The Meridiani Planum is a vast, empty desert of volcanic basalt, and my home for the foreseeable future. There was an accident—I remember a storm, an explosion, and not much else—and now I m alone. NASA thinks I m dead, the rest of my team are on their way home, and the next mission to Mars is five years away. I m pretty much fucked.
The first thing I hear when I wake is beep, beep, beep. A red light is flashing in my helmet, warning me that I have three minutes of oxygen left. I struggle to my feet and scan the horizon. Nothing. I m surrounded by a red, flat plain littered with rocks and craters. Then I spot something in the distance: a curiously geometrical shape silhouetted against the dusky pink of the Martian sky.
The lander! The craft we touched down in, which is stocked with supplies including sweet, precious, life-giving air. It s far away, but I might just make it. Beep, beep, beep. I have to run in bursts, because the exertion of a prolonged sprint will make me take deep, wasteful breaths. I reach the lander and slam the button that opens the cargo bay. It s achingly, painfully slow. The beeping intensifies. Thirty seconds left.
The door slides open and I dash inside, taking the elevator to the pressurised safety of the crew quarters. Tearing off my helmet, I collapse in an exhausted heap. I made it! But the elation quickly fades when I remember that I m still alone on a hostile planet with limited food and water, no way to communicate with Earth, and five years to kill. Not the best situation I ve ever been in.
I could live here in the lander, I suppose. It has beds, food, water. But when the supplies run out—there s about a month s worth in the hold—I ll either starve or die of thirst. I need space to grow my own food and somewhere more comfortable to live.
I venture outside again. Located just south of the equator, the Meridiani Planum is scattered with a crystalline mineral called hematite: evidence that hot springs may have bubbled here millions of years ago. Now it s a wasteland, pockmarked with craters. In the distance, jutting incongruously out of the emptiness, is a strange ridge formation. Curiosity gets the better of me.
The lander is equipped with a scouting buggy—a glorified go-kart, really—which I drive towards the ridge. It s incredibly slow, only marginally faster than walking. When I reach the rock formation, I realise it s the lip of an immense crater: the Victoria crater to be precise. Half a mile wide and seventy metres deep, it s a colossal thing, but not much use to me. I m gazing across it, listening to the eerie, lonely howl of the wind, when a message flashes up on my HUD: Solar event incoming.
I make it back with seconds to spare and wait for the storm to pass. I decide that s enough exploring for me.
Mars is routinely pounded by solar storms. If I get caught in one, even with a suit on, I ll receive a lethal dose of radiation. And according to the data on my HUD, one is on its way. I jump back in the buggy and start trundling back to the lander, which suddenly looks impossibly far away. It s another close call, but I make it back with seconds to spare and wait for the storm to pass. I decide that s enough exploring for me. I ve got plenty of problems to deal with as it is.
I eat a freeze-dried steak for dinner and sleep on a small cot bed in the lander to escape the chill of the Martian night. Near the equator, during the day, temperatures on Mars can reach a balmy 20 degrees; but at night they drop as low as -70. When the sun rises, I decide to initiate phase one of Operation Don t Die: building myself somewhere to live. I unpack the enormous 3D printer stored in the cargo bay and assemble it outside.
What follows is a gruelling three hours of printing out corners, walls, floors and other parts, then painstakingly slotting them together, piece by piece, to create my new home. It s a slow, laborious process that would have been a lot easier if my team hadn t flown back to Earth and left me here to die. I begin by driving metal platforms—the foundations of the building—into the Martian soil. Then I clip on floors, walls, windows, power points, and, finally, the roof. To speed things up I print out two additional 3D printers and make sure they re constantly churning out parts as I build.
Before I snap on the last few bits of wall, I print out everything I need for the interior: a bed, a couch, storage crates, a toilet, a table to work on, two hydroponic stations, and a water dispenser. Then I toss them through the gap in the wall and seal it up. The last step is the airlock, which I ll need to keep the room pressurised. I build a small corridor, equip it with two suit holders, and install a pair of heavy airlock doors. Done. I step inside, close the airlock, and hold my breath. Did it work? EXT. SAFE blinks on the HUD in reassuring green text, indicating that I can safely remove my suit. I did it!
It s not much, but it s a vast improvement over the lander. If I had help I could have built a base with multiple rooms, but for now this will have to serve as both my living quarters and my science lab. I can easily expand later. I arrange the furniture and equipment and end up with a pretty swish-looking pad. I move some of the freeze-dried meals, emergency oxygen tanks, and backup suits from the lander to the hab and watch a gorgeous Martian sunset as I eat dinner. As another solar storm rages outside, I settle in for the night. Tomorrow I can start to sort out the water situation.
Mars may look dead, but the air and soil are rich with resources I can harvest to keep myself alive. First, water. I print out a topsoil extractor, hook it up to a solar panel, and plug in two resource canisters. Then I build a refinery while I wait for the canisters to fill. The yield is low, but by processing the collected soil in the refinery I can extract fresh, drinkable water. I fill a few canisters and store them safely in the hab, plugging one into the water dispenser. I ll make sure the topsoil extractor is running constantly to keep the water flowing. That s one problem solved.
I still have a decent supply of freeze-dried meals, so I can wait a while before I have to think about growing food in this desolate place. In the meantime, I tackle a problem that s been bugging me ever since I finished the hab. In the process of building it I accumulated a massive pile of junk. Mostly parts I printed out by mistake, including a third airlock door. I keep bumping into it as I walk around the site, and it looks messy, so it s time to get rid of it. I refuse to live in in squalor.
I use the 3D printer to construct a cargo truck. It s big and slow, but has a massive bed for storing and transporting stuff. I spend some time gathering all the bits of junk strewn around the base and load them on the back. Then I drive about half a mile away and unload it. I did consider throwing it in the Victoria crater, but I don t think NASA would appreciate me using an area of scientific interest as a garbage dump. I return to base, and it looks much neater. Satisfied that I ve had a productive day, I eat some steak—again—and retire for the evening.
When I wake up, a dust storm is raging outside, but it doesn t look too severe. One of the supply crates in the lander has bags of potato seeds, so I strap my suit on, brace myself, and step outside. Jogging over to the lander I pick up the seeds, grabbing a canister of freshly-harvested topsoil on the way back. The storm has covered my solar panels in dust, which I ll have to clean later. Back in the safety of the hab, I plug the soil can into one of my hydroponics stations, along with a can of water, and plant the seeds.
It s not long before five healthy potato plants spring up. Just so you know, Bowie: there is life on Mars.
I spend the next few days harvesting resources, clearing up junk, and tending to my potato plants. I expand the hab with a small room to put the toilet in, because having it inches from my bed just feels wrong. I m beginning to adjust to life on Mars, despite the solitude. I keep myself sane through routine, occasionally going for a slow drive around the Victoria crater to entertain myself.
Before long I have my first crop of potatoes. I pick some to eat, and save the rest for replanting. It s taken a while, but I m finally self-sufficient. I have the means to reliably produce water, food, oxygen, and power. It won t be the easiest five years, but I should be able to get through them.
I ll keep expanding the hab in the coming years, with more hydroponics stations, more resource extractors, and more rooms. But for now I have everything I need to survive. Who knows, maybe NASA will realise I m still alive and mount a rescue mission? Then I might only be here for two years—the length of a journey to Mars—instead of five. Either way, I ve accepted my fate. I m going to be here for a very long time, so I might as well get comfortable. Now, if you ll excuse me, I have some potatoes to harvest.
