Electromagnetic (Mars, Part 6)

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Disclaimer: All references to the SpaceX Mars project only serve as a way to give the story a connection to our current efforts to reach Mars. The statements made by characters in the story about the project are not facts. Please don’t base conspiracy theories on my fictional stories. Thank you.

It’s incredible how just ten people with guns can get dozens of people with knives to do their bidding. Over the span of a few minutes, Mike and his troop were able to round up the angry mob and move them all to a room that could be locked from the outside.

Now, they’re standing in front of the rest of our group. Mike looks a bit helpless as if he doesn’t really know how to proceed. Aimlessly, his eyes wander from one face to another.

”Many of you are sick”, he remarks. ”Don’t you have any medicine with you?”

”Not the right medicine.” I look in the direction the voice came from. To my delight, it’s the doctor who had tried to keep the attackers away from us. He survived.

The thought feels like a stab to the stomach. He survived. My mom didn’t.

”You’re so technologically evolved, how can you not have the right medicine for the flu? Don’t you have any antivirals or something?” Mike wonders.

”Useless weight, or that’s what they told me”, the doctor explains with a frown. ”I wasn’t too happy about it either.”

Mike shakes his head in disbelief. Then he seems to come to a decision.

”Your sick people can come with us. We’ll have to come back at least once to get everyone over there, but we should be able to treat all your patients until they’ve recovered. In return, I’d like to take one of your engineers with us, so he can help us install similar electromagnetic shields into our spacesuits as the ones you have.”

The doctor nods.

”I’ll inform our captain, but I think that will be manageable.”

He’s right. Only an hour after the original settlers arrived in our caves, I find myself in one of the airlocks together with a selected group of other sick people. And half an hour after that, I’m in an ancient looking Mars rover, driving towards what seems to be the first settlement on Mars.

To my delight, I share a rover with Mike and our chief engineer Christophe, who had been ordered by our captain to teach our new friends how to implement the electromagnetic shields. The discussion I’m witnessing makes the journey seem a lot shorter and takes my mind off my mother’s death, at least for a while.

”I still can’t believe you managed to actually use electromagnetism against the radiation”, Mike says. ”When we left earth, it was still more of a theory than a usable application.”

Christophe grins.

”It took a while. The first attempts were gigantic generators, that used up way too much space”, he starts explaining in a slight French accent. ”CERN and ESA had been working on superconductor coils made out of magnesium diboride for a while. They planned to use those coils for a giant magnet. It worked but wasn’t very useful for everyday life. Just like this giant IBM computer used for the Apollo Moon landing.”

”I’ve seen pictures of that one.” Mike chuckles. ”Unbelievable that that’s what we started out with.”

”Exactly. It took some decades until it was possible to create fields that were just as strong by using much smaller, lighter magnets. As soon as researchers had perfected this, they started to work on a different project based on the same technology.”

”Which was?”

”Giving Mars its own magnetic field.”

I can hear how Mike sharply inhales. The thought seems to surprise and maybe slightly alarm him.

”Are you serious?”, he asks. Christophe nods. ”And? Could they design something to do this?”

”Yes.” Christophe sounds proud as if he had been the one to discover the solution. ”We even brought the technology with us. A magnetic dipole shield has to be positioned at just the right spot, which will give Mars an artificial electromagnetic field to shield the whole planet from radiation.”

”That sounds incredible”, Mike remarks. ”But it would also bring a lot of changes to Mars. The effects could be disastrous.”

”Not necessarily. Most scientists believe that Mars used to have a magnetic field but lost it over the course of several million years. As a result, the planet lost its atmosphere and became cold and hostile. Create a new field and the atmosphere will build up again, the temperature rises and the carbon dioxide which is currently frozen will melt, causing global warming. We could have an earth like planet in just a few years.”

”Sounds too good to be true”, Mike says. ”Before my ancestors came here, they were promised something similar. And now we’re here, two centuries later and the planet is just as frozen and deadly as before.”

”I meant to ask you about this. Everyone on earth thought the SpaceX Mars mission ended in a deadly accident. But you’re here! What happened?”

”The accident was planned from the beginning. We were supposed to be the first and only settlers on Mars, so we could create a human race untainted by the atrocities of humanity back on earth. But to ensure corporations and war wouldn’t follow us, mission control needed to make sure everyone thought Mars is too dangerous. So the crew that arrived here faked its death.”

”And everyone was too scared to make a second attempt after that until Earth became too hostile itself and there was no other choice left”, finishes Christophe Mike’s story.

”Yes”, confirms Mike. ”Guess not everything works out as planned.”

”Are you angry that we arrived here?” I chime in. The two men look at me in surprise, they seem to have totally forgotten about my existence.

”A little bit”, Mike admits. ”You obviously have some very dangerous people in your group. But it is what it is and now we have to deal with it. One way or another.”

For some reason, this statement makes me feel a bit uneasy.

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Sources:

Can A Mega-Magnetic Field Protect Astronauts From Radiation?

A superconducting shield for astronauts

NASA proposes a magnetic shield to protect Mars' atmosphere

Computers for Apollo Moon Landing

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