Ius Council votes for elevator cars to Geryon
Boring option wins
ARES PORT, March 33 - Given the choice between building a 5.3 km aerial tram to take people from the chasma floor to the city’s highest level or tunnels for elevator cars, the council opted for the boring route by a 7-2 vote.
“We desperately need a better way to get up and down the Monte,” Councillor Gemma Ayr said at Wednesday’s meeting. “While the tram sounds fantastic, we can pretty much start boring out the shafts for the elevator cars now.”
More than 12,000 of the city’s 23,700 residents live on the lower slopes and chasma floor below the Monte which is built on a natural ledge about 2.4 km up the slope.
It’s about a three-hour trek for residents to get from one part of the city to the other via a series of paths and elevators that lead between storage and utility areas, and a bit longer from the Air Mars shuttle port on the chasma floor to the Geryon Agora.
“The tram is definitely a more elegant solution, but in the time it would take us to build the towers, we could have the elevators in service,” said Councillor Seamus Mitsutomi, a former development manager for Mars’ largest city, Tithonia.
Wednesday’s vote came 10 weeks after the proposal was introduced at the council’s Feb. 36 meeting.
Geryon is undergoing a major expansion project that seeks to add enough habitational space for 10,000 people, which would nearly double the population of the Monte.
The project also includes a second skylit galleria being added to the existing one at the Agora on the city’s highest level.
The terrace of the existing galleria, which provides fantastic views of Ius Chasma, provides a lot of casual and scheduled activities including a variety of music and hosts a brewpub and a cafe.
The new section of the Agora also features a wide skylit terrance with retail and commercial spaces excavated out of the mountainside as well as residential habitation sites.
The project has so far added enough habitational space for about 1,200 people.
Unlike in Tithonia, new residents will be expected to furnish their own habs.
Councillors Jia Young and Elowen Derwa voted against the elevator car proposal.
“We should wait until we’ve finished more of the Geryon expansion,” Young said. “We’re getting pretty far ahead of ourselves.”
Elevator going up!
The elevator cars would prove very helpful in the event of an emergency, such as the recent threat to crash a drone into the Mars Carousel, Councillor Brynn Gibby told the meeting.
“That showed that we need better options to move people into the mountain or from the mountain to the valley floor, and we don’t have that now,” Gibby said.
More elevator cars can be added over time, and if needed more tunnels, Gibby said.
The route for the elevator cars will begin at a station adjacent to the shuttle port, with a stop a half kilometer later at the base of the Monte before entering the tunnel.
The trip up the mountain covers 5.3 km, for a vertical climb of 2.4 km.
A parallel tunnel will follow the same route down the slope.
The magnetically propelled cars, which will have automatically leveling floors, will carry a dozen people on the 20-minute one-way journey, Mitsutomi said.
“It’s about time,” said Harper Liais, whose farm is on the chasma floor. “Me and other farmers bring up fresh produce every week, and it’s a slog, and we’d like to just take the odd day off and go to the Agora without having to find a place to stay overnight.”
Café du Monte owner Janine Depaysage also welcomed the plan.
“The businesses like mine and the brewpub on the Agora depend on people willing to make that trek to come up here, and we should make it easier.”
Survey Mars starts new Pavonis construction
New habs brought to the volcano top from orbit
PAVONIS MONS, March 32 - It’s not quite the top of the world, but it sure feel likes it atop one of Mars’ largest volcanoes.
Looking out from the edge of the topmost eastern lava flow atop Pavonis Mons, the center peak of the three Tharsis Montes volcanoes, the ground slopes away to vanish in the dusty horizon.
“The view coming down from orbit is always amazing, but I feel like I’m still halfway to space here,” said Rigel Dunne, construction chief for the expansion project that envisions quadrupling the Pavonis staff to 600 and building enough housing and gardens to support them.
Dunne was among the 10 members of the construction crew who were brought from orbit by a shuttle carrying their their habs on Tuesday.
The habs were gently lowered from a massive sky crane onto self-leveling support terraces that were put in place earlier this month against a small ridge that forms the edge of the mountain’s top most lava flow.
“We do this in space all the time, but I was impressed by how gently that crane put us down,” Dunne told a reporter accompanying the crew as they looked out a gallery window to the eastern slope of Pavonis Mons.
The center peak of the three Tharsis Montes, the 375 km wide “Peacock Mountain” rises gradually to a height of 8 km above the surrounding plains, and sits some 14 km above datum, or the zero elevation layer for Mars, similar to sea level on Earth.
Olympus Mons about, 1,200 km to the northwest, is the tallest mountain on Mars, rising 22 km above the surrounding terrain, and the tallest volcano in the Solar System.
The plans, announced Feb. 51, call for placing enough habs for 450 residents, set against and built into the ridge, with access to the top surface above for transportation to the existing research station at the bottom of the caldera.
Living on the volcano's edge
The 150 current staff live in the caldera, whose walls range from about 2 km to 4 km high.
