Explorers get started on ‘truck stop’ for Asteroid Belt
Vasco, O’Ceileachairs announce deal
MARS CAROUSEL, Jan. 53 - Mars-based independent explorers have agreed to work jointly toward establishing a space station halfway to the asteroid belt to help support development and settlement there with an eye toward Jupiter and its moons.
Bartolomeo Vasco, who recently returned to Mars after a 3-annos (5-1/2 year) survey of the asteroid belt on his ship Fortuna, told the Chaos Courier that he is working with the O’Ceileachair (O’Kelleher) Exploration Group to launch the station from Mars within the next annos (1.9 years).
“They’ve got the living modules under construction, and once they get them connected and powered, we’re going to send it out,”said Vasco, who surveyed the region around Vesta, the second largest object in the belt after Ceres.
It’s an ambitious goal, but can be done with the current equipment on hand, said Attracta O’Ceileachair, who leads the group with her sister Electra.
“The idea essentially to build a truck stop in space, like Noctis said about its Grange Hall, but for spaceliners and explorers,” O’Ceileachair said.
The two explorer scout captains returned in June after their own exploration of the belt in their explorer scout ships Boudicca and Beansí.
The group has now accumulated five used spaceliner sections and aims to acquire a sixth from the breaking yard soon.
“We’ll put together a station similar to the Carousel, but clearly not as big,” Attracta O’Ceileachair said.
The wheel-shaped Carousel, officially the Pontus Caelestis, is 8 km across with a circumference of 25 km and current living space for nearly a thousand people.
The Carousel is built out of modified half-kilometer space liner and cargo sections
More oomph to get it moving
The plan envisions using four spaceliner hulls as living and working quarters, with two on each side, rotating around a central propulsion unit, O’Cealeachair said.
“We want to give it a lot of power to move it out to station more quickly and to be able to maneuver more quickly,” O’Ceileachair said.
“Vesta is a bit more than half again as far from Mars, on average, as Mars is from Earth, and we don’t want to take 250 sols to get out there if we can help it,” O’Ceaileachair said, referring to the journey time from Earth on a Hohman transfer orbit.
Vesta orbits the sun at an average distance of 353 million km, compared to 230 million for Mars and 150 million for Earth.
The space station will be staged between Mars and Vesta, in an optimal spot considering their varying orbital periods, though the final location has yet to be set.
“That’s something we’ll be sorting out as we build the station,” said former Wandering Star spaceliner Capt. Hervé Xenokostas, who is leading the effort for the Group and will command the way station.
Xenokostas joined the exploration group after bringing in the Wandering Star, which was heavily damaged by engine explosions, five weeks behind the main fleet
Former stowaways Orla Calaveras and Luis Roving are managing the design of the living quarters for the future station.
Calaveras and Roving stowed away in the cargo ship Pallene, which arrived with the Earth supply fleet in November.
The two traveled in a heavily modified double cargo pod, whose innovative living space was designed by the origami enthusiast Calaveras and built from scrap by Roving.
The O’Ceaileachair group has licensed the couple’s designs for use in orbit and spaceships.
Martius Endeavours, the former Mars DevCo, has said it will not allow the couple to travel to the surface of Mars in order to deter future stowaways.
The space station can be assembled more quickly by using existing spacecraft and cargo yard structures, Xenokostas said.
“Just like the Carousel was put together at an accelerated pace, by putting spaceliner hulls together, so can our space station,” Xenokostas said. “The advantage we will have on getting on station is the O’Ceileachair engines, which will get us there more quickly.”
Mars’ City wants more power
Backup fusion units planned
TITHONIA, Jan. 56 - The City Council voted 5-2 to go ahead with a proposal to acquire an initial four compact fusion units for emergency electrical backup after a December power fault froze a 25-hectare city farm in the WestHill Terraces section.
“As we’re now in charge of our own City, we should balance our reliance on our corporate founders,” said Councillor Joshua Asta, referring to the full handover of civic control of Mars’ largest city by the former Mars DevCo at the end of last annos.
“We have full confidence in their commitment to the City as they depend on us as well,” said Asta, a structural engineer elected to the Council in November. “Still, being able to manage our power needs can help prevent or limit incidents like the WestHill farm freezing.”
Currently, Tithonia and its farms rely on the two full-scale fusion plants bewteen Ares Port and the Fabrica industrial area.
Local power sources would provide more flexibility for the system, Tithonia Power Chief Ajax Tornach told the Council meeting on Thursday.
“We should build in as much redundancy as practicable,” said Tornach, a fusion engineer and plasma specialist.
Each of the units can supply about 5 percent of total power needs for each of the City’s sections, which include farms and common areas as well as residences.
“That’s enough to keep a sufficient level of heat for the designated safe zones in each area,” Tornach said, “or to quickly dispatch power for specified areas.”
Too power hungry?
Council President Claude Paddingbury argued the power units were unnecessary.
“The fault had nothing to do with the source, but rather the equipment at the farm,” said Paddingbury, who is a candidate to become the city’s first mayor. “The two full-scale power plants at Ares Port and the Fabrica (industrial area) are each sufficient to meet all our needs. That’s why there’s two, for backup.”
The power fault at the farm had more to do with the increased demands placed on on-site equipment by the newer farm terrace, which had not yet been completely covered by sandglass, Paddingbury said.
Most of the 2.5 km long terrace is still covered by multilayer sheathing and heat retention fabric, which requires more environmental support than sand glass, a permanent covering that provides some heating as well as better insulation.
Printers are in the process of building the permanent cover, Tithonia Farms Chief Iris Notting said.
The initial four fusion units will be acquired from Candor Chasma and transported overland through Melas and Ius, a roughly 52-sol trip one way.
Under the proposal approved Thursday, the city would acquire a fifth unit for the new fourth section of the Habitational Tube now under construction, which will provide housing for an additional 16,000 residents.
“It makes sense to build that into the project now,” Tithonia Building Chief Shigeru Kashira said, “rather than having to modify the project later.”
Shalbatana “vertical city’ puts a lid on it
Plans a mini-shuttle port, too
ORSON WELLES, Jan. 53 - The vertical city planned for a Shalbatana Vallis pit crater now has a roof, in the first step toward future development that will also include a mini-shuttle port, legendary Mars builder Jeremiah Volcan says.
The community being developed by Volcan recently completed an initial dome covering for 900m deep atypical pit crater as a first step toward constructing what he calls a vertical city.
“Right now, it’s essentially a thin sandglass dome at the crater opening,” Volcan told the Chaos Courier in an interview here ahead of the Xanthe Terra council meeting in Orson Welles on Saturday. “For now, it just has to stay in place, but its ultimate job will be to hold the air in.”
The covering was built the same way as many building on Mars, including the Chandrasekar Dome in Coprates and, on a smaller scale, the domed habs of Melas.
“We stuck a great, big balloon hab in the crater’s throat and printed the covering over that,” Volcan says. “We have to strengthen it some more. We also had to add support to the crater walls beneath the dome to stabilize it. Right now, we’re kind of starting at the top, which is not what you’re supposed to do, but it’s working.”
The community, about 250 km north northeast of Orson Welles, began unnoticed in caverns nearly a kilometer below the surface near the the base of the deep crater and was only discovered in June by a Survey Mars crew when they got stuck in a nearby cavern.
The nascent city turned into a flash point in the following months as Mars DevCo, now Martius Endeavours, and the then Tithonia City Council tried to rein in independent development in the Valles Marineris area.
That controversy played a crucial role in the November election that saw candidates favoring local control win in Tithonia and Valley-wide.
The pit crater’s depth and location is very atypical for the region, Volcan notes, adding that aatypical pit craters are more common in the Tharsis volcanic region about 4,000 km to the west.
“It’s a unique environment as far as we can tell. It’s deeper than it should be, and we’re not really sure why it’s here at all,” says Volcan, who played a key role in building the WestHill Terrace section of Tithonia, about 3,000 km to the west.
“Mars is full of surprises and we’re going to make the most of this one,” Volcan says.
As the now enclosed crater is sealed, it will be gradually filled with air over time, while construction starts at the lower levels of the planned vertical city.
So far, Volcan’s community, called ‘Surtshellir’ after the cave of the fire giant on the island of Iceland in Earth’s northern seas, numbers only around 150 residents.
Still, they have completed two intensely gardened habitats inside the caverns, one an almost jungle-like environment crowded with trees and vines, and a waterfall that feeds aquaculture ponds where fish swim.
The second habitat is more conventionally gardened and includes miniature fruit trees and coffee shrubs mixed and a wide variety of food and flowering plants.
A third cavern is being used to develop low atmosphere and low pressure crops more suited to Mars environment.
The next step will be the building of a mini-shuttle port for faster transit to Welles, and to connect with the new weekly Air Mars shuttle service, that reaches Coprates, Ius, Melas and Candor, Volcan says.
“That’s going to depend on building mini-shuttles or converting some hopper tractors into mini shuttles,” Volcan says, adding that he has been discussing the prospect with councillors in Candor Chasma, which has a growing independent industrial base and a dedicated innovation center.
“Once we get the mini-shuttles, we can start sending our coffee to the other cities,” Volcan says. “It’s by far the best coffee on Mars.”
Two Noctis hab jumpers change plea to guilty
Throw their accomplice under the rover
TITHONIA, Jan. 57 - Two of the three men charged in connection with an alleged hab-jumping attempt in Noctis Labyrinthus changed their pleas to guilty on Friday and requested a new court-appointed attorney.
“The three are charged with rover theft, endangerment, and violation of alcohol and safety rules over the early January incident in a remote Noctis hab.
“We were not fully aware of what (Ares Port senior mechanic Murgo) Sonestro had planned,” logistics workers Cosmo Izar and Elio Gizan said in their written request to the court.
Still, they went along for the ride, they admitted.
“We acknowledge our part in the subsequent actions, but (Sonestro) told us we were only heading to a corporate facility one sol out of Ares Port,” the court filing read.
The two told the court they were willing to fully cooperate with the investigation.
“An Ares Port official said Sonestro had cleared the rover for work on a corporate facility 45 km south of Ares Port the last week of December, but turned off comms and tracking and headed south toward the Noctis Grange Hall about 150 km to the southwest.
The two men said they avoided the Grange Hall for fear that Ares Port would be looking there for the rover and instead headed west to a remote family hab in a channel about 120 km west.
“Plus, we still had food and hadn’t run out of alcohol,” Gizan told the court.
The three men spent a few sols in the hab and left after the family returned on Jan. 6.
Three weeks later, the three were captured by five Noctis pursuit crews after the rover rolled halfway down a 1,900 m slope about 225 km west of the Grange Hall.
Noctis officials agreed to have the men tried in Tithonia due to the rover theft.
Trial is scheduled for next Friday, Feb. 2.
Learn About Noctis Labyrinthus
Coprates ‘cat lady’ keeps cats safe
Want a kitten? Of course, you do
COPRATES, Jan. 57 - The felines are feeling good after all the local cats made it through the annual Coprates cat round up.
“I had to register seven, and two of my neighbors registered five apiece," says self-described Coprates cat lady Angeline Azura.
The cat dragnet found 137 total with 14 unregistered, which the chasma animal control ordinance would require to be euthanized.
Luckily for them, Azura, the chasma’s assistant safety director finds them kind of cute, and went to some trouble to let them enjoy their eight remaining lives.
“According to Earth legend, cats are supposed to enjoy nine lives,” says Azura, who managed the cat roundup. “We don’t want them to lose out.”
Of the 14 unregistered cats, 10 were kittens. The other four were on the younger side.
“We’ve scanned the area over and over, and this should be all the cats,” Azura says. “There may be a one or two that never come out of their habs, but what we’re looking for is cats without people.”
Almost all Martians cats live in Coprates, with a few notable exceptions such as in Shalbatana, Azura says.
Adult cats are required to be neutered, but some still slip through, leading to the current clutter of kittens in Coprates.
How the cats got to Mars is an open secret.
“Someone snuck in a few frozen embryos and that was it,” Azura says, adding that anyone who wants to adopt a kitten should contact her at the Safety office. “They’re very cute and cuddly.”
Orbits rise over Dust Devils
TITHONIA, Jan. 56 - The Ares Port Orbits edged above the Hab 2 Dust Devils' close defense to edge out a win in the final minutes of their Marsball match at the Terrace One Arena Thursday.
The Devils looked to repeat their first round strategy of forcing errors that saw them win their opening match against the Hab 3 Quasars, but the Orbits held on with disciplined play.
The Orbits improved to 1-1 with the 65-64 win to close out the second round of the City Marsball League in front of 312 fans.
“We were nearly forced into a late crater, which would have cost us the game, but (Forward) Stan Hopper held on at the edge,” Orbits Captain Jamie Xavier said.
Hopper recovered to score an outside comet to give the Orbits a 1-point lead.
