From: Thomas Castle
\nSubject: New Year’s news
\nDate: Taurus 12, 0031 12:03
\nTo: Tyler Cody<\/p>\n
(CLT): 10 min 29.57 sec<\/p>\n
Hey Ty. Happy New Year from planet Mars. Congrats on the promotion and new mission assignment. Bran shared the news with all of us, just a few moments ago. Well, I guess that changes my plans\u2026 I was intending to ask you to be my best man when we get home. But, just about the time we’re getting back to the ranch, you’ll be arriving here. What a hoot!!<\/p>\n
Yeah, Sally and I are getting married. I popped the question last night and she said yes. I’m one lucky guy to be able to marry a girl like Sally. After Penny died, I never thought I could love another woman. I don’t have a ring yet, but you should see the pretty little stone I’ve picked out. Ha, ha. Come to think of it, you have seen it. It’s the rock I was holding on day two, when we were sipping Champaign last month. I figure the band will have to fit over her head so she can wear it as a necklace. It’s way too big for a ring. : }<\/p>\n
Everyone up here knows about the upcoming nuptials and they are OK with it. In fact, Brandon helped us set up private quarters in the Mars Ascent Vehicle. As an apartment, it’s a bit cramped, but at least we can have our privacy.<\/p>\n
Of course, all of this isn’t just for us. Sally and I talked about it and decided we could try to keep our relationship a secret, or be open about it. But, we felt any PDA’s (public displays of affection) wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the crew, since none of them are having the same sort of intimacy\u2026 so far as we know, at least. ; }<\/p>\n
Whoa!! Valerie just came down to the lab and told us about a message she just got from Steve. She is wanting to stay on Mars at the end of our tour and Steve is willing to join her. From what I’ve heard, he sure wouldn’t have any trouble passing the physical. If he’s allowed to make the trip, one-way, and she stays here, that’ll set a precedent for colonization that we didn’t think would happen for another 50 years. On the other hand, with all of these diamonds to be mined and setting up livable space for future colonists, I can see how the Sponsors might be anxious to start touting the merits of immigration. They’re gonna be needing some slave-laborers. Can you imagine? Huh!!<\/p>\n
TTYL, Tom<\/p>\n
< \u2261 \u2642 \u2261 ><\/p>\n
From: Jackie Miller
\nSubject: Happy New Year to You
\nDate: Taurus 12, 0031 12:12
\nTo: Michael Miller<\/p>\n
(CLT): 10 min 29.61 sec<\/p>\n
Happy New Year, Hon<\/p>\n
Looks like it’s time to play catch up with you, since I’ve been away from my email for the past four days. Valerie, Brandon, and I just returned from FP2. Because we had landed so close to FP1 and we had the FP2 following us to Mars, we were able to direct it to land elsewhere. And elsewhere turned out to be almost 400 klicks away to the north-northwest, a place called Hibes Montes. It is a much steeper terrain with mountain peaks and really deep valleys. Definitely not a day trip. With the terrain being so rough and the pressurized rover topping out at about 30 km\/h on flat ground, the trip took about a day and a half each way, just for driving.<\/p>\n
You may remember, part of the backup plan was to have it launch two weeks after we left. That was just in case we missed the landing site by a distance of 500 klicks or more. (You know, the way we talk is funny isn’t it? Why do I type klicks instead of km? One is shorter to say, the other to type. But it feels like I’m talking to you. It’s kind of like the way people say vee-double-you instead of Volkswagen. VW is shorter when written, but has more syllables than Volkswagen when spoken.) But, I digress from my catching up.<\/p>\n
While we had to remain in orbit for two weeks waiting for the dust storm to settle, FP2 caught up and was in orbit before we landed. Since we hit right on the mark and were in control of the FP2, we could land it wherever we wanted. With 1000 km roundtrip range, we picked a spot we could drive to, check it out, and drive back on a single tank of fuel. Although, to play it safe we tapped FP2 for several kilos of fuel before we headed back to Bolo One.<\/p>\n
The fuel processor is working perfectly and will have made 14 tons of methane and 28 tons of oxygen by the time the next crew arrives. Once they do, they will still need another several tons of oxygen for the proper fuel ratio (3.2 parts O2 to 1 part CH4). But, there’s no rush as they will be here for a year and a half and have plenty of time to make oxygen.<\/p>\n
On the way over to FP2, we passed several rather unusual looking rock formations and set out flags so that the geologists can inspect them later. They may turn out to be nothing special, but they sure looked interesting to us.<\/p>\n
Ok, let’s see, what else has been happening? Oh, big news flash!! Tom and Sally are engaged! Do you recall how Tom’s wife died and Sally’s husband divorced her by way of an email? We’ve suspected for some time now that Tom and Sally were getting sweet on one another. About two weeks ago they let us all know they were a couple, but the engagement was announced last night. Isn’t that exciting!?!? I’ve always thought New Year’s Eve was a magical time, with many a special happening at the stroke of midnight.<\/p>\n
Also, Valerie just shared the email message her husband sent. A while back she wistfully mentioned wanting to stay on Mars, if only Steve could join her. Well, come to find out he’s all for it! How about them apples! Yeah, he’s ready to pack up and immigrate to Mars. Val said if she does stay here, we’d be able to transport the equivalent of her weight in diamonds back to Earth, in fact, we’d just about have to since the fuel in the spacecraft is calculated based on a certain amount of mass. If she stays here and we DON’T haul diamonds, we’ll have to haul rocks, just so the weight is right. The Sponsors would go for that, for sure. No doubt in my mind. ;~}<\/p>\n
Oh well, I’ve got to go and work on a few reports before dinner. I’ll write more a little later this evening.<\/p>\n
Love ya and miss ya, Jackie<\/p>\n
< \u2261 \u2642 \u2261 ><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From: Thomas Castle Subject: New Year’s news Date: Taurus 12, 0031 12:03 To: Tyler Cody (CLT): 10 min 29.57 sec Hey Ty. Happy New Year from planet Mars. Congrats on the promotion and new mission assignment. Bran shared the news with all of us, just a few moments ago. Well, I guess that changes my plans\u2026 I was intending to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}