It’s the evening of 19th April 2074, Michael, Kim, and Philips are standing next to huge vegetation inside their Martian outpost. The crew noticed that some vegetables that they had been growing using the hydroponics method were dying. Michael could see the sadness written all over the faces of Kim and Philips. It’s been three years since they arrived on Mars to replace the previous crew that left the Martian terrains in 2071.
Space agencies on Earth have attempted to send resupplies to the crew but to no avail. Shortly after the trio arrived on Mars, and the returning crew left, a strange anomaly began to occur in the upper Martian atmosphere, making it impossible for any spacecraft to descend on Mars.
The unexplained phenomenon also made it impossible for any spacecraft to leave the Mars surface to space. On Earth, countries came together to bring the best creative solutions to break through the Martian atmosphere and deliver supplies to the crew. However, they failed after making several attempts. Space agencies began to hope that the unexplained anomaly would someday allow them to recover the three crew from Mars.
Meanwhile, the crew on Mars still managed to maintain communications with Earth. Hence, they were instructed on the best means of surviving on Mars until things turned around. Michael and his team have been surviving the devastating new conditions on Mars for years. Their mission which was supposed to end towards the end of 2072 has now been extended indefinitely. However, they were lucky as astronauts have built several infrastructures including an attempt to terraform the red planet with 2050 cutting-edge technology.
Hence, Michael and his team have a lot of advanced technologies to survive as long as possible on Mars. But when they discovered that their vegetables were dying, they became devastated again. The trio inspected the farm in search of the actual cause. However, they could not identify the issue. They later left the farm to their sleeping quarters.
While Kim and Philips were asleep, Michael who was the mission commander sat on a desk thinking so hard for solutions. He wrote down their recent discovery. Michael later attempted to communicate with Earth but realized that the communication systems had failed. He knew that they were about to enter into another phase of trouble. As an astronaut, Michael was trained to remain calm in troubling situations like this. But at the moment, he seems to be running out of patience.
As Michael stood up to walk out of the room, a folded paper kept at one edge of the cabin caught his attention. He reached out for the paper and gazed at it. Michael realized that it belonged to a crew member of the last astronauts that left Mars named Scout. As he read through the paper, he discovered that Scout conducted secret research about the terraforming cutting-edge technology mounted near the top of Olympus Mons to emit massive CO2 into the Martian atmosphere.
In the paper, Scout noted that technology will make Mars upper atmosphere impenetrable by any man-made object. He also noted that it will even get to a point where it will bring down communication satellites around the Mars orbit and also block out the small amount of sunshine reaching the surface of Mars. Michael realized that Scout may be right with his investigation. But since there is no means of communicating with Earth to share his latest discovery, he planned to work with his team and turn off the terraforming technology.
Michael slept for only 2 hours that night and the noise of his crewmate woke him up. He stood up and refreshed. Michael explained to his team about his discovery last night and suggested his plans to destroy it with crawling bots. The crew all agreed with Michael’s idea. They entered their Mars crewed rover and drove to the base of Olympus Mon. Michael and Kim volunteered to reach the technology while Philips remained in the rover.
The EVA crew dressed up and used a futuristic jetpack to fly up to the top of the mountain carrying self-destroy crawling bots. As soon as Michael and Kim arrived, they realized that terraforming technology was malfunctioning. It has destroyed all the humanoid robots maintaining its operations. The crew activated the self-destroy crawl bots and began to descend with the jetpacks. Michael and Kim safely joined Philips in the rover car and watched the crawl bot move into the site from drone cameras.
The crew drove as far as possible as the crawl bots initiated their self-destroy procedure. From a distance, they watched the terraforming technology destroy and its debris flying around the terrains of Olympus Mons. The crew returned to their outpost and continued with other activities.
After a few days, they attempted an uncrewed launch to space and also landed the spaceship safely. The crew then realized that the coast was clear for them to return home. The good news was that they were at the best time to travel back to Earth from Mars. Since their return spaceship have been on the launch pad since they arrived, the crew packed their bags and commenced with their return trip to Earth.
After traveling for months, they arrived on Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean. The Navy rescued the crew. After weeks of resting and mastering the Earth’s gravity, Michael and his team participated in a press interview. They revealed how Scout’s research papers saved them.
The three astronauts were shocked when they learned that Scout passed on a few weeks before the unexplained anomaly began to occur in Mars’ atmosphere. That was why he could not suggest his ideas to space agencies. The world celebrated three astronauts as heroes and space agencies resumed their operations on Mars once again.
