Prologue
The 21st Century had experienced a rapid rise in both humanities access to education and health outcomes. This was basic stuff, but these gains had huge repercussions. Humans lived longer and wanted more but the Earth had given beyond its means. Humankind had been forced into a reckoning, a fight or flight for global health and a sustainable future. Amid these tensions, civilisation looked to the stars. Out there were the resources required to replenish the planet and to acquire the energy needed to see that through. Mars, being the closest Earth-like planet, became the New Frontier of dream catchers who were willing to risk it all in the search of life sustaining resources.
With renewed commitment from global government’s and industry, space agencies from every continent on Earth worked feverishly to travel to Mars, and a steady stream of satellites seeking data, rovers pursuing evidence and expeditions seeking a stake in this new world were deployed. The stakes were high, even though no country gave away their political or economic ambitions of exploring and exploiting Mars; it was hard not to miss the space race of the 21st Century.
Amongst this noise a whimper was heard in 2006 from a rocky outcrop in Antarctica. A small team of NASA Meteorologists discovered sample ALH84001, a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite, a piece of Martian rock reasoned to have crystallised from a Martian volcanic eruption. It was an eruption so powerful, that it had spewed igneous rock to Earth. The sample was widely believed to hold micro-organisms, evidence of life indigenous to the red planet. The veracity of the claim was scrutinised by every scientist who cared about astronomy, biology, chemistry, and astrophysics – of which there were many. Was this the real deal? Did life exist on Mars? The discovery on that Antarctic shelf began an enduring scientific debate that turned wonder into scepticism and took ALH84001 off its pedestal. Eventually, the rock sample was placed in a glass box in an undisclosed NASA laboratory in the United States. Out of sight, out of mind – perhaps.
But It is here that our story really begins.
What was not shared by that NASA Meteorology Team, and by the United States Government, was that there was another sample, found in the same rock alcove, less than thirty feet from ALH84001. This meteor did not evidence fossilised signs of life, but it did contain a crystal. The crystal was unique, with no properties like any geological specimen or mineral found on Earth. However, it did have a remarkable property – it produced abundant energy without any external environmental additive or geothermal activity. It was the Holy Grail of energy generation as it could be tapped to produce energy and staggering amounts of it for a resource hungry world.
This rock specimen had a similar composition to the other Mars specimen, so it was deduced that it too came from the Red Planet. The alien geological sample was named, ALH84001 (b). The b specimen was concealed from the wider scientific community and the media. It was quietly brought back, with its more famous sister rock, to the United States for further study. The b sample was much more inspiring and beautiful than its ALH84001 sibling but way too valuable for a resource hungry world to have knowledge of – yet. Nations had fought wars for less. Its secret was kept in-house at NASA and together, with assistance from mutual Government Agencies, further analysis of the b specimen was undertaken. Whilst this was a eureka moment in the great energy rush of the 21st Century, science would have to sit on it until technology and NASA could catch up. Firstly, the place from which ALH84001 (b) came from on Mars needed to be located before an expedition could be launched.
Years passed, other nations and private space agencies launched expeditions to Mars but still NASA held their ace up their sleeve, their ALH84001 (b) card, while they searched and surveyed Mars, waiting for their moment.
On a June evening in 2028, at 0254 hours Pacific Standard Time, a tired scientist named Dasha, of the USGS (United States Geological Survey) was eating corn chips in the limelight of her three laptops at the Space Science Center, Menlo Park in California. She had sat there for several years often alone, just as her predecessor had done, secretly tasked to find the origins of ALH84001(b). Night after night, year after year, Dasha set prescribed coordinates to sectors of the red planet with similar geological compositions to the sample, there were thousands of these. Night after night Dasha manipulated her computer mouse which pivoted the camera and sensors on the MGS (Mars Global Surveyor), a satellite platform that was able to take up to 300 high resolution pictures a day, searching for the elusive lodestone. The MGS had been orbiting Mars, sending back geological data since 1999 with Dasha ghosting the transmissions in more recent years.
Her computer began to ping. It had never pinged.
Dasha recognised the ping from the satellite and sat upright fumbling for her keypad and mouse. She began to sequence out a reference. Her computer screens lit up her face whilst the data she was looking at lit up her mind. Seeking confirmation, she directed the MGS to take a secondary geological scan of that ping reference point and waited.
