Read Part 1
Slowly, very slowly, the red planet seems to grow bigger and bigger as our ship is coming closer. I haven’t been in the cryo-chamber since my birthday three days ago. It wasn’t necessary anymore, as we would arrive at our destination very soon. This was also the reason my two friends, Victoria and Brian, had been awake to celebrate with me.
It had been a nice birthday, the best in a while. To be honest, I didn’t have any good birthdays after my father died in an oil platform accident, so this was a first in many ways. First good birthday since Dad died. First birthday not on earth. I wonder what my next birthday would look like? I never imagined I’d spend my 16th birthday on Mars.
I walk along the ship’s corridors, lightly dragging the palm of my hand across the walls. All this will be repurposed after we land. There have been some preparations, certain materials should have already landed on Mars long before we arrive, but the main work still needs to be done. There is no atmosphere, no plants, no life, nothing. The whole terraforming process is still ahead of us.
”So much about becoming an actress when I grow up”, I mutter. Dreams have no place on a foreign planet. Everyone will be required to do their part for the community, which will mostly be agriculture. Potatoes here I come!
Green lights suddenly start blinking everywhere. Moments later, an announcement is broadcasted through the speakers.
”Dear passengers, dear crew, this is your captain speaking. It has been half a year since we left our home to search for a better life on a different planet. You all have suffered consequences from the long journey, but it won’t be in vain. We have just entered orbit and will land on the surface in a few hours. All non-essential personnel is asked to return to their cabins.”
My heart beats faster. Finally! I’m so nervous that it’s hard to breathe. The way back to my cabin feels short and incredibly long at the same time. When I open the door, I see my mom already sitting on her bed. She gives me a big smile.
”We’re almost there, Hannah”, she says. ”We made it.”
I grin and sit down next to her. Together we just sit there, looking out of our tiny window. The surface of Mars slowly takes up all the room and all we can see is a vast, red desert. Our new home.
The landing is rough. We were warned, but there is always a discrepancy between what you imagine and how it finally turns out. My mom and I cling to each other, holding each other close. All admiration for the beautiful sight is gone, as the spaceship shakily makes its way down.
Finally, the fall ends with the ship hitting the ground with a loud crash that makes everything shake so hard, I almost fall to the floor. Then we don’t hear anything anymore.
”Dear passengers, dear crew”, the captain’s voice cuts through the silence. ”We’ve successfully landed about two meters away from our planned point of impact. No important parts of the ship have been damaged and it looks like the supplies we sent here before mostly arrived. Please put on your assigned spacesuits and prepare to leave the ship.”
I laugh out loud. Then I hug my mom. We survived.
Together, we put on our space suits and help each other to adjust and check everything. A hole or poorly closed gap would be fatal as soon as we get outside.
Outside.
I take a look out of the window. Next, to the ship, I can see the metallic shine of the airlock, which leads to our new home.
Scientists from all space agencies had worked together, sending solar powered robots and various materials to Mars. The robots dug through the basalt rock to create entries to the naturally occurring lava tube caves which spread out under the planet’s surface. The robots increased the size of the caves, secured them and sealed off leaks. As the last step, they had installed airlocks and pumped oxygen into the reconstructed caves, to create a breathable atmosphere.
If everything had worked as planned, it would be totally safe to take off our spacesuits in there, as the ground above us would shield us from most of the radiation coming from space and other nasty dangers. Like freezing temperatures or seemingly endless sandstorms.
But only if everything had worked as planned. We don’t know if it has, nobody had the time to check. The other ten spaceships would arrive several days after us. We’re the first.
I try to suppress the fear that tries to make a home for itself in my mind. I can’t be afraid, not here.
Just as we practiced a dozen times, my mom and I take our places in line to leave the spaceship. The hatch opens and the first humans on Mars carefully shuffle towards the airlock.
The airlock is huge, bigger than I expected it to be. It looked so small from the spaceship, but I should have known that that’s unrealistic. After all, it was constructed to allow about a hundred people at once to get inside. It needs a certain size.
An hour. It takes an hour until my mom and I are finally lead into the airlock. I should not complain; the pressurizing and depressurizing process takes almost half an hour each. We’re the second group that can go inside.
Two hours after I first stepped on the surface of Mars, I finally enter the caves.
References:
Mars Cave-Exploration Mission Entices Scientists
Will Mars colonists live in robot-dug caves like these?
Caves: the hidden side of planets
Got a scientific topic which you want to see as a story? Leave me a comment!
Check out @steemstem and the #steemSTEM channel in steemit.chat and consider following the curation trail on Streemian to support scientists on steemit!
The way I see it, we will be migrating to mars very soon. Maybe the billionaires will be the ones to afford the trip. Anyways great article and you inspire many of us in a great deal.
@planetmarketers I put my hope in Elon Musk, NASA at the moment has too low budget for Mars travels. Elon released his plans just recently. He hopes to bring 1 million people to Marks within 40 to 100 years !!
Read this!
Elon Musk is just taking the craziest ideas and brings them alive. It´s awesome to see what he already achieved and I guess there will be much much more to come :)
Yes he really makes life more interesting for me!
Salutations Suesa,
I've been reading your Steem it posts for a while now and you have inspired me to finally sit down and start writing. This seems to be a great forum to post a page or two a day and eventually get that book done! I was wondering if you had any advice for an aspiring writer? How do manage to get so many people reading your stuff? Your amazing, keep it up!
Interaction. Nobody will read your stuff if they don't know you. This goes online and in real life.
I've published two books already and noticed how important it is to constantly interact with possible new readers. As soon as you stop engaging with them, they vanish. It's constant work, I'd almost say writing is the easy part.
Just don't give up, find your own original ideas, break clichés and engage with people.
I know you tagged this post in fiction, but i think a decade from now this will more than likely be something plausible, especially if Elon Musk has his way.
Who knows, Maybe Hannah can be the first actress on the red planet. Well written @suesa
tip! hide
Thanks for the tip and feedback!
Yeah, I think living on Mars in the future isn't too fictional. The ideas I use for this story are partly taken from NASA after all
No problem, keep up the good writing. Looks like you are progressing well
Yupii! I am actually glad I am reading this now when there is part 3 out, because I want to go inside that cave! ^^
And a whole new world is waiting to be discovered...
I wonder what those caves are hiding!
Extremophiles show yourselves!!
Extremophiles? That would be great! :)
great post.thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing
Great
Very interested story.
Thanks for sharing this post. I like this post.
I really like your post, I will wait for the next posting
Very interesting story ..loved reading it..
Hope we get some creepy cave dwelling aliens in the story. :)
🤔
nice blog
Perfectly. Do not stop writing
post.thanks is great for sharing
Thanks for sharing. I like articles like this ones. Looking forward for the next one. Btw I love your gif at the end. Little Monster :D
It's awesome, isn't it xD I'm lucky @saywha and @atopy crated it for me
love your post
very nice story
Mars has been "discovered" (i hate the word discovered, so controversial), for a long time now and it is disappointing how little we still know about it, by now we should have more visuals of the place videos as well we should know what organisms exist there because ofcourse there must be some form of life there ..... are these things known and hidden from us, the lack of information feeds into conspiracy theories.
As long as we are oil based, a no go, 0. energy has to come from the secret programms in the states
excellent content, follow me and help me grow in steemit
Why should I
Wow I love it!! It felt for a moment I was on Mars
Good post @suesa :)
Neil DeGrasse Tyson and a couple other guys have a good point. Regardless of whatever happens here on earth, it must be easier to solve that than to terraform another planet.
Of course, radiation safety comes first but living in caves, like the first Christians, now that's funny. Seems every new community starts like a cult.
Flying to Mars just for about 6 months to build a new home up from scratch. That sounds like a hell of an adventure :)
Love the story, how crazy would it be if the crew found a secret group of people already living on Mars!!??
Wow @suesa. Honestly, I came to steemit for cryptocurrency mining (and of course to make money). But, one of my love is to read stories/ posts like these that are really interesting . I have followed you and I saw another interesting story with 6 parts. Gonna ready that after reading your third part : In sickness and in health. Keep up the good work!
I'm happy you like it! :)
Hi follow me upvote me .thanks for the support