The ‘write stuff’ for Mars: Before they come
2016-10-07
NASA is pioneering space—specifically, a journey to Mars. Last year, NASA@work challenged the creative writers at NASA to visualize a reality where we have truly become Earth Independent, starting with the first human missions to Mars.
Nearly 50 writers answered the call, and three fiction stories were chosen as the winners of that challenge.
Immerse yourself in their short stories about what might happen when humans first travel to the Red Planet. This post is the first of the three stories.
Interested in more about NASA@work? NASA@work is an agencywide, collaborative problem-solving platform that connects the collective knowledge of experts (like YOU) from all centers across NASA. Challenge owners post problems, and members of the NASA@work community participate by responding with their solutions to posted problems. Anyone can participate! Visit https://nasa.innocentive.com for more information.
If you haven’t already, be sure to read the fall Roundup, which features JSC’s distinct roles in the human space exploration roadmap to Mars.
Meet Sharon Goza, author of the first Write Stuff challenge short story.
Title: Integrated Graphics Operations and Analysis Laboratory Manager in the Engineering Directorate
Years at JSC: 30
In her own words: “Over the past 30 years I have been involved in developing software simulations and generating animations and 3-D models of many of NASA’s robotic systems. Working on these, in both realistic and speculative scenarios, inspired me to combine the concepts into one depiction of Mars robotic operations.”
Below is her Mars fiction story.
Before they come
I had just installed the last bolt on the habitat connector when an alarm on the downlinked data sounded. Everything in my virtual Mars environment suddenly turned on end, and I found myself looking at the second section of the habitat from my side. Just as I felt my Active Response Gravity Offload and Orientation Unit start to turn me sideways, I felt the jerk of the emergency stop and heard the voice of our CAPCOM, Ann.
“E-stop initiated, R7 Alpha down. Reposition and obtain visuals. R7 Bravo, move to 50 feet from habitat aft. R7 Charlie, move to 50 feet from habitat fore. R7 Delta, move to assess R7 Alpha. I’ve marked the locations on your maps.”
My R7 unit, which was designated Alpha and nicknamed Rama by the team, was locked down. I could either hang horizontally, for possibly hours while the rest of the team got visuals on their targets and the environment was re-scanned, or I could disconnect myself and become a spectator to the unfolding situation. I decided for the later and switched my virtual Mars off, and the quad display showing visuals from each of our R7’s on.
“R7 Delta in VR position.”
“R7 Bravo in VR position.”
“R7 Charlie in VR position.”
“Roger, command hold.”
Now it was just a matter of waiting until we could assess the situation. Although Earth and Mars were close to being at opposition, we were still 70 plus million miles apart. It took around five minutes for our commands to reach the robots, and five more to receive the visuals and data back. That’s why we operated like we did. Months before we started, all of the equipment had arrived on the surface of Mars. The payloads consisted of inflatable habitats, scientific equipment, life support, semi-autonomous rovers, spare parts, and our four R7 humanoid robotic units. First, the rovers were deployed. They were in charge of scanning the landing site. Their data provided us with a three-dimensional model of the entire area, complete with perfectly matched colors and textures. We’d come a long way from early Mars simulations. Now, once you put on your full field helmet and feedback exo-suit, you were there. You could even feel the cracks in the rocks when you touched them. It took a unique operator to be able to detach themselves from the real world and live in a virtual world like it was reality, without getting sick or disorientated. Training for Mars work was even tougher. Advancements in data communication had made it possible to send a huge amount of data back to Earth, but the speed was still dictated by the distance between Earth and Mars. We had to learn not to react. If you received an alarm, as I had, you just stopped. What you were seeing had happened minutes ago, and any reactive movement was not only wasted energy but might send a command that would do more harm to the robot or the environment.
“Mike, from the looks of R7 Alpha’s visuals, there may have been a seal failure on the aft endcap. R7 Alpha’s trajectory seems to indicate that the force was from the side, rather than the connector,” came Ann’s voice over the com.
“Understood. Hopefully, he’s in one piece and the hab repair will be an easy patch and re-inflate.”
“Definitely. We should know more in four.”
