Mars City starts urgent reshuffling
Messy, if amicable, breakup with corporate sponsor
TITHONIA, Jan. 7 - The sudden pullback by the corporate founder of Mars’ largest city and the successful settlement of a new planet, left a lot of unanswered questions for the Tithonia (Urbs Vallis) Council.
“We didn’t have much time to sort it out beforehand, so we’re trying to do it as quickly as possible now, without creating new problems, ” Council President Claude Paddingbury said at Thursday’s packed council meeting. “We’re finding that we need to handle a wider range of responsibilities than expected, and we want to do it right the first time.”
The confusion follows last week’s announcement by the former Mars DevCo, now re-named Martius Endeavours, that the corporation was turning over control of its civic facilities in Tithonia and other Valles Marineris to the local councils.
Martius retains control over the Mars Carousel orbital that floats above the Valles Marineris as well as the Ares Port shuttle port and industrial facilities at the western end of Tithonia Chasma, about 50 km west of Tithonia.
Who’s running what?
“This complex web of shared responsibilities has grown organically over the last few (Martian) decades,” Councillor Tiberia Hernandez said. “We need to untangle it very carefully.”
The City’s solo responsibilities now include farming, construction, and the transport tube to Ares Port, although not survey and exploration tied to identifying and extracting resources and minerals.
The Council also bears final responsibility for feeding and supplying workers as well as maintaining environmental systems for all residential areas.
That does not include electricity as the City is powered by the two Martius fusion plants in the industrial area between Tithonia and Ares Port.
The council will assess backup power requirements to reduce dependence on Martius for emergency power backup or install new systems.
“Bottom line,” Councillor Luca Matteo says, “If it’s not in Ares Port or in orbit, we’re responsible. Right now, we’re going through everything that keeps the city fed and running.”
Among the more critical concerns is Agriculture Mars, which bears responsibility for building and operating the farms that feed Tithonia and Ares Port, but which under the restructuring become a City responsibility.
The farm manager is currently working to restart a City farm that froze due to a power fault 5 weeks ago.
Martius is, however, handing over agricultural research stations to the local councils.
The City also takes control over the construction of the fourth section of the Tithonia Hab Tube, which will increase the length of the cylindrical environment on the chasma floor to 6.4 km and its capacity to 64,000 residents from 48,000 now.
Martius is also ending its sponsorship of the worker transport program responsible for populating Mars over the last 44 annos (83 years).
That means the City and Valley councils will have to decide within roughly 90 sols how many workers they want to sponsor for transport to Mars on the supply fleet scheduled to leave Earth in about 400 sols and to arrive at Mars in January 103.
The return fleet to Earth is still scheduled to depart Mars on June 46, or just over 354 sols.
The main goal of the reshuffling is creating clear lines of responsibility.
“We’re sorting out the management and reporting lines so that we know who is personally responsible,” Matteo said. “Really, everyone needs to just keep doing their jobs.”
New arrivals on edge
New contract workers who arrived on the Nov. 30 supply train from Earth were particularly concerned about the state of their transport contracts, their pay agreements as well as their current and future living arrangements.
“Will we be paying for food and shelter, which we were promised as part of our labor and transport contracts?” Asked Shannon Valera, an aquaculture specialist now residing in the contract worker dormitories, or Cubbies, who arrived on Mars with the fleet 12 weeks ago. “This feels like a very big bait-and-switch.”
“Everyone keeps their current residence, and everyone is entitled to eat in any City canteen,”City Residential Supervisor Giulia Villanova said. “We have been told that all transport contract positions are secure, though I’m not as sure about my own,” Villanova said to nervous laughter from the packed hall.
Most job changes will involve adjustments to account for the split between the City and the corporation, Paddingbury said.
“All staff reorganizations and reassignments will take place at higher levels of responsibility that involve liaison with corporate staff,” Paddingbury said. “For the most part, we mostly envision minor changes to existing assignments as we need to keep the City running smoothly.”
Attendees also expressed concerns about salary and off-planet monetary arrangements,
“We’re supposed to be able to direct a portion of our salary to family on Earth, but who is going to be handling that and will they honor the current arrangements?” newly arrived agricultural specialist Emilia Campanus asked. “I feel like I just unpacked on an entirely new planet and confirmed my work assignment and all of my financial arrangements Now it’s all changed.”
The City and corporation are still negotiating financial arrangements, Councillor Herald Severus told the meeting.
