It’s going through a self-check right now, and I’m feeding it oxygen and nitrogen with hoses from the rover. This is all part of the MAV’s design. It doesn’t bring air along. Why would it? That’s a needless weight when you’ll have a Hab full of air right next door.

I’m guessing folks at NASA are popping champagne right now and sending me lots of messages. I’ll read them in a bit. First things first: Get the MAV some life support. Then I’ll be able to work inside comfortably.

And then I’ll have a boring conversation with NASA. Well, the content may be interesting, but the fourteen-minute transmission time between here and Earth will be a bit dull.

• • •

[13:07] HOUSTON: Congratulations from all of us here at Mission Control! Well done! What’s your status?

[13:21] MAV: Thanks! No health or physical problems. The rover and trailer are getting pretty worn out, but still functional. Oxygenator and regulator both working fine. I didn’t bring the water reclaimer. Just brought the water. Plenty of potatoes left. I’m good to last till 549.

[13:36] HOUSTON: Glad to hear it. Hermes is still on track for a Sol 549 flyby. As you know, the MAV will need to lose some weight to make the intercept. We’re going to get you those procedures within the day. How much water do you have? What did you do with urine?

[13:50] MAV: I have 550 liters of remaining water. I’ve been dumping urine outside along the way.

[14:05] HOUSTON: Preserve all water. Don’t do any more urine dumps. Store it somewhere. Turn the rover’s radio on and leave it on. We can contact it through the MAV.

• • •

BRUCE TRUDGED into Venkat’s office and unceremoniously plopped down in a chair. He dropped his briefcase and let his arms hang limp.

“Have a good flight?” Venkat asked.

“I only have a passing memory of what sleep is,” Bruce said.

“So is it ready?” Venkat asked.

“Yes, it’s ready. But you’re not going to like it.”

“Go on.”

Bruce steeled himself and stood, picking up his briefcase. He pulled a booklet from it. “Bear in mind, this is the end result of thousands of hours of work, testing, and lateral thinking by all the best guys at JPL.”

“I’m sure it was hard to trim down a ship that’s already designed to be as light as possible,” Venkat said.

Bruce slid the booklet across the desk to Venkat. “The problem is the intercept velocity. The MAV is designed to get to low Mars orbit, which only requires 4.1 kps. But the Hermes flyby will be at 5.8 kps.”

Venkat flipped through the pages. “Care to summarize?”

“First, we’re going to add fuel. The MAV makes its own fuel from the Martian atmosphere, but it’s limited by how much hydrogen it has. It brought enough to make 19,397 kilograms of fuel, as it was designed to do. If we can give it more hydrogen, it can make more.”