A Colony on Mars (11 page)

“The next item concerns this young gentleman sitting here on my right. Tel our viewers, Bob do you work for Mars Colony, Inc.?” “No I don't Rusty, nor do I work for the United States Government. I just arrived here on the Colony today and I am employed in the private sector.” “Why don't you tell our viewers what brings you to Mars, Bob?” “I am here to supervise the construction of our newest outlet. Al of the equipment necessary to instal our store is being unloaded from Mars Supply One as we speak. Our location should be up and operating shortly after Mars Supply Two arrives in about four months.” “I think our viewers are dying to hear the name of The Company that you work for Bob.”

“Rather than just come right out and tel them I will give your viewers a hint, We wil be located in the business section of The Company cavern and they wil be able to easily find our location, all they wil have to do is to look for the big red arches.” “Do you mean that Burger Boy's is coming to Mars?” “Oh Rusty, you guessed it and yes I mean that Burger Boy's wil be operating on Mars by the end of May.”

“We are not through yet folks, I now want you to meet Abner Jacobs who is also a new arrival today and is an employee of the company. Just what kind of work do you do for The Company Abner?” “There is not just me but I brought along my wife Jennifer and another couple Dan and Sue Yang, we are what you might call farmers but we are specialized in grow light indoor farming. Al four of us have masters degrees in Agriculture from University of Alaska, Fairbanks. We specialize in growing plants indoors.” “We have everything that we need to get started farming a one hundred sixty acre parcel of land on the ship, Including a new product that we designed from samples of Mars soil to best convert this soil to support crops, of course we also brought along adequate grow lights, fertilizers and seeds and farm equipment to get a farm in operation within a few months. From then on all of your vegetables wil be fresh not canned. We wil produce as a byproduct of the vegetables enough food for a sizable heard of goats. The goats will provide milk, other dairy products and meat. Unfortunately Cattle can never be raised on Mars in any quantity, they release too much methane into the atmosphere. Around our crops area we wil be planting a variety of fruit trees which wil benefit from the grow lights on the crops and eventually produce fresh fruit. I think you wil find that our crops are up to ten times as productive as outdoor crops on Earth that grow seasonally. Our crops grow constantly and are extremely productive. We will also be taking over care of your existing animals and wil be augmenting them with a dozen young pigs that we have brought from Earth ” Rusty then introduced the other three farmers and interviewed them al together.

“I see that our time is up for tonight folks, I hope you have enjoyed tonights news as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you. Stay tuned now for the nightly news with Keith Edwards Unfortunately this wil stil be 24 hour delayed.” Sue Yang had responded to several of the questions that Rusty had asked but Dan Just sat there without saying a word. Rusty asked Abner after the show if he had done anything to offend Dan. “Naw,” said Abner “I have been working with Dan Yang for seven years and I have never heard him say much.”

January 16, 2108: Tim had a chance encounter with Bob the Hamburger man and ask him how the deal went down that his company was given permission to operate on Mars when the Government and The Company were partners in the space ships and in the land they would be doing business on.

“This is what I have heard Tim and mind you that I am not a member of top management of the company. Our company wanted to operate a franchise on Mars for publicity purposes back on Earth and Our company is one of the principals in Mars Colony, Inc. They offered two bil ion dollars to the Government and The Company for the following: The Mars ships would move al the equipment that we needed to Mars along with twelve employees. The employees would have the same benefits as your company employees and would be on a ten year contract just as, I assume you are. The Company would keep us supplied with food stuffs and supplies that would arrive an all future ships for the next ten years. The Company wil construct our business building on a one hundred by one hundred square foot lot in your business district. That is about all I know other than there is not really any profit motive for Our Company but it wil provide us with commercials for years to come. Oh there is one more thing, we wil not be allowed to charge more for products here than the average price that we charge on Earth.” “That about answered all my questions, Oh yeah, when wil the rest of your employees and your food stuffs arrive?” “On the next ship which is due in some time in May of this year, Tim, so I hope our building is ready by then.” “Are you kidding, with all the extra construction guys we have here now they could have sent the employees on this ship. We wil have the whole thing wired, plumbed and ready to open in a week. Thanks for the information and I hope you enjoy Mars.”

January 17, 2108: Abner Jacobs was busy inspecting the corn crop at the temporary farm when a nondescript construction worker walked up to him and handed him a small match box without saying a word. When Abner opened the box he noticed that it was about half full of little white seeds the size of BB's. Abner knew exactly what these were. Abner just smiled and put the box in his pocket. The construction worker smiled back and walked away, neither of them had said a word.

Abner walked out amongst the corn stalks and planted the seeds. He would need to transplant them once they had germinated but for now they needed to be in the soil.

January 17, 2108: When Tim showed up at work the next day Carter assigned him to pick out a crew of thirty workers put someone competent in charge and assign them to work for the farmers. Tim gathered the crews together and said “before you start work I need thirty of you to help get the farm set up. I think that prior farm experience might be helpful so if any of you have some farm experience and would like to work for the farmers for a couple weeks or for however long they need you please step over here by me.” About twenty or so moved over behind Tim, “OK now any of you others who would like to construct the farm house the farm lab and the animal pens please form a group over there by the flag pole.” Another thirty moved over by the flag pole.

“Sorry folks but I only need ten of you so if you do not have plumbing or wiring experience please return to the main group.” The thirty of them began discussing the matter then al but ten moved back to the main group. “Now you work group leaders take note of how many men you have lost and get together with the other work group leaders and shuffle people around until you have the number you need to go to work on what ever project you were working on last.”

That only took five or ten minutes and everyone was happy, Tim liked that management style. He allowing people work where they considered themselves to be most valuable to the project and where they would be happiest. Maybe this management style wouldn't work with the class of people that you have working construction jobs on Earth but it sure works out wel here. Tim addressed the two work groups and said “The new farm is going to be just over the bridge at the back of The Company cavern. The area is a little over three hundred twenty acres but wil help keep the farm and animals all in one place. It wil also leave plenty of room for the house and barn and lab. I think you might have to wall off the generator to keep the noise from disturbing the farmers and the animals. Other than that the rest is up to the farmers. Put everything where they want it and do everything they ask of you.” About then Abner and Jennifer showed up and Tim gave them the layout. “We think the farm should have this whole area from the river and lake to the back wall of the cavern.” Tim told them. These forty construction people wil do what ever you ask of them to help in getting the farm set up and equipped. These thirty have some farm experience, the other ten wil construct your buildings. At that point he introduced Abner and Jennifer to the workers and then said “Go to work.”

Tim stepped back and saw Abner begin talking with the volunteers explaining everything that he would need to have done. One of the construction people asked Abner to come with him. He would show them where to find the tools and equipment they would need in the supply yard. “All of it may not be unloaded yet but we can take what there is and start moving it over to the farm..” Before Tim left he told Abner that if he needed anything or if he needed more help with a big job to let him know and he would send more workers. It now seemed to Tim that workers were the only thing on Mars that was not in short supply.

There were other things that had been provided for the farm, the most important of which was six large box hives of honey bees to pollinate the plants and to provide the colonists with fresh honey. There was also an assortment of caterpil ars and even four small mulberry trees that were covered with silkworm cocoons when the ship left Earth but by the time they arrived on Mars the cocoons had hatched into silkworm larva.

Shortly after Tim left Abner was unpacking packets of seeds when he came across a package of seeds labeled Ivy. Abner didn't even know there was such a thing as Ivy seeds. He tore open the envelope and found, not seeds but tiny dried roots. Not knowing what else to do with them and failing to appreciate their benefit he scooped up a shovel full of fertile soil and planted them in the corner where the generator wal met the cavern wall. By the next day Abner had forgotten all about the Ivy. Seeing the fertile soil and noting the depressions Abner had made with his finger when he planted the roots Sue Yang shrugged, went over to the lake, scooped up some a bucket of water and poured a little on the spot, figuring Abner was trying something and had been distracted before he had watered it. The next day Sue Yang poured a little more water out of the bucket onto the soil. By the time the bucket was empty there were little green shoots sticking out of the ground. The odd thing about this was that there were no grow lights shining directly on the area where the shoots were coming up just the ordinary cave lighting and where these plants were coming up there wasn't even much of that. Sue Yang then went and got Abner and showed him the shoots. “These shoots are growing without the benefit of grow lights, Abner, whatever you were trying here worked, congratulations.” Abner had to pause and think just what he had planted there, then he remembered the Ivy. “Oh, yeah, Sue, I thought I would try some Ivy, there was a package of dried Ivy cuttings in among the vegetable seeds that I had ordered rather than to just throw them away I stuck them in the ground over here then I got busy and forgot al about them.” “Do you realize the significance of this Abner? We have come up with a plant that we can grow anywhere in the caverns. True you can't eat Ivy but you can sure breath it's byproduct. Ivy spreads like crab grass so if we were to plant it everywhere it would grow everywhere. It is nice to look at and the plants wil enrich our atmosphere immensely once they take hold.” Abner called Tim and asked him to drop by the farm next time he was in the area.