It takes time for information to transmit to a satellite in Mars’s orbit and more time for that data to return to Earth. She continued waiting, anxiously pacing up and down the room, nervously she patted her leg and chewed on her pen. Dasha’s heart rate was pumping, really pumping.
"C’mon, C’mon...."
The computer lit up; a signal was coming through.
Ping. Confirmation!
It was the sweetest sound for Dasha after so many years of unsuccessful searching.
Dasha's mind was spinning as she fumbled about trying to find her phone. She eventually found it under some nondescript papers on the edge of her desk. Dasha contacted her superior relaying the coordinates that she had received from the MGS. By 0600 NASA was in overdrive focusing its attention on the Martian sector labelled, Echo Charlie 0-2-8-1-7-3.1. Computer imagery was able to focus down on that ping, a location comprising, three square feet of the Martian surface. In NASA those whose focus was on Mars, their excitement was palpable, as it was confirmed that the geological composition of Dasha’s find was the same as the ALH84001(b) sample found on that Antarctic Ice shelf.
Like ancient times when Yahweh had told Moses to climb the mountain to find a rock and liberate his people this rock was calling for some gifted humans to go to Mars to do likewise. It turned out that the long-awaited ping was also located on a mountain – a large one. Although NASA was commissioned to follow in the footsteps of Moses to go and save humanity – there was a slight issue. This was not your average Moses climb – it had a very steep rock face which would require more than your average mountain specialists to ascend and to retrieve a sample of that crystal. The stakes could not have been higher if humanity were to be saved from an apocalyptic energy crisis and potential self-destruction.
This is the story of the chosen few tasked to leave earth to save it. An Alpha Team of highly skilled adventurers – the elite of the elite. This team was to go to the source of ALH84001 (b) in the only way possible to secure site evidence of this remarkable geological phenomenon; to go rock climbing on Mars.
This is their story.
The 21st Century had experienced a rapid rise in both humanities access to education and health outcomes. This was basic stuff, but these gains had huge repercussions. Humans lived longer and wanted more but the Earth had given beyond its means. Humankind had been forced into a reckoning, a fight or flight for global health and a sustainable future. Amid these tensions, civilisation looked to the stars. Out there were the resources required to replenish the planet and to acquire the energy needed to see that through. Mars, being the closest Earth-like planet, became the New Frontier of dream catchers who were willing to risk it all in the search of life sustaining resources.
With renewed commitment from global government’s and industry, space agencies from every continent on Earth worked feverishly to travel to Mars, and a steady stream of satellites seeking data, rovers pursuing evidence and expeditions seeking a stake in this new world were deployed. The stakes were high, even though no country gave away their political or economic ambitions of exploring and exploiting Mars; it was hard not to miss the space race of the 21st Century.
Amongst this noise a whimper was heard in 2006 from a rocky outcrop in Antarctica. A small team of NASA Meteorologists discovered sample ALH84001, a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite, a piece of Martian rock reasoned to have crystallised from a Martian volcanic eruption. It was an eruption so powerful, that it had spewed igneous rock to Earth. The sample was widely believed to hold micro-organisms, evidence of life indigenous to the red planet. The veracity of the claim was scrutinised by every scientist who cared about astronomy, biology, chemistry, and astrophysics – of which there were many. Was this the real deal? Did life exist on Mars? The discovery on that Antarctic shelf began an enduring scientific debate that turned wonder into scepticism and took ALH84001 off its pedestal. Eventually, the rock sample was placed in a glass box in an undisclosed NASA laboratory in the United States. Out of sight, out of mind – perhaps.
But It is here that our story really begins.
What was not shared by that NASA Meteorology Team, and by the United States Government, was that there was another sample, found in the same rock alcove, less than thirty feet from ALH84001. This meteor did not evidence fossilised signs of life, but it did contain a crystal. The crystal was unique, with no properties like any geological specimen or mineral found on Earth. However, it did have a remarkable property – it produced abundant energy without any external environmental additive or geothermal activity. It was the Holy Grail of energy generation as it could be tapped to produce energy and staggering amounts of it for a resource hungry world.
