Chapter 17.2

Whoa!! Valerie just came down to the lab and told us about a message she just got from Steve. She is wanting to stay on Mars at the end of our tour and Steve is willing to join her. From what I’ve heard, he sure wouldn’t have any trouble passing the physical. If he’s allowed to make the trip, one-way, and she stays here, that’ll set a precedent for colonization that we didn’t think would happen for another 50 years. On the other hand, with all of these diamonds to be mined and setting up livable space for future colonists, I can see how the Sponsors might be anxious to start touting the merits of immigration. They’re gonna be needing some slave-laborers. Can you imagine? Huh!!

TTYL, Tom

< ≡ ♂ ≡ >

From: Jackie Miller
Subject: Happy New Year to You
Date: Taurus 12, 0031 12:12
To: Michael Miller

(CLT): 10 min 29.61 sec

Happy New Year, Hon

Looks like it’s time to play catch up with you, since I’ve been away from my email for the past four days. Valerie, Brandon, and I just returned from FP2. Because we had landed so close to FP1 and we had the FP2 following us to Mars, we were able to direct it to land elsewhere. And elsewhere turned out to be almost 400 klicks away to the north-northwest, a place called Hibes Montes. It is a much steeper terrain with mountain peaks and really deep valleys. Definitely not a day trip. With the terrain being so rough and the pressurized rover topping out at about 30 km/h on flat ground, the trip took about a day and a half each way, just for driving.

You may remember, part of the backup plan was to have it launch two weeks after we left. That was just in case we missed the landing site by a distance of 500 klicks or more. (You know, the way we talk is funny isn’t it? Why do I type klicks instead of km? One is shorter to say, the other to type. But it feels like I’m talking to you. It’s kind of like the way people say vee-double-you instead of Volkswagen. VW is shorter when written, but has more syllables than Volkswagen when spoken.) But, I digress from my catching up.

Pages: 1 2 3