MarsX - Chapter 3

Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

At first all the news that Robert heard after the disaster was sympathetic, praising the brave crew that had been lost. But as time passed, he noticed that the sympathy turned into a hunt for someone to blame. Obviously, the company was the focus of that blame. And when it released its report on the accident, that a fuel line leak had ignited a fire and explosion, the recriminations were unrelenting.

By this time the government had gotten involved, resulting in hearings and investigations. Robert had given up on following the news of the incident but wasn’t surprised when he read, a few months later, that the company was being sold. Soon, Mars was forgotten and the new owners focused on space tourism which was unfortunate since no one wanted to ride a rocket built by the company involved in what became known as the Mars disaster. Eventually, MarsX quietly went out of business, selling its remaining rockets and infrastructure to a competitor in the space tourist business. What infrastructure was already on Mars was left unsold.

Robert continued his education but always kept an ear out for a company that would take the place of MarsX. At sixteen, he was a senior in high school preparing for college. Although he was still leaning toward aerospace, he was becoming more and more interested in the race to develop artificial general intelligence. Wild claims were being made that the world was on the verge of changes of historic importance.

He was still trying to decide on which engineering discipline to study in college, though he hadn’t even chosen a school, when he saw the news article. A new company was being started by some of the former management of MarsX with the stated goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. They were buying the old MarsX facilities in Texas.

That settled it for Robert, he forgot about artificial general intelligence, he was going to Texas Technology Institute, it was the nearest university to the old MarsX facilities. He also noted that the name of the new enterprise would be Columbiad Space Industries.

*****

Texas Tech was a relatively new university having been founded only twenty years before. Its campus was still small with classroom and laboratory buildings grouped around a central quadrangle, but there was already a number of buildings outside that ring, and more were under construction. The university was primarily known for its space studies and engineering. It was a major supplier of engineering talent to the aerospace industry. A majority of the engineering and technical talent at the old MarsX had graduated from the university. And now, hopefully, so would Robert.

*****

Harold had gotten involved in the machine shop at his high school. When MarsX closed he temporarily lost his interest in space and focused on improving his skills as a machinist. He had become so good at it, that he earned a scholarship to the Texas Trade School near Laken where he could pursue a degree. In the first year of a two-year curriculum, he was intrigued by a posting on the school bulletin board which was an employment advertisement for a company known as Columbiad Space Industries. He looked it up and found out that it was located in nearby Harley where the old MarsX facilities used to be. Harold took one of the cards with contact and phone information.

*****

Laura made it into Texas Tech at sixteen as she had planned but unfortunately her first summer was not spent at MarsX, since it no longer existed by that time. It wasn’t until her third year when she heard the news about the new aerospace company starting up nearby. She still dreamed of working for MarsX and going to Mars and decided that she would research the company, Columbiad Space Industries, to see what their goals were. If they were going to Mars, she wanted to be a part of the endeavor as soon as possible.

*****

It was the following summer out in west Texas where Harold found himself working for Columbiad at their western launch site. He was inside a giant, empty tank that would eventually hold the methane fuel of rockets, and he was trying to corral two unwieldy robots cleaning the inner surface. The temperature outside was in the upper nineties and inside the tank it was even higher, even though it was protected from the direct sun.

Harold didn’t know if the robots were poorly trained or malfunctioning, but they weren’t proceeding methodically, instead working one area and then skipping to a different non-contiguous area. Harold sat a minute thinking to himself as the robots randomly thrashed about.

This isn’t machinist work, its baby-sitting.

Just then a young engineering intern popped his head into an opening on one side of the tank.

“Hey Harold, how’s it going?” asked Robert.

“Not good boss,” said Harold. “These critters act like they’ve never been house broken.”

“What do you mean?” asked Robert.

“Just watch a moment and you’ll see what I mean,” said Harold.

Robert watched the two robots, which he was responsible for training, and noticed the problem.

“It looks like they are losing guidance vectors,” said Robert. “Just a minute.”

He disappeared and in a minute was back with a roll of white tape.

“Stop them Harold and put this down in the area you want them to clean,” said Robert.

Harold used his Annie to halt the robots. He took the tape from Robert.

“You want me to put it down in a particular pattern?” he asked.

“No, just straight across the next area you want them to clean,” said Robert.

