It was surprisingly annoying to find a way to make the heat stay on when the rover’s unoccupied. But I figured it out. After all, I’ve got nothing but time in here.

So that’s the plan. First, bag the potato plants and bring them to the rover (make sure it keeps the damn heater on). Then drop the Hab temperature to 1°C. Then reduce the O₂ content to 1 percent. Then burn off the hydrogen with a battery, some wires, and a tank of O₂.

Yeah. This all sounds like a great idea with no chance of catastrophic failure.

That was sarcasm, by the way.

Well, off I go.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 40

Things weren’t 100 percent successful.

They say no plan survives first contact with implementation. I’d have to agree. Here’s what happened:

I summoned up the courage to return to the Hab. Once I got there, I felt a little more confident. Everything was how I’d left it. (What did I expect? Martians looting my stuff?)

It would take a while to let the Hab cool, so I started that right away by turning the temperature down to 1°C.

I bagged the potato plants, and got a chance to check up on them while I was at it. They’re rooting nicely and about to sprout. One thing I hadn’t accounted for was how to bring them from the Hab to the rovers.

The answer was pretty easy. I put all of them in Martinez’s space suit. Then I dragged it out with me to the rover I’d set up as a temporary nursery.

Making sure to jimmy the heater to stay on, I headed back to the Hab.

By the time I got back, it was already chilly. Down to 5°C already. Shivering and watching my breath condense in front of me, I threw on extra layers of clothes. Fortunately I’m not a very big man. Martinez’s clothes fit over mine, and Vogel’s fit over Martinez’s. These shitty clothes were designed to be worn in a temperature-controlled environment. Even with three layers, I was still cold. I climbed into my bunk and under the covers for more warmth.

Once the temperature got to 1°C, I waited another hour, just to make sure the bacteria in the dirt got the memo that it was time to take it slow.

The next problem I ran into was the regulator. Despite my swaggering confidence, I wasn’t able to outwit it. It really does not want to pull too much O₂ out of the air. The lowest I could get it to was 15 percent. After that, it flatly refused to go lower, and nothing I did mattered. I had all these plans about getting in and reprogramming it. But the safety protocols turned out to be in ROMs.

I can’t blame it. Its whole purpose is to prevent the atmosphere from becoming lethal. Nobody at NASA thought, “Hey, let’s allow a fatal lack of oxygen that will make everyone drop dead!”