Author: Banks Miller
He looked at me sternly. “Normally, I don’t do interviews. I’m telling you this only because I want people to know what it was really like. So you’re going to show this exactly as it is, no edits, no tricks. Understood?”
I nodded.
“Very well then. Here’s the core of it – I never landed on Mars. Like Collins on the first Moon landing, I was just there to man the ship while everyone else was down on the surface doing science, and to be available in case something went wrong up in orbit. The other three went down in the lander, and at first everything looked fine.
“They landed in Hellas Planitia – that’s the deepest lowland on Mars – and started looking around. But they only spent about a month there. That was one of the biggest debates when the mission was being planned – the biology types were all for spending the whole mission in the lowlands, you know, and the geologists wanted to go to the big volcanoes and the Vallis Marineris canyon to look at the rock layers it cuts through, that sort of thing.
“So after they’d finished their work in Hellas, they bundled into the lander again and tried to fly it over to Vallis Marineris. But fate intervened. We still can’t predict Earth weather all that reliably, and Mars … we know a lot less. A freak wind shear hit the lander just at the wrong time – when it was too close to the ground to have much room to maneuver, and too high to survive the fall even in Mars gravity – and practically threw it into the ground. Two of them died on impact, and Garcia lasted just long enough to send one last message.
“But I’m sure you know the basic story already. Those are the facts, but they don’t cover what it was like to be there. Everything they said in that month of studying Mars – full of wonder and excitement. We were pioneers on a new world. Now, because of the deaths, America and Britain don’t want to be involved in future Mars missions, and the whole thing is under threat. But that’s wrong. We knew what we were getting into – eyes open. Exploration is dangerous by nature. They didn’t give us bad equipment or bad training – luck just was against us. And anyway… who am I to blame anyone? Garcia didn’t. You’ve heard how she ended that final transmission? ‘I have no regrets. We’re here.’”