The Martian

As of noon yesterday, the northern-most logger showed 12.3% efficiency loss, the middle one was a 9.5% loss, and the rover recorded a 6.4% loss at its southernmost location. It paints a pretty clear picture: the storm front runs northwest to southeast. And I already worked out it’s traveling west.

The best way to avoid it is to go south.

Finally, some good news! South is what I wanted. I won’t lose much time.

Sigh… I have to drive the same god damned path a third time tomorrow.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 480

I think I’m getting ahead of the storm.

Having traveled along Mars Highway 1 all day, I’m back at my campsite from yesterday. Tomorrow, I’ll finally make real headway again. I was done driving and had the camp set up by noon. The efficiency loss here is 15.6%. Compared to the 17% loss at yesterday’s camp, this means I can outrun the storm as long as I keep heading south.

Hopefully.

The storm is probably circular. They usually are. But I could just be driving in to an alcove. If that’s the case, I’m just fucking dead, ok? There’s only so much I can do.

I’ll know soon enough. If the storm is circular, I should get better and better efficiency every day until I’m back to 100%. One I reach 100% that means I’m completely south of the storm and I can start going east again. We’ll see.

If there were no storm, I’d be going directly southwest toward my goal. As it is, going only south, I’m not nearly as fast. I’m traveling 90km per day as usual, but I only get 37km closer to Schiaparelli because Pythagoras is a dick. I don’t know when I’ll finally clear the storm and be able to beeline to Schiaparelli again. But one thing’s for sure: My plan to arrive on Sol 495 is boned.

Sol 549. That’s when they come for me. If I miss it, I’ll spend the rest of my very short life here. And I still have the MAV to modify before then, too.

Sheesh.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 482

Air day. A time for relaxation and speculation.

For relaxation, I read 100 pages of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun courtesy of Johanssen’s digital book collection. I think Linda Marshall is the murderer.  

As for speculation, I speculated on when the hell I’ll get past this fucking storm.

I’m still going due south every day; and still dealing with efficiency loss (though I’m keeping ahead of it). Every day of this crap I’m only getting 37km closer to the MAV instead of 90. Pissing me off.

I considered skipping the Air Day. I could go another couple of days before I ran out of oxygen, and getting away from the storm is pretty important. But I decided against it. I’m ahead of the storm enough that I can afford one day of no movement. And I don’t know if a couple more days would help. Who knows how far the storm goes south?

Well, NASA probably knows. And the news stations back on Earth are probably showing it. And there’s probably a website like www.watch-mark-watney-die.com. So there’s like a hundred million people or so who know exactly how far south it goes.

But I’m not one of them.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 484

Finally!

I am FINALLY past the god damned storm. Today’s power regen was 100%. No more dust in the air. With the storm moving perpendicular to my direction of travel, it means I’m south of the southernmost point of the cloud (presuming it’s a circular storm. If it’s not then fuck.)

Starting tomorrow, I can go directly toward Schiaparelli. Which is good, cause I lost a lot of time. I went 540km due south while avoiding that storm. I’m catastrophically off course.

Mind you, it hasn’t been that bad. I’m well in to Terra Meridiani now, and the driving is a little easier here than the rugged ass-kicking terrain of Arabia Terra. Schiaparelli is almost due east, and if my sextant and Phobos calculations are correct, I’ve got another 1030km to get there.  

Accounting for air days and presuming 90km of travel per sol, I should arrive on Sol 505. Not too bad, really. The Nearly-Mark-Killin' storm only ended up delaying me by 7 sols.

I’ll still have 44 sols to do whatever MAV modifications NASA has in mind.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 487

I have an interesting opportunity here. And by “opportunity” I mean Opportunity.

I got pushed so far off course, I’m actually not far from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. It’s about 300km away. I could actually get there and pull a Pathfinder on it. It would take about 4 sols.

Thing is, it’s not worth it. I’m only 13 sols away from the MAV. Why go out of my way to dig up another broken-ass rover to use as a makeshift radio when I’ll have a brand new, fully functional communication system within a couple of weeks.

So, while it’s kind of neat that I’m within striking range of another rover (man we really littered this planet with them, didn’t we?) it’s not relevant.

Besides, I’ve defiled enough future historical sites for now.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 492

I need to put some thought in to the bedroom.