Teddy didn’t even apologize for being four minutes late. He strode into his office, placed his briefcase on his desk, sat down, and said, “I know you’re all very busy, so let’s make this quick. I need a status update on Project Sleipnir from all departments. Venk, let’s begin with you.”

“Proceeding on schedule here,” Venkat replied. “The only problem I have is that the Ares III and Ares IV presupply crews are competing over cruise and landing control of the probes. I’m letting them make their cases before I decide on one or the other, or whether to assemble a fresh crew. Unless they come up with a compelling reason otherwise, I’m probably going to go with the Ares III team.”

“Mitch,” Teddy continued, “how about the launch?”

The Ares flight controller shrugged. “Eagle Eye 3 cleared out their launch control room, so we’re good to go at Kennedy and here at Johnson. We’ll have Sleipnir 1 on pad 39A and Sleipnir 2 on 39B, so that we can send Sleipnir 3 out on the crawler the minute Sleipnir 1 clears the tower. After launch we’ll turn everything over to Venk’s team for cruise and landing.”

“Media?”

Annie looked up from her phone. “I’m giving daily updates to the media,” she said. “Google reports an uptick in searches on Norse mythology. We’re expecting public interest to peak as we get closer to launch day, so expect a lot more press inquiries in the next six weeks.”

“Encourage them,” Teddy said. “We need pressure on Congress to replace the Ares funds we’re spending on Sleipnir. What about opposition to the rescue- the ‘let them die’ crowd?”

Annie actually smiled. “They’re getting their fucking heads kicked in,” she said. “The BringThemHome tag outperforms them twenty to one. Gallup and Monmouth polls both show over 75% support in the United States for the rescue mission. And the online troll cesspools are actually policing their own on this. Apparently Spitfire has just been elected ‘alien troll queen.’” Her smile turned savage. “And a certain ‘Filthy Fred’ is posting nothing but angry response videos after his fellow shitposters turned on him. My department has counted over fifty videos doing to Fred what Fred does to other people.” Putting on an air of dignity, she added, “Of course, my staff did this research entirely on their own time.”

Teddy didn’t smile. “Of course,” he said. “Moving on.” He turned to face one of the two big monitors in the room. “Maurice, how are the boosters coming?”

Maurice Stein, Director of Pad Operations at Kennedy Space Center, frowned. “We’re behind,” he said bluntly. “Or I should say, SpaceX is behind. We took delivery of the first Red Falcon booster last week, and it’s going through final inspection now. But SpaceX is two weeks behind schedule on refurbishing the second booster, and they’ve barely begun on the third booster. They keep telling me they’ll make deadline, but damn if I see how.”

“So,” Teddy said, “no hope for an early launch?”

Maurice shook his head. “None,” he said. “The betting pool in my team puts the smart money on about a week’s delay of launch on Sleipnir II. Three weeks for Sleipnir III. More if JPL’s schedule slips.”

Teddy looked at the other monitor, where Bruce Ng stood in his office in California. “What about it, Bruce? Is your schedule slipping?”

Bruce shrugged. “We’ve had some setbacks,” he said, “but we had a bit of schedule budgeted for setbacks. We certainly won’t be early, but so long as we avoid any major screwups, we should deliver all three probes on time.”

“Sounds good,” Teddy replied. “What can you tell me about the loadouts?”

“All three Sleipnir probes use identical tumbler-landed supply casings,” Bruce replied. “They all contain transponders that the rover navigation system will identify, allowing Mark to drive his modified rover to each site.

“Each probe will deliver just under one metric ton to Mars- one-tenth the payload of a typical presupply flight. Five hundred kilograms of that will be payload. Four hundred kilograms of that will be food, providing a total of three hundred days of rations for four astronauts at full rations.

“The remaining hundred kilos will include a replacement radio system on both Sleipnir 1 and 3, a replacement flight suit and shatter-proof helmet for Watney on Sleipnir 2, replacement spare Hab canvas and resin on all three ships, plus whatever we can cram in the remaining space and weight.

“And finally, we’re configuring the onboard radio for all three probes so they can take the place of Hermes as radio relays for Pathfinder. It’ll only do any good for the last four months or so of the flight, but it’s better than nothing. After launch we’re planning software adjustments which will let us turn the three probes into a flying radio array that can error-check incoming transmissions and so increase bandwidth from Mars. Unfortunately the time lag between ships won’t let us do that in reverse.”

“Sounds good,” Teddy repeated. “Keep me posted. Dr. Keller,” he continued, turning to look at the Ares III flight surgeon, “what issues will the crew be facing when the supplies land?”

Dr. Keller shrugged. “They need at least one, probably two harvests from their cave farm to even make it to landing,” he said. “We know nothing about nutritional problems for Dragonfly or Fireball. The ponies will probably have a sodium deficiency, but will otherwise be all right. Watney is our major concern.”

Keller adjusted his glasses as he continued, “Watney has gone to one food pack per day plus potatoes and a small amount of alfalfa leaves for his meals. Depending on how rigidly he sticks to this meal plan, his protein deficiency will range from nothing to serious, possibly severe. The biggest danger is that, faced with a monotonous diet, he’ll undereat. There’s very little we can do about that, except encourage the ponies to be his meal-buddies and make sure he eats everything he’s supposed to.”

“How will this affect his ability to retrieve the supplies?” Teddy asked.

“He’ll be weakened,” Keller replied. “How much I can’t say. Also, his judgment will be slightly impaired due to lack of vital fatty acids for repair of neural myelin. He’ll need help bringing the supplies back to the Hab. But in even the worst case scenario he should be able to do the job. Of course, the closer we can drop the supplies to the Hab, the better for everyone.”

“Will this do any permanent damage?”

“No way to know ahead of time,” Keller said. “Once he’s back on full rations for a month, then we’ll know.”

“All right.” Teddy made some notes. “Good work, everyone, and keep it up. And remember, if anybody can find a safe way to speed this up without further risking Mark’s life, I want to know about it immediately.”

TO: Venkat Kapoor ([email protected])
FROM: Michael Bendarek ([email protected])
SUBJECT: Satcom Request

Tell Satcom we’ll have their orbital adjustments tomorrow during the day. My best man just went on vacation, and he has months of vacation days banked. It was that or fire him, and normally he’s too reliable to get rid of. But he’s got something in his head and won’t let go of it.

Sorry for the delay.

Mike

Astrodynamics

Author's Notes:

I lost an hour to horrible traffic west of Lafayette, LA, so the drive to South Carolina took me sixteen hours. And I need to get to sleep pretty much NOW, so no involved notes. I'll just say that the only reason this scene exists is to demonstrate the change in scenario between the original book and Watney Plus Five.

I will point out that SpaceX has made their 24-hour turnaround goal with Falcon 9 precisely once. Every other reflown booster has required more involved refurbishing. It's not impossible that SpaceX will get a 24-hour (or to be more realistic 1-week) turnaround on the BFR, but it's not the way I'd bet.