This rock specimen had a similar composition to the other Mars specimen, so it was deduced that it too came from the Red Planet. The alien geological sample was named, ALH84001 (b). The b specimen was concealed from the wider scientific community and the media. It was quietly brought back, with its more famous sister rock, to the United States for further study. The b sample was much more inspiring and beautiful than its ALH84001 sibling but way too valuable for a resource hungry world to have knowledge of – yet. Nations had fought wars for less. Its secret was kept in-house at NASA and together, with assistance from mutual Government Agencies, further analysis of the b specimen was undertaken. Whilst this was a eureka moment in the great energy rush of the 21st Century, science would have to sit on it until technology and NASA could catch up. Firstly, the place from which ALH84001 (b) came from on Mars needed to be located before an expedition could be launched.
Years passed, other nations and private space agencies launched expeditions to Mars but still NASA held their ace up their sleeve, their ALH84001 (b) card, while they searched and surveyed Mars, waiting for their moment.
On a June evening in 2028, at 0254 hours Pacific Standard Time, a tired scientist named Dasha, of the USGS (United States Geological Survey) was eating corn chips in the limelight of her three laptops at the Space Science Center, Menlo Park in California. She had sat there for several years often alone, just as her predecessor had done, secretly tasked to find the origins of ALH84001(b). Night after night, year after year, Dasha set prescribed coordinates to sectors of the red planet with similar geological compositions to the sample, there were thousands of these. Night after night Dasha manipulated her computer mouse which pivoted the camera and sensors on the MGS (Mars Global Surveyor), a satellite platform that was able to take up to 300 high resolution pictures a day, searching for the elusive lodestone. The MGS had been orbiting Mars, sending back geological data since 1999 with Dasha ghosting the transmissions in more recent years.
Her computer began to ping. It had never pinged.
Dasha recognised the ping from the satellite and sat upright fumbling for her keypad and mouse. She began to sequence out a reference. Her computer screens lit up her face whilst the data she was looking at lit up her mind. Seeking confirmation, she directed the MGS to take a secondary geological scan of that ping reference point and waited.
It takes time for information to transmit to a satellite in Mars’s orbit and more time for that data to return to Earth. She continued waiting, anxiously pacing up and down the room, nervously she patted her leg and chewed on her pen. Dasha’s heart rate was pumping, really pumping.
"C’mon, C’mon...."
The computer lit up; a signal was coming through.
Ping. Confirmation!
It was the sweetest sound for Dasha after so many years of unsuccessful searching.
Dasha's mind was spinning as she fumbled about trying to find her phone. She eventually found it under some nondescript papers on the edge of her desk. Dasha contacted her superior relaying the coordinates that she had received from the MGS. By 0600 NASA was in overdrive focusing its attention on the Martian sector labelled, Echo Charlie 0-2-8-1-7-3.1. Computer imagery was able to focus down on that ping, a location comprising, three square feet of the Martian surface. In NASA those whose focus was on Mars, their excitement was palpable, as it was confirmed that the geological composition of Dasha’s find was the same as the ALH84001(b) sample found on that Antarctic Ice shelf.
Like ancient times when Yahweh had told Moses to climb the mountain to find a rock and liberate his people this rock was calling for some gifted humans to go to Mars to do likewise. It turned out that the long-awaited ping was also located on a mountain – a large one. Although NASA was commissioned to follow in the footsteps of Moses to go and save humanity – there was a slight issue. This was not your average Moses climb – it had a very steep rock face which would require more than your average mountain specialists to ascend and to retrieve a sample of that crystal. The stakes could not have been higher if humanity were to be saved from an apocalyptic energy crisis and potential self-destruction.
This is the story of the chosen few tasked to leave earth to save it. An Alpha Team of highly skilled adventurers – the elite of the elite. This team was to go to the source of ALH84001 (b) in the only way possible to secure site evidence of this remarkable geological phenomenon; to go rock climbing on Mars.
This is their story.
|
|
Dave Barnes is the Assistant Editor for Common Climber and he is self-publishing his first novel "The Red Curtain: A Climbing Adventure on Mars." Dave is hosting a My Cause campaign to raise funds to print the novel.