“The City has sufficient resources to support current salaries and benefits while we negotiate final arrangements with Martius,” said Severus, head of the Council’s financial committee. ”We are working to make sure that the only difference for workers is the name on the payslip.”
Valles Marineris air service starts this month
T minus two weeks for city shuttles
COPRATES, Jan. 6 - Regularly scheduled air shuttle service will begin mid month between most of the cities of the Valles Marineris, though not the largest.
The new Air Mars service was made possible by the corporate retrenchment announced by Martius Endeavours, the former DevCo, which removed restrictions on local shuttle flights, but which retains control over surface-to-orbital traffic.
“Welcome to Air Mars,” Coprates Councillor and Air Mars co-founder Rhian Llewellyn said at a mid-flight press conference Wednesday as the shuttle reached the top of its arc-shaped path from Coprates to Melas. “We’re bringing the Valley cities together, enabling increased trade and personal travel.”
The initial flight from Corprates to Melas, later continued to Ius for an overnight stay. On Thursday, the shuttle traveled to Candor and then returned to Coprates for its jump back to orbit.
The Air Mars service won’t initially include Tithonia, the largest city on Mars, nor Noctis, one of the smallest.
Tithonia is served by Ares Port, which is owned by Martius and remains the nearly exclusive port for orbital shuttle traffic, while Noctis facilities will have to be upgraded before air service can begin.
Air Mars is a joint venture between the four cities of the mid-Valley region, the O’Ceileachair Exploration Group, which owns the Class 4 orbital shuttles being used for the service, and private investors, including Llewellyn.
“Air Mars helps to overcome the barriers of time and distance between Mars’ cities,” O’Ceileachair Group co-owner Attracta O’Ceileachair said during the press conference. “It’s at least a 25-sol trip by surface supply trains over the 1,200 klm from Coprates to Ius, and a matter of hours by shuttle.”
Hop and drop
Rather than fly at a constant altitude as aircraft do on Earth, the shuttles essentially hop up and drop down in an arc from one city to the next.
“There’s not really any air support on Mars with such a thin atmosphere, so you’re not really getting wind beneath your wings - which we don’t have,” shuttle pilot Oberan Tan said before take off from Coprates. “So, we just hop and drop.”
The Coprates shuttle port lies on the outside of western rim of its home crater, and residents just take a short tube ride through the crater wall from the city center.
The initial fortnightly service starting Jan. 22 includes a Friday route from Corprates to Melas and Ius, with a return Monday service to Candor and Coprates.
On the following Tuesdays, the shuttles fly the 1,300 km to Orson Welles crater and return from there to orbital service. The Welles orbital flights were approved under a deal with Martius to provide a second shuttle port in case of emergency.
“That means people from Welles can get to Coprates and back if they’re willing to spend two weeks somewhere on the route,” Llewellyn said. “Now they can barely get into the Valley proper at Capri Chasma in two weeks driving, and that’s 1,300 km east of here.”
The group plans a longer monthly route west bound from Coprates to Ius and Noctis, when the facilities are in place, returning eastbound to Welles and then back southwest to Coprates.
“That’s in the future,” O’Ceileachair said. “Right now, the quickest way from Welles to Noctis is to pop up to the Mars Carousel and come back down.”
It's still a road trip to Noctis
While Welles newly upgraded terminal can handle the orbital shuttle, service to Noctis will have to wait until adequate facilities are in place.
The Air Mars shuttles will be seconded from orbit by the O’Ceileachair group, which acquired four of the older model Class 4 shuttles from Martius for use in its shipyard and other orbital facilities. Martius has since put the newer, larger Class 5 shuttles into service.
“Really, we’re just hopping from city to city using the shuttle thruster rockets,” O’Ceileachair said. “It’s way over-powered.”
The Class 4 Air Mars shuttle has been modified to reduce cargo capacity and double passenger capacity to 50.
“In case of need, such as carrying compressors on a time-critical basis to the frozen Tithonia farm, we can drop down a shuttle with more cargo room,” O’Ceileachair said.
The longer-term plan is to build lighter shuttles that can carry 100 passengers on more frequent inter-city flights, Llewellyn said.
To that end, Air Mars is working with aerospace and industrial designers in Ares Port and Candor, and with the O’Ceileachair Group in orbit, to design and build a small fleet of inter-city shuttles.
“We’d like people to be able to move around more quickly for work as well as personal travel,” Llewellyn said. “I’d love to be able to go to Ius or Tithonia for a weekend or a couple of weeks, and a lot of people are telling us they really want to see more of Mars.”