The Devils equalized, but a Xavier meteor put them ahead by a point just before the buzzer.
The third round starts next week as WestHill Pulsars (2-0) look to keep their unblemished record against the 1-1 Sprockets.
- Deroy Duval, Sports Correspondent.
Calendar
City mayoral candidates meet up.
Candidates Claude Paddingbury, Marcus Wu and Helen Matara outline their visions for the role of new role of elected mayor and for Tithonia's future. Hab 3 Terrace One Arena. Wednesday 1800.
WestHill Orange blossom special
Tithonia Farms invites residents to take a tour of the orange orchards to see the trees in bloom. Indulge your eyes and nose. It smells even better than it looks. WestHill Farm Terrace d. Go to Terrace 1 and look for the farm entrance. Saturday Jan. 58
Noctis council to discuss Oudemans' ties
Noctis Council will discuss a proposal to represent Oudemans residents at its Feb. 4 meeting. Grange Hall 14:00. Council video.
“Dusty”
A long distance cargo train is the unlikely setting for a fun romance with a bit of comedy. Stage 3 Hab 1 Terrace 8, Jan. 2-Feb. 9, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00
City Strings
Features an engaging rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon among other selections. Mariners Hall. WestHill Terrace 4. Thursday. Friday 1300, 1600 and 1900.
Dance at the Cubbies
City Residence hosts a weekly dance party outside the Cubbies, or contract worker dormitories Friday, Cubby Terrace at 18:00 Friday. Hab 1 Terrace 3. All resident are welcome.
City Social
Mix and mingle with new arrivals and old hands. Hab 2. Terrace 4, by Tithonia Gardens. Friday 17:00
City Farmer’s Market
Saturday. Stalls available by appointment. Fabrica (Industrial) Tube Terminal Saturday 0900-1500
Geryon Song Share
Acoustic players swap songs. Geryon Agora. Two sessions. Saturday 16:00, 20:00
Coprates Cha-cha
And Rumba. Let’s dance at Schiapparelli Hall. Friday 18:00
Coprates Raas / Garba
Dance troupe takes it to outer space. Only one more week. Don't miss it. Schiapparelli Hall. Saturday 16:00
Melas Karaoke
Brush up on all your favorite songs and get ready to sing solo, in groups or just sing to yourself at the Bottom of the Sea cantina. Friday 20:00. Melas.
Marsball Week 7
WestHill Pulsars (2-0) v Fabrica Sprockets (1-1) Thursday 20:00 Hab 3 Terrace One Arena
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
Classified Ads
SHIP REFITTING, BREAKING All craft, parts and refurb. PONTUS 100 751
DUST MAGNET. Won’t let the dust get past the airlock. CANDOR 286 87919
FURNITURE Printer Stock. And cushions for a comfy seat IUS 278 58897
WALL PRINTERS All shapes and contours. MELAS 285 45672
BARVOOM POWERPAX Light it up. Sized for small community and extended-family dwellings. OWELLES 317-76527
SHUTTLE AGENTS, MECHANICS for InterChasma terminals. PONTUS 100 763
CARGO HANDLERS. Space experience required. Contract exemptions considered. PONTUS 100 419
WELDERS. Experienced welders seeking space yard qualification. Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 639
PLASMA SPINMASTER Compact fusion designs. CANDOR 286 25120
CONSTRUCTION All specialties. Some outside. Ex-contract only. GERYON 278 68034
APPRENTICES Aquaculture. 8 annos and up. URBS 62128
APPRENTICES Environmental systems. URBS 269 81447
APPRENTICES Construction. Interior. GERYON 278 65689
APPRENTICES Recycling systems. 8 annos and up. IUS 278 98559
APPRENTICES Metal smith, forging, casting, 8 annos (14 years) and up. URBS 269-37728
SPACE CAMP. Get ready for orbital work. All ages. ARES PORT 268 00910
BALLROOM DANCING Let's Rumba! URBS 269 49144
BALLET Poise, strength, balance, beauty. Très grands jetés URBS 269 62577
RAAS / GARBA Dance performers for existing troupe. COPRATES 295 45788
MARTIAL ARTS. Conditioning and confidence. Weighted and natural. GERYON 278 71435
The header photo is the iconic mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars from 2,500 km above the surface taken by the Viking Orbiter. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
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Photomosaic: Viking Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech