Modelling Mars

[tea monster]

This has been a hell of a project! Excellent work on all the media.

What have you got lined up next?

[Ronpur50]

Well, hopefully, the Ares patch works out.  And then I have some items for the return of Discovery.   And I still plan on doing the NERVA Mars vehicle and one with an Orion attached.   But, that may be a bit in the future, I have a Soviet Lunar Lander to build!

[Ronpur50]

This is the revised Ares patch and I am very happy with the result.  We are looking into the cost to produce it, so if anyone is interested, please let me know so I can get a handle on how many to produce. 

[Ronpur50]

The final version of the Ares mission patch and the first sample.  Having been a patch collector since 1978, I am excited to have this look like it will work out.  And should be about $6 each when done.

[Ronpur50]

Only 6 days from homecoming, the Ares crew snaps a photo of Earth from the window of their habitat module, Endeavour.  The vehicle will fire it's J-2M engine on the MS-IVB stage to enter Earth orbit.  If this fails, they must board the CSM Discovery and use it's SPS engine to make an emergency re-entry. 

[Ronpur50]

When the J-2M engine works, Ares will enter high orbit one day before splash down.  The crew will then board the CSM Discovery and prepare for de-orbit.  The Ares will remain in orbit and a recovery crew will launch on a Saturn 1B and recover the remaining samples and other experiments not brought down with the crew.  They would also evaluate the ship after it's time in deep space to learn about how it deteriorated.  These lessons would be applied to future spacecraft.*




*this is not part of the book, just speculation for why the ship was left in orbit.

[Ronpur50]

One day before splashdown, Ares returns to Earth orbit.

[Ronpur50]

In high earth orbit, Discovery undocks with all that remains of Ares and prepairs to come home.

[Ronpur50]

A short time later, the capsule is under the chutes and ready for spalshdown!!

[Ronpur50]

The USS Belleau Wood stands by for recovery.

[Ronpur50]

Divers with Discovery, attaching tow cables to bring it into the Wood's dock.  The crew will stay onboard and be helped out once the spacecraft is secure.

All of the splashdown and recovery is total speculation, as it was never seen in the book.  I find it highly unlikely that the Mission Module would continue to perform flawlessly on the return.  I am sure some emergency may have happened, power failure, life support failures or whatever.

The parachutes are from Orion as is the recovery techniques. 

This is the final image I have done for Voyage, so far.  My patches arrive next week! 

[Ronpur50]

Here is a little story I wrote about the recovery:

November 6, 1986: Pacific Ocean

   The ocean waves slapped up against the outside of Discovery.  Seawater sometimes splashed the window in spacecraft.  The small capsule rocked in the sea as Natalie York looked out her window at blue sky for the first time in over 20 months.  She tried to lift her head to look out the window directly, but she felt like an elephant was sitting on it.  No, make that three elephants.  The force of Earth's gravity was back, and she was feeling it now.  After so much time in weightlessness in the Mission Module, it was hoped that the rigorous exercising the crew did would help them recover faster.  It was a bit easier to recover when they reached Mars, but her muscles still ached after her first Mars walk.  By the end of the 24 days on the surface, she felt like she was born on Mars, and never wanted to leave. Actually, she had, in a way, always felt like she belonged on Mars. Her now world famous “I'm Home” quote was truer than most people believed.
   “You OK, Nat?” Gershon asked her.
   What a question.  How could she answer that.  Their mission was a huge success, she had walked on Mars, fulfilled the dream of her life and now returned to what would surely be a heroes welcome at the age of 38.  A major power failure on the return journey had caused major concerns for the crew.  Two of the Ares's solar panels failed, forcing the crew to curtail power usage.  Experiments on the Martian samples stopped and no more hot showers. They were forced to open panels to re-wire the spacecraft in flight, and were able to make sure they would have enough power to fire the J-2M engine and enter Earth orbit.  They avoided a direct re-entry that would have required them to leave many of their hard earned samples behind.  Now, all of the samples from Mars would be retrieved by another crew launching on a Saturn 1B. 
   After all of this, the question arose in her mind “Now what?'' and it scared her.
   
   York's train of thought was interrupted by a thumping on the hatch.  An US Navy frogman had dropped from a SH-60 Seahawk helicopter and was knocking on their hatch to see if they were alright.  The first human being they had seen since they left Earth 20 months earlier.
   Phil Stone manage to lift an arm and give him a thumbs up.
   “We're home, guys.  Welcome to Earth.” he said. 
   
   They heard a few more thumps on the outside of their capsule.   Frogmen were climbing it, attaching tow cables to the top and a flotation collar around the base.  The cable was from the US Navy amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood.  They would be towed inside the ship, where they could be isolated and removed on stretchers, since their bodies would be too weak to walk out on their own.
   But before that began, the hatch opened briefly and a package containing 3 Biological Isolation Garments were tossed inside.  They would have to manage to get out of their flight-suits and into the garments before their spacecraft could be opened and they disembarked.  Not an easy task inside the bobbing ship, that was rapidly rising in temperature.
   Unstrapping from her seat, York dropped down to the bottom on the capsule and began removing her flight coveralls.  They had not worn their heavy space suits for splashdown, which made this task much simpler.  The plan was for her to change first while the guys waited above, then they would switch, a needless attempt to maintain her privacy.  She had long ago given up that in the almost two year flight. 
   By the time all three had managed to get into their BIGs, the tow cables had been attached to Discovery and the Navy personnel on board the Wood had begun to pull them into the landing dock.  Gravity was not kind to them.  The change of garments had worn them out.  The three of them collapsed onto their couches and the rocking of the spacecraft in the waves did not agree with Natalie's inner ears.  She felt the nausea creeping up and removed her mask and grabbed a plain white bag from the storage pouch next to her couch.  She quickly filled it with the contents of her stomach as she retched.
   After she finished, she sealed the bag and dropped it to the floor of the cabin. 
   “I wonder if they will want to analyze that?' she joked. 
   “I think they will have enough stuff to look at, Nat.” Ralph replied, feeling a little green himself. 
   In a few minutes, they felt the capsule bump into the loading ramp of the  Belleau Wood.  Sailors scrambled outside the Discovery, making sure she was sliding onto the rollers that would place her onto the specially designed support frame that would secure her for the return to San Diego.  Once the tiny gumdrop shaped capsule was secure, they heard the crew begin to open the hatch, for the first time since March 1985, Discovery's hatch was about to fully open. 
   Light from the outside streamed into their tiny ship as hatch cracked open, then it swung wide, and they were greeted by the masked face of Joe Muldoon.  He reached in and grabbed each of their gloved hands, shaking them vigorously.
   “Welcome home, Martians!” he exclaimed. “So glad to see you guys again!”
   “Glad to be home.” Phil Stone replied.     
   “You said it, Phil!” Ralph chimed in. “I need a beer!”
   “How 'bout you Nat?  Glad to be home?” Muldoon asked.
   “Yeah, I guess.  Home.....” she sighed as she replied.  For some reason, she felt like she would never feel at home now. 

   

[mike robel]

Nice ending Ron.  Sad to see it end.

[Ronpur50]

To me, it brings home just how long a Voyage to Mars would be.  I have my doubts this would have work.  So many things could have gone wrong, but they did spend years testing systems on Skylab and Moonlab.  And developing upgraded J-2 engines and systems for storing fuel long term.  He never says what they really are.

We know far more today than we did in the 1990s when Baxter wrote this book about long term effects on the crew of zero gravity.  We still haven't figure out how to deal with it very well.  It would not be very helpful to spend a year going to Mars and then the crew can not function.

[Archibald]

I had forgotten that November 6 marked their return date ! Nice stuff, as usual. I always felt that, once the Berlin wall crumbled Natalie would marry Viktorenko (the only person on Earth that could understand how she felt, bar the dead Ben priest)

[Ronpur50]

I had forgotten that November 6 marked their return date ! Nice stuff, as usual. I always felt that, once the Berlin wall crumbled Natalie would marry Viktorenko (the only person on Earth that could understand how she felt, bar the dead Ben priest)

I always saw him as more of a father figure, the older mentor. 

[mike robel]

I wouldn't discount the possibility, but he is as probably old as Muldoon.

[Ronpur50]

He flew on Voskhod 3, so basically Leonov's age.  He would have been born in 1928, and York was born in 1948.  She had some interesting conversations with Bleeker, so, if his wife leaves him after he is grounded, I think York could end up with him.

[mike robel]

Nope.  Not Bleeker. 

[Ronpur50]

Nope.  Not Bleeker. 

I really like Adam Bleeker in the book, he was very intelligent and capable.  You don't get as many flights as he did and be incompetent.  But, he was rather analytical and cold.  So. maybe not York's type.

But in the BBC Audio, he was played as just a bit smarted then Gomer Pyle.