Red Hope (11 page)

“Can you hear me?” said the shaking image of Chris Tankovitch on an iPad.
It was sitting on a table in the Little Turtle as it raced toward Mars. The
astronauts were gathered around in front of the screen.

“Yah, we can hear you fine. The picture’s kind of
blurry right now though,” responded Adam. He would have to wait another ninety
seconds to get a reply.

“Okay, hang on, we’re making some adjustments,” said
Chris to the iPad. He walked out of frame for a while and then back in frame
holding a Coke. He started tinkering with something near his camera lens and suddenly
he was in sharp focus.

Chris looked into the camera and said, “Okay, this
time delay is going to make this tricky, so I’m going to talk for two minutes
and then you can talk for two minutes.”

Chris reached down to a table and pulled a photograph
out of an envelope.

“Guys, to the left of your upper escape hatch door is
a locked pink cabinet. I’m going to unlock it right now remotely.”

The astronauts could see Chris typing a keycode onto a
console on his desk. They heard an audible clunk coming from the command room
above them. Keller scurried up the ladder and came back down with a big brown
envelope. He opened it and pulled out the stack of photos.

Chris continued with his two minute talk, “You’ve seen
most of these already, but you haven’t seen Photo D. That is the most important
image and it will guide this entire mission. This is the photo I showed the president
last year that caused this entire Mars mission to become a reality. What you’re
looking at is a fossilized hand holding what we believe to be a granite slab
the size of a credit card. On that slab are some symbols. A vertical line
followed by a circle and then another vertical line.”

Keller laughed under his breath and said, “So their
‘LOL’ took two million years to get to us? Okay, I guess
my
cellphone
plan
isn’t
the worst after all.”

Chris didn’t hear Keller due to the time delay so he
continued right along. “At first, we believed these to be a number sequence,
but note that there is a third vertical line inside the circle. And if you look
closer, there is a small horizontal mark to that vertical line inside the zero.
It looks like a tall cross. I’ll give you a minute to soak these in.”

The astronauts stared intently at the photo.

“It’s Calvary,” whispered Adam.

Keller looked confused and asked, “You mean like with
the bugles and the horses?”

 “No, no, no; you’re thinking of the
cavalry
.
I’m talking about
Calvary
. Didn’t you guys ever go to Sunday school?”

They stared blankly at Adam.

Adam didn’t want to trot out his conservative
upbringing, but he decided now was a good time to explain.

“Okay, so there’s a hill outside of Jerusalem where
Jesus was crucified. It’s called
Calvary
. There were two other guys
crucified next to him. One on his left and one on his right. I don’t know what the
circle means on
this
thing, but this symbol, with the three vertical
lines, is very similar to what’s used to represent Calvary nowadays. Normally
it’s just three crosses though. You see it along the side of freeways a lot, ya
know? Three crosses next to each other? These carvings in the granite, though,
are missing the two horizontal bars on the side crosses. It doesn’t make sense.
And anyways, how would Martians from millions of years ago know about
our
religious symbols?”

After a long delay, Chris started up again.

“Adam, I admit that’s what I thought too. I was
convinced I was having a religious moment. However, if you look closely you
will see that all three of the vertical lines are the same length as the
diameter of that circle. The top bar on that tall cross is really short,
roughly fourteen percent of the length of one of the vertical lines.”

“Could it be
Pi
?” asked Yeva. There was a long
silence as the message went to Earth and Chris replied.

“Yes, Yeva, excellent conclusion. We think so,”
admitted Chris. “If you wanted to prove to some future explorer that you were
an advanced culture, then you might present some advanced-thinking information.
Like the Sun is round and then you might tell the future travelers that you’re
familiar with the number Pi. If you know about Pi, then your math system is very
advanced.”

Keller admitted, “Okay, I don’t quite understand. I consider
myself pretty tech savvy, but I slept through geometry class. What is
Pi
again? Why is it important?”

Adam thought for a moment and started with, “Well, no
matter how big a circle is, if you wrap a string around the outside of it once
and then unwind that string into a straight line, the length of it is always
equal to about 3.14 times the width of the circle. It works for
any
circle
of
any
size.”

Keller looked unimpressed, “And?”

Yeva answered, “And it is absolutely crucial for
advanced math. The kind of math that gets you launched off the Earth in rocket
ships. You cannot leave your planet without knowing about the number Pi.”

