Chapter 12 (Fire Moon 2): The Screwdriver

July 2029, Rocket City, Sa State, Liang Country

Daphne Braun envisioned the human habitat module to be placed in Mariner Canyon on Mars. Michael called it a “capsule.”

“The residents in the capsule aren’t just there for scientific research, right? What engineering tasks are they responsible for?” Daphne asked Michael.

“Their primary mission is to achieve as much self-sufficiency as possible. That means drilling for ice deep at the canyon floor to extract water, producing oxygen and hydrogen, solving the issues of drinking water, oxygen, and energy,” Michael replied.

Daphne gazed at the adventurer before her, a hero in her eyes. She guessed that Michael’s capsule project on Mars was not merely a survival experiment, but the foundation of a continually expanding Mars settlement.

She asked, “Your plan will require massive transportation capacity. The Birdhunter V rocket can carry a lot and is reusable, but it’s still far from meeting the material demands of a settlement.”

Indeed, rocket transport wasn’t enough; establishing a launch site on Mars was equally challenging.

“You must have thought of a solution already. I’m curious, did you come up with it with the help of your external brain, VESSEL?”

“Not this time. It was our company’s chief engineer, Dr. James, who designed it.” Michael recalled VESSEL’s answer, shook his head, and laughed. “As for transportation, VESSEL’s answer was simply itself: VESSEL.”

“The key to solving the transport bottleneck in the Mars settlement plan is the word ‘VESSEL’ itself?” Daphne asked in astonishment.

As the owner of Acebay Space Technologies, Michael Max’s ideas often seemed fantastical to most people. Dr. James, the chief engineer who shared his vision, was even more so.

Dr. James proposed building a transfer station in Mars’ synchronous orbit. The transport ships propelled by Birdhunter V would dock with the station in space, rather than shuttling to and from the much more difficult Martian surface.

The transfer station in synchronous orbit would be linked to the Martian surface by carbon fiber tubes and supporting structures, forming a Martian space elevator.

Daphne Braun, a professional astronomer, didn’t know the engineering details, but she was aware that constructing a Martian space elevator would be immensely difficult.

One method was to extend from the Martian equator upward about twenty thousand kilometers; another was to build a massive artificial object at the twenty-thousand-kilometer orbital altitude as a stabilizer. Both were obviously extremely challenging.

“If you build upward from the Martian surface, you have to transport materials to Mars, which brings you back to the original problem. Clearly not feasible,” Daphne continued, as if solving a riddle. “Constructing a sufficiently large and stable artificial object at twenty thousand kilometers above Mars is impossible, too!”

Michael smiled mysteriously and said to Daphne,

“Building a stabilizer weighing hundreds or thousands of tons is indeed impossible. But our brilliant Dr. James uses a ready-made stabilizer—Phobos, Mars’ own moon.”

“Phobos, the Martian moon!” Daphne exclaimed.

Mars has two moons, both with nearly zero eccentricity, meaning they orbit Mars in almost perfect circles. Their orbital inclinations are also nearly zero, so they circle closely along Mars’ equatorial plane. Phobos happens to be directly above the ideal theoretical location for building a Martian space elevator.

Phobos has a semi-major axis of about 23,000 kilometers. It completes an orbit around Mars every 30.3 hours; Mars’ rotation period is 24 hours and 37 minutes, so Phobos is just above Mars’ synchronous orbit.

Transport vessels would dock with Phobos, “floating” above Mars, a technical challenge far less daunting than landing on and returning from the Martian surface. Transportation costs would drop dramatically.

Daphne, sharp and professional, immediately pointed out a problem, “Phobos’ orbital speed is less than the rotational speed of Mars’ surface. Even if Phobos dropped a space elevator toward Mars, it couldn’t achieve stable connection with the Martian surface because of the velocity difference.”

Dr. James had anticipated Daphne’s question. The space elevator dropped from Phobos would be nearly twenty thousand kilometers long. The end closest to Mars’ surface could be weighted, but it couldn’t connect directly to a fixed base on the surface, because of the velocity difference.

The rotational speed of Mars’ surface near the equator is about 240 meters per second, while the tip of the space elevator pointing toward Mars moves at 200 meters per second—a difference of 40 meters per second, from east to west.

Michael gently took Daphne’s hand and prompted, “Are you assuming the base connecting the elevator on Mars is fixed?”

Daphne Braun suddenly understood. If the docking base moved rapidly east to west on the Martian surface—in other words, if the base constantly retrograded east to west relative to Mars’ rotation—at exactly 40 meters per second, it could achieve a stable connection with the elevator.

“Forty meters per second is 144 kilometers per hour. Are you planning to make the docking base a 144-kilometer-per-hour electric car? Surely a Nikola, right? Ha ha.”

Even after guessing the answer, Daphne could hardly believe Dr. James had devised such a bold and ingenious solution. Regaining her composure, she thought of another issue and asked,

“Mars’ atmosphere is thin, sandstorms are not only intense but last a long time. Even if the base is built on a car, it will be hard to withstand such harsh weather.”

Michael told Daphne that Dr. James’ plan considered all these factors. One benefit of not rigidly connecting the space elevator to the ground base is that, during sandstorms, the elevator structure can be shortened and the tip kept away from the Martian surface.

The high-speed moving platform needs a “rail,” an actual track. Circumnavigating Mars with a rail is unnecessary and prohibitively expensive.

Mars’ equator is about 21,000 kilometers in circumference. Dr. James’ plan calls for a rail less than 4,000 kilometers long, allowing the elevator to dock with Mars one day every seven on calm days.

Daphne Braun, an expert among experts, immediately grasped Dr. James’ careful intent. She exclaimed,

“Less than 4,000 kilometers? You plan to lay the platform’s track within Mariner Canyon, at a small angle to the Martian equator, to better shield against Martian storms?”

Michael Max stood up and poured two cups of coffee for them both. He gazed at his brilliant and beautiful girlfriend, hesitating.

A few months earlier, he had studied Nikola Tesla’s superwave theory and signed a confidentiality agreement. He could not reveal his true plan to anyone, not even his beloved.

Michael knew that even with the clever space elevator, Mars could not be transformed into a second Earth suitable for human habitation. To achieve that, superwave power stations must be built on Mars; the space elevator was only a supporting project.

The greatest challenge facing Michael Max was the construction of an 180,000-kilometer-high structure on Mars, using materials sourced from Mars itself—transportation was not an option.

These materials would, naturally, need to be extracted from the Martian soil. But with current technology, human sampling depth of Martian surface soil was a mere ten centimeters.

There was also a purely engineering problem: even if standard support components for the power station structure could be manufactured on Mars, they must be joined with precise, reliable connectors—in other words, screws and screwdrivers.

Daphne broke the brief silence and suddenly asked, “How do you plan to connect the standard components of the space elevator?”

Michael made a peculiar face and answered, “My external brain gave me the answer, didn’t it? Use VESSEL.”

Daphne was puzzled. “VESSEL? The literal meaning is container, ship, or vessel—all irrelevant. Of course, the building where we had our first date was also called VESSEL. Ladder to the sky? Does it mean ‘ladder to the sky’?”

“Perhaps it means ladder to the sky, though not entirely. Maybe it’s also related to my other company, the supplier for Nikola electric vehicles.”

Daphne was completely confused, staring at Michael in bewilderment.

Michael explained, “Nikola electric vehicles require all kinds of screwdrivers in their manufacturing process. Our supplier is a renowned manufacturer of screwdrivers and pneumatic equipment.”

The screwdriver manufacturer Michael Max referred to was a famous company from Fusho Country. Their product trademark was:

VESSEL.

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Poetic lines from a stamp collection:

Stacked like jade, coldly shining—Ming Dynasty, Li Se
Still remembering the rainbow swirling with electric auspice—Qing Dynasty, Chen Tingjing
Wind tunnels and star rocks, surely reachable—Ming Dynasty, Gu Lin
Wheels busy all day, ceaseless coming and going—Song Dynasty, Liu Zai