I thought about putting up a countdown window on my visuals and decided against it. It just made the wait longer. In the meantime, I decided to tap into the public affairs comm line and listen. We may not be the first humans on Mars, but the press considered us the first humanoids on Mars, and they loved a good disaster story. With the networks and the press watching over operations from the catwalk in the Building 9 high-bay at Johnson Space Center, it was hard to appear as if nothing was wrong. We didn’t have much to tell them at this point, and the questions I was hearing were getting redundant, so I switched over to engineering.
“Anything you can tell me, Bob?” inquired Ann. By this time, she would have contacted the center director and was probably fishing for something to tell him when he arrived.
“We’ve gone through the fault tree and known risks. A seal is still the prime suspect, but we didn’t expect a seal to break this early in the mission. Thankfully, from the initial scan, the repair container looks perfect, so we don’t anticipate any problems getting the required materials to fix it. It’ll be quite a bit more difficult for the R7’s, though. We’re starting up some simulations now so we can try out a few things.”
Well, that sounded like fun. I doubted they’d try to mock up anything real and use the ground R6 units to test. It would take too long. So, simulation is all we had. That and us. They would work out the basics of the scenario with ideal conditions and virtual models, but we would be the ones that had to adjust to the real thing.
“R7’s in Mars position.”
I turned my attention back to my screen and flipped through the visuals one by one. My R7 unit looked fine, except for a detached arm. R7’s had plug and play limbs that detached automatically if a force over specs was ever applied to them. It might be inconvenient, but it kept the unit from stripping gears and motors. There weren’t any wires either. The sockets had data and power quick connects derived from the old Power Data Grapple Fixtures on the International Space Station. It shouldn’t be a problem to put him back together.
The habitat, however, was a lumpy deflated balloon. At 50 feet from the structure, it was hard to see exactly what failed, but it appeared that engineering’s suppositions might be correct. Hopefully, none of the pre-packaged equipment within the habitat was harmed, and we could re-inflate it once we repaired the rip.
“R7 Alpha, see if you can stand up, R7 Bravo and Charlie, move in toward the connector and take a closer look. We’re deploying the rovers to update the scans as well, but your visuals need to see the details. R7 Delta, go grab a new arm from stores, we’ll pick up the other one later.”
I re-initialized my virtual Mars based on the latest visual scans, and felt myself re-orient into a horizontal position. I didn’t send any commands yet. I wanted to get a feeling of the ground before trying to stand. The R7’s control system had automatic correction intelligence, but if I was too far off even that couldn’t compensate for the error. I practiced rolling to my belly, pushing up on one arm, and standing until I was confident in my movements, and then connected to the uplink and sent the commands for real. Once again, I disconnected while I waited. I needed to make sure the unit was stable and standing before I sent any other commands.
“R7 Bravo and R7 Charlie, we have a good visual on the endcap. Looks to be a failure near the seam about three inches long. Disconnect and take a break while we complete the new scans. R7 Alpha, you’re looking good, data shows a little bit of discrepancy on the locations, but not enough that can’t be compensated for. R7 Delta should have your new arm to you in a few minutes. Once you’re back in one piece, you two can disconnect and join the rest of the team.”
#
I plopped down in the conference chair and took a drink of my coffee. Our break had turned into a full evening off while the engineering team worked out a solution, and the simulation team mocked it up for us to try. Ann opened the latest charts and began.
“Good news, we’ve got a plan. Bad news, it’s something we’ve never done before. But, you guys are up for the challenge.”
Ann pointed out a slit in the side of the structure.
“We’re not exactly sure why the hole went through all the layers of the structure, but we suspect it was almost severed when we set it up, possibly by a part of the descent vehicle. Structures figures the pressure of the inflation finished the job. Interior images don’t show a bulge in the area, so we don’t think it’s something that’s still around. However, we’ve got to repair all the layers if possible, and they’re suggesting we sew them together before applying the patches and sealant.”
I was skeptical and didn’t hesitate to say so. However, Ann ignored me and flipped to the next chart which outlined the procedure.