So, Harold went to the next area and applied the thin tape in lines with six inches between.

“Won’t they just clean the tape also?” he asked.

“Yeah, but that’s okay,” said Robert.

They both watched as Harold started the robots to work on the new area. Within ten minutes they were finished and waiting for their next assignment.

“So, why do you think they were losing their guidance vectors?” asked Harold.

“I will have to research it,” said Robert. “There is still a learning curve on using these new AI assistants. But my guess is the surface is too smooth for their cameras, there’s no points of reference. The AI was lost and making educated guesses as to what to do next.”

“Interesting, this AI stuff still has a long way to go,” said Harold. “Well, at least I can get finished with this and get out of the heat.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Robert. “I’ll see you inside.”

*****

Laura was spending her summer in the air conditioning of Columbiad’s headquarters in Harley. She was an intern in the avionics department but wasn’t doing any actual design work. Instead, she was tasked with organizing and cataloging all the schematics, manuals, component datasheets, and other paperwork, much of it was from the MarsX days which Columbiad had inherited along with the facilities. She was essentially, the department’s librarian with the help of the new AI assistants.

But there were some compensations for a somewhat boring job. She got to read everything she was organizing to make sure it was being filed properly by the AI, and she got to have lunch with some interesting people.

“And I say the country, and the world for that matter, have lost the will to explore, to take chances,” said Jose Velasco, an engineer with the propulsion group over lunch that day. “Everyone is interested in the virtual, the artificial, that’s all I hear.”

“I don’t know Jose,” said Mary Elena from systems engineering. “I mean, I think the day of the gung-ho maverick is over, if not, we would all be working for MarsX. So, things are done more methodically now, because we are trying to do things that are naturally harder. And the AI is a big help.”

“Okay then,” said Jose, “since you bring up MarsX. MarsX didn’t fail because of its gung-ho leader as you describe the man, they failed because the society, that is the society outside the company, couldn’t face the loss of those astronauts. In my opinion, the right thing to do would have been to get to Mars and honor their memories. Society clings to safety like a baby clings to its blanket.”

“I think you are both right,” said John Wyndham from mission planning. “Most people are safety conscious, but there are still a great many who seek out challenges. But the approach to meeting a challenge is more methodical than before, and that is because the challenges are more demanding now. In essence, we’ve done the easy stuff, now the hard part is to keep going despite the dangers.”

“What do you think Laura?” said Mary Elena trying to include her in the discussion.

“Well, I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about such things in a wider context, and I don’t know much about the AIs I’m using. I just know that, speaking for myself, I was ready to get on a rocket to Mars at the age of thirteen and still am. I guess I wouldn’t have thought much about the dangers then or now,” said Laura.

“Laura, this is meant as a complement not a criticism,” said Jose. “You’re a throwback to a different era where men sought challenge and adventure without paralyzing themselves with worries.”

After lunch Laura got back to her filing and reading. She was looking through some old documents from the MarsX days when she found something that confused her. The report she was reading was about an incident with the rocket which happened a month before the loss of lives. It was reported that on that particular flight a flash was seen from the aft part of the rocket’s second stage as it was ascending.

I saw the same thing the day they launched the astronauts, a flash.

The report went on to state that the flash was a brief propellant fire caused by a leak in a fuel line coupling, and that the leak was caused by an unexpected vibrational response which stressed the connection beyond expectation. The fire had been put out by the fire suppression system without loss of mission. Subsequently, the couplings were replaced by more robust versions.

Except I still saw the same event a month later.

Laura told her supervisor what she had found but he assured her that the engineers in charge of rocket systems would take care of it. He was a drab man who dressed the same each day and never smiled, and he didn’t seem to like interruptions, or to have to make decisions. Laura rarely bothered him.

“They’ll test until they’re sure something like that won’t happen,” he said.

“But when you read the paper trail on that incident,” said Laura, “you find out that MarsX had the same attitude. They too, thought they had the problem fixed but they didn’t.”

“Well, we still have our responsibilities, and they have theirs,” said the supervisor. “And ours is to make sure that we file the information properly in case the other departments need it, so, that’s what we should do Ms. Kuttner.”

Laura relented, she had worked for the man long enough to know that when he used her last name, it was the end of the discussion. So, she filed the information as best she could.

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