Then I cut shit up!

I’m not a materials engineer; my design for the bedroom isn’t elegant. It’s just a six-meter perimeter and a ceiling. No, it won’t have right angles and corners (pressure vessels don’t like those). It’ll balloon out to a more round shape.

Anyway, it means I only needed to cut two big-ass strips of canvas. One for the walls and one for the ceiling.

After mangling the Hab, I pulled the remaining canvas down to the flooring and resealed it. Ever set up a camping tent? From the inside? While wearing a suit of armor? It was a pain in the ass.

I repressurized to one-twentieth of an atmosphere to see if it could hold pressure.

Ha ha ha! Of course it couldn’t! Leaks galore. Time to find them.

On Earth, tiny particles get attached to water or wear down to nothing. On Mars, they just hang around. The top layer of sand is like talcum powder. I went outside with a bag and scraped along the surface. I got some normal sand, but plenty of powder, too.

I had the Hab maintain the one-twentieth atmosphere, backfilling as air leaked out. Then I “puffed” the bag to get the smallest particles to float around. They were quickly drawn to where the leaks were. As I found each leak, I spot-sealed it with resin.

It took hours, but I finally got a good seal. I’ll tell ya, the Hab looks pretty “ghetto” now. One whole side of it is lower than the rest. I’ll have to hunch down when I’m over there.

I pressurized to a full atmosphere and waited an hour. No leaks.

It’s been a long, physically taxing day. I’m totally exhausted but I can’t sleep. Every sound scares the shit out of me. Is that the Hab popping? No? Okay.… What was that!? Oh, nothing? Okay.…

It’s a terrible thing to have my life depend on my half-assed handiwork.

Time to get a sleeping pill from the medical supplies.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 389

What the hell is in those sleeping pills!? It’s the middle of the day.

After two cups of Martian coffee, I woke up a little. I won’t be taking another one of those pills. It’s not like I have to go to work in the morning.

Anyway, as you can tell from how not dead I am, the Hab stayed sealed overnight. The seal is solid. Ugly as hell, but solid.

Today’s task was the bedroom.

Assembling the bedroom was way easier than resealing the Hab. Because this time, I didn’t have to wear an EVA suit. I made the whole thing inside the Hab. Why not? It’s just canvas. I can roll it up and take it out an airlock when I’m done.

First, I did some surgery on the remaining pop-tent. I needed to keep the rover–airlock connector and surrounding canvas. The rest of the canvas had to go. Why hack off most of the canvas only to replace it with more canvas? Seams.