“First, you’ll patch the exterior as you’ve done many times in the sim. Then comes the hard part. Once the structure is inflated, you’ll enter the hab and begin repairing each layer from the inside. Needless to say, the rover doesn’t fit in the airlock, so you’ll be on your own for environment mapping. It’s going to be tedious, and it’s going to be slow, but if anyone can do it, you four can. Mike, here are the procedures the engineers came up with, I’d like your team’s assessment in an hour. After that, we’ll meet with the engineering and simulation teams, tweak the procedures and the sim, and you get the next three hours to practice. We need to seal the hab soon to avoid as much particle contamination as possible.”
I sighed, knowing that my day just got a lot longer, but I agreed with Ann. If anyone could do this, we could.
Five hours later we were suited up and back controlling our R7’s on Mars. We’d revised the procedures based on our individual skill sets and come up with what we thought was the most feasible. Thankfully our R7’s were the closest thing you could get to a human, and all the tools for the soon-to-arrive astronauts would work for us too. The easiest portion was the external patch. The precursor to our glue had been tested early in the Space Shuttle program. Although they scrapped it then, the advanced version worked great. A new application method, as well as advancements in materials, made it simple. Sewing had also been tested in the early 2000’s. It was difficult with robotic hands, but not impossible.
“CAPCOM, Patch applied.”
“Roger, R7 Delta.”
“R7 Bravo, we’ll initiate inflate sequence in ten minutes after patch confirmed.”
Twenty minutes later, we confirmed we had an inflated habitat. Time for us to enter the habitat, scan the tear from the inside, and get to work. Layer by layer we held, trimmed, folded, sewed, and patched our way to the interior wall. With R7 Bravo, and R7 Charlie holding the seam tight, I was able to use the curved upholstery needle to join the sides of the tear. Once done with the seam, R7 Delta glued a patch over the area. By the time we had worked our way through all 10 layers of various materials, we were pros at the process, and thoroughly exhausted.
#
“Congratulations,” said Ann during our briefing the next day. “The pressure is holding and visuals confirm we’ve got a viable habitat. I’ve got permission to let you all take the day off if you want. The back-up crew will finish out.”
I looked at the rest of my team, and their shaking heads made it unanimous.
“No, thank you. I think we’ll finish this out. Suit up, gang, let’s finish building the first house on Mars!”
End
Nearly 50 writers answered the call, and three fiction stories were chosen as the winners of that challenge.
Immerse yourself in their short stories about what might happen when humans first travel to the Red Planet. This post is the first of the three stories.
Interested in more about NASA@work? NASA@work is an agencywide, collaborative problem-solving platform that connects the collective knowledge of experts (like YOU) from all centers across NASA. Challenge owners post problems, and members of the NASA@work community participate by responding with their solutions to posted problems. Anyone can participate! Visit https://nasa.innocentive.com for more information.
If you haven’t already, be sure to read the fall Roundup, which features JSC’s distinct roles in the human space exploration roadmap to Mars.
Meet Sharon Goza, author of the first Write Stuff challenge short story.
Title: Integrated Graphics Operations and Analysis Laboratory Manager in the Engineering Directorate
Years at JSC: 30
In her own words: “Over the past 30 years I have been involved in developing software simulations and generating animations and 3-D models of many of NASA’s robotic systems. Working on these, in both realistic and speculative scenarios, inspired me to combine the concepts into one depiction of Mars robotic operations.”
Below is her Mars fiction story.
Before they come
I had just installed the last bolt on the habitat connector when an alarm on the downlinked data sounded. Everything in my virtual Mars environment suddenly turned on end, and I found myself looking at the second section of the habitat from my side. Just as I felt my Active Response Gravity Offload and Orientation Unit start to turn me sideways, I felt the jerk of the emergency stop and heard the voice of our CAPCOM, Ann.
“E-stop initiated, R7 Alpha down. Reposition and obtain visuals. R7 Bravo, move to 50 feet from habitat aft. R7 Charlie, move to 50 feet from habitat fore. R7 Delta, move to assess R7 Alpha. I’ve marked the locations on your maps.”
My R7 unit, which was designated Alpha and nicknamed Rama by the team, was locked down. I could either hang horizontally, for possibly hours while the rest of the team got visuals on their targets and the environment was re-scanned, or I could disconnect myself and become a spectator to the unfolding situation. I decided for the later and switched my virtual Mars off, and the quad display showing visuals from each of our R7’s on.
“R7 Delta in VR position.”
“R7 Bravo in VR position.”
“R7 Charlie in VR position.”
“Roger, command hold.”
Now it was just a matter of waiting until we could assess the situation. Although Earth and Mars were close to being at opposition, we were still 70 plus million miles apart. It took around five minutes for our commands to reach the robots, and five more to receive the visuals and data back. That’s why we operated like we did. Months before we started, all of the equipment had arrived on the surface of Mars. The payloads consisted of inflatable habitats, scientific equipment, life support, semi-autonomous rovers, spare parts, and our four R7 humanoid robotic units. First, the rovers were deployed. They were in charge of scanning the landing site. Their data provided us with a three-dimensional model of the entire area, complete with perfectly matched colors and textures. We’d come a long way from early Mars simulations. Now, once you put on your full field helmet and feedback exo-suit, you were there. You could even feel the cracks in the rocks when you touched them. It took a unique operator to be able to detach themselves from the real world and live in a virtual world like it was reality, without getting sick or disorientated. Training for Mars work was even tougher. Advancements in data communication had made it possible to send a huge amount of data back to Earth, but the speed was still dictated by the distance between Earth and Mars. We had to learn not to react. If you received an alarm, as I had, you just stopped. What you were seeing had happened minutes ago, and any reactive movement was not only wasted energy but might send a command that would do more harm to the robot or the environment.
“Mike, from the looks of R7 Alpha’s visuals, there may have been a seal failure on the aft endcap. R7 Alpha’s trajectory seems to indicate that the force was from the side, rather than the connector,” came Ann’s voice over the com.
“Understood. Hopefully, he’s in one piece and the hab repair will be an easy patch and re-inflate.”
“Definitely. We should know more in four.”
I thought about putting up a countdown window on my visuals and decided against it. It just made the wait longer. In the meantime, I decided to tap into the public affairs comm line and listen. We may not be the first humans on Mars, but the press considered us the first humanoids on Mars, and they loved a good disaster story. With the networks and the press watching over operations from the catwalk in the Building 9 high-bay at Johnson Space Center, it was hard to appear as if nothing was wrong. We didn’t have much to tell them at this point, and the questions I was hearing were getting redundant, so I switched over to engineering.
“Anything you can tell me, Bob?” inquired Ann. By this time, she would have contacted the center director and was probably fishing for something to tell him when he arrived.
“We’ve gone through the fault tree and known risks. A seal is still the prime suspect, but we didn’t expect a seal to break this early in the mission. Thankfully, from the initial scan, the repair container looks perfect, so we don’t anticipate any problems getting the required materials to fix it. It’ll be quite a bit more difficult for the R7’s, though. We’re starting up some simulations now so we can try out a few things.”
Well, that sounded like fun. I doubted they’d try to mock up anything real and use the ground R6 units to test. It would take too long. So, simulation is all we had. That and us. They would work out the basics of the scenario with ideal conditions and virtual models, but we would be the ones that had to adjust to the real thing.
“R7’s in Mars position.”
I turned my attention back to my screen and flipped through the visuals one by one. My R7 unit looked fine, except for a detached arm. R7’s had plug and play limbs that detached automatically if a force over specs was ever applied to them. It might be inconvenient, but it kept the unit from stripping gears and motors. There weren’t any wires either. The sockets had data and power quick connects derived from the old Power Data Grapple Fixtures on the International Space Station. It shouldn’t be a problem to put him back together.
The habitat, however, was a lumpy deflated balloon. At 50 feet from the structure, it was hard to see exactly what failed, but it appeared that engineering’s suppositions might be correct. Hopefully, none of the pre-packaged equipment within the habitat was harmed, and we could re-inflate it once we repaired the rip.
“R7 Alpha, see if you can stand up, R7 Bravo and Charlie, move in toward the connector and take a closer look. We’re deploying the rovers to update the scans as well, but your visuals need to see the details. R7 Delta, go grab a new arm from stores, we’ll pick up the other one later.”
I re-initialized my virtual Mars based on the latest visual scans, and felt myself re-orient into a horizontal position. I didn’t send any commands yet. I wanted to get a feeling of the ground before trying to stand. The R7’s control system had automatic correction intelligence, but if I was too far off even that couldn’t compensate for the error. I practiced rolling to my belly, pushing up on one arm, and standing until I was confident in my movements, and then connected to the uplink and sent the commands for real. Once again, I disconnected while I waited. I needed to make sure the unit was stable and standing before I sent any other commands.
“R7 Bravo and R7 Charlie, we have a good visual on the endcap. Looks to be a failure near the seam about three inches long. Disconnect and take a break while we complete the new scans. R7 Alpha, you’re looking good, data shows a little bit of discrepancy on the locations, but not enough that can’t be compensated for. R7 Delta should have your new arm to you in a few minutes. Once you’re back in one piece, you two can disconnect and join the rest of the team.”
#
I plopped down in the conference chair and took a drink of my coffee. Our break had turned into a full evening off while the engineering team worked out a solution, and the simulation team mocked it up for us to try. Ann opened the latest charts and began.
“Good news, we’ve got a plan. Bad news, it’s something we’ve never done before. But, you guys are up for the challenge.”
Ann pointed out a slit in the side of the structure.
“We’re not exactly sure why the hole went through all the layers of the structure, but we suspect it was almost severed when we set it up, possibly by a part of the descent vehicle. Structures figures the pressure of the inflation finished the job. Interior images don’t show a bulge in the area, so we don’t think it’s something that’s still around. However, we’ve got to repair all the layers if possible, and they’re suggesting we sew them together before applying the patches and sealant.”
I was skeptical and didn’t hesitate to say so. However, Ann ignored me and flipped to the next chart which outlined the procedure.
“First, you’ll patch the exterior as you’ve done many times in the sim. Then comes the hard part. Once the structure is inflated, you’ll enter the hab and begin repairing each layer from the inside. Needless to say, the rover doesn’t fit in the airlock, so you’ll be on your own for environment mapping. It’s going to be tedious, and it’s going to be slow, but if anyone can do it, you four can. Mike, here are the procedures the engineers came up with, I’d like your team’s assessment in an hour. After that, we’ll meet with the engineering and simulation teams, tweak the procedures and the sim, and you get the next three hours to practice. We need to seal the hab soon to avoid as much particle contamination as possible.”
I sighed, knowing that my day just got a lot longer, but I agreed with Ann. If anyone could do this, we could.
Five hours later we were suited up and back controlling our R7’s on Mars. We’d revised the procedures based on our individual skill sets and come up with what we thought was the most feasible. Thankfully our R7’s were the closest thing you could get to a human, and all the tools for the soon-to-arrive astronauts would work for us too. The easiest portion was the external patch. The precursor to our glue had been tested early in the Space Shuttle program. Although they scrapped it then, the advanced version worked great. A new application method, as well as advancements in materials, made it simple. Sewing had also been tested in the early 2000’s. It was difficult with robotic hands, but not impossible.
“CAPCOM, Patch applied.”
“Roger, R7 Delta.”
“R7 Bravo, we’ll initiate inflate sequence in ten minutes after patch confirmed.”
Twenty minutes later, we confirmed we had an inflated habitat. Time for us to enter the habitat, scan the tear from the inside, and get to work. Layer by layer we held, trimmed, folded, sewed, and patched our way to the interior wall. With R7 Bravo, and R7 Charlie holding the seam tight, I was able to use the curved upholstery needle to join the sides of the tear. Once done with the seam, R7 Delta glued a patch over the area. By the time we had worked our way through all 10 layers of various materials, we were pros at the process, and thoroughly exhausted.
#
“Congratulations,” said Ann during our briefing the next day. “The pressure is holding and visuals confirm we’ve got a viable habitat. I’ve got permission to let you all take the day off if you want. The back-up crew will finish out.”
I looked at the rest of my team, and their shaking heads made it unanimous.
“No, thank you. I think we’ll finish this out. Suit up, gang, let’s finish building the first house on Mars!”
End
Sharon Goza, Integrated Graphics Operations and Analysis Laboratory manager in the Engineering Directorate. Image courtesy of Sharon Goza.