Mars (2016–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Pressure Drop - full transcript

Previously on Mars.

I will miss my sister,

she's my heart and soul.

For something like this to work,

it has to be personal.

We had traveled further than anyone ever

had to get to Mars.

But before we even
entered Mars's atmosphere

it was like she was
trying to push us away.

Retro rockets about to fire.

And once we landed,



she pushed even harder.

What is Ben's status?

How far did we overshoot?

75.3 kilometers.

Come on, let's fix this.

It's our guys up there.

The workshop module.

What if they can make it there?

Live in it?

They'd have a chance.

Wheels 5 and 6 just locked.

Suspension system compromised.

We have to walk.

It's -35 degree.



It will be -70 by nightfall.

We'll freeze to death out there.

Jesus.

Ben?

Far off course,
we struggle to make our way

to a temporary habitat.

We need to cut the suit.

Fighting just to stay alive.

Dammit, Ben.

Ben, stay with me.

Come on, come on.

Still our mission remained,
to find a safe haven for the

first human settlement on Mars.

But getting there had
killed the best among us.

I was in command now

and I knew if we couldn't
find a permanent home

in this place...

the Mars Mission would die.

When did you first know you wanted

to go to Mars?

When we were 6,
my sister and I were at the

planetarium, and it
felt like we were looking

at the planets.

We had these alien dolls in
our hands that my mom had just

bought us, and I told my
sister I was going up there,

that I was going to Mars,

and she said she was coming with me.

But when the call came for this mission,

only one of us was
going to be on that ship.

They say twins have one mind.

But it's sharing a heart
that's the problem.

The only way to separate
it is to break it.

We all knew someone could die here.

But no one ever thought it would be Ben.

We picked a place to
bury him outside camp

out in the regolith.

The Sun makes this
pattern on the ground,

when it sets behind the cliffs.

They're looking to me for answers Joon,

and I can see the doubt in their eyes.

I stay away from the
portholes because I'm afraid

if I see my reflection
it will be in mine too.

I need to be strong for them.

As strong as he was.

The repairs on the Rover are done.

We're able to take what
we could from the original

landing site, but the
workshop module's designed

for 2 people working 8 hours a day.

Not a crew of 5 full time.

Marta is preparing the drones
to start scanning surrounding

lava tubes for ice and
the geology we need to

deploy the dome.

Javier is optimizing WAVARs for water.

And Robert is doing everything
he can to upgrade the

environmental systems to
keep the air breathable.

But the mods to the workshop
are already taxing the

electrical system.

We'd be lucky if it
supports us for 8 months,

assuming Amelie can keep
this crew from falling apart.

Where is the cover?

But, this...

why, why?

It's all covered in dust.

Let's see if it's something from here.

Javier, todo bien?

Javier?

esta bien, esta bien, esta muy bien.

Robert...

if you open a cover, close it.

If you open a box, close it.

Patience, patience.

You don't just cannibalize
my equipment when you need to

jury-rig a goddamn junction box.

I needed the fan to cool the upgrades,

it was the only option.

You have redundancies.

That's not the point.

If I don't fix this now,

we are going to have problems
with the upgrades later on.

Robert.

Come help me with the recycling system.

Now!

This system is built for 2 people.

If you want to keep
breathing I need the hardware.

Why don't we take a little break.

Amelie, I can't.

Close your eyes.

Close your eyes!

Tell me when you have it.

Please.

Nothing comes.

Okay, breathe with me.

It's raining.

The drops are hitting a tin roof.

It's just a wash of sound above me.

And what does it smell like?

Lavender.

Lavender.

Now open your eyes.

Thank you.

You're welcome, now go back to work.

Lavender.

Even in those rare moments of quiet,

we could feel the storm
was always looming.

We knew if we didn't find a
home with the resources to

sustain us, Mars would kill
us in any of a thousand ways.

Mars itself is your enemy.

You have a shared common
enemy on Mars trying to

kill you every day.

Mars.

Photographs reveal a cratered landscape,

much like the moon and
apparently hostile to life.

It's actually
the lack of resources that we

have to worry about on Mars.

We still have to figure out
how to create them there.

When we get to Mars we need to solve our

basic needs and the basic
needs are going to be food,

water, shelter and a
particular protection

from radiation.

The longer you spend on the surface,

the more dangerous it is so
you have to get underground

and get away from radiation.

There are a number of strategies
that can be employed.

One of them could be the lava tube.

Rising from the flame, giant volcanoes.

Volcanoes have
existed on Mars for hundreds

of millions of years,
and as they died away,

the tubes that carry
the lava solidify and become

huge long rooms.

We can inflate a habitat
within a lava tube,

but you have to be near them
so knowing where we are on

Mars and what the
features are that we can use

are extremely important.

You'll have to be
looking for water also.

Now Mars has some
trapped water resources.