Keller was suddenly overcome with regret about
sleeping through high school geometry. He blurted out, “Look who was paying
attention in math class!”

There was silence.

Chris piped up, “We believe this granite slab with
symbols was meant as a calling card to say, ‘We know our stuff, pay attention
to us.’  However, we are really interested in what is in the
background
of the picture.”

The astronauts looked closely and could see a pyramid
structure with a circular door on it. It wasn’t very large, but it all seemed
to be made out of granite or smooth rock of some type.

Chris continued, “Once you establish your living
quarters on Mars, we’ll have you take some better photos of the fossils.
However, after that, we’d like you to focus on that pyramid. We want to know
what is behind that door.”

Keller questioned, “So do you think we’re going to
find little green men behind door number one?”

A minute and half later, Chris came back with,
“Probably not. Uh, there is one more thing. A few days after our NSA image
experts analyzed the photos, they found that the round door on the pyramid
structure actually has a symbol carved on it too. It’s right in the middle, so
look closely.”

The astronauts leaned in to see if they could discern
some other image on the black and white photograph. There it was; a drawing of
a square with a line floating underneath of it.

Adam looked perplexed. He asked, “So what does that
mean?”

Chris answered him after a long delay.

“We don’t know. Our guys are stumped. We’ve got a team
of mathematicians trying to decipher it. Whatever it is, I hope it’s wonderful.”

“I guess we’ll find out very soon,” replied Adam.

The Little Turtle was no longer hurtling through the vast emptiness of
space. Right now the only sound onboard was that of the various computer
cooling fans. Two days earlier the MM10 motors had been turned around in an
effort to help slow it down before it eventually used the outer Martian
atmosphere for auxiliary braking purposes.

Each of the four astronauts commandeered one of the porthole
windows and was staring out at the giant red sphere floating in front of them.
After nearly 28 long days they were now in a stable orbit around the Red Planet
and would stay there until the landing sequence was initiated.

For the first time since they left the International
Space Station, they were once again floating inside the cabin. It took some
getting used to. Adam and Keller goofed around with the weightlessness by doing
some body flips. Loud static sounds emanated from the speakers followed by the
sound of talking.

“Little Turtle, this is Mission Control. Do you hear
me?”

The crackly voice was barely intelligible over the
intercom.

Adam broke away from the floating fun and wandered
over to the communications panel. He turned on the microphone.

“We hear you loud and clear. We’ve achieved a stable
orbit around Mars. We plan to start the landing sequence in 30 minutes. Please
advise.”

It would take nearly five minutes for that message to
get to Earth and then just as long for NASA’s reply to reach them with further
instructions. This was very different from the Moon missions where the messages
only took about one second to travel between the astronauts and Mission Control.

Keller was standing in front of the large porthole
window. He said, “I can’t stop staring at it. The giant red orb. It’s just,
big... and red.”

Adam replied, “I know. And just think. We’ll be
walking around on it very soon.”

Keller looked at Adam to say something, but he stopped
and then turned back to stare out the window, afraid he would miss something.

Adam and Yeva floated up to the flight deck. He pulled
out two green three-ring binders and gave one to Yeva. They began to go through
several checklists; if all went well they could consider initiating the descent
process. Once it was started they could not stop. In a very short time, they
would either be on the surface of Mars or
in
the surface of Mars.

Adam had forgotten about Mission Control already when
out of the silence came the long awaited reply from mission control.

“Congratulations crew, everybody is going crazy down
here with tension. All systems look good. Proceed with the landing sequence at
your discretion.”

Adam replied, “Roger that Mission Control. We’ll send
you a message once we land. Over and out.”

The astronauts made their way to their closets and put
on their space suits and helmets. Then they floated back to the flight deck and
strapped themselves into their seats in preparation for landing.

 “Just think, we’re about to land on a planet that is
completely inhabited by robots,” joked Adam to release some tension.

The crew snickered.

Adam was closely watching a display on the computer
screen that showed their approximate position over the surface of Mars. It was
overlaid with some satellite imagery. Once the ship passed over the dormant
volcano named Olympus Mons, he would start the sequence with the flip of a few
switches. This would put them down at right about where the housing unit had
landed and not far from the fossils.

