Earth arrivals more to Mars orbital
A happy birthday present
MARS CAROUSEL, Nov. 45 - Ten-year-old twins, eyes wide with wonder, stepped onto the arrivals deck of the Mars Carousel on Monday and proudly announced that they’d turned five.
Aurélie and Ulysse de Noé, who turned 10 in Earth years on Monday, became the first of the 2,500 Earth fleet passengers to step onto the Pontus Caelestis in honor of their Earth birthday.
“We’re 10 years old on Earth today but just five annos on Mars,” Aurélie and Ulysse said in unison, as their parents Ayana and Dédale de Noé followed them onto the deck to the applause of Carousel officials, staff and residents.
“Don’t worry, we celebrate half birthdays on Mars since it takes nearly twice as long for us to get around the sun,” Pontus Caelestis (Carousel) Manager Johannes Tycho told the smiling twins.
The family arrived on the fleet flagship Constant Star, which is the first of the nine passenger liners to disembark, and were ferried to the Carousel with 36 other passengers by one of the new Class 5 shuttles that recently came into service.
Asked what they wanted to do on Mars, Ulysse said he wanted to build space ships. “I want to fly them,” Aurélie added.
Their father, a botanist specializing in low temperature and pressure plants, and mother, plasma researcher, were recruited by Mars DevCo, and will be among the first to arrive on the surface of their new home planet.
“The whole family is excited to be here. It’s a dream, really,’ Ayana de Noé said as a wall-sized screen projected a live view of the Valles Marineris below.
The De Noé family were among the workers specifically recruited and brought to Mars by DevCo and will be taking up residence in the WestHill Terrace section of Tithonia (Urbs Vallis).
The recruited workers arrived at the Carousel on the first shuttle, and those traveling to Tithonia (Urbs Vallis) or Ares Port will will be among the first to travel to the surface.
Ready to work on Mars
Through Saturday, 1,200 of the 2,010 arrivals who will be moving to Tithonia (Urbs Vallis) had transferred to the Carousel, where they will stay in temporary quarters.
The 1,983 contract workers who arrived with the fleet will be housed in the worker dormitories, or Cubbies in the first section of the 4.8km Tithonia habitational tube, which is home to nearly 44,000 of the City's more than 59,000 residents. /p>
In exchange for passage to Mars, contract workers sign a 3 annos (5.5 year ) contract with a half annos (334 sol) credit for the voyage.
Contract workers typically receive their work assignments after arriving in the Cubbies as they have to undergo a significant amount of safety and work training.
Nearly 500 of the new arrivals will take up assignments on the Carousel, in the orbital industries or the cargo and shipyards.
Among the arrivals on the first shuttle were Deirdre Svalgard, a biogeneticist with experience on Earth and the L5 habitat, and Connery Black, an architectural engineer who had completed an ambitious underground building project on Luna.
Svalgard will be part of a team with Dédale de Noé working on developing plants that can thrive in conditions similar to Mars’ harsh outdoor environment.
Research on Mars to date has been developing plants that can withstand the equivalent of high-altitude atmospheric pressure and extreme temperatures.
“I’m really looking forward to putting my studies with Earth tundra plants into practice here,” says Svalgard, who extensively studied plants in Earth’s arctic regions. “The long, long-term goal is to green Mars, but we want to establish thriving ecosystems and not just cover the planet in highly invasive plants like mugwort and stilt grass.”
Black will be focused on designing large underground habitats as precursors to new cities within the Valles Marineris and outside.
“The goal is to create garden-like, densely-populated underground habitats that can serve as the basis for new cities housing tens and hundreds of thousands of people,” Black said. “Mars offers so much opportunity for totally new approaches to urban living and farming.”
Mars DevCo says stowaways to be sent back on next available Earth flight
The 420-sol layover may last until June.
MARS CAROUSEL Nov. 44 - The couple who shipped themselves here in a cargo pod on the Earth fleet will be headed back to Earth on the next available flight, Mars DevCo Planetary Manager Elric Balvicar said on Friday.
“We’re happy that they made it here safely, but that is through an overabundance of luck,” Balvicar said. “The most likely outcome was for them to arrive frozen solid.”
The couple will only be allowed to stay on the Carousel until a flight berth opens up, and will not be permitted to transfer to the surface of Mars, Balvicar said.
The next scheduled cargo and passenger flight to Earth doesn’t leave until late June, or about 420 sols, although a Luna shuttle flight may depart sooner.
The two Luna Orbital Industries workers shipped themselves from their Earth orbital factory over 472 million miles to Mars in a heavily modified double container on the cargo ship Pallene.
The Pallene arrived in orbit Nov. 30 and two sols later the workers introduced themselves as Orla Calaveras, a product design specialist, and Luis Roving, an orbital machinist.