Everything we've learned about life

as we know it requires liquid water.

Full stop.

So that's why the mantra for
Mars exploration has been

thus far follow the water.

There's the possibility
that there could be ice within

lava tubes and we're
looking to see, you know,

what the feasibility of that is.

We're still in the process
of figuring out where those

lava tubes are and mapping
them is not a trivial thing.

They're not so easy to find
because they're underground.

So there's no shortage of hard,

technical challenges that
need to be addressed before

we can have a sustained human
presence on Mars.

It's really important that
we figure out how to get

some of the basics.

We'll use a set of drones to find a

lava tube with the conditions
we need to deploy a

small domed habitat.

And that little foothold will become

humankind's first real home
beyond the gravity well.

Olympus town.

Charged and ready.

Unmanned aerial vehicles.

We watched as
our drones took off into the

alien sky,

knowing they were
the only hope of finding the

shelter and the resources
we'd need to deploy the dome

and complete our mission.

But if we couldn't find enough
ice to supply settlement,

we'd be stranded

and the Mars mission would end.

There's much to learn about Mars.

I mean, we're still as of
this week finding things out.

We've sent orbiters, we've sent rovers,

we've sent things there
to explore it to get to

know more about it.

We have the interest and are
on the edge of the robotic technology

that would allow us
to get there and do that work.

So we're in
the process of right now what

we call precursor missions,
robotic missions that go

before the humans go
so we can characterize what

the resource is, where
we would send humans.

Something that people might find a bit

surprising is that with modern orbiters,

we've covered only
about 3% of the surface.

We just don't have the data
volume coming back from Mars

to get anywhere close to
mapping the whole surface.

If we want to have humans
landing on the surface of Mars,

we want to make sure that the place
where they're going is safe,

and you can't do that with 100
meter-per pixel resolution images.

That tells you diddly squat.

We have to prove that the
resources are there

and so we like to think that ExoMars is
the next step to building up

the knowledge for that
future manned mission.

ExoMars comprises 2 major elements.

The first element is
the trace gas orbiter,

which will launch in 2016.

I've been mostly involved
with the main imaging system.

We like to talk about it being
the best color cameras that's

ever been sent to Mars.

We have stereo capability.

That means that we can
construct a 3D-view of what

the martian surface looks like.

I used to think of it almost
as a sort of a dead world.

As you start to get more
and more immersed, I mean,

you see fantastic phenomenon
on the surface of Mars.

It just grabs you, polar caps,
looking at these new impact

craters, the dune fields and
you're seeing them moving

across the surface,
dust devils running around the place,

and that to me,
it's brought the place to life.

I get a real kick out of
looking at data from an object

or from a surface or from something
that no one's ever seen before.

ExoMars is important because

there are goals of the scientific
community that we want to

advance before humans get there.

Seung, Hana. Mission Entry Phase 1.

The crew is losing faith.

Morale is slipping.

We're doing everything
we can to find a way to make

this workshop habitable

until we can find the place
in those lava tubes.

We were supposed to have two
years to find a lava tube with

enough ice to supply the water
necessary to survive on Mars.

But without the infrastructure
of Daedalus

to sustain us while we searched,

we'd be lucky if we had a few months.

Anything?

Hmm, either the
candidate skylights don't have

the horizontal entrances we would need

to bring in equipment,

or the tubes the skylights connect to

don't have the subsurface
topography and ice access

a settlement would need.

Keep looking.

Ugh, if I push these modifications any

further we risk overloading
the entire electrical system.

Every piece of hardware
we've got is running

into this junction box.

It's too much.

We don't have a choice Robert.

We have one shot to deploy that dome.

It doesn't go back in the box.

There's a pilot in charge of a

multi-billion-dollar mission.

If the conditions for
settlement are not there,

we need to use our second ship, Vega,

as a life raft and forget about Phase 2.

If they deploy on
the surface, every nation from

the International Mars
Science Foundation will vote

to pull the plug on Mars.

was already short,

we cannot tolerate any more failure.

IMSF is sending
a deputy to Mission Control to

assess whether
they're going to proceed or

cancel this whole thing.

You need to come to
sit before the board.

We've got an international hero dead and

five more stuck in a utility
shack meant for two trying to

find a needle in a haystack
before their systems fail.

We don't like the optics on this, Ed.

Ophelia was doing just fine
in the satellite business

before we bought
into your MMC initiative.

If the most qualified astronauts on the

planet can't make it work,
how do you expect to make money

selling tickets to people
following in their footsteps?

IMSF is already
watching every move we make,

waiting for an excuse
to end this whole thing.

We need to cut bait before they

leave us holding the bag.

Are you done?

I made billions of dollars
in private enterprise

and then I did it again

and again.

Every small town car
dealer knows about profits,

bottom lines, and cutting losses.

And they all know about fear.

You know what they don't know about?

Foresight.

And faith.

These are my tax reports
for the last five years.

It shows my income,
investments and all my

accounts, business and
personal, onshore, offshore,

all around the world.

You look at it and you'll
find that I've invested 90%

of my own net worth in this mission.

I've got faith.

And I'm asking for a
little bit more of yours.

Slow down IMSF, and let this
crew carry out the mission

we sent them there to do.

If they fail, I don't care how much you

invested, we're out.

If they fail, everyone's out.

We were at a
critical stage and all I could do

was pretend I wasn't just
as worried as the rest of them.

We haven't been able to make the system

run more efficiently.

Mae, report CO2 scrubber status.

CO2 scrubbing has
declined an additional 3%

since your last inquiry.

There are just too many of us.

If we can't make the workshop safe for

long-term habitation,
we're going to need to start

considering deploying
the dome on the surface.

Then the next ship that comes will be

a rescue mission.

We've got eight months.

We're going to use them.

Fire, Robert!

Warning fire detected
in the laboratory section.

Mae, extinguish the lab.

System malfunction.

Get to the airlock!

Fire!

Go, everybody!

Into the airlock, go!

Depressurize to put out the flames, go!

Fire containment system malfunction.

Airlock motors off.

The circuit's blown!

The fire is growing!

Everyone back, get inside the east wall!

What is she doing?

Hana!

Open up, Hana!

What is she doing?

Hana, Hana!

Open the door!

No, don't do it!

Hana!

No, Hana!

She's going
to burn herself alive in there.

As Mariner 4 passed over Mars,

it recorded on tape
tiny bits of information

to transmit back to Earth.

The track record is probably about 50%

of the probes sent
to Mars have been successful

in accomplishing any
part of their mission.

That's not a great track record.

Mars seems to have been a graveyard for

several spacecraft,
I've been involved in two missions

where we've had failures,
Mars Polar Lander was one.

There is more news from NASA tonight and

like almost all the news from
the space agency this year,

it's not good.

SLM, go ahead.

This is the shutdown load and go.

But there comes a point where you think

to yourself ah, this ain't gonna happen.

I'm sorry to report that all we have is

a nominal no contact M.R. path.

Copy that, Mod, thanks for that uh,

thanks for hanging in there with us.

Mars is still the death planet,

it's a graveyard of
many, many spacecraft.

Mars is hard to do.

what do you think your biggest challenge

will be on this mission?

Well, the biggest
challenge would be finding

those lava tubes,
but the unknown to me is a bigger

challenge than that.

It's a vicious planet.

The fire left them

with less than a week of oxygen.

IMSF sent me to make a decision.

Is Vega now a rescue mission?

Because if the crew no longer
has the means to find a

location in the lava tubes,

they're going to have to deploy
the dome on the surface.

They're working
on sealing off the lab now,

but we're still waiting to
hear about structural damage.

What about the drones?

Damage to the remote
system was catastrophic.

No way they fly again without additional

supplies from Earth.

Okay, guys, go back to your stations and

check it all again.

I'd like to speak to you about

the horizontal entrance.

Joon, please.

The nations are meeting
the day after tomorrow to

vote on how to proceed.

If they deploy the dome
on the surface, we fail.

IMSF will dissolve,
MMC will go bankrupt,

and Earth will forget about
Mars just like they forgot

about the moon.

If we can't find a site,
the Mars mission is dead.

I understand, sir.

I've thawn all I can.

We're still leaking O2 like a sieve.

There's no way to complete the repairs

without the equipment
that burned in the lab.

At this rate,
we've got a little more than

100 hours of breathable air.

We're running out of options.

Hana?

We will find it.

Aye-aye, Captain.

Your faith is admirable,

but unfounded, Mr. Grann.

IMSF sent me here to
determine whether or not

you can stop this thing

from becoming a global embarrassment,

but what I can tell
so far, that seems to

be an inevitability.

Ground penetrating radar
isn't going to find us a site

that isn't there,

without the drones there's no way.

My people have done the impossible.

They can do it again.

There's nothing, sir,

we've been over the terrain
a hundred times.

We're seeing no options for sub-surface

habitation with gamma
rays or neutron specs.

They were supposed to have
two years to find a location

with the right conditions.

And that was with six drones in the air

twelve hours a day.

There's not a single
tube that shows any sign

of a horizontal entrance.

They have to deploy.

Wait! I think I have something.

We ignored this horizontal
entrance because it was

clogged with breakdown debris
and too far from the nearest

candidate skylight to be
part of the same tube system.

But if we look at the GPR scans here

you can see that entrance
leads to a tectonic cave that

passes right beside the
lava tube under this skylight.

With the right equipment
on the next ship,

we can clear the horizontal
entrance and combine

the two cave systems.

They'd have to lower
the dome in vertically,

through the skylight.

