Shalbatana Martians building vertical city
In the fire giant’s home
SHALBATANA VALLIS, Aug 15 - Legendary Mars builder Jeremiah Volcan pointed up at the beam of light that shone into the darkness toward the small circle of dim light far above that marked the top of the deep cavern.
“Atypical pit crater. It shouldn’t be here. There’s no reason for it to be here. The caverns are a puzzle too,” Volcan said through his surfsuit comm. The engineer who planned and built the WestHill Terraces and set the model for Geryon Montes simply shrugged his shoulders. ”That’s Mars.”
Followed by famed Mars explorer Eustace Saint-Lazare and his former Survey Mars teammate Perpetua Heathering, Volcan walked back into his growing habitat, shut the hatch and opened up his helmet to tell the story of how he and a dozen “or so” families had come to start a city in this strange geology that shouldn’t exist.
“You’d expect pit craters over in Tharsis Montes by Arsia Mons, more than four thousand kilometers away, but not here,” Volcan said, referring to the southernmost of the three 17 km-high volcanoes that are dwarfed by Olympus Mons to the northwest.
“I nearly fell in one out there,” Saint-Lazare said, "Had to winch one of my survey tractors from the edge."
Volcan had scouted Noctis Labyrinthus and the Tharsis region after building out the City’s WestHill terraces at the west end of Tithonium Chasma.
“Then I came to Orson Welles and had a look around for a good long while, just scouting about, poking into craters and caverns and such,” Volcan said, his smile nearly hidden by his white beard. ‘Then I found this and decided to build my own.”
Volcan wasn’t saying when he started but his growing settlement remained hidden until June when Saint-Lazare’s six person survey crew was trapped for weeks in the cavern network by a cave-in.
The Survey Mars crew spent more than six weeks trapped about 4 km into the caverns and nearly 1 km below the surface before being rescued initially by Volcan’s fellow residents and later brought back to Welles by Heathering, a former Survey Mars explorer who now lives in Welles.
Volcan also wasn’t telling how he had managed to keep his settlement secret in spite of the constant surface surveillance from the orbital and satellites.
“I learned a few things since I got here,” Volcan laughed, and started his story.
“Been on Mars since the 80s, living on ration bars in PeeVeeBee One (Permanent Valley Habitation Base One). We started to terrace the hill, worked out how to turn dust and rocks into printer building stock and got to building. That was fun,” Volcan said.
When the plans for the Tithonium Chasma Habitation Tube were put in place, Volcan decided to set out on his own.
“They wanted to build a space habitat across the Chasma floor, I want to build in harmony with Mars, with the dramatic landscape,” Volcan said. “So I went looking out from Welles. I found the caverns and then I found this pit, and I had a crazy idea that this would be my home. Met some other crazy people in Welles who liked the idea and here we are.”
He looked at Heathering and said, “There’s a lot of crazy people in Welles.”
Volcan sketched out the plan for what he called a vertical city rising up the sides of the 900 m deep, partially enclosed pit crater. The city would consist of galleries facing out onto the crater and making use of the extensive network of tube caverns surrounding it.
“In old Paris back on Earth, the apartments and offices were all built around a central courtyard, and you’d want a room or office that looked out on the courtyard and not the street,” Volcan said. “Here all the habitats will “donne sur la cour” or look out on the courtyard, and the farms and ponds and all that will be back in the caverns. We’ve made a great start.”
“Let’s get some coffee.” Volcan stood as tall as any native Martian but with the broad shoulders of the Earth born and led the group to a small rover to show the interior of his habitat.
Green home of the fire giant
“We call it Surtshellir after the cave of the fire giant back on Earth and in honor of Sven Surtrsson, our own Martian fire giant who put fusion in a smaller bottle, and made it so we could homestead Mars,” Volcan said as he drove the rover down a lighted tunnel. “Survey Mars will just call it Shalbatana, of course.”
Volcan led the group through another hatch into the fire giant’s cave.
Saint-Lazare and Heathering stopped and breathed in the intense smell of greenery and the moisture in the air in an intensively gardened space where a stream of water showered a pond below that fed a stream leading to another pond, where fish swam.
