LOG ENTRY: SOL 435

Last night was weird. I knew logically that nothing bad would happen in just one night, but it was a little unnerving to know I had no life support other than heaters. My life depended on some math I’d done earlier. If I dropped a sign or added two numbers wrong, I might never wake up.

But I did wake up, and the main computer showed the slight rise in CO₂ I had predicted. Looks like I’ll live another sol.

Live Another Sol would be an awesome name for a James Bond movie.

I checked up on the rover. Everything was fine. If I don’t drive it, a single charge of the batteries could keep the regulator going for over a month (with the heater off). It’s a pretty good safety margin to have. If all hell breaks loose on my trip, I’ll have time to fix things. I’ll be limited by oxygen consumption rather than CO₂ removal, and I have plenty of oxygen.

I decided it was a good time to test the bedroom.

I got in the rover and attached the bedroom to the outer airlock door from the inside. Like I mentioned before, this is the only way to do it. Then I turned it loose on an unsuspecting Mars.

As intended, the pressure from the rover blasted the canvas outward and inflated it. After that, chaos. The sudden pressure popped the bedroom like a balloon. It quickly deflated, leaving both itself and the rover devoid of air. I was wearing my EVA suit at the time; I’m not a fucking idiot. So I get to…

Live Another Sol! (Starring Mark Watney as… probably Q. I’m no James Bond.)

I dragged the popped bedroom into the Hab and gave it a good going-over. It failed at the seam where the wall met the ceiling. Makes sense. It’s a right angle in a pressure vessel. Physics hates that sort of thing.

First, I patched it up, then I cut strips of spare canvas to place over the seam. Now it has double-thickness and double sealing resin all around. Maybe that’ll be enough. At this point, I’m kind of guessing. My amazing botany skills aren’t much use for this.

I’ll test it again tomorrow.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 436

I’m out of caffeine pills. No more Martian coffee for me.

So it took a little longer for me to wake up this morning, and I quickly developed a splitting headache. One nice thing about living in a multibillion-dollar mansion on Mars: access to pure oxygen. For some reason, a high concentration of O₂ will kill most headaches. Don’t know why. Don’t care. The important thing is I don’t have to suffer.

I tested out the bedroom again. I suited up in the rover and released the bedroom, same as last time. But this time it held. That’s great, but having seen the fragile nature of my handiwork, I wanted a good long test of the pressure seal.