That tube is at
least two-hundred meters,

rim to floor; the winch
on the crane only has

fifty of cable.

What about the
guidelines for the Daedalus?

They've got three 35 meter
spools of cable with a

nearly identical gauge.

They splice those together,
that's 215 meters.

If the topography is right,

and the ice is there,
we can justify deployment.

Do it.

Daedalus crew, great news.

We may have found a
place for deployment.

Stand by for transmission
of coordinates.

Kamen, Marta. Mission Entry Phase 1.

The idea that one of the lava
tubes we deemed unsuitable

could be connected to a
tectonic cave is brilliant.

Thanks, Joon, Mission Control.

Spasibo.

Hey Marta, I hope you're not scared

of the dark.

Javier, how are the cables?

Good.

Alright, Marta, hang in there.

Okay.

Doing great, doing great.

Javier, how are the cables holding?

Strong.

I hope we have enough to get her down.

Talk to us Marta, what do you see?

Can't see, I can't see anything.

Mae, remaining cable?

150 meters remaining,

120 meters,

100 meters,

80 meters.

Come on, come on, come on, come on.

60 meters, 50 meters remaining.

Marta, what do you see?

35 meters, 30 meters.

Nothing, nothing at all.

Hello, and
welcome to Baikonur Cosmodrome

in Kazakhstan.

Counting down to the launch of ExoMars,

the world's biggest ever
mission to the red planet.

Baikonur is the largest launch

facility in the world.

It's where the Russians have
been launching missions from

for the past 60 years,
all of the big missions have

gone from there, the Sputniks,

the Vostoks, the Soyuz.

It's the place where Gagarin
went up and did his launch.

It's sort of a holy place
I think for space scientists.

The ExoMars program is a
collaboration between the

European Space Agency and RosCosmos,

and so there are
principal investigators,

both from Europe and
from the Russian side.

Maybe it's a false impression that Mars

is studied in every detail,
but it is actually not mapped

in every detail completely.

Far from that.

I've been thinking about ExoMars for

more than 16 years.

So, so that's it over there, right?

Now it's serious guys.

What we're doing is
really rather difficult.

A lot of things have to go right.

One minute.

One minute.

Building the instruments is
hard and maybe if you haven't

done enough test time and
you're thinking to yourself,

oh my goodness, you know,
this is going to go in

another one of these damn rockets.

Launches are inherently dangerous.

There's always some sort of a
risk of something blowing up.

As long as the thing
doesn't blow up when I'm

too close to it.

And we have liftoff.

The Americans have had failures,

the Europeans have had failures,

the Russians have had failures.

We check things, we recheck them.
We have checkers checking

the checkers, and how
much is enough to ensure

that you don't fail?

There she goes.

Geez, look at that!

Beautiful.

That's an experience, isn't it?

Holy smokes!

We have to wait a little bit

while things deploy and then we're
on our way to Mars.

It gets you sort of right there.

You have this
incredible number of people

all working to send
something to a strange kind

of pinkish dot in the sky.

I really like not seeing Mars
as a challenge to overcome,

but Mars as an opportunity
to unite people together in

a peaceful way and
give our species a goal.

You're giving people something
optimistic to pursue.

We've detected
glaciers of ice on Mars from

orbit that are 40 meters
thick extending down to

a latitude of 38 degrees.

There is a huge amount
of sub-surface ice there

so this is a unique opportunity for us.

35 meters, 30 meters.

25 meters, 20 meters remaining.

We're running out of line.

18 meters, 17 meters, 16 meters...

15 meters remaining, 14 meters.

Hang in there.

13 meters, 12 meters.

Easy, easy, easy.

Stop, I'm on the ground.

She hit the ground.

There you go.

Marta, report please, what's down there?

Even topography,

room to build.

I'm unclipping to dig for ice.

No indication of exposed ice.

There's nothing.

There's no ice here,
there's nothing here.

What's happening, Marta?

Status update, Marta.

Still here, still here.

Marta can you hear us?

Marta, do you hear us, Marta?

Is she okay?

Heartrate elevated, but no injuries.

There's a crevice down here.

Bear with me.

What do you see, Marta?

Status update, please.

Marta?

C'mon.

There's ice, we're home.

Yes!

We're home.

The words house and home have

different meanings.

A house is an inanimate object.

Home is a feeling.

Seung, Hana. Mission Entry Phase 1.

The flag is planted.

It's official.

Humankind has a home on Mars.

Reporting to you from inside
the dome which we successfully

deployed early this
morning on the cabin floor.

All of the components are in place,

pressurization is complete,

and all we got to do now is decorate.

What a day, guys.

What a day.

Over and out.

Vega wasn't
going to be a rescue mission.

There would be more ships after them.

And even though there was hard
work to do to get the habitat

ready for the next phase,
the Mars mission was alive.