The Martian Race Read Online Free Page A

to Earth directly in the NASA return ship.
    “But the ERV is government property!” an astronaut called.
    “It's an abandoned ship. My lawyers will argue that the Law of the Sea applies here. With no crew, it belongs to whoever gets to it.”
    “That's not fair!”
    “Life ain't.”
    “NASA will need it when they go.”
    “It'll be a junker by then.”
    Cutting the crew to four also allowed the Consortium to launch a smaller manned habitat vehicle. The crew of four would land near the ERV.
    “That's dangerous, outside our design protocols.”
    “Mars is already dangerous, and outside your control. I'm gonna minimize costs.”
    “But with four people, there's not enough backup.”
    “I don't wanna back up. I want to go forward.”
    “If anybody gets sick—”
    “There'll be a qualified doctor. But he—or she—will pull other duties, too. Everybody works, all the time.” “Four is still too few!”
    “Hey, the fewer you send, the fewer we can lose.”
    This met only silence.
    But … orbital mechanics were clear and cruel. The whole round trip would take two and a half years. Due to the shifting alignment of the planets, launch windows for trajectories needing minimum fuel are spaced about twenty-six months apart. The trip each way takes about six months, leaving about one and a half years on the surface.
    When he finished, Axelrod stood back and hooked his thumbs in his belt and waited for more howls of protest. There was silence. His direct, no-BS manner had sobered the astronauts. NASA's big-bucks plan would have taken less than a year, round trip—expensive in fuel, but easy on the crew. The Consortium four would have to hold out on Mars, exploring and staying alive, for a grueling endurance test.
    But it would be cheap. And they'd all get rich … if they got back. The salaries would range well into millions. Axelrod tossed off, “For the survivors, that is. And the widows.”
    “You can do all that for thirty billion bucks?” someone asked.
    “Nope, twenty. Got to be a profit here, folks.”
    A long silence.
    “Any volunteers?” Axelrod asked. The dozen astronauts all looked at one another. One stormed out, calling Axelrod a maniac. Three others expressed reservations and drifted out the door.
    But eight were willing. Eager. Including Julia and Viktor, Raoul and Marc.
    Over the next few weeks the eight candidates threw themselves into planning for Axelrod's risky Mars Direct concept, much as the original Mercury astronauts took a hands-on role in developing the first spacecraft. The ideas had been around for a while, pushed by the Mars Society. Axelrod just knew what to purloin. They had a joyous visit from Bob Zubrin, the Tom Paine of Mars who had pushed the earliest ideas about going on the cheap. Graying but as hot-eyed as ever, Zubrin gave the staff meeting he attended an evangelical fervor.
    Axelrod believed in the vigor of private capital, sure, but with the inexorable workings of planetary orbits bringing the launch window ever closer, he knew how to save time. He leased the Johnson Space Center facility for training astronauts—the cheapest, easiest, and quickest way to continue their conditioning.
    Getting the private camel's nose under the NASA tent was not easy. But the Congressional timidity about going had a flip side: joy at a windfall of private money. The long-awaited crisis in Social Security, Medicare, and other overloaded social systems demanded fresh infusions of raw cash. Axelrod came to Congress with a delightful transfusion. Next year Congress would have to face painful cuts, but hell, that was next year.
    Soon enough Axelrod was selling camera crews the right to film at JSC the intensive crew training. Grav-stress tests for aerobraking. The glitches in integrating and servicing the food, water, and waste systems. Not least, the medical nightmares coming up due to the six-month-long free-fall flight to Mars. The doctors were sure the crew would be too weak to function once