TRANSMISSION
CONTINUES:
September
2 1st – 2016
My name is
Maria Harrison, Captain of the Zubrin, and you’re all about to die.
Gosh, that
sounds quite dramatic. And, well, it is!
Still
anxiously awaiting a response from NASA. They’re thinking very hard and are
trying to come up with a solution to your predicament, as well as mine.
Meanwhile,
the asteroid is getting larger. Or closer, anyway. I hope it’s not getting
larger. That would be bad and weird.
It’s
really quite unsettling. Brown in colour and covered with holes and caverns.
Some of them look large enough to swallow my ship whole.
Which they
might do, unless NASA can think of a way out of this.
Eep. I
need to distract myself.
__
It turns
out it’s difficult to distract yourself from a giant asteroid. There’s plenty
of things I could be doing. I could play solitaire, read a book, do an
inventory of the processors, do some exercises, any of these things.
But all of
those things, engaging as they might be, don’t really help if the moment you
lift your head you see a giant asteroid looming outside the window.
There it
is now. Loom loom loom.
Stop it.
Stupid Asteroid.
__
NASA have
responded! They have a solution!
It’s…
well, it’s very interesting, I’ll give them that.
They have
uploaded to my computer a program A.I. for the processing units on board. I’m
to upload it to five of the units.
Turns out
there’s a bit more to my journey than I thought. I am indeed setting foot on
Mars, and then turning around and going home after a chance to refuel by
recycling elements in the atmosphere and surrounding terrain. That’s in part
what these processing units are for.
But
there’s more to it than that. When I go home, these things stay behind. Using
the elements they know are readily available on Mars, they will deconstruct
parts of the local landscape and recast it into, well, a city! They’re going to
make an actual city on Mars, including power, and oxygen and everything! Then,
when they get around to sending more people to Mars, a base will be all ready
for them!
This is
incredible, but the question I have to ask is, why? Space travel had been dead
for years before I was sent in. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled and happy to
be sent, but why the sudden interest?
Oh well,
smarter minds than mine, I guess.
…Oh yes!
The point of explaining all this is we’re going to reprogram five of them, so
instead of chopping up stuff and building things out of it; they’re just going
to chop up stuff and throw it away. They’ve got about two years before it gets
to Earth by NASA’s estimate.
So all I
have to do is get real close to the asteroid (eep), drop a few of these things
out the door, and then blast away at full speed!
Simple,
right?
…Right?
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