Most of that staff will rotate from the caldera to the mountain top, using hopper tractors to jump over the crater wall.
That will require at least four more over-powered hopper tractors for travel in and out of the caldera.
Eventually, Survey Mars plans to build air and orbital shuttle ports to accommodate increased traffic, project manager and Survey Mars Chief Areographer Stella Regina said.
“For now, most of the orbital traffic will be bringing down the prefabbed terraces and habs and placing them correctly,” Regina said.
The habs will be spread among four levels, all looking out to the greenhouses at the eastern edge of the settlement.
The majority of the construction work will involve the greenhouses as the settlement will need about 12 hectares of farm space, which can be stacked at need.
The first hectare of terrace space was put in place over the last four weeks to support the first batch of habs, Dunne said.
“The habs are built to be lowered into place, like a threedee puzzle, and we’ll cover and seal the interior courtyards so that becomes living and working space,” Dunne said. “But the farms need to cover more ground.”
As part of a Survey station, residents can expect to spend a fair amount of time outdoors working on various projects, Regina said.
“But we want them to enjoy their living and working space when they get inside,” Regina said.
“It’ll be a bit like the WestHill Terrace section of Tithonia when it’s up, with habs mixed in with garden and greenhouse terraces, to give residents a sense of space, and a lot of greenery,” Regina said. “Residents should feel like they’re living in a small town, not space barracks.”’
Young Masursky Crater residents ask for ride out after crop failure
Survey Mars still waiting for answers on blight
ORSON WELLES, March 34 - Some young residents of Masursky Crater, where blight has killed all the crops, have asked Survey Mars for transportation out of the Libertad settlement, Survey Mars Chief Ian Kuyper told the Chaos Courier.
“They pretty much asked to be taken anywhere else on Mars or to orbit,” Kuyper said Thursday. “Anyone who’s of age (10 annos, or 19 years, and older) cannot be held against their will under the Mars Charter.”
For now, the unidentified blight poses too big a threat to all settlements on Mars to bring anyone from Libertad or send any personnel there, Kuyper said.
“Yes, we remain concerned about any genetic engineering they personally may have undergone, but mostly and more immediately about the possibility that the unknown pathogen that killed their crops might come with them,” Kuyper said.
Three weeks ago, Survey Mars sent a month’s supply of food to the 272-person settlement after they sent an urgent call for food on March 3, saying all their crops had failed due to the unspecified blight.
Survey Mars has asked the settlement about 1,000 km northeast of Orson Welles to provide an analysis of the crops and soil, sent equipment to perform that testing.
“We still haven’t gotten any results back,” Kuyper said. “They really just have to put it in the box and run the test and it’ll send the results to us.”
Survey Mars has offered to sterilize the blighted greenhouses, and to supply pre-fab greenhouses, but wants to receive the analysis of the blighted Masursky crops first.
Another question that has gone unanswered is whether the blight has spread to in-hab plants, as indoor wall gardens are usually an integral part of habitations and common areas.
Those indoor gardens provide extra food, such as fruit, vegetables and spices, but also take pressure of environmental units by helping to scrub air and provide oxygen.
“We really need to know what we’re dealing with here, for instance will the blight organism travel with people,” Kuyper said. “We simply cannot do anything to jeopardize our own food supply, nor that of any city or station on Mars.”
Mars is always trying to kill you
The settlement’s leaders are only communicating with Survey Mars, though some younger residents have contacted Health Mars surreptitiously.
Based on the results of health analyses sent surreptitiously by a few young residents, Health Mars is sending enough specially formulated supplementary nutrition packs to last the entire settlement about 100 sols, Health Mars Chief Paolina Galenus said.
The settlement’s “Be Mars” approach, including bioengineering themselves and their children to be minimally dependent on Earth technology, has left them deficient in some crucial nutrients and minerals, Galenus said.
In addition, the tests showed that the children’s height, weight and strength reflect a lack of adequate physical training to balance the effects of Mars’ lower gravity.
About a third of Libertad’s residents are 8 annos (15 years) or younger and a fifth are 5 annos (9 years) or younger, according to the emergency message sent by the settlement in early March.
The Libertad settlers left Orson Welles eight annos ago and established their settlement in Masursky Crater, stopping 670 km short of their target of Libertad Crater.
Not every settlement succeeds, and Survey Mars has found the remains of a number of failed homesteads in particular.
Even small mistakes can be deadly on Mars, Kuyper notes.
“We realize different settlements take different approaches, and they’re free to do so but in the end they’re responsible for their own choices,” Kuyper said. “That’s the Mars way.”
A bigger igloo in Melas’ future
Melas mulls plan for massive aquaculture expansion
MELAS, March 34 - The Melas Council will discuss a proposal at its March 40 meeting to build to build a big igloo as a home for its newest aquaculture facility.