Calaveras, who calls herself an enthusiast of origami, the art of paper folding, designed the living quarters and said Roving built it out of scrap in a double cargo pod slated for recycling.
Roving designed and built the compact environmental and recycling systems.
Freight paid
The couple had paid the shipping fee for the pod and sent the Chaos Courier an electronic receipt, Calaveras said.
“We paid for the transit and didn’t cost the fleet anything,” Calaveras wrote. “We had fulfilled our full contract term for Luna Orbital and were working on month-to-month extensions.”
Mars Carousel will provide housing for the two separately in the orbital workers quarters, but the couple will have to pay for their room and board as well as for the full value of the return flight, Balvicar said.
DevCo is taking these actions to prevent anyone else from doing anything similar.
“We cannot condone, support, or through any action on our part, even suggest that this might be a good idea for anyone else to copy,” Balvicar said. “It was a stunt that should not be repeated ever.”
The couple’s cargo pod will be unloaded from the cargo ship Pallene according to the set schedule for the 11 cargo ships in the fleet, which means they can expect to wait at two to four weeks, an orbital cargo yard manager said.
While acknowledging DevCo’s concerns, the O’Ceileachair Exploration Group is willing to offer the couple housing in the company’s orbital facilities until an appropriate Earth flight can be arranged, Electra O’Ceileachair said.
“DevCo has a valid point,” O’Ceileachair said. “They took an extreme chance in testing their mini-habitat on such a long flight. Any failure would have been deadly.”
In the event of an emergency, O’Ceileachair noted that there was no probable way the couple could have reached the crew quarters aboard the cargo ship.
Still, their systems performed very well, and the O’Ceileachair group would consider a licensing deal for their designs in exchange for unloading the pod and housing the two people.
“We’re very open to a licensing deal,” Calaveras said. “We could help Tithonia with their habs, too. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss it.”
Tithonia Court finds passenger guilty in spaceliner assault
He'll stay in space
TITHONIA (URBS VALLIS), Nov. 42 - A man found guilty of assaulting a woman aboard the Drover’s Star passenger liner midway through the flight from Earth will remain in confinement aboard the Mars Carousel orbital until Jan. 1, about 60 sols, Tithonia Superior Court ruled Wednesday.
Ruther Voning, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, will be assigned to an orbital cargo yard unit through June in a probationary period after his confinement ends, the Court ruled.
According to the evidence read in court by Drover’s Star Capt. Antares Morgan, Voning first accosted the woman on 97 sols into the voyage after an exercise session, and made contact with her two sols later.
On the three subsequent occasions, he attempted to restrain her and was rebuffed.
The woman suffered injuries on the final occasion, which occurred as she was returning to her sleeping quarters through a narrow passageway.
Voning’s court-appointed lawyer argued that the case really came down to a misunderstanding between the two that had been taken out of context and out of proportion.
Voning had also suffered injuries on the final occasion after being struck repeatedly by the woman, who was identified as a martial arts instructor.
Voning’s lawyer argued that the man was defending himself when the woman head butted him and struck him with her knees and elbows.
“He was trying to keep her from striking him any more,” his lawyer told the court.
The Court rejected that assertion.
“The court finds that Voning is responsible for initiating the altercation, but does not find an effective defense by his victim to be a mitigating factor,” the court wrote.
Voning’s behavior during his probation will determine whether he remains at Mars or is returned to Earth.
Should Voning pass his probation, he will be eligible for positions in the Valles Marineris if requested and deemed appropriate, the court wrote, adding, “Any repeat offenses, however, would draw more severe penalties.”
Survey Mars crew rescued after Noctis rollover
LABYRINTHIA, Nov. 43 - A Survey Mars explorer tractor rolled at least a half dozen times as it was traversing a 1,200 m slope near the ancient Noctis Mons caldera, Survey Explorer Chief Leilana Suriya said on Thursday.
“One moment we were just tilting down slope and the next we were going head over boots, over and over and over,” Suriya said of the accident nine sols ago in which three of the six-person crew suffered moderate injuries.
The tractor flipped when one of its front wheels struck a boulder while the other dropped into a depression.
“On the bright side, given Mars’ gravity, we rolled kind of leisurely, so while we spun, three of us didn’t get hurt and no one was seriously injured,” Suriya said. “We saw the ground, the slope, the sky, the ground, the slope, the sky.”
Two of the six person crew were receiving additional treatment from a rescue crew that arrived late Monday.
The two injured explorers should be able to return to work in a couple days, said Noctis Supply Capt. Icario Fletcher, who led the rescue mission to the site about 110 km due southwest of the Noctis Grange Hall, but about a 160 km drive.
The explorer crew was able to right their tractor after the incident, but decided against moving it any further before the rescue and scout tractors from Noctis arrived late Monday.
The crew's tractor was winched across the slope to a level spot by the two other tractors and will be examined thoroughly before it resumes its mission to assess potential water resources within glacial ice around the caldera.
“We don’t see any substantial damage besides dings and dents,” Suriya said. “But we’ll check and recheck all our systems. We’re also getting a bit of a resupply from the Grange Hall, thanks to Icario, so we should be good to go for a nice long drive.”
Learn about Noctis Labyrinthus
Powerless space liner Wandering Star edging toward Mars
ABOARD THE BOUDICCA, Nov. 43 - The Wandering Star space liner should arrive in Mars orbit in the next few weeks, thanks to the power being provided by the explorer scout Boudicca.
The Boudicca attached to the to powerless passenger liner’s hull with a pairing lattice design that was developed for the explorer scout and its sister ship Beansí in their exploration of the asteroid belt.
While the Wandering Star is a much larger ship, the Boudicca’s upgraded fusion engines can provide a long continuous burn.
The goal is to put the two ships on a trajectory that will drop them into Mars orbit without further corrections, Boudicca Capt. Attracta O’Ceileachair said.
“We’re starting out slow, but we’ll pick up speed gradually,” O’Ceileachair said. “We’ll burn for a couple of days and then coast into orbit. The Space Rescue tug can take care of us from there.”
- Mei Aonio, Ares Port Correspondent
Calendar
Hello December
Just a reminder that the last month of the annos starts Saturday. Start your Novus Annus planning now.
Safety trainers, City guides wanted.
City officials are calling for volunteers with the appropriate credentials to act as safety trainers for the new arrivals in coming weeks. The City is also seeking residents willing to act as guides for small groups of new residents to acquaint them with their neighborhoods and the wider city. Contact City Safety for training, City Residence for guides.
La Bandita live
You’ll fall in love too. “La Bandita,” a one-woman play by the author of the romantic threedee, “La Bandita - Thief of Hearts” will be performed by writer Phoebe Nyx at the Geryon Agora Saturday 21:00. The thief of hearts tells how she met her match, sparking a fiery romance. Held over until further notice
City Strings Quartet
Quartet performs selections from Mozart's "Night Music." WestHill Terrace 4 Friday-Saturday 19:00
“Rhumba Room”
Fun song and dance review threedee. Goofy, guilty pleasure with great dancing Stage 3 Hab 1 Terrace 8 Dec. 6-12 18:00, 20:00, 22:00
Melas Karaoke
You don't have to memorize the words, but you'll want to practice. Sing solo, in groups or just hum to yourself at the Bottom of the Sea cantina. Friday 20:00. Melas.
Acoustic Song Share
Everyone gets a song Cafe du Mont. Geryon Agora Saturday 16:00
Volleyball
Get ready to jump without worrying about the ceiling. Learn to play volleyball at the new Hab3 beach. Saturday, Sunday sessions 08:00, 10:00, 12:00. North Beach Hab3 Terrace 1
Lawn bowling
Learn how to play the lawn bowling game of bocce (bot-chee). WestHill Terrace 2 by the terrace edge. 10 am. Message City Parks for information.
City farmers' market
Going green with veggie envy? Get to the City farmer's market. Stalls available by appointment. Industrial Tube Terminal. Saturday 0900-1500
City Social
Mix and mingle with new arrivals and old hands. Acoustic music by Harris and Fitz Hab 2. Terrace 4, by Tithonia Gardens. Every Friday 17:00
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
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WALL PRINTERS All shapes and contours. MELAS 285 45672
SURFSUIT Refurbishing. Fabric and boot repair, seal replacement, visor refurbishing, comms upgrades. COPRATES 297-14210
CARGO HANDLERS. Space experience required. Contract exemptions considered. PONTUS 100 419
ROCKET SCIENTIST. Engine upgrade project, Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 637
SHUTTLE MECHANICS. Experienced preferred, but we’ll train you if you have the skills. Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 635
CONSTRUCTION All specialties. Some outside. Ex-contract only. GERYON 278 68034
DRILLING specialists, supervisors and crew. Ex-contract only MELAS 285 13941
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 Machine repair 8 annos (14 years) and up. NOCTIS 260 21188
APPRENTICES Hydroponics. 8 annos and up. URBS 269 44085
APPRENTICES Environmental systems. MELAS 285 74223
SPACE CAMP. Get ready for orbital work. All ages. ARES PORT 268 00910
BALLET Poise, strength, balance, beauty. Très grands jetés URBS 269 62577
RAAS / GARBA Dance performers for existing troupe. COPRATES 295 45788
CRICKET Mars style. Two teams. Unfamiliar? They’ll explain it. COPRATES 295 21508
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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Copyright © 2025, M. Fitzpatrick, all rights reserved
Photomosaic: Viking Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech