Passage to Mars Page #2

Saa is already

an expert on Mars.

Fingers crossed,

he'll get there one day.

Inuit are born explorers.

At 1 p.m., we officially

entered the Northwest Passage.

Somewhere below us,

in the dark Arctic abyss

lie the crew and ships

of John Franklin's

doomed expedition.

One hundred and twenty-seven

men and two powerful vessels

disappeared here in 1846.

They were looking

for the Northwest Passage.

John grew up reading

about the Northwest Passage.

He's about to find out

what all the fuss was about.

We have chosen to leave behind

our normal lives

with no regrets,

and lots of hopes.

As we advance into the unknown

it also dawns on me,

more than ever before

that the lives of my companions

are in my hands.

I have their trust.

I must live up to it.

You know that saying about

how failure isn't an option?

In fact, failure is always

an option.

Midnight.

Almost as bright as day.

The sun won't set for months.

The Arctic is hypnotic.

Mars will be beautiful too.

But beyond dangerous,

as in deadly.

8:
30 a.m.

We're making better progress

today

but our fuel consumption

is still too high.

On Mars, the expedition

will stop many times

to collect and analyze data.

At 11 a.m., we paused

to study the sea ice.

Our planet's climate

has been changing fast

with big effects in the Arctic.

Our observations capture

a snapshot in time

of the thickness of the ice

along the Northwest Passage.

The sea ice is for now

no thinner than in past years

but hold on

its nature has changed..

Dramatically.

It no longer contains

the layers of old ice

that used to survive

several summers.

There's only new ice,

ice that will be gone

by the end of the summer.

Everywhere ice covers

are in retreat.

This is gonna be a sample.

Here, polar bear populations

are in dangerous decline.

As we gaze to another world

I see our own planet struggling.

The ecology of Earth

is shifting.

Did a similar shift

happen to Mars?

A global change

that forced water to recede

and turned an entire planet

into a desert?

If we want to find life on Mars

we must go after

its hidden waters.

On Earth, where there's water,

there's life..

Always.

Even here, beneath our sea ice,

life is stirring on all sides.

This place can be so quiet.

Much like Mars.

Complete stillness can be eerie.

Although now,

there's no more signal..

It's really finicky.

Bad news.

Our electrical system

seems to be failing.

We're losing our ability

to power

on-board computers

and instruments.

Yeah, so I've got 12 volts here.

Worse, we won't be

able to shut down

the Okarian's engine anymore,

it might not restart.

- Starting up.

- Thin ice. Thin ice.

Retreat. Thin ice. Retreat.

Okay, we're good.

We're getting an ice thickness,

the current ice thickness, here.

- 5.38 meters?

- Uh, uh, yup.

- Excellent.

- Which is wrong.

1.5, that's a lot.

Yeah, it's quite thick, so..

And here's the capper

a massive storm is approaching.

We can't afford to stop.

The clock is ticking.

4 p.m. No choice now.

We must hunker down.

Waiting is the name of the game.

On Mars, we'll need

to be patient too.

Dust storms can last for weeks

and engulf the whole planet.

Still, uh, completely whiteout.

Complete whiteout, uh,

we can't see anything around us

except, uh,

white and a few chunks

of blue ice, uh, all around us.

Uh, and we're getting snow

drifting in here a little bit.

But, uh, everything's okay,

spirits are high

and people are trying

to catch up on some sleep

and, uh, reading.

The Martian winds

raise the red dust.

It's fine-grained, abrasive

and toxic.

Dust will grind

into your spacesuit joints

and eat away the hardware.

If inhaled, it will clog

and burn the pores

of your lungs.

The art of living on Mars

will be the art

of managing the dust.

This intense heat, they

project in a parallel beam

against any object they choose,

by means of a polished

parabolic mirror

of unknown composition..

That is my conjecture

of the origin of the heat ray.

Not even filming.

Just hold on to it.

It makes you not wanna be

in prison, huh?

Oh, yeah.

Aside from the fact

that you might be some, you know

six foot eight, you know, guy

285 pound guy's boy toy.

What would be worse?

This weather sucks.

"Cables have been

received from English, French

"and German scientific bodies

offering assistance.

"Astronomers report

continued gas outbursts

at regular intervals

on the planet Mars."

8:
00 a.m.

The Okarian is holding up well.

She's a real trooper.

Our electrical system,

not so much.

We have a dying alternator.

It's not fixable.

From here on, no more

recharging of anything.

We'll push on for now,

but I must resist

that mindless urge

to keep going no matter what.

What they call "Go fever."

Too many before us

have died from it.

For the first time, I'm thinking

we might not make it to Devon

before the ice breaks up.

But for now, I won't share

these thoughts with the crew.

We'll have to go through

that, that pass over there

and then make it wider.

5 p.m.

As we make our way

deeper into the Arctic

the feeling of roving on Mars

grows stronger.

How far on Mars,

how deep into the planet

will our search for water

and life take us?

Where should we look first?

I keep thinking

about the giant scar

across Mars' surface.

Its origin is still a mystery.

It was once lined with

glaciers and contained lakes.

All long gone.

Whatever surface water Mars

might have had has vanished.

But some mornings,

her canyons fill with fog.

How do you get fog

without water?

Will we make our first contact

with another life form

beneath the Martian fog?

Keep right. Keep right.

Yeah, yeah.

The Arctic is tough.

We lack sleep.

Our faces and hands

are drying and wrinkled.

Midnight with the stars

and you

Midnight and a rendezvous

Your eyes..

We wash and scrub

with hard snow.

We melt fresh snow

for drinking water.

Yeah, boiling water.

We move sideways

to take up as little room

in the rover as possible.

I sleep on the floor.

- What is it, Jesse?

- Uh, cheeseburger?

No, it's Tang.

The Mars rovers

will be just as cramped

but you won't be able

to step outside for fresh air.

- Jesse, you're going outside?

- Uh, yes, I am.

More snow?

We're now like family members.

All these different guys

get along very well

despite the fatigue

and confined space.

Each one feels responsible

for the other.

We wouldn't have it

in any other way.

We're distracted by our jobs,

by simple survival

and Jean-Christophe's playlist

but we can't help wondering

what's happening back home..

And what lies ahead.

I can only imagine

our loneliness on Mars.

Two hundred million kilometers

from home.

6 a.m.

Lovely wake-up surprise.

We're losing

power steering fluid.

To check the fluid level,

we have to cut off the engine

which might not restart.

Conundrum time.

Without power steering,

we can't drive

but if our engine

doesn't restart

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