“We have been bringing in significant amounts of ice from our water mining project, and we plan to put it to use to both build the dome that will cover the facility and use the water for the ponds,”Councillor Niah Parnasse said Thursday.
The interior of the dome will be surrounded by the aquaculture pool and contained by the igloo’s ice. That would somewhat resemble the underground Bottom of the Sea cantina, where fish swim around and partly above the cantina’s main room.
- Alade Jama, Melas Correspondent
Arrivals and Departures
Interplanetary routes take off
The Doughty, piloted by Space Rescue squad leader Nico Virtus arrives in orbit March 44, with Mission Control’s exploration drone carrying precious metal ore samples.
The Mars shuttle Dione is scheduled to depart the L5 station March 40 (Mars date), on its trip from the Selene Lunar Orbital. Arrival date, pilot not disclosed.
The fast packet Pilgrim, captained by Peregrinus Aeolus, departs for Earth and Luna orbitals on April 3.
Hotel Itinérant, Melas
The Hotel Itinérant passenger caravan arrives at Melas, March 44, departing for Ius/Geryon on March 46 for march 58 arrival. Message ‘Itinerant’ for bookings and information.
Air Mars
Friday - Orson Welles, Coprates, Melas, Ius.
Monday - Ius, Candor, Coprates.
Tuesday Coprates, Wells, Orbit. No passengers to orbit. Message Air Mars.
Calendar
The Tithonia is in bloom
Tithonia Gardens is hosting a display of towering Tithonia blossoms in yellow, orange and red, set off by masses of chrysanthemums in a rainbow of colors, bright white Montauk daisies and multi-colored pumpkins. Chief Gardener Eseld Bloman says it’s coming up on autumn back on Earth. Hab 2, Terrace 4
Hard (liquor) question ahead for City Council
Tithonia City Council to talk about whether to talk about a proposal for a distillery. What'll it be? Council Hall Hab 1 Terrace 8
“The Lost and Found”
Quirky scifi threedee. Find out where single socks wind up and other odds and oddities. Aliens?
Samba Marte Dancing and Music.
Hab 3 Terrace 2 by the bamboo grove. Saturday 19:00. Sunday Family dance 14:00
The Rosettas at Pub Seventeen
Swing to the Marsbeat sound of the Rosettas at the Hab 3 brew pub near the Terrace One Arena. Friday, Saturday from 21:00
Cubby Soirée
City Residence hosts the weekly Cubby soiree. All are welcome. Cubby Terrace at 20:00 Friday. Hab 1 Terrace 3.
Las Panteras de Marte
Singer Monique Solis, guitarist Hernando Senatobia and accordionist Ignacio Beck, play Mars style Norteño music, with a few show-stopping torch song solos. Ius Forum. Saturday 16:00
Rock Hounds
Old Earth style trio, guitar bass and drums brew up a beat at Rick's Brew Pub, Geryon Agora. Friday 21:00
Melas Aquanauts
Fun a-capella group. Listen and sing along at the Bottom of the Sea Cantina, Melas Friday 20:00.
City Social
Acoustic duo Harris & Fitz help you 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 9:00-15:00
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
Classified Ads
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WALL GARDENS. Custom seeded and sized. Illuminate, water, grow, eat. IUS 278-14275
JUMP START. Tractor Repair. Mobile unit available. If we can reach it, we can fix it. NOCTIS 260-22098
DRILL SLEDS Custom built and standard. Expand your space. COPRATES 295-43298
SURFSUIT Refurbishing. Fabric and boot repair, seal replacement, visor refurbishing, comms upgrades. COPRATES 297-14210
ROCKET ENGINEER Engine upgrade project, Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 637
PLASMA SPINMASTER Compact fusion designs. CANDOR 286 25120
WELDERS. Experienced welders seeking space yard qualification. Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 639
CARGO HANDS, For overland cargo train. Ex-contract only ARES PORT 268 31211
SHUTTLE AGENTS, MECHANICS for Air Mars InterChasma terminals. PONTUS 100 763
APPRENTICES Aquaculture. 8 annos and up. URBS 62128
APPRENTICES Construction. Interior. GERYON 278 65689
APPRENTICES Fabrics production, design. 8 annos and up. URBS 269-98523
APPRENTICES Recycling systems. 8 annos and up. IUS 278 98559
APPRENTICES Metal smith, forging, casting, 8 annos (14 years) and up. URBS 269-37728
RAAS / GARBA Dance performers for new troupe. COPRATES 295 45788
MARTIAL ARTS. Conditioning and confidence. Weighted and natural. GERYON 278 71435
YOGA. Get the kinks out. IUS 278-43256
DANCING. All styles for adults. Hab 3 Rec Center. URBS 269 10311
STRENGTH Training for trainers. COPRATES 295 04716
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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)
The Candor Chaos Courier, Candor Chaos, Valles Marineris, Mars, Publisher M. FitzPatrick
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Photomosaic: Viking Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech