Some ideas for a Mercury rover

In the last few years, I’ve written a few posts on ideas for various space missions: Some ideas for small lunar landers, A fun idea for a moon mission, and Some ideas for space missions.  Here’s one more.

I forget exactly why, but I started thinking about landing a rover on Mercury.  There are several challenges to that, mainly having months of 430℃ temperatures followed by months of -180℃ temperatures.  So this was my first idea that would be awesome but not practical. 

This mission would have four components.  The main one would be the rover, which would be powered by RTGs which would power the rover as well as keep it warm as it traveled around the night side of Mercury.  To take photographs, it would be equipped with spotlights.  The way the rover would land on Mercury would be with a sky crane-ish rocket thing, but instead of dropping the rover then flying off to crash, it would fly back up to a mothercraft that would orbit Mercury doing other science as well as being a communication link between Earth and the rover.  As dawn approached where the rover was, this crane-rocket-thing would fly back down, pick up the rover, and fly it a few hundred kilometers to the west, then return to the mothercraft to refuel.  Also, at the mothercraft it would pick up an empty sample case, and during the transfer, a little robotic arm would attach it to the rover and pick up a filled sample case.  All these sample cases would be transferred to the fourth component, a sample return capsule that would return many kilograms of samples to Earth.

While that is a fun idea, there are some issues with it.  Mainly if the crane-rocket-thing crashes, or can’t pick up the rover, the mission is over.  And while our probes are getting smarter, there are probably too many variables and too many things that could go wrong for that to be reliably automated.  So I wondered if there was a way with current technology to land a rover on Mercury. 

One possibility would be to land a rover with a garage that could shield it from the heat of the day.  The problem with that is that the rover would be limited in the area it could explore.  Unless the garage is on some sort of trailer the rover could move every few months.  But unless there are a lot of perfectly flat areas to set up the garage, it’s going to be tough to have good seals.  Like, I imagine there’d be an expanding element on the bottom of the walls to go over rocks and uneven areas.  That would probably be painful but doable once, but doing so multiple times would just increase the chance of a gap letting light in. 

My current idea, is just a squat lander with some instruments with the rover on top of it.  This would land on the night side to give it time to unfold a giant sunshade.  I picture a pole in the middle of the rover, with a turn and tilt mechanism at the top.  The sunshade would unfold, and then be lowered down to shield the lander and rover from the dawn.  As the sun rose in the sky, it would be moved to keep everything covered.  So for the first few months, the rover would still be on the lander.  This would give time to get everything in working order and to do some science, like seeing how fast the surface heats up.  Once the sun set, and the ground cooled, the rover would drive off the lander and head a few kilometers away.  Maybe even hiding behind a hill.  Because it would be interesting to see what happens to the lander when exposed to the full might of the Mercurian sun.  I imagine thermometers in various parts of the lander that would report how fast they heat up.  But to be able to report them, there would have to be batteries to power the radio, and depending on how they fail in the heat, they might explode, which is why you’d want the rover a few kilometers away. 

While the rover could travel around during the night doing science, it would park at an interesting site for the day.  Maybe it would have a drill to take samples from a couple of meters down, so it would be in one spot for a couple months to allow it to drill that deep.  But if you make the sunshade big enough, you could still travel during the day.  It would just be very slowly.  Like, if the shade extended a couple of meters in front of the rover, you could wait for the ground to cool and then creep forward ten centimeters or so.  And then wait however many hours for the now shaded ground to cool enough to creep forward again.  It may only move a meter or so a week, but it wouldn’t be still waiting for sundown.

Of course, given the slow rotation of Mercury, it would mean that there would be long periods of time the rover wouldn’t be in sight of Earth.  Which means there would need to be an orbiter to act as a relay.  But then if the orbiter dies for whatever reason, the mission is over.  So there may need to be several orbiters around Mercury that can all act as relays while doing their own missions. 