He stared intently at the screen and waited. Over the
horizon came an enormous mountain. It passed under his target site. He lifted
the protected toggle switch cover and pressed two red buttons. The Little
Turtle jerked and a few mechanical clunks were heard. Those were the traditional
rocket engine landing systems arming and filling with fuel. Then the astronauts
felt a slight deceleration as the retro rockets fired off and on for a period
of a few seconds. Then the engines turned off and stayed off.

Adam looked at the others and said, “That’s it. We
slowed down enough for the gravity to pull us in. Once we get low enough, we’ll
fire the landing rockets full blast and navigate our way to the Big Turtle.”

The descent started out very smooth. The atmosphere
was so thin that they did not experience the same type of buffeting that the space
shuttle experiences when returning to Earth. After about 5 minutes, the module
started to creak and moan. Aerodynamic stresses on the structure were causing
the metal bulkheads to oilcan, making popping sounds. Adam told himself this
was normal.

He whispered, “Please stop the noise, please stop the
noise.”

Molly was monitoring the life support systems and
said, “All support systems are good.”

The astronauts no longer saw the edge of the planet.
It was all red from their view with streaks of dark brown and some black. The
ship was descending into the Martian afternoon haze.

The occasional shake turned into a constant vibration
and the noises were getting louder by the second.

“We’re about 3 kilometers up!” yelled Adam.

The other astronauts looked at each other. The shaking
was getting more violent than they had expected. Adam was staring at the screen
intently; something wasn’t right.

“We’re falling too fast! Our retro rockets won’t be
able to stop us.”

Keller’s eyes were wide open now and his heart was
pounding. He would be the first rich man to die on Mars. He assumed they would
name the impact crater after him.

Adam had a hard time focusing on the computer screen
due to the shaking.

“We’re going too fast! I’m gonna to have to use our
return parachutes!” yelled Adam.

“But those are for the landing back on Earth. If you
use them now, we’ll be doomed!” yelled Yeva over the noisy ship.

“If I don’t, we’ll be dead!” screamed Adam.

He reached up to a panel on the top and grabbed a big
red handle marked Parachute. He yanked down on it. Nothing happened. He tried
again and his hand slid off the handle. He grabbed it again and yanked.
Nothing. Now the ship was bucking violently. He grabbed the handle with both
hands and pulled so hard that he lifted himself against his seatbelt straps.
Three long ropes deployed from the top of the Little Turtle. At the end of the
ropes three enormous parachutes exploded open and filled with the thin Martian
air. The vehicle slowed down so quickly that the astronauts heads slammed
backwards.

The buffeting stopped. The rattle stopped. Keller’s
heart stopped (or so he thought). Adam began breathing again.

They were dangling beneath three giant parachutes, but
nowhere near the surface housing unit.

Adam called out in a breathless voice, “Okay, we’re at
about 400 meters, I’m starting the retro rockets. We’re still hanging from
parachutes, but the rockets are going to do the steering.”

He flipped two red switches on the panel and grabbed
the joystick. His eyes squinted while he tried to watch several charts on the
computer screen and some instruments on the control panel at the same time.
Adam carefully guided the ship as it descended.

Yeva looked out the window and saw the housing unit.

“There’s the Big Turtle! Keep going forward. We’re not
far now,” exclaimed Yeva.

“I see it on the navigation screen.  We’re almost
there,” said Adam.

He was really throttling up the engines now. The
rumble was echoing throughout the interior of Little Turtle. The engines kicked
up the red Martian sand and gravel. A huge cloud of dust was now obscuring the
windows.

“We’re at ten meters. Eight meters. Hang on….. okay,
four meters. Here we go folks.”

Clunk. They were no longer floating. They were on
something very solid. The sound of the parachutes falling onto the top of the
Little Turtle was loud; like ropes falling on the roof of a school bus. Adam
turned off the engines. All was quiet except for the sound of their own
heartbeats.

Adam had never been so relieved. He picked up the
microphone and said, “Mission Control, this is Little Turtle. We’ve landed
safely. I repeat, we have landed safely. No system faults are being reported as
of right now.”

Adam stared at the blinking red light that signified
the parachutes had been used prematurely. No need to explain that part of the
descent to Mission Control  just yet.

The four astronauts felt intense relief. The gravity
of what they’d just accomplished matched the gravity they felt holding them
into their seats. They were all grinning from ear to ear. The crew knew that
even if they went no further, they had just changed human history; they alone
had just advanced our species to another planet.

In ten minutes the astronauts would hear back from Earth.