“Jungle is the word that comes to mind,” Heathering said.
“Trees aren’t tall enough yet,” Volcan said, “But they’ll get there soon enough. All that greenery scrubs our air.”
“Doesn’t feel like a cave at all,” Saint-Lazare said. “You can’t see the walls or ceiling or even the lights. It’s just like an open spot outdoors in a jungle.”
“We got a good gardener,” Volcan said. “That’s why you like our coffee. You’re supposed to feel like you’re out in the air.”
The cavern is one of several that are intensively gardened for different crops and environments, with the aquaculture streams and ponds built into the landscape.
“You did well with water,” Saint-Lazare said.
Volcan attributed that to the geology and geography. The caverns are near an ancient outflow channel that fed into the Shalbatana Vallis and from there into the long vanished northern ocean.
“There’s plenty of water underground all over the Valley if you know where to look, Melas for instance,” Volcan said. “Plenty of water.”
The community chose a site that was close to a thick layer of buried ice, tapped the water and and refined it. Volcan said, stressing that the habitation includes very strict environmental controls and thorough recycling.
“Survey Mars is mad about water, but they’ve already got more than they can use where they are,” Volcan said. “We put it to work and don’t waste a drop. Grows our crops and gardens, makes our coffee and we recycle it all.”
Survey Mars reviews Shalbatana claim
ARES PORT, Aug. 16 - Survey Mars announced Friday that it is holding the habitation site claim filed by the Shalbatana homesteaders for further review.
“Survey Mars retains oversight for use and development of resources beyond the immediate and foreseeable needs of specific homestead sites. We are holding for further review the claim filed by Jeremiah Volcan for development of a habitation site in the Shalbatana Vallis,” the announcement said.
Survey Mars declined further comment.
Printer jam halts Tithonium tube extension
Web spinners stop working
URBS VALLIS, Aug. 15 - A printer jam halted work on the 1.6 km extension of Tithonium Chasma habitation tube a little less than three weeks after it began. City Engineer Shigeru Kashira told the City Council at its regular Thursday meeting.
“It’s a complex process that requires exact coordination,” Kashira said. “All of the larger printers have to work together and if any one of them gets out of sync, they all shut down for safety. “
The printers are currently building the first two 800 m diameter section ring supports and the lattice that connects them and gives shape and support to the overall structure.
One of the larger ring printers experienced a supply jam, which stopped all of the others, Kashira said.
“It’s a bit like a spider spinning a web between the two rings. All of that has to happen in a specific sequence before we can move on,” Kashira said. “They have to remain perfectly balanced and aligned at all times.”
Councillor Tiberia Hernandez, who voted against the expansion in June, questioned whether the development work had begun to soon.
“It’s just over two weeks and already we’re running into problems,” Hernandez said.
The jam was not totally unexpected, Kahn replied, as the printers have sat idle since the third section’s exterior was finished in January 98.
“They’re complex machines and they need to get back into the rhythm of the printing,” Kashira said. We expect to resume printing by next week at the latest.”
Excavation, fill and ground leveling had been completed for the first kilometer of the section, and that work is continuing in the final 600 meters of the section, Kashira said.
While the printer jam is fixed, ground crews are continuing to build the retaining and support walls in between the second, third and fourth ring supports.
Construction of the fourth section, which is designed to provide enough space for an additional 16,000 people, began July 48 after the City approved the expansion on July 16. The section brings the open-air length of the habtube to 6.4 km.
The habtube houses 43,000 residents officially but Councillor Karina Hermetta has said the number is a bit lower. The City Labor Council records indicate that 87 missing workers were being investigated at the beginning of August. As many as 500 people listed as City residents may no longer live here, utility and environmental staff estimate.
The City has declined to officially comment on the number of residents who may have left for other chasmata such as Ius and Geryon and Coprates.
“Given the troubles with the fourth section, is it still realistic to expect that the third section will be complete before the supply train arrives?” Council President Claude Paddingbury asked.
