All three were present for the debriefing Siggy promised. It was mainly for the benefit of Bill, who would carry the ball when it came to fish and plants. Kira began to lay it out. “I know you watched the episodes. But that’s only the official version. Here’s the lowdown. Our first challenge was setting up the solar array before our batteries died. That was a bit of a nail-biter, but we did it in stages, so the danger was brief. The second was to find and utilize local water to replace the limited supply from Earth. It was going to take time to locate and dig a well to bring up sub-surface brine, so we began by deploying our robot dog to fetch gypsum. I worked on that from here while Antwon and Siggy assembled and tested the dehydrator. Once that was working, we literally breathed easy, knowing there was water for the electrolysis unit and we wouldn’t run out of air. We began splitting the water to get hydrogen for the methanol reactor, and oxygen to breathe and to run fuel cells after we cranked out methanol.
Anton chimed in. “The dehydrator was steady Eddy. Didn’t take long to get that up. But that methanol reactor was a bear! They packed it into the rocket well, but nothing stays perfectly still when you ship between planets. And they split it into sub-assemblies to make it all fit, so it was like putting a Christmas present together on the 26th of December.” He laughed. “Some assembly required. We have scenes we can re-edit and slide forward in time - talk about it as if you were already here. Sounds grotesque, I know, but it fills our podcast calendar and buys some slack time for you to adjust. Anyway, Siggy and I assembled and debugged the reactor while Kira worked with a drone, the rover, and the dog to locate a suitable drill point for the brine patch located from orbit. That all made for plenty of drama.
The methanol reactor! Kira the chemist mentally pictured carbon dioxide and hydrogen molecules, pressed into encounters with tiny copper particles glued to the surface of catalyst bed beads with a heat treatment on Earth. Somehow, copper worked its magic, convincing hydrogen and carbon dioxide molecules to dance together and take new partners. Once all parties separated and went to their corners, three molecules of hydrogen and one of carbon dioxide became a molecule of methanol and a molecule of water, held in a hot, liquid state until they cooled and pressure was released. It still amazed her that they could make such a simple mixture and use it to produce electricity on demand. So much effort and solar energy went into compressing and heating ingredients that Kira often referred to the barrels of methanol and water they created as “liquid sunshine.”
It was Siggy’s turn. “Long story short, we got more solar panels a couple of months before you arrived and set those up. So now we can burn methanol to supplement the array - all the power you need. We want to make more, but they sent about half the barrels I requested. Can’t do more methanol batches until we use some of what we have.
Bill said, “I can help with that. The methylobacteria I brought eat methanol for lunch and make biomass for tilapia to consume. And I brought a package of fertilizer. That’s until we get legumes and such going, or we have fish waste to recycle. How much nitrogen gas do we have?”
“More than enough, I think. The Martian atmosphere is 95% CO2. When we compress it to liquify the CO2, the gaseous headspace above it is about half nitrogen. That’s pumped into a storage tank. By the way, Anton and I rigged a spare fuselage for the bioreactor and fish tanks. Plenty of room for hydroponics, too.” He sighed. “But bottom line, our choke point is the solar array. That’s the only way to replenish energy, and everything requires power. Mars is so frigging cold it wants to suck the life out of you! With only forty kilowatts, it’s been a juggling act. Some of the additional panels we got were cannibalized to replace faulty power cells - hit by cosmic rays, I suppose. We lose a cell now and then, for no reason we can determine. Maybe a season-three challenge can be installing a magnetic field generator over the camp. It would protect the electronics, and we could work outside longer without exceeding our radiation limit.”
Anton said, “Water could become a problem. We need even more now you’re here, and the dehydrator is getting noisy. Siggy and I fixed it once, when a clump of rocky gypsum jammed it and it stopped. So far, our request for a spare has got us nothing.”
Bill cocked his head and frowned. “Well, more opportunities for drama, I guess. Let’s see how far we get. As for adjusting, the best adjustment I can make is to hit the ground running.”
Siggy said, “Right. And we also need power to run the Sabatier machinery. It’s making more propellant to fill the tanks on a second Candle.” He smiled. “Whoever remains behind at the end of season three deserves a quick ride home if something craters.”