There is a great deal we don’t know about Mercury, and a rover would fill in some blanks.  But given that it would need RTGs, a powerful rocket to get it in to Mercury, as well as some orbiters, it would be rather expensive to fill those blanks.  Still, as humans spread out into the solar system, it’s only a matter of time before we start landing things on Mercury.  Maybe whatever does end up there will look something like this.  I hope I live long enough to see.

Why I’m staying on Twitter … for now.

 I first joined Twitter fourteen years ago.  And the main thing I use Twitter for is to vainly scream into the void hoping people will find out that I exist, and check out some of my books.  (Here’s my Amazon page, if you’re curious.)  To be perfectly honest, that hasn’t worked all that well.  Over the years I’ve tried to expand my presence on other sites, but none of them seemed as easy to use as Twitter.  Probably about a year ago, I decided to put more work into Twitter to have better/more content and to expand my follower base.  Since then I’ve put a lot of work into making my twittering better.

So of course, now is when it seems Twitter is going into a death spiral.  A lot of people are talking of leaving and looking for greener pastures.  Should I join them?  But where?  Facebook?  And be at the mercy of some other creepy billionaire with questionable morals?  Instagram?  I’m better with words than pictures, plus it seems like 95% of the people who follow me there are half-naked women trying to get me to check out their OnlyFans accounts.  Mastodon?  I’ve had an account for a while, but haven’t really done much there and don’t really have any followers.  Plus, I think I read that they don’t like you selling stuff there so my constant cry of “Buy my book” probably wouldn’t go over well.  Tribel?  I just started an account, so don’t have any followers, and it does seem like it is heavily politics centered, which isn’t really my thing. 

Right now, Twitter remains my primary social network, something that has taken me years to get to.  I can’t just jump to another one.  My hope is that sooner, rather than later, Musk will realize he’s in over his head and hire someone better suited to run the site.  I don’t have much hope for that, since I think he’ll try forty-seven increasingly odd ideas to fix a problem instead of just admitting he was wrong about something and undo a previous “fix.”

So I’m staying, hoping things get better.  Admittedly, I’m someone the assholes, haters, trolls, etc., have ignored because I’m not interesting enough to harass.  Or maybe since I’ve spent the last few years unfollowing/muting assholes I’m in a little pocket Twitter of decent people.  Who knows how long that will last.

Anyway, if you’re at all interested on finding me on the various networks, here’s my current list:

My personal Twitter, oneoveralpha

My writing Twitter, amanfewwords

Facebook

Instagram

Mastodon

Tribel

Random Story – I never received a bill

This is just an odd little story from my life.

When I first moved into my old apartment – probably around 2005 – I only had cable and a landline.  But at some point, I decided to get internet.  Well, there was a company that bundled all three, so I signed up with them.  They came and hooked everything up, and everything was fine.  At some point after a month or two, I realized that I hadn’t gotten a bill, and I wondered if they only billed every quarter.  That seemed odd, but I had other things to do and didn’t feel like digging out the paperwork from when I signed up, so I never really thought about it.

On my phone I had a voice mail system.  If I had a message, whenever I picked up the phone there would be a beep.  Otherwise, I’d just get a dial tone.  Most of the messages I got were along the lines of an unnamed bank calling Mister Johnson to discuss an issue with his account.  I’d get a couple of these a week.  But then one week I realized it had been several days since I had gotten any message.  It seemed a little odd, but I had other things to do so never looked into it.

And then I had to call someone and the message came up that the number had been disconnected.  At first I thought it meant the number I was calling, but no, it was my phone that had been disconnected. 

I called the company and they said I was disconnected because I never paid my bill.  I said I never got a bill.  And then I found out that everything was messed up.  First off, instead of Stephen Thompson, the account was in the name of Stan Thomas.  And I lived in like apartment 203, but the address they had was for 314.  Apparently, I had been disconnected for several days – maybe a week? – but I never noticed.  (I didn’t call that many people.)  I don’t know if they disconnected the cable and internet to apartment 314, but it didn’t affect me since I didn’t live there.  They were able to disconnect my phone, but every time I picked it up to check for messages I heard a dial tone so I assumed it was working. 

