The Martian

The three tanks combined had 3000ml to start with. A lot of that was used to maintain pressure while the airlock was leaking. Also, my breathing turned some oxygen in to carbon dioxide, which was captured by the suit’s CO2 filters.

Checking the readouts, I have 410ml of oxygen, 738ml of nitrogen. Together, they make almost 1150ml to work with. That, divided by 285ml lost per minute…

Once I’m out of the airlock, this EVA suit will only last 4 minutes.

Fuck.

AUDIO LOG: SOL 119

RECORDING:

Ok, I’ve been thinking some more.

What good is going to the rover? I’d just be trapped there instead. The extra room would be nice, but I’d still die eventually. No Water Reclaimer, no Oxygenator, no food. Take your pick; all of those problems are fatal.

I need to fix the Hab. I know what to do; we practiced it in training. But it’ll take a long time. I’ll have to scrounge around in the now-collapsed canvas to get the spare material for patching. Then I have to find the breach and seal-strip a patch in place.

But it’ll take hours to repair and my EVA suit is shit.

I’ll need another suit. Martinez’s used to be in the rover. I hauled it all the way to the Pathfinder site and back, just in case I needed a spare. But when I returned, I put it back in the Hab.

Damn it!

All right, so I’ll need to get another suit before going to the rover. Which one? Johanssen’s is too small for me (tiny little gal, our Johanssen). Lewis’s is full of water. Actually, by now it’s full of slowly sublimating ice. The mangled, glued together suit I have with me is Beck’s; my original suit has a hole in it. That just leaves Martinez and Vogel.

I left Martinez’s near my bunk, in case I needed a suit in a hurry. Of course, after that sudden decompression, it could be anywhere. Still, it’s a place to start.

Next problem: I’m like 50 meters from the Hab. Running in 0.4g while wearing a bulky EVA suit isn’t easy. At best, I can trundle 2 meters per second. That’s a precious 25 seconds; almost an eighth of my 4 minutes. I’ve got to bring that down.

But how?

AUDIO LOG: SOL 119

RECORDING:

I’ll roll the damn airlock.

It’s basically a phone booth on its side. I did some experiments.

I figured if I want it to roll, I’ll need to hit the wall as hard as possible. And I have to be in the air at the time. I can’t press against some other part of the airlock. The forces would cancel and it wouldn’t move at all.

First I tried launching myself off one wall and slamming in to the other. The airlock slid a little, but that’s it.

Next, I tried doing a super-pushup to get airborne (0.4g yay!) then kicking the wall with both feet. Again, it just slid.

The third time, I got it right. The trick is to plant both my feet on the ground, near the wall. Then I launch myself to the top of the opposite wall and hit with my back. When I tried that just now, it was enough force and leverage to tip the airlock and roll it one face toward the Hab.

The airlock is a meter wide, so… sigh… I have to do it like 50 more times.

I’m gonna have a hell of a backache after this.

AUDIO LOG: SOL 120

RECORDING:

I have a hell of a backache.

The subtle and refined “hurl my body at the wall” technique had some flaws. It only worked one out of every 10 tries, and it hurt a lot. I had to take breaks, stretch out, and generally convince myself to body-slam the wall again and again.

It took all damn night, but I made it.

I’m 10 meters from the Hab now. I can’t get any closer, cause the debris from the decompression is all over the place. This isn’t an “all-terrain” airlock. I can’t roll over that shit.

It was morning when the Hab popped. Now it’s morning again. I’ve been in this damn box for an entire day. But I’m leaving soon.

I’m in the EVA suit now, and ready to roll.

All right… ok…. Once more through the plan: Use the manual valves to equalize the airlock. Get out and hurry to the Hab. Wander around under the collapsed canvas. Find Martinez’s suit (or Vogel’s if I run in to it first). Get to the rover. Then I’m safe.

If I run out of time before finding a suit, I’ll just run to the rover. I’d be in trouble, but I’d have time to think and materials to work with.

Deep breath… here we go!

LOG ENTRY: SOL 120

I’m alive! And I’m in the rover!

Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but I’m not dead, so it’s a win.

Equalizing the airlock went fine. I was out on the surface within 30 seconds. Skipping toward the Hab (the fastest way to move in this gravity) I passed through the field of debris. The rupture had really sent things flying, myself included.

It was hard to see; my faceplate was covered by the makeshift patch. Fortunately, my arm had a camera. NASA discovered that turning your whole EVA-suited body to look at something was a strenuous waste of time. So they mounted a small camera on the right arm. The feed is projected on the inner faceplate. This allows us to look at things just by pointing at them.