"The Martian," Part 2

In the article, What About "The Martian?", we reviewed this fine motion picture, giving it a "9" for scientific accuracy and a perfect "10" as a compelling adventure that puts us in the boots of a lone astronaut left for dead on the Red Planet. This post will focus on three Mars mission scenarios, starting with the movie version.

 The Martian Mission on the Big Screen

Ares III is one in a series of Mars expeditions, including real missions like Pathfinder, Mariner and Curiosity. The plot centers on three sites: Ares III, messed up by a Martian storm; the place where Pathfinder died in 1997; and the drop site for Ares IV. Eventually Watney goes to the 1997 mission site, miraculously finding Pathfinder under a few scoops of sand. Unlikely as it might seem, he somehow gets its camera and video channel up and running - and even less likely still, someone is monitoring that video channel after so many decades of silence!  Turns out that NASA tracked his movements and called in a bunch of old Pathfinder hands. 

But if NASA could pull this off, how could they fail to build sufficient redundancy to maintain communications between Ares III and Hermes or any station on Earth? This is a MOST unlikely situation when you factor in various comm nodes at Ares III, including human habitat, two rovers and a half-dozen operational space suits.

Back in the movie, NASA can see whatever the Pathfinder camera sees, including Watney and messages he writes on a pad. Personnel on Earth cannot communicate in reverse for whatever reason, but they can control camera rotation, leading Watney to devise a kind of circular ouija board in the Martian sand to allow NASA to communicate, one letter at a time.

Watney is a botonist astronaut. When he realizes that years may pass before he is rescued he takes a long look at the food stores in the human habitat - enough for months but not years. Luckily, there is a sealed bag of whole, raw potatoes labeled "Do not open until Thanksgiving" which turn out to be totally viable as seed stock. So Watney spends a good deal of time thrashing together a growing environment in the biosphere, planting potato segments and nourishing them with home-made water and astronaut poo.

When he's not growing potatoes and listening to 70's disco music, Watney is rolling about the Martian landscape in an astronaut rover he has modified, permitting him to travel, albeit slowly, to the sites of both Pathfinder and Ares IV. Lucky for us, these excursions also serve to immerse the viewing audience in the Red Planet's incredible landscape, filmed under the expert direction of Ridley Scott at Wadi Rum in Jordan.

The Mission from the Book

I highly recommend Andy Weir's fine rendering of  "The Martian" in book form.  If you can read it before seeing the motion picture, the mission becomes a lot more believable, and the book comes closer to getting the science right.  If you have already seen the movie, the book will enhance that experience - especially if you are a space exploration geek.  Here's a brief synopsis of the Ares III mission: 

1.  Ares III is the third in a series of manned missions to Mars.  Each site is prepared over time by a series of unmanned space "flyovers" that drop advance supplies and materials.  For Ares III there were 14 such preparatory missions.

2. With all supplies and materials on-site (a process taking around 3 years), a crew of 6 astronauts is launched to rendezvous with a giant Hermes spaceship so costly that NASA's fleet consists of exactly one.

3. Hermes is powered by ion engines charged by a nuclear reactor. In flight, argon zips from the rear of the vessel to continually accelerate Hermes, which reaches the confines of the Red Planet in 124 days. Hermes then manages to enter orbit around Mars, a feat that takes a lot of cosmic braking not covered in either book or movie. (See "The Starflight Handbook" by Mallove and Matloff for more on ion propulsion and other exotics).

4. Once the orbit passes near the Ares mission site, a Mars Decent Vehicle is deployed to take the astronauts safely to the surface. Atop the MDV is a Mars Ascent Vehicle to get them back to Hermes at the termination of the mission.

5. Although the book does not get into this, the first order of business must be the assembly of a human habitat with supplies, communications means and vehicles.

6. The Ares III mission is set to last only 31 days, which doesn't seem anywhere near sufficient in view of the untold billions such a mission would entail and the work required to set up a base on the Red Planet. But such are the parameters set by author Weir in "The Martian."

7. The Martian windstorm disaster takes place on Day 6 of the mission. Amazingly, the crew has already been built and supplied the habitat, but by the end of that fateful day they are back on Hemes, heading to Earth minus Watney – alive but stranded on the Red Planet.

8. Some 42 days after the sandstorm, NASA finally decides to authorize time on one of their 12 Martian satellites to take a look at the Ares III site. In real life, not only would satellite time be immediately scheduled over Ares III, the Hermes craft would also stay in the vicinity to see what went wrong and try to locate Watney's "remains." And by the way, each of those 12 orbiting satellites should have means to not only communicate with Earth and Hermes, but to relay even weak signals from Mars missions as well.

"The Martian" - Another Perspective

In its October issue, Popular Science interviews director Ridley Scott, author Andy Weir, and Dave Lavery, program executive for solar system exploration at NASA. When the three were asked if they would ever go to Mars, only NASA's Lavery said he'd want to go, but only if it were a two-way trip. Scott said he loves the Earth too much, and Weir reckoned that travel to Mars would take a level of bravery far beyond what he would be willing to commit.

Space is hard, but there are ways to reduce the stress and risk by at least an order of magnitude, and probably save budget in the process:

1. Recon, Recon, Recon.

Orbit Mars continually with satellites carrying high-resolution cameras, photograph the entire planet, and chart every square foot around Curiosity and other potential mission sites. Weir's book has 12 such satellites – a lot of surveillance power.

2. Improve The Curiosity Mission.

Enhanced surveillance over Curiosity can greatly increase the efficiency of this and future robotic missions by allowing operation of the Rover in approximated real time rather than the fits and starts required by sending commands, waiting an average of 12 minutes for them to arrive on Mars, then waiting another 12 minutes to see the results. For more on approximated real time, check out my post, How to Colonize Mars: 10 Big Steps, and one to follow on NASA’s recently-released Mars Mission Plan.

3. Send Proxy Robots First!

When a mission site has been selected, send a team of proxy robots along with tools, power generators, communications means, construction materials and spare parts. As each proxy robot is a surrogate for a human handler at Mission Control, the same proxy can be a geologist on one shift, an astronomer on another, and a construction worker on the next. While the human handler sees through her proxy robot’s camera “eyes,” a 360-degree far-field camera atop its robotic head sends a continuous stream of video and data about terrain just ahead as well as every hill, crater and rock within the next mile or two. This gives the handler the future view needed to guide each step that her robot will take in 12 minutes when her “follow me” signals arrive on Mars, no matter in what direction she heads the proxy.

4. Humans Come and Go; Proxy Robots Stay.

Human handler specialists guide their proxy robots through a variety of tasks ranging from scouting and surveillance to construction of power and communications depots and a human habitat to be occupied first by visiting astronauts and eventually by colonists. In short, proxy robotic missions can carry out scientific exploration, construct a permanent base on the Red Planet, build a biosphere, collect water, oxygen and fuel, and start growing veggies and salad plants (and maybe a potato or two) along with fish and shrimp in a biosphere pond.

5. Humans Stay.

With a Mars base up and running including communications, power and a well-equipped human habitat with biosphere, it is time to send long-term human missions there. Whether these become the first settlers in a Martian colony will depend on many factors to be determined by a couple of decades of preparation. In all steps, proxy robots can take a major role, then stay the course alongside human explorers.

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The author is an inventor with 10 proxy robotics patents pending and 2 books on the subject. Saving Earth: The Proxy Robot Age and Proxy Robotics: To the Moon and Beyond are available in print from The Book Patch, and the latter publication is also available as an eBook from Amazon.com.