The third section is still on target to be completed by the late November arrival of the supply train from earth brining just under 2,500 immigrants nearly all contract workers from earth, L5 and Luna, Kashira replied.
Once the seven ring supports and lattice for the fourth section are in place, work will begin on the exterior covering, or skylight, as well as the aquaculture tanks in the lower half and the agricultural terraces.
The more detailed construction of habitations, offices, laboratories and other space will begin after that.
“From start to finish, it should take 3 annos, which is a bit faster than section 3, which is still being completed,” Kashira said.
Much of the ground preparation for the new section had already been completed with the construction of Section 3, just as the work on Section 4, would likely include the groundwork for a future section 5.
“We have to put the extra dirt someplace, so we try to arrange it to minimize future work,” Kashira said. “Plus we keep learning more about building on Mars.”
City emptying the cubbies ahead of new arrivals
Move in day is coming
URBS VALLIS, Aug. 15 - Contract workers still living in the HabTube first-section dormitories will be assigned to their own apartments before the end of September, or about ten weeks, the residential assignment office said Wednesday.
The move comes ahead of the arrival of around 2,500 contract workers on the November supply train from Earth, Luna and the L5 habitat, Residential Supervisor Giulia Villanova said.
“We need to ensure that we everyone has a place to sleep when they get here,” Villanova said. “And we need time to clean up and restock the dormitories to make sure they have everything they need, from clothing to food.”
New arrivals are assigned to shared quarters that include the sleeping pods, or cubbies, as well as group kitchen and living space.
More than 7,000 City residents are still working under 3-annos transport contractors with roughly a third scheduled to go ex-contract in January
For those moving out of the cubbies, apartments will be assigned by seniority, that is length of time spent in the dormitories, with those who have lived there longest eligible for a limited number of single-person apartments.
Cubby residents can also choose roommates for two- and three-person apartments, which will also be assigned on the basis of seniority.
Those requests will require individual interviews to ensure the best fit for potential roommates.
“In some cases, it’s couples who want to live together, but we want to make sure everyone is happy with the assignment because it’s not easy to change,” Villanova said.
Who gets first pick?
“Anyone who’s been in the dormitories for more than two annos should have a good choice of habitation and location,” Villanova said. “Though the habs are all standard, with only small differences in design.”
As the third section nears completion, more apartments have become available, but there has also been some consolidation in all three of the habtube sections as well as some vacancies in the WestHill terraces, Villanova said.
“People want to start families and they usually start with sharing an apartment, which opens up a habitation, but often next annos, they need another room,” Villanova said.
While residents who have been in the cubbies a long time may complain, newcomers start in the dormitories because they have to complete rigorous training on safety for living on Mars.
“You can’t just walk outside. You can’t just work outside,” Villanova said “Over time, the safety measures become second nature - checking each others’ surf suits - but you have to learn that.”
Cubby resident Aibheen Pottle had sought in June to have her labor contract terminated because she had already spent more than two annos in the cubbies, but was turned down by the City Labor Council.
“I can’t wait to get my own apartment,” Pottle said. “There are only two people who’ve been in the cubbies longer and we’re all really ready to move.”
Rocky snowballs for Mars
Explorers set sights on Belt
MARS CAROUSEL, Aug. 14 - The Valley's thirst for water could be slaked by bringing water ice from the asteroid belt, which could also feed the hunger for metals of both planetary and orbital manufacturing industries, the captains of the explorer scouts Beansí and Boudicca suggested.
Fresh from their daring rescue of the stricken fast packet which flew past Mars with failed engines, the two captains talked about their long-term plans to develop Mars’ own ship-building and manufacturing industry to help nurture the growing cities of the Valles Marineris.
“They’re not quite snowballs or ice balls, but there’s a lot of water, depending on the rock, and there is a lot of usable metal out there,” Boudicca Capt. Attracta O’Ceileachair told the Chaos Courier Wednesday on the Pontus Caelestis orbital before shuttling to Ares Port on their way to Corprates.
She and her sister, Capt. Electra O’Ceileachair of the Beansí, were returning from a 2-annos scouting mission to the asteroid belt when they diverted to assist in the rescue of the crew and passengers on board the fast packet Caraval, which they brought back to the Carousel last week.
