Anyway, next time we do a dress rehearsal run, we drive without the solar cells plugged into the electrical system until we stop driving for the day. That'll give a more accurate idea of what kind of daily driving range we can sustain without making changes.
But anyway, yesterday we had nine good hours of sunlight recharge with all solar panels. Let's say the clouds knock ten percent off their peak performance— it shouldn't be that much, but let's say. That should have got us almost 41 pirate-ninjas back in the tank, plus the 5 pirate-ninjas in reserve. And during our sleep cycle, when even the computers are powered down, the RTG should add close to another pirate-ninja. We should have had 46,500 watt-hours in the system when I got up this morning. Instead we had 37,500.
There is an electricity thief somewhere on Mars, and it's stolen nine pirate-ninjas from us already.
Cherry Berry beats me to my suggestion: make a list of everything, absolutely everything, that draws electricity.
Okay. First are the rover computer and the five Hab laptops, all of which we're taking along for reasons of morale. If all six are running at the same time, they draw a total of ninety watts, more or less.
The rover life support, with air circulation fans and air sampler, draws an average of twenty watts.
Two Hab light strips for illumination in the ship; twenty watts each.
Rover radio system, about ten watts. It's on to let us track the Hab beacon when we get within twenty-five kilometers of either the Hab or (at the end of our drive) the MAV. This was NASA's idea, and it's an excellent one. Schiaparelli is one of the largest craters on Mars, and the MAV isn't all that large in geological terms.
Microwave. Or, as I shall henceforth call it, Slayer of Pirate-Ninjas. Twelve HUNDRED watts. We've been cooking our potatoes in it, and only three or four potatoes fit in it at a time. And microwaving a raw potato into what we laughingly call an edible condition takes a fucking long time compared to just heating up a pre-cooked meal pack. The three ponies and I ate a combined thirty potatoes yesterday cooked by the Slayer. I'm willing to guess that it ate two entire pirate-ninjas yesterday by itself.
Can anyone else think of anything? No. That's it.
So tonight we'll shut everything down except the life support and the rover computer. That's roughly thirty-five watts, which means the RTG should be recharging the battery system at a rate of sixty-five watts per hour even in pitch black. If it's anything different, we'll know we missed something.
So, recap:
Tonight— turn things off, check for electricity thief.
Tomorrow— get back to Hab, reactivate Hab. (Everything's shut down except for Pathfinder, because the Hab currently has only six solar panels left.) Tell NASA our results and plans.
Two sols after tomorrow— second dress rehearsal run. Drive without solar panels.
After that: fuck if I know.
Meeting adjourned.
Author's Notes:
Yesterday I got up at 6 AM, left home at 6:45, and got home at 12:45 AM this morning. I drove about six hundred miles, drove a load of boxes of things to my friend's new lodgings, and did what I could to otherwise lighten her load. (No details about the load: not my story to tell.)
I paid for it today. Despite seven solid hours of sleep, I more or less sleepwalked through today. And the planned chapter for today was always going to be an infodump/problem solving one, so I didn't get to make up the missed chapter today.
The electricity problem, two days ago, looked even worse than it was at one point, until I went through the page of math I did in my notes and realized that I was calculating the power output of the solar panels as if they were one meter square instead of two meters square. Basically, I was halving the power in the system due to a math error. There's still a power shortfall, but it's no longer catastrophic.
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Sol 410
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 417
ARES III SOL 410
[12:33] JPL: Welcome back, Mark. I've just finished reading your abstract of the results of what I suppose we'll call Sirius 7A. I have a question, though: why does it end with seventy-two iterations of, "I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use"?
[12:44] HERMES: Seconded. It's annoying when you spam the Pathfinder chat, Watney. What's your excuse?
[13:02] WATNEY: Sorry. That was Fireball. When we found out that all the remaining pony ship systems had been running for two days straight, plus at least one bad ground or short circuit bleeding power into the hull and out through the rover wheels, Starlight Glimmer suggested making Fireball write sentences as a reminder. We should have told him to use a word processor instead of the chat.
However, even considering that the hydraulic system the alien ship uses for steering and the pony radio draws a lot of power, we've still got a lot of battery drain unaccounted for. So Dragonfly and I will spend the next few afternoons going through the ship's wiring chart, finding every cut wire, and making certain it's capped off properly. Then we'll go through the harness and make sure no wires have chafed through their insulation. I figure it'll be a week before we can attempt Sirius 7B.
We have two other solutions to reduce power. For the next trip we'll disengage the wheel clutches on the rear wheels of Rover 2, reducing the Whinnybago to six powered wheels. It's possible that the cost of more power to the remaining wheels during acceleration will be offset by the savings at cruising speed. Also, we'll pre-bake our potatoes before departure. The spuds would ride in saddlebags on Rover 2 anyway, and so long as we don't break the skins they should be all right when re-heated. That'll save three-quarters of the cooking time and reduce the microwave's power draw proportionately. We could just yank the microwave entirely, but it's hard enough to eat plain baked potatoes week in and week out. Cold baked potatoes would be a morale hit I'd rather not take.
[13:29] JPL: Both good ideas. I'll get the engineers to testing the six-wheel configuration power levels at once. Also, you won't need to worry about that as much. We've been tracking your use of food packs since your last inventory based on your logs and chat, and if our numbers are correct, you're good to resume eating food packs on 2/3 ration on Sol 428.
By the way, you'll be glad to know that the cloud cover is beginning to break up at the equator. Meteorology forecasts clear skies at the Hab four days from now, with temperatures returning to more or less Martian normal shortly afterwards. Enjoy your above-freezing afternoons, Mark, because Mars summer is coming to an end.
[13:53] WATNEY: Oh no! How will I show off my sexy bod to all the little green beach bunnies?
Seriously, though, I'll be glad to get non-spud material in my diet again, but I'm not going to hog the good stuff while the others continue on nothing but hay. I plan to share out parts of my food packs and make up the difference by continuing on at least some potatoes. Otherwise I'd be too guilty to eat.
[13:58] WATNEY: Starlight Glimmer here. Did you say seventy-two iterations?
[14:16] JPL: Just be grateful there's no department stores having Back to School sales in Acidalia Planitia. If you feel you need to keep eating potatoes, Mark, go ahead.
[14:21] JPL: Yes, that's right. I counted them myself. I thought there might be some significance. Why?
[14:54] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:55] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:57] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:58] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[14:59] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:00] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:01] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:03] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:04] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:05] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:07] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:08] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:09] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:10] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:10] HERMES: Not again...
[15:11] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:12] HERMES: GOD DAMN IT WATNEY
[15:13] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:14] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:15] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:16] JPL: Oh no
[15:16] HERMES: MARK SERIOUSLY CUT IT OUT
[15:17] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:17] JPL: MARK
[15:18] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:20] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:21] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:22] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:23] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:24] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:26] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[15:27] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[16:00] HERMES: Is that it? Is it over?
[16:10] JPL: Don't know. Seventy-two plus twenty-seven is only ninety-nine.
[16:21] HERMES: God. Seriously, Mark, Starlight, Cherry, whoever, next time make him use the whiteboards. Bart Simpson didn't get to type out his sentences.
[16:37] WATNEY: I will not fail to properly power down the ship when not in use.
[16:38] WATNEY: Cant read clawriting in Pony. Worse in English. Whos Bart Simpson?
Author's Notes:
I felt like absolute crap this morning. Ended up having to take a nap, and my sinuses were giving me absolute fits.
But I'm better now, so I'm going for two tonight to catch up!
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Sol 412
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AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE — MISSION DAY 419
ARES III SOL 412
"You know," Mark said as he pulled a bundle of wiring out of its recess, "you have it lucky. The capsule we took to the moon had fourteen miles of wiring. With your magic comms and life support, your ship has a lot less."
"That doesn't make this any more fun," Dragonfly grumbled. She was of no mind to be buoyed by Mark's it-could-be-worse comments, not when she was engaged in one of the most hated tasks ever to confront a repairpony: wiring harness inspection.
Lots of subsystems and control panels had been yanked and dumped in the search for weight savings. The entire launch staging system, with all its reprogrammable switches— gone. The subsystem for controlling maneuvering thrusters— junk, once NASA had looked at the thruster block specifications and assured her that the MAV's control system could be adapted to use them instead of its own heavier thrusters. Engine throttle— what engine? Buh-bye.
But in many cases the wiring for these systems remained, because it was too much trouble to unearth the wiring harness involved and then remove only the superfluous wires. Technically it still was, because even with wire coding it was impossible to be certain that one out of a dozen little wires in a bundle was the one you wanted to strip out. But they had to pull all of them anyway, and inspect them all, and make sure there were no bare spots where insulation had failed, allowing the metal wire to touch or spark against the metal of the ship interior.
Mark had told them all about what had happened once in a human ship, one with a pure oxygen atmosphere, when a wire sparked. The ship life support provided normal atmosphere and not pure oxygen, but the image stuck in Dragonfly's mind of a fire that burned so fast that the bodies of the astronauts it killed didn't have time to cook. That image almost— almost— made going through every single wire remaining in the ship tolerable.
But it didn't make it even slightly fun.
Yesterday had been the easy part. Yesterday they'd found every cut end, yanked the wire completely if it was conveniently short (not many), and taped off every loose end too troublesome to remove. (This was a lot— Dragonfly was down to a sliver of electrical tape on the spool, although admittedly the outer quarter or so had been made useless by the same Martian cold immediately after the crash that had turned the ship manuals into confetti). That had proceeded quickly— the loose ends were all in known, easy-to-find, generally easy-to-access places, generally because they were where something had been cut or removed.
But wiring inspection was worse than watching paint dry. You could let your mind wander with paint, but you had to pay full and absolute attention to every bloody inch of what was still several miles of itty bitty wires.
Thankfully, just before Dragonfly was going to ask for a break, Mark did. "I need to rest my eyes," he said after checking off Wiring Harness #7 (port thruster control, port SRB ignition and decoupling control lines, habitat deck and engineering deck lighting). "I haven't told NASA yet, but I've been getting a little bit farsighted the last couple of months."
"Farsighted?" Dragonfly asked. "Does that mean you can see the future?"
"What? No," Mark said, confused. "It means I'm going to need reading glasses when I get back to Earth."
"Oh. You don't have any problem with computer screens."
"Computer screens aren't up close to my face, and the letters are pretty big. But I can't read the characters on your wiring harnesses without squinting really hard." Mark sighed. "It's a common symptom of long term zero-gravity— weakened vision, I mean— but I'd hoped Mars gravity would be enough to avoid it."
