt Lake City, and the other on Karachi where the Islamic Fundies were based. The effect was devastating. There was nothing left of either place but rubble. Everyone within miles of both cities was killed instantly. It was just like the places had been nuked, but with no fallout. Oh, there was a dust cloud over the plains states in the US that killed off the corn and cotton crops for a year, and the cloud from the Pak explosion had drifted over Kashmir, resulting in who knows how many deaths. No one was even sure how many people lived there to begin with.

            The Chinese were really blunt about the consequences of further problems, and their instructions were simple. Put a stop to the whole religious fundamentalism problem or the next time it won’t just be the Fundie’s home city that gets hit, it will be the capitol of the nation they came from. The usual protests were filed with the UN, but all anybody could do was stop the Fundies. Some were rounded up and imprisoned for life, others were hunted down and killed, and most went underground. When cells were flushed out, they were eliminated, and everyone lived in a kind of fool’s paradise believing the problem was solved, and we were safe from the Chinese wrath. That was ten years ago, in 2020. Since that time the Fundies of all flavors had either disbanded or suddenly developed enough good sense to shut the hell up. Until now....

            “For curiosities sake, how do you know he was one of those jerks?’ I asked.

            “Well,” Phil replied slowly, the sadness more than evident in his voice. “You know we were friends. Friends for years. He was the best man at my sister’s wedding, for God’s sake. I...I found a message he had recorded that was set to be transmitted to Earth. He laid it all out, how he had sabotaged 1, how he had reprogrammed the Lander’s computer, how he intended to kill us all to keep us from”

            “I know,” I interrupted and finished for him. “Spreading humanity to the other planets so we don’t all perish in the inevitable cataclysm that will engulf the Earth or some other such shit. How dare he do this to us? But how—when did he do it. We were never alone, any of us.”

            “He programmed his coffin to resuscitate him before the rest of us woke up, months before,” Phil sadly replied.

            “But the radiation,” I let my protestation trail off. Obviously if he was intent on murdering us all, and committing suicide in the process, a little thing like radiation poisoning wouldn’t stop him. “I thought he looked a little crappy, but then we all did after nine months in the coffins.”

            “Oh, Phil,” Dennie interrupted. “What are we going to do? What’s going to happen to us? Don’t bother. I know. We all know. There’s no way home, no one can come to save us, and—this is it then. I die down here, and you go up there. At least you’ll last a little longer than Danny and me. We’re on suit air, and there just isn’t much time for us.”

            “I’m sorry, babe,” Phil said, gently. I had never heard him speak that way to her. He was obviously giving up any pretense of distance, and trying to be as close as he could to her this near the end, even if they were a few hundred lousy miles apart. My heart just about broke hearing the two of them talk this way.

            “Look, there must be something we can do,” I said, feeling like an intruder. “I think the portable shelter may be OK. I’m going to set it up and that will buy us some time—a little time, at least.”

            “Well, I know what I’m going to do,” Phil responded. “I’m going to take the shuttle down there to the surface. It will be a rough, one-way trip, but at least we’ll be together. I’ll bring all the air and supplies I can. There’s a couple of dozen bottles of air up here, a little food, and there’s a spare shelter I think I can fit in. I’m coming down. I’ve got your homing beacon. I’ll be there as soon as I can plot the trajectory, load the supplies, and line up.”

            The first time it really dawned on me that I was on Mars was when I went out to set up the shelter. It was a self-inflating sort of affair, so there was not much work in it for me. I had a chance to look around, and I was struck by the awesome beauty of the place. The ground was reddish brown, and covered with rock formations that seemed familiar and strange all at once. Maybe it was just that I had seen so many photos and films from the unmanned Mars’ explorers, or maybe it was just that I really felt like I belonged here. After all, I hadn’t dreamed of anything else since I was a little boy. All my grandfather and dad could talk about was space travel. They called themselves “space junkies.” Growing up in Nassau Bay, right across the street from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, meant that I was always going to school with kids whose parents either worked for NASA, one of the contractors, or were astronauts themselves. I never really wanted anything more than to make Dad and Granddad proud of me. I just wish they could have lived to see me...well, maybe it is best this way. They did know I was in the program, both of them. I know they were proud of me.

            As soon as the shelter was set up, I went back to the wrecked Lander to get Dennie. It was obvious, as soon as I began to move Dennie that she was in worse shape than she was letting on. She was pretty broken up inside. I did my best to get her into the shelter without hurting her too much, and she was quiet for the most part. She only let out little moans every once in a while that let me know when I was “torqueing” her the wrong way.

            When she was settled, I removed her helmet, and got her some water. She drank like she had just spent a month in the Australian outback where we did our survival training together. I knew then and there what it was that I had to do.

            “Hey, Phil,” I said. “I’ve got the shelter set up, and Dennie is moved over. She isn’t feeling particularly well, but at least she’s here.”

            “Look Danny,” Phil replied. “I’m almost finished. I’ll be breaking orbit in about twenty minutes. I have scoped out a place to land right next to you guys. I’ll be less than five minutes walk from you. I’ll see you inside the hour. And—Well, thanks Buddy. I appreciate what you have done for Dennie, you know, taking care of her and all.”

            “Couldn’t have done anything else,” I said, suddenly embarrassed by this normally stoic guy’s heartfelt sincerity. “I’ll see you in a few.”

            Phil was the best pilot I knew, and even though the little craft wasn’t really meant for the kind of abuse he put it through getting down to the planet, he got it down in one piece. I changed my air bottle, and went out to help him transfer the supplies to our shelter. He had more stuff than I thought he could pack into that little shuttle that was just meant to carry three crewmen from one ship to the other.

            “Good job, Phil,” I said, and meant it. “You’ve done a great job, and I’m glad to see you—more than I can tell you.”

            Phil and Denise hadn’t let go of each other since we got to the shelter. “No problem, Danny. I’m just glad to be here. From the looks of the stuff we’ve got here, I think we’ve bought ourselves at least a month, maybe a little more,” Phil smiled as he looked into Dennie’s eyes.

            Denise looked much better after Phil got in, and she got her ribs taped up. Most of her problems centered around what had turned out to be a couple of broken ribs. She was stable and getting around much better now. It looked like she was going to be OK, at least for the rest of our time on Mars. I took Phil aside as we were putting away the last of the air bottles.

            “Look Phil,” I said in hushed tones. “I never gave you guys a wedding present, so now I am going to make up for it.”

            “What?” Phil asked. “Have you got a toaster in your other suit?”

            “Something better than that, you’ll see.”

            It was about two o’clock in the afternoon, Mars time, and the day was really looking pretty good as Mars days go. Dennie and Phil were setting up things really nicely in the shelter, and I walked over to the airlock and began to suit up.

            “Where are you going,” Dennie asked. “Forget something over in the Lander?” Phil said nothing, he just nodded.

            “No,” I replied, smiling at my best two friends on the planet. “I’m just going out for a little walk. I may be a while.”  

The end     

Analysis

            The various elements of this story were derived from the literature either studied, or discussed, in Craig White’s Literature of Space and Exploration class at the University of Houston-Clear Lake in the spring of 2004.

            The giant Mao 3 rocket used to launch the Mars mission into space was actually a prototypical Space Shuttle design that was presented around the time that Norman Mailer was writing Of a Fire on the Moon. It was deemed too expensive by Congress, and so NASA had to pare down their plans. The current model of the Space Shuttle resulted.

            The lunar colony that I mention is something that most of us in the late sixties and early seventies believed would be built by the US. It now looks like the Chinese may well be the inheritors of the moon. The recent Chinese space launch is probably what prompted President Bush to declare intentions for the US to revisit the moon. It remains to be seen if this happens, although it appears that NASA executives want to believe it. This was discussed by our class members in the course of discussions on the space aspect of the class.

            Chinese dominance of space, and the influence that such a thing might offer them, is my own introduction to the story. For some time I have been considering the ramifications of a Chinese-controlled near Earth system. I find it entirely probable that the pragmatic and, for the most part, non-religious Chinese might well take the drastic actions described in my story to stop what they might view as actions contrary to their interests. I have no doubt that they will be capable of taking such actions well within the allotted time mentioned in the story.

            The use of the coffins in the “travel” segment was, of course, a tip-of-the- hat to Edgar Allen Poe. Poe’s well-known use of premature burial as a plot device was amply discussed in the class as we covered Pym. This near pathological fear that gripped the Victorian-era people and influenced Poe’s writing was the object of a rather lengthy discussion by the class. The darker elements of sabotage, and traitorous actions were also derived from Poe’s novel Pym, as were some of the rather detailed and laboriously chronicled technical descriptions. I can also attribute some of the influence for this to Norman Mailer’s Fire on the Moon.

The Beanstalk Launch system was actually a product of either Gerard O’Neill from Princeton, or some other early seventies scientist. I’m not really sure where it came from, but the idea was co-opted by me for use in this story. It gave me an opportunity to give some descriptions of the space structure that were actually derived from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Since science fiction films were discussed frequently in the class, and since this film was mentioned, I felt it appropriate to give a nod to it in my story. Numerous discussions of the space-based, catapult-like Beanstalk Launcher are easily available on the web with a simple Google search. I was intrigued by this idea when I first read about it over thirty years ago, and it is not a commonly used element in science fiction writing. Normally the Sci-Fi writers use a faster-than-light drive, or some sort of reactionless drive system for their vehicles. Even though this element is a “borrowed” one, I feel that it gives my story a little bit of individuality.

The abrupt transition from Beanstalk Launch to Mars orbit was an element of the story “borrowed” from Edgar Rice Burroughs. I loved the way his Carter character was simply transported from one planet to the other, and so, I incorporated this into my Mars story. In fact, I can freely admit that the idea of using Mars as a destination was inspired first by Princess of Mars and second by Jamie Davis’ discussion of Ben Bova’s Mars. The brief description of the Mars surface given by my character, Daniel, was influenced by photos shown by Jamie to the class, and by Bova’s discussion of the Mars surface conditions.

            Science fiction writing was characterized by Dr. White as being lacking in character development, so I intentionally made the first part of the story, the techno/space segment, heavy in techno, and sparse in characterization. The last segment of the story, the post-crash segment, was derived from the polar writings studied in the first part of the course, and so, I felt justified in incorporating more intimate characterization elements into it.

            I found the camaraderie of the polar explorers to be quite inspiring. The loyalty they showed one another in the face of horrible conditions is almost superhuman. I know that all of my classmates were touched by the tragedy surrounding the Robert Scott expedition to the South Pole. Since much of the class discussion for the first half of the semester revolved around the writings on this expedition, I felt it only proper to use some element from it in my Mars story. When I revisited the writings I once again found myself drawn to self-sacrifice of Captain Oates. He knew that his time was limited, but rather than seek the solace of his team mates, he chose to “walk” and give them a little better chance at survival. Whether or not his actions did, in fact, contribute to their longevity is questionable; his bravery in the face of death is not.

            I chose to have, as my final group of survivors, three people. Again this is in homage to Scott’s expedition. I chose to have my married couple not be overtly affectionate for most of their married lives as a symbolic inference to the unstated affection of the polar explorers, Scott, Henry Bowers, and Dr. Edward Wilson. The group was found frozen, but the gesture of Scott, reaching out to his companion and friend, Wilson was unmistakable a show of affection. My intention in not showing the final moments of the last two survivors of the failed Mars mission was symbolic of the unwritten entry in Scott’s journal of his expedition. Whether Scott could have written such an entry, or not, is immaterial. It is such a poignant element of his story that I felt it important, and so, gave it a prominent place in my story. The idea of the unwritten, implied deaths of the trio appeals to me. Death is a private thing. That Daniel was willing to let his friends spend their last “month of so” alone, and indeed, his sacrifice would have allowed them a few more precious days together, was too good a plot device to let go.

Plot elements borrowed from Poe and Burroughs, a description of the Australian Outback borrowed from Tracks, Mailer’s love of technology, and the angst and suffering of all the polar explorers figure prominently in what I offer here. Most of all, I know that I owe a great debt to the strengths of Scott and his men for the heart of my story.