Titans of Chaos

We discussed whether we could merely turn one cabinet, or a small area of deck, into anAristotelian vest-pocket cosmos, and pump our carbon dioxide into it, and pump out fresh air,without having that cabinet be pulled to Earth by its natural motion. Vanity, based on the resultsof her research back on the island, seemed to think having two non-harmonious laws of natureright next to each other might cause problems. Colin was urging Vanity to use her stone tosummon up something more primitive, pre-Ptolemaic; His argument was that Stone Age shamansdid not worry about or know how the sky-people breathed or moved. No one wanted to takeVictor up on his offer to grow specially designed algae in our lungs that would allow us to breatheoxygen and carbon dioxide indifferently.

"Don't expeditions like this usually involve, you know, more planning... ?" asked Vanity. "LikeNASA and getting food and space suits and all sorts of stuff? We have the knapsacks of gearlashed to the deck, which is in a vacuum right now, I should mention."

Victor said, "I thought there were launch windows controlling the timing of space shots?"

I was bubbling with enthusiasm. "Sure, Victor, there would be, if we were dealing with the rocketequation, and if conserving fuel were our main concern. In such a case, the most efficient methodwould be to begin from low Earth orbit, achieve a six-point-six kilometers per second delta-V, toput us into a Hohmann transfer ellipse, where its perihelion is tangential to Earth's orbit and itsaphelion at Mars! In such a case, the next available launch date would be July ninth of this year,when Mars is past its closest approach by forty-five degrees, and the orbit out would take abouttwo hundred fifty-nine days! After four hundred and fifty-five days on Mars, the planets would bein a good relative position, and we could make a second burn of seven point two kilometers persecond! Let me show you how these figures are derived! First, remember that Kepler's third lawstates that for all objects orbiting the sun, the square of the orbital period is inverselyproportional to the cube of the semi-major axis..."

Colin, who was pinned to the curved ceiling above me, groaned. "Bat crap! She's talking inequations again! You've memorized the acceleration requirements for a Mars shot? Girl, you havethought about this entirely too much."

I said impatiently, "What else was there to think about, back when we were trapped in theorphanage, but how to get off the planet?"