The greatest conflict centered on the role of the Martians within the Trikon Station community. “Purists” contended that the Mars facility should be a self-sufficient module and the Martians completely segregated from the other people on the station. “Realists” believed that total separation was logistically impossible. Besides, they argued, interaction with outsiders would not invalidate the results because the actual Martian travelers would be able to communicate with Earth, albeit electronically.
The philosophical argument raged for months, and in the end both sides won—and lost. The Martians were divided into two groups of six persons each. One group was allowed to interact with the general station population. They slept in the habitation modules, ate their meals in the wardroom, and spent their leisure time in the exercise and recreation area. The other group never left the Mars module and were shielded from any visitors. In the first six months of the project, no serious differences between the two groups had emerged.
The Mars module was a shuttle external propellant tank adapted for scientific use by a technique known as the “wet workshop.” Unlike the station’s lab and hab modules, which had been completely outfitted on the ground and transported to the station on heavy-lift boosters, only the major structural elements of the eventual Mars module—flooring, workstation wells, bulkheads, internal tunnel—were built into the tank’s two internal sections. The tank was then filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen; these powered the Constellation’s engines as the shuttle flew into orbit. Since safety considerations required the shuttle engines to shut down before the fuel was completely expended, small amounts of these propellants remained floating weightlessly inside the tank after it achieved orbit.
The liquid hydrogen was removed by a clever pumping device conceived by a former Apollo astronaut working for Trikon as a consultant. The liquid oxygen was simply heated by sunlight until it turned into its gaseous, breathable state.
On subsequent shuttle flights, teams of mission specialists brought up the office facilities, compartments, galleys, and workstation equipment; they installed them in the larger of the ET’s two sections, the huge volume that had contained liquid hydrogen fuel. The former liquid oxygen volume, located at the tapered front end of the tank, was converted into an observation blister. The ET was then attached to the trailing edge of Trikon Station’s skeleton, its own internal tunnel an extension of the connecting tunnel that ran the length of the station’s main horizontal truss.
The Martians themselves were payload specialists from several different scientific disciplines. Their workdays were devoted to Mars-related experiments. A meteorologist studied Martian weather patterns using data gathered by satellites orbiting the red planet. Two biochemists searched for signs of life in soil returned from Mars in the US-USSR robot probes landed on the Martian surface a few years earlier. A geologist examined rocks for clues to Mars’s distant past. All the while, the participants were tested, probed, and analyzed by physicians and psychologists on the ground.
Kurt Jaeckle was the leader of the Mars Project. An internationally renowned astronomer on permanent leave from a professorship at Johns Hopkins University, he had defeated an equally famous French exobiologist in the contest for project leader. Then, through shrewd negotiating, he had arranged for the Mars module to be attached to the privately owned Trikon Station rather than to Freedom, the United States’ space station. The main reason for the switch was that Jaeckle had secretly cooked up a live-television contract with TBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Company.
Jaeckle swam down the Mars module’s internal tunnel, heading for his own office. The tunnel had been a hasty design addition, its purpose to provide all station personnel with direct access to the module’s elaborate observation blister without chance encounters with the segregated Martians. The tunnel was two meters in diameter, its flat gray walls a dim contrast to the brighter Trikon connecting tunnel. Several doors along its length opened into the module’s working and living areas.
Jaeckle entered through the first access door and directed himself across the spacious open expanse of the module’s laboratory section toward his office, located in the fore starboard corner. All of the Martians were busily at work and only one, Russell Cramer, noticed Jaeckle’s entry. Cramer stared at Jaeckle from his workstation five meters away. His jowly face was expressionless, but seemed to demand an acknowledgment. Jaeckle obliged with a wave. Cramer, without responding, returned his attention to his microscope.