Approaching the Unknown Page #3

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your software, we'll try this.

Get into

the equipment bay, 0-8-2.

Disable your gyros.

0-8-2, copy.

Any condensation on the sensors?

I don't see any.

Wipe it down anyway and restart.

Both of you listen to me.

We can handle

this from down here.

Did it start?

No, but I'm seeing that my

port has a crack in it.

Mine looks fine.

That must be your problem.

So what's next?

Okay, here's what

we're gonna do.

Go to your bunk monitor.

Pull off the E103 cable.

Copy that.

Get a connector from the

mid-deck junction box.

Got it.

You can't just start pulling

cables out of the wall

without asking permission

from engineering.

The engineers will be glad there

are real people here now.

I'm cleaning up their mess.

Stop all right!

Now screw in the four-pin.

Flip it on.

It worked.

Fantastic.

Holy sh*t.

I'm starting to get good

readings from down here, too.

Thanks, captain. Hopefully,

we'll end up in the same place.

I've climbed almost every

major mountain on earth.

I've deep-sea dived,

I've paraglided.

Nothing could ever touch

something like going to Mars.

As an engineer, I'm excited for the

technical challenges of the mission.

I know that with people all around the

world pushing mankind to get to Mars,

we are going to discover things

we can't even dream of now.

Great science

will come from this mission...

But even greater

inspiration will come

from the simple gesture

of getting there.

this discovery has now

been confirmed with new data,

and seems to be correct.

The cosmic expansion

that Hubble discovered,

is now modulated

by an acceleration term.

Its expansion is

ever faster with time,

and in that scenario, the universe

ends in a catastrophic crescendo

where space-time on the largest

scale is ripped apart,

and then within a very short

time, maybe minutes or hours,

matter itself is ripped apart.

The atoms of the universe,

all of them...

Grass.

"Fresh-cut grass."

Ugh.

Space is leaking into the ship.

Uh, Houston?

You won't be able to see

this right now, but I've got

a solar flare coming through.

The particles are passing

through my eyes.

Two-thirds approximately,

that's...

I f***ed up.

I short-circuited the battery,

which contaminated

the water supply.

Maybe skinny could help.

I trust him,

but the situation

isn't desperate yet.

I've survived before on 600

milliliters of water a day,

but not for this long.

It's my fault the water

is contaminated, though.

And I'm gonna

be the one to fix it.

I have to lie about the reactor,

because if skinny finds out,

they'll abort the mission.

F***ing condensation.

There's nothing to look at,

but now I can't even

see outside.

Hey, buddy,

I haven't talked to you in a couple days.

How are you doing?

I'm fine.

Look, all the work you're doing on the

reactor's getting people a little worried.

Everything okay?

Yeah.

I want that thing to still be working

if I get up there in a couple years.

You know, if anything goes wrong up

there, we'd have to bring you home.

Home? No.

Look, skinny,

essential systems are fine.

I'm just running

some routine maintenance.

Yeah, but I'm getting an earful

from the guys in operations,

and they'd definitely prefer

it if you just left it be.

Okay?

Ah!

Can't sleep?

Sleep is on the ship

like a ghost.

Sorry, what?

Never mind.

Why don't you

take a sleeping pill?

I don't like the way

those things make me feel.

Well, I'm glad

you're still awake.

I have some bad news

about Maddox.

Oh, really?

The fix you made on her

gyroscope didn't hold.

I'm afraid we're going

to have to turn her around.

You okay there, captain?

Look, I just need you

to assure me

that you're going to be able

to keep it together up there.

Oh, c'mon, what does that mean, huh?

What does that... I...

What does that even mean?

It means stay sane

and stay focused,

so we don't have

any more problems.

Stanaforth, I'm waiting for you to tell

me that you're going to be all right.

Well, that is a stupid thing

to wait for.

I remember waiting for you to come

out of that desert, you know?

When you finally

got to that rendezvous.

Lookin' like snake skin.

Do you recall what you said to me?

You remember what you said?

What?

You said, "skinny, I

squeezed water from a stone."

Well, that's half true.

We really have to

abort her mission?

Yeah, we tried everything.

She has to come home, captain.

I'm in here,

and every single

other thing is out there.

Condensation.

It's as dry as a desert in here,

but it's a closed system.

The ship,

the plants,

they have to give up

their water for me.

I'm sorry.

Come on.

It's all connected.

I just have to replicate

systems that work in nature.

Hope is out there.

Super-heat the soil,

compress it.

Extract the hydrogen and the

oxygen, recombine them.

This is how the

universe made water.

This is how life

on earth formed.

And I'm trying to

recreate the process.

I might have enough water

to survive the journey.

But if I can't make

the reactor work,

what's the point?

I'll just die alone on Mars.

Come on.

Ah! F***!

Goddammit.

Work with me, you stupid

piece of f***ing junk!

Sh*t, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry,

I didn't mean it. I'm sorry.

Jesus, captain, what's going on?

You look like sh*t,

the ship's a mess.

People are worried about you.

Everyone's asking me

what's going on with you,

and I don't know

what to tell them.

Huh?

Stanaforth, c'mon you

gotta talk to me here.

Skinny, I f***ed up.

I, uh...

I plugged into the...

Yeah, my...

My power is...

My water supply's f***ed.

I poisoned the supply.

What?

How is that possible?

What happened?

I just thought I knew...

What it would be like, but I just...

I don't know, I...

Okay, look. Protocol dictates

you return to earth right now.

Abort the mission, get you home.

Hopefully we can

bring you back safely.

But what have you tried already?

Is there anything that we can

do to get it working again?

We'll have at least a day or two before

we're able to turn you around and...

I know this ship

better than anyone.

I couldn't get it to work.

It's amazing that we can build these

machines to shoot us through space.

But in the end we're just these

fragile little creatures

staring out

at the universe, learning.

The important thing

is not the technology,

but the humanity.

The technology enables us to experience

something really astonishing.

To walk on Mars, to watch the

sunset from another planet.

That kind of raw

emotional experience

is what's really significant

in this journey.

End transmission.

I thought I had

everything figured out.

I spent years

planning this mission.

I designed a machine so we

could live on another planet.

I made this thing

work in the desert but...

But that wasn't

the reason I, um...

That wasn't the moment.

I drank the land.

But just when I got it working,

the minute I was

gonna take a drink...

My foot, my leg

went numb. Bang.

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