Three men hunted in hab takeover attempt
Who’s been sleeping in my hab?
LABYRINTHIA, Jan. 6 - Noctis officials are seeking three men wanted in an attempted takeover of a new hab under construction about 120 km west of the Noctis Grange Hall.
The three were discovered by a family of five on Wednesday when they returned from the New Annos celebration at the Grange Hall, Councillor Icario Fletcher told the Chaos Courier.
“As they got close, they saw a rover parked outside their hab. That’s not unheard of, but locals usually send a “halloo” and wait for a reply before getting too close,” Fletcher said.
When the family radioed the house, they received a reply that could be printed as “go away,” though in coarser language, Fletcher said.
The family notified Noctis search and rescue, and then remotely closed the emergency hatches inside the house and turned down the temperature to about minus 10 (Celsius).
Two of the men came out a while later and radioed demanding the family turn the heat back up and leave immediately.
“We figure they’re city men, because they weren’t familiar with the laser drills that locals often mount on their rovers for outside work,” Fletcher said. “A couple of blasts later, they decided to vacate.”
The family kept the drill focused on the men’s rover until it disappeared.
The new hab, which is bored into a low crater rim, lies in an east-west channel that opens a bit north of the Grange Hall, and was meant to be the first of a new settlement
Typically, one or two families will build the first or anchor settlement, and others than build and connect, creating a village of individual habs.
“Nothing inside was seriously damaged, but they’d left a bit of a mess in the hab,” Fletcher said, adding a search team is following the rover which is being tracked.
“We pretty much know where they’re going,’ Fletcher said. “We’ll get them sooner or later. This isn’t something we want to happen ever again.”
Frozen City farm reheated
TITHONIA, Jan. 9 - A WestHill farm frozen by a power fault five weeks ago has been brought above freezing, enabling a quicker cleanup and replanting.
Heat and pressure have gradually been restored to the 25-hectare (62-acre farm) at the base of West Hill after new compressors were brought in from Candor Chasma to replace those damaged in the incident.
“We’re still hauling all the dead stuff out, and we’ll begin repairing and replacing equipment and amending soil as soon as we can,” said Agriculture Mars Chief Iris Notting, standing in the 2.5 km long farm terrace with her surfsuit visor open on Saturday. “We’ll keep the suits on until it’s fully inflated and triple-check.”
The damaged terrace is mostly covered by multilayer sheathing and heat retention fabric rather than the permanent sandglass enclosing the other city farms.
“It’s the newest farm, so we still have some temporary covering, but we’ve got the sandglass printers working full speed to get it done,” Notting said.
The sandglass covering provides some heating as well as better insulation and can stay above freezing without power for at least 24 hours.
The farm provides a small percentage of the City’s fresh food, and there are plentiful supplies of frozen food, Notting said.
- Mirihi Merced, City Correpsondent
Calendar
City manager for Tithonia?
The Tithonia council to discuss naming a city manager to oversee all departments and report to the Council. THursday 19:00. Hab1 Terrace 8
Valley liaison to keep cities in touch?
All of the Valles Marineris Councils will hold a joint meeting to discuss the appointment of a Valley-wide liaison and to assess the need for regular inter-chasmata meetings. Friday 19:00 local council meeting places, and available on all public terminals
Cubby party still going strong
City Residence is hosting a weekly dance party outside the Cubbies, or contract worker dormitories Friday, Jan. 15, featuring City band the Rhumba Cats. Cubby Terrace at 18:00 Friday. All resident are welcome.
City Strings New Annos Concert
Ensemble performs selections from Dvorak's "New World Symphony," Mozart's "Night Music" and some surprises as well. Refreshments. Mariners Hall. WestHill Terrace 4. Saturday-Sunday 13:00, 16:00
“High Seas”
Four-armed pirates sail the ancient northern sea of Mars. Adventure threedee with sea dragons, well really big plesiosaurs, at least, and pirates. Sail into Capri ChasmaStage 3 Hab 1 Terrace 8 Jan. 14-20, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00
Samba Marte Dancing and Music.
Hab3 Terrace 2 by the bamboo grove. Friday 19:00. Saturday Family dance 14:00. Kids get to make noise
City Social
Mix and mingle with new arrivals and old hands. Acoustic music by acoustic duo Harris and Fitz. Hab 2. Terrace 4, by Tithonia Gardens. Friday 17:00
Winter is Calling
Rayguns electric pop trio. Geryon Agora, outside Rick's. Saturday 21:00
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
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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