A hand-made Mars Incredibly, the project was not derailed there and then. Soon an arctic construction company was hired to bring in lumber for a makeshift wooden floor, and the 800-pound wall sections, despite wind and snow and bitter cold, were being erected by hand. But a 55-person crew of Marines, Inuit trackers, NASA field personnel, Mars Society volunteers and even the Discovery Channel reporters themselves all did what they could to get at least the shell of a habitat up. On July 26th the roof and windows of the habitat were put in place, and the Mars Society reported that the first six-person crew was expected to move in on Friday the 28th. Still, at the Mars Society's Denver mission control center, the mood remains upbeat.
Real life is messy.
It makes a better story this way. Wil McCarthy is a rocket guidance engineer, robot designer, science fiction author and occasional aquanaut. His short fiction has graced the pages of Analog , Asimov's , SF Age and other major publications, and his novel-length works include Aggressor Six , the New York Times Notable Bloom , and The Collapsium . All rights reserved. Reproduction in any medium strictly prohibited.