CHAPTER - Planning the March to Utopia

January 17, 2108: That afternoon when Tim returned to Carter's office there were three construction workers and a couple Government scientists going over some drawings on Carters desk. “Tim, take a look at this. The big cavern which I think we should start calling Utopia for now, is about six miles from this wall in the Government cavern. There are smaller caverns along the way that we are going to have to secure and pressurize before advancing and the way I see it we are going to have to tunnel for up to two miles. Our biggest problem is that these caverns are not all on the same level. See this long narrow cavern right here it is deeper than the others but once we reach the floor of this long slender cavern right here it will enter right into Utopia on the same level. so it looks like we are going to have to tunnel down to that sliver before we can continue. Setting the downgrade into that cavern wil be a real problem. We wil have at least five, maybe six smal er caverns to secure and pressurize before we reach Utopia .

How long do you estimate it wil take us to dig two miles of tunnel Johnson?” “Let's see” said Johnson, “if we can complete one foot of tunnel per hour average it would take roughly ten thousand hours, that would be about seven months of continuous tunneling if we worked around the clock. That could vary considerably depending on soil conditions and problems that we might be encountered in sealing off the small caverns that we go through. We have six hundred workers now and can expect at least three hundred more before we reach Utopia

. “I would say that our tunneling crews would have to work in Mars suits a lot of the time. Of course once a new cavern had been pressurized they could headquarter in that cavern. The men will need 24 hours rest after working eight hours and we wil need eight men working at all times so that would mean a tunneling crew of 32 men. Al things considered I would say we wil reach Utopia in one to two years. At least that gives a workable time frame.”

“Once a tunnel is opened it wil need to be enlarged. We will need four more crews of eight men each for this job. They should not start work on a tunnel until the tunneling crew has moved on to the next tunneling job so they do not get into each others way. The crews doing the enlarging can use the dirt they remove for top soil at the farm or for fil dirt in leveling the caverns. The tunneling crews working for breakthrough will be digging approximately eight foot by eight foot tunnels, the second crews wil be enlarging the tunnels to 25 feet wide by 20 feet high.”

“Your next Fossum, how long wil it take to seal off the small caverns and pressurize them? “Does your chart show how many fissures need to be sealed between here and Utopia, yes there is a count here for each cavern and a total of up to one hundred fissures but that is only an estimate. There average width on the chart appears to be three or four feet. “I estimate that a crew can seal one fissure per day. That takes into account that the workers can not be exposed to the surface for more than two hours at a time. Al things considered there is probably three to four months work there if we have the materials and if we could only have one crew working at a time.” “Why don't you explain how you go about sealing a fissure, Dave.” “We locate the fissures that need to be fil ed by placing a bright light in the cavern then going out after dark in Mars suits and making a visual observation of where the light penetrates the surface. Then we flag the location so that we can find it the next day. To plug the hole we dig out around the fissure, usually an eight foot hole and down three or four feet until we hopeful y hit bedrock. Then we lay in an eight foot piece of circular one Inch tempered plywood. We then mix the concrete and pour it into hole about eight Inches deep. When the concrete has cured we lay down eight foot long pieces of rebar, criss crossed and wire the joints together. we pour fresh concrete about one foot thick then when that has cured we lay on another course of rebar followed by another course of concrete. The rest we just fil with Mars soil until it is level with the surface.” This will take a crew about eight hours in working time but they can be working on other fissures while the cement is curing. Also keep in mind that when the winds come up on the surface we can't do any work outside. Twice a year for almost a month at a time the winds are too strong to do any work on the surface. There will probably be times when opening one of the caverns wil be delayed for a considerable time waiting for the wind to die down.”