The two women stressed that the potential of the asteroid belt for planetary and orbital development has not been adequately appreciated.
"We can do a lot more than the (Mars) DevCo planners or the earth-based conglomerates are considering,” Electra O’Ceileachair said. “And we can do it to benefit the people of Mars and those who will soon be moving further out in the system.”
The explorers will be meeting with fellow investors in the Coprates-based insurance scheme they are launching to offer coverage to Mars-based space exploration, transport and shipping groups beginning as early as February 102.
The insurance scheme, formally a protection and indemnity club to cover spacecraft, is but one part of a wider strategy to promote locally-based development of the planet, orbital industry and the asteroid belt, the O’Ceileachairs said.
“We’ll talk about that more and see if we can put together more exploration and development of the Belt, starting with the water,” Attracta O’Ceileachair said.
One of the questions, they will seek to answer is whether it makes sense to move raw materials from the Belt to Mars orbit or to partially refine them in place and ship only the wanted materials back.
Suggestions includes re-using supply train and passenger craft sections for industrial purposes and positioning them in the belt along with mining craft, or refurbishing used spacecraft to simply boost smaller asteroids toward Mars orbit.
“Without hitting our homes,” Electra O’Ceileachair said. “Sure, there are some engineering and transport challenges to work out, but they're solvable.”
Calendar
Coprates to unveil development plans
The Coprates Chasma Coucil will discuss plans to embark on an ambitious plan to build a 'ring' city around their home crater. Wednesday Aug. 21. Council Hall. 19:00
Wildflower Meadow
Walk through a wildflower meadow at the Tithonia Gardens and soak up the beauty and tranquility. Learn all about the Mars-adapted wildflowers on the docent tours on the even hours in the afternoon on Saturday. Through the end of August. Hab 2, Terrace 4
Redwood Walk
Learn all about the tallest trees on Mars. Get the guided tour of the City’s growing Redwood Grove and sit beside a running stream. Hab 1. Terrace 1. Saturday-Sunday Aug. 24-25.
Dance of the spheres
The Tithonia Museum is hosting an exhibition of an exquisitely detailed orrery with spheres that mimic the view from orbit of each of the planets. The distances and size aren’t to scale, since Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets wouldn’t fit, but the detail is amazing. Through early September. East Terrace 12
"Trouble Man " Space western threedee. The new sheriffs gets a hot welcome. Stage 3. Hab 1. Terrace 8. Aug. 22-Aug. 28, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00
City Strings Quartet plays its favorite selections, Mozart and more. WestHill Terrace 4 Friday-Sunday 19:00
Song Share Acoustic players swap songs. Geryon Agora. Two sessions. Saturday Aug. 24 16:00, 20:00
City Social Mix and mingle with new arrivals and old hands. Hab 2. Terrace 4, by Tithonia Gardens. Every Friday 17:00
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
The Chaos Courier helps you over the rough spots.
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PRINTING Design and fabrication. Non-mechanical. Ex-contract only. IUS 278 70887
BIOENGINEER - Specialist in hardy, low atmosphere grasses. COPRATES 295 67284
APPRENTICES Recycling systems. 8 annos and up. IUS 278 98559
APPRENTICES Metal smith, forging, casting, 8 annos (14 years) and up. URBS 269-37728
APPRENTICES Aquaculture. 8 annos and up. URBS 269 62128
APPRENTICES Environmental systems. URBS 269 81447
APPRENTICES Construction. Interior. GERYON 278 65689
SPACE CAMP. Get ready for orbital work. All ages. ARES PORT 268 00910
DANCING. All styles for adults. Hab 3 Rec Center. URBS 269 10311
MARTIAL ARTS Multi-style Strength and conditioning. WestHill Terrace 2 URBS 269 14420
STRENGTH Training for trainers. COPRATES 295 04716
CRICKET Mars style. Assembling two teams. COPRATES 295 21508
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)
The Candor Chaos Courier, Candor Chaos, Valles Marineris, Mars
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Photomosaic: Viking Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech