Archive of Our Own

Today we landed on Mars. As I write this, I am currently sitting inside the Hab, with only a few layers of highly-engineered material separating me from Martian soil and Martian atmosphere. How cool is that? Despite literal years of training, and then months in space onboard Hermes, it’s still only just sinking in that I am standing (well, sitting) on a whole other planet.

Martinez made a near perfect landing of the MDV (Mars descent vehicle) – not that I’m going to tell him that – but I heard that Ares 2 had a bit of a rough landing with a minor sandstorm.

Of course, landing was only the first step. NASA has been sending supplies up to Mars since long before we even left Earth, but without delicate humans onboard most of the supplies are packed for crash landings. And sometimes they bounce, or land a little off-target. So, the first task after landing the MDV was for us to locate all the pre-supply packages and check them for damages.

Next step: set-up. It’s like the world’s most intense IKEA. If we want somewhere to sleep, we have to get the Hab set up as soon as possible. And since we also want to not suffocate or freeze to death while we’re sleeping, we needed to triple check that all of the Hab systems are hooked up and correctly functioning before we could take off our EVA suits.

It’s been a long day, so I think I’ll turn in.

Vogel snores. I know this; I’ve been training with my crew for over a year now. But on Hermes we each had our own cabins, as opposed to the open bunk beds in the Hab. I don’t think Lewis would like it if I threw my socks at his head next time he woke me up though.

I also have to say, after many months of observation, that Vogel is a German stereotype – and sees no problem with this. He’s been eating sausages for breakfast every day of the trip so far. I think he’s even been eating them for non-breakfast meals. Sure, NASA packed us an extra month’s worth of food for emergencies, but I’m seriously unsure if we’ll have enough sausages to last our 31 sols on Mars at his rate of consumption.

It’s an interesting experiment: food popularity among astronauts. Does NASA look at how much of each type of food is left at the end of each mission? Did Ares 1 & 2 have different preferences than Ares 3? Will we all be stuck eating only sweet and sour chicken on sol 31 because no one seems to like it and it’s all that’s left? Or maybe that’ll be our dedication to Mars when we leave – 24 redundant sols worth of food – mostly consisting of sweet and sour chicken.

I should eat sausages tomorrow morning while there’s still some left.

I’ve been setting up a grid pattern for collecting samples of Martian soil for chem analysis. Commander Lewis has also been collecting samples – she’s our geologist – but her rock and soil samples are for… whatever geology stuff that tells her. Historical weather patterns or whatever.

I’m the botanist though, so I’m testing for the viability of Martian soil to grow plants. How cool will that be to one day be able to grow plants on Mars? Of course, they’ll have to be inside some sort of greenhouses – like us humans, no Earth plants could survive the sub-zero temperatures and lack of breathable air on the Martian surface. Still, someday it could be like every science-fiction story from the mid-20th century with biodomes supporting human (and plant) life on Mars.

And, not to brag, but if that happens one day, it will be partially because of my research here. Neither Ares 1 or 2 had botanists in their crews. Ares 1 was mostly focused on the “can we keep our astronauts on Mars without dying” part, and Ares 2 had other areas of research. The Ares 3 site though is in Acidalia Planitia – the flattest part of Mars. If anywhere on Mars is going to have good quality soil, it’d probably be right here.

Once I’ve established my soil grid, I am actually going to start planting things in the Hab. Not a lot, of course, we still need to live in the Hab and the rest of the crew need access to their workspaces. But I have a small amount of Earth soil and a small sample of plant seeds to test if A) anything can grow in the Martian soil and B) any effects from the reduced Martian gravity.

The first botanist on Mars. Bring it on.

Health checkup with Beck this morning. Just like every piece of equipment, NASA wants all its astronauts to remain in optimal condition, which means frequent health checks. And I get it, if one of the crew were to become seriously sick or injured, that could potentially endanger the whole crew, as well as the mission.

And since Dr. Beck is also our biologist, it means we are also the subjects of his area of research. What are the side effects of prolonged exposure to Martian gravity? Are there effects from the amount of time spent in EVAs? Is there anything in those chem analyses I’m running which are dangerous to humans?

Sure, NASA has done a lot of that research already to determine all their safety protocols, but they still only have two months’ worth of live data (from Ares 1 & 2). So, Beck gets to compulsively monitor all our bodily functions every week.

A note to the kids out there: if you don’t want to have someone tracking every time you pee, don’t become an astronaut.

Have I mentioned how much I love my fellow crewmates? I know NASA spends a lot of time and deliberation in creating a perfectly balanced team, but in my (very unbiased) opinion the six of us just mesh really well. I honestly can’t imagine being here without them.

Commander Lewis is so focused and driven, that I’d follow her through any crisis, but she’s still laid back enough to not be bothered by Martinez and I bickering. Ah Martinez, the brother I never wanted. (I think I actually may have introduced him like that to my parents. If I haven’t, I need to do so when we get back.) Vogel, with all his German-ness, is also a damn good scientist. I also think he may have pulled that prank on Martinez before we left that Martinez blamed me for. Or it was Beck. He’s another dark horse with his mix of professionalism and humor. And Johanssen is the scary-smart nerd I really wouldn’t want to cross.

The Ares 4 team was just being selected when we left Earth, and I’m sure they’ll figure things out, but when we left, they were still in that awkward professional, near-stranger stage. Compared to the practically-reading-each-others’-minds for our Ares 3 crew – well, let’s just say I feel doubly blessed to be on this mission out of all the Ares missions.

Sure, being part of Ares 3 doesn’t have quite the same notoriety as the first two missions. By the time I set foot on Mars, I was the 17th person to do so. Still, how many places are there left on Earth where only 17 people have been? (18 counting Martinez stepping down after me.) It seems there’s always humans who look to the most remote and dangerous places and say, “I want to go there.”

And actually, sometimes it is the third set of explorers who finally reach the summit or whatever the goal is. Of course, that’s because a lot of early explorers—

I was almost going to try to calculate the survival rate of pioneering explorers. That’s almost like saying “Everything is going to be fine” while still trapped on a planet that has infinite ways to kill you.

Needless to say, I can’t exactly cast any aspersions towards early explorers as I wouldn’t be here now on Mars otherwise.

I’m going to head out to collect my samples a little earlier than usual today. We might be stuck in the Hab for an extended period later on, so I’ll wait and do my indoor work then. NASA says a storm is coming.

I wonder if it will be like the feeling of being trapped in a rainstorm while camping, where you can see the walls of the tent shaking and hear the droplets battering the walls. Except that, of course, instead of the possibility of a thorough drenching if the tent collapses, we face being exposed to the vacuum and sub-zero temperatures of Mars – which is why we will be wearing our EVA suits inside the Hab while we wait out the storm. Can’t quite play poker by flashlight as easily that way, like in a tent.

I’ll just have to trust that the brilliant engineers at NASA knew what they were doing when they designed the Hab. I’m sure everything will be fine.