The Martian

“Rich, Rich Purnell,” he said, shuffling in to the office, his arms wrapped around a sheaf disorganized papers. “From astrodynamics.”

“Nice to meet you,” Venkat said. “What can I do for you, Rich?”

“I came up with something a while ago. Spent a lot of time on it.” He dumped the papers on Venkat’s desk. “Lemme find the summary…”

Venkat stared forlornly at his once clean desk, now strewn with scores of printouts.

“Here we go!” Rich said triumphantly, grabbing a paper. Then, his expression saddened. “No, this isn’t it.”

“Rich,” Venkat said. “Maybe you should just tell me what this is about?”

Rich looked at the mess of papers and sighed. “But I had such a cool summary…”

“A summary for what?”

“How to save Watney.”

“That’s already in progress,” Venkat said. “It’s a last-ditch effort, but-”

“The Taiyang Shen?” Rich snorted. “That won’t work. You can’t make a Mars probe in a month.”

“We’re sure as hell going to try,” Venkat said, a note of annoyance in his voice.

“Oh sorry, am I being difficult?” Rich asked. “I’m not good with people. Sometimes I’m difficult. I wish people would just tell me. Anyway, the Taiyang Shen is critical. In fact, my idea won’t work without it. But a Mars probe? Pfft. C’mon.”

“All right,” Venkat said. “What’s your idea?”

Rich snatched a paper from the desk. “Here it is!” He handed it to Venkat with a child-like smile.

Venkat took the summary and skimmed it. The more he read, the wider his eyes got. “Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely!” Rich beamed.

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know, Venkat said. “Friends?”

“I don’t have any of those.”

“Ok, keep it under your hat.” Venkat said.

“I don’t wear a hat.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“Really?” Rich said. “It’s a stupid expression.”

“Rich, you’re being difficult.”

“Ah. Thanks.”

Vogel:

Being your backup has backfired.

I guess NASA figured botany and chemistry are similar because they both end in “Y”. One way or another, I ended up being your back-up chemist.

Remember when they made you spend a day explaining your experiments to me? It was in the middle of intense mission prep. You may have forgotten.

You started my training by buying me a beer. For breakfast. Germans are awesome.

Anyway, now that I have time to kill, NASA gave me a pile of work. And all your chemistry crap is on the list. So now I have to do boring-ass experiments with test tubes and soil and pH levels and Zzzzzzzzzz….

My life is now a desperate struggle for survival… with  occasional titration.

Frankly, I suspect you’re a super villain. You’re a chemist, you have a German accent, you had a base on Mars… what more can there be?

“What the fuck is Project Elrond?” Annie asked.

“I had to make something up,” Venkat said.

“So you came up with Elrond?” Annie pressed.

“Because it’s a secret meeting?” Mitch guessed. “The email said I couldn’t even tell my assistant.”

“I’ll explain everything once Teddy arrives.” Venkat said.

“Why does Elrond mean secret meeting?” Annie asked.

“Are we going to make a momentous decision?” Bruge Ng asked.

“Exactly,” Venkat said.

“How did you know that?” Annie asked, getting annoyed.

“Elrond,” Bruce said. “The Council of Elrond. From Lord of the Rings. It’s the meeting where they decide to destroy The One Ring.”

“Jesus,” Annie said. “None of you got laid in high school, did you?”

“Good morning,” Teddy said as he walked in. Seating himself, he rested his hands on the table. “Anyone know what this meeting’s about?” He asked.

“Wait,” Mitch said, “Teddy doesn’t even know?”

Venkat took a deep breath. “One of our astrodynamicists, Rich Purnell, has found a way to get Hermes back to Mars. The course he came up with would give Hermes a Mars flyby on Sol 549.”

Silence.

“You shittin' us?” Annie demanded.

“Sol 549? How’s that even possible?” Asked Bruce. “Even Iris wouldn’t have landed till Sol 588.”

“Iris was a point-thrust craft,” Venkat said. “Hermes has a constant-thrust ion engine. It’s always accelerating. Also, Hermes has a lot of velocity right now. On their current Earth- intercept course, they have to decelerate for the next month just to slow down to Earth’s speed.”

Mitch rubbed the back of his head. “Wow… 549. That’s 35 sols before Watney runs out of food. That would solve everything.”

Teddy leaned forward. “Run us through it, Venkat. What would it entail?”

“Well,” Venkat began, “If they did this Rich Purnell Maneuver, they’d start accelerating right away, to preserve their velocity and gain even more. They wouldn’t intercept Earth at all, but would come close enough to use a gravity assist to adjust course. Around that time, they’d pick up a re-supply probe with provisions for the extended trip.

“After that, they’d be on an accelerating orbit toward Mars, arriving on Sol 549. Like I said, it’s a Mary flyby. This isn’t anything like a normal Ares mission. They’ll be going too fast to fall in to orbit. The rest of the maneuver takes them back to Earth. They’d be home 211 days after the flyby.”

“What good is a flyby?” Bruce asked. “They don’t have any way to get Watney off the surface.”

“Yeah…” Venkat said. “Now for the unpleasant part: Watney would have to get to the Ares-4 MAV.”

“Schiaparelli Crater!?” Mitch gaped. “That’s 3,200km away!”

“3,235km to be exact,” Venkat said. “It’s not out of the question. He drove to Pathfinder’s landing site and back. That’s over 1,500km.”

“That was over flat, desert terrain,” Bruce chimed in. “But the trip to Schiaparelli-”

“Suffice it to say,” Venkat interrupted, “It would be very difficult and dangerous. But we have a lot of clever scientists to help him trick out the rover. Also there would be MAV modifications.”

“What’s wrong with the MAV?” Mitch asked.

“It’s designed to get to low Mars orbit,” Venkat explained. “But Hermes would be on a flyby, so the MAV would have to escape Mars gravity entirely to intercept.”

“How?” Mitch asked.

“It’d have to lose weight… a lot of weight. I can get rooms full of people working on these problems if we decide to do this.”

“Earlier,” Teddy said, “You mentioned a supply probe for Hermes. We have that capability?”

“Yes, with the Taiyang Shen,” Venkat said. “We’d shoot for a near-Earth rendezvous. It’s a lot easier than getting a probe to Mars, that’s for sure.”