October 31, 2032
Earth Departure Minus Five Months
12:00 Universal Time
Johnson Space Center
The tension was palpable. Sixteen men and women sitting at their consoles, screens flickering, not a word spoken. In the visitors’ gallery, above and behind them, sat four dozen NASA administrators, White House executives, senators and congresspersons, and a quartet of news media types.
On the ceiling-high wall screens an animated CGI image showed the Fermi habitation module descending toward the red Martian desert, tail first, its rocket thrusters firing fitfully.
Even José Aragon, NASA’s official “voice of Fermi,” was silent, nervously fingering his generous black moustache as the descent continued. A camera from the module showed the rock-strewn rust-red sand getting closer, closer.
Then the automated descent monitor intoned, “Five thousand meters. Trajectory nominal.”
One of the mission controllers glanced up from her console for a brief peek at the wall screens. Before the chief of the monitoring crew could move or even speak, she focused on her console again.
“Four thousand meters. Trajectory nominal.”
Bart Saxby, NASA’s chief administrator and a former astronaut, wiped perspiration from his upper lip.
It all depends on this, he told himself. If Fermi doesn’t land safely, the whole mission is ruined. The crew’s going to live in that hab module for six months, once they reach Mars. No hab module, no humans on Mars.
“Two thousand meters. Final trajectory correction burn.”
The view of the Martian surface from the ship-mounted camera blurred momentarily as the thrusters fired.
Saxby wished he were there, aboard the Fermi, personally guiding her down to the ground himself instead of the autopilot. Look at all those damned stones, he said to himself. It’s like a rock garden down there.
He thought about Neil Armstrong piloting the Eagle to the first manned landing on the Moon. The bird was descending into a rockpile, so Armstrong took over manual control, jinked the lander over a few dozen feet, and put her down safe and sound.
Everybody knows Armstrong’s first words from the surface of the Moon: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
But Saxby knew Houston’s reply. “We copy you down, Eagle. You got a bunch of guys turning blue down here.”
“One thousand meters . . . five hundred meters . . .”
The frozen sands of Mars were rushing up now. Saxby clenched his fists so hard his fingernails cut into his palms painfully.
“Touchdown,” said the loudspeakers.
The whoop of relieved happiness was more heartfelt than any football crowd’s.
The animation screen showed the Fermi module standing on the Martian surface, three stout landing legs supporting it. The camera on the module’s outer skin showed plenty of rocks, but none of them big enough to upset the lander.
Everybody was jumping and shouting. Down on the floor of the control center the chief of the monitoring team was handing out cigars, even to the women. Saxby sat silently, unmoving in the midst of the uproar, his eyes misting, rubbing away the lump that he felt in his chest.
Fermi’s made it, he thought gratefully. Now we can send the human team and find where those microbes are hiding.