I don’t know how things got so messed up, but I was able to get everything fixed and under my name and at my address.  And I paid off the months I didn’t receive bills for.  I can’t remember if I had to pay a late fee, or if the operator who fixed it all waved that since the screwup was on their end.

Election Day Sale

Several years ago, I started having Election Day sales for my collection of short stories of a political nature, Political Pies.  For the last few sales, I’ve also included a few other of my books.  The main reason I do this is it’s me doing a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny part of hopefully getting people to vote.  The idea being you can download some of my books for free so you have something to read while you stand in line to vote.  It’s not much, but hopefully it does someone, somewhere, some good. 

There are those who think politicians should be the ones who decide who wins elections and not the voters.  The only way to defeat them is for “We the people” to vote in overwhelming numbers and show them that that is not how American democracy is supposed to work.  So if you live someplace where – often because of their interference – there is a long line to vote, grab any of these books that look interesting, and make sure your phone and/or Kindle is fully charged.  Then get in line, stay in line, and make your voice heard.  Democracy depends on it.

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The following ebooks will be free to download from Friday November 4th, through Election Day on Tuesday November 8th.

Political Pies

Everybody complains about politics, but does anyone do anything about it? My attempt to do something about it is to collect forty of my short stories with a political element into my Political Pies anthology. The stories are either politically neutral or equally condemning of the national parties. Instead of trying to sway you to one ideology or another, my goal is to just get people thinking about politics in the hopes a rose might grow out of all the political manure.

A Man of Few Words

A Man of Few Words is a collection of fifty of my flash fiction stories. What would really happen if a “T-Rex on steroids” attacked a city? Why do science fiction writers make the best lovers? How does a company get to Second Base with VIPs? I explore these questions and more using less than 1,000 words and in various genres from humor to horror and general fiction to science fiction.

The majority of the stories were previously published (most on my website) but all were revised for this collection. In addition, each piece is accompanied by some background information on the origin of the story or a funny tale about the writing of it to give a fuller experience.

The Future is Coming

As a science fiction writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology will change the way we live. I’ve come up with these ten short essays about science fictional elements that will – almost certainly – one day become science fact as a way for people to start coming to terms with them. Because I’ve spent time thinking about clones and AIs, I feel I’ll be okay when they do finally show up whereas most people will probably freak out. I hope these essays will get people to start thinking about the future because, no matter what we do, the future is coming.

Duty

For reasons of safety and avoiding paradoxes, Time Travel Incorporated assigns a Guardian to all its travelers. So when there is an accident during political historian Roj Hasol’s trip back to 1968, it’s his Guardian Susan who sets out on the arduous task of cleaning up the mess.

Seventh Story Stockpile

Over the years, I’ve posted several short stories on websites that later – for one reason or another – died. While the corpses of some of these sites are still around where you can read the stories, many have vanished from the internet. And since there are few sites that will publish such previously published works, the only way you could read them was if I self-published them in a collection.

In addition to such “lost” stories, I’ve included some new stories that – for one reason or another – I felt I’d have a hard time finding someone to publish them. So Seventh Story Stockpile basically contains stories I didn’t know what else to do with.

Short story – “Tricked”

“Tricked”

When her doorbell rang, Mable shuffled towards the door.  She opened it to see a young man dressed as a pirate, and a kid dressed in a full-body Minion outfit from those movies her grandkids loved so much.  The Minion held out a pumpkin bucket and in a soft, muffled voice said, “Trick or treat.”

“Aren’t you adorable,” Mable said with a smile.  “And what’s your name?”

The Minion pulled the bucket back a bit, but didn’t answer.

The pirate patted him on the head and said, “Billy.  He’s just a little shy.”

“I have a grandson that’s the same way.” Mable chuckled as she dropped a handful of mini candy bars into the bucket.

“What do you say?” the pirate asked.

“Thank you,” came the soft, muffled voice.

“You’re very welcomed, Billy,” Mable said.

The pirate smiled and told Mable, “Have a Happy Halloween.”

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Out on the sidewalk, in his regular voice Bill said, “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

Tom, the pirate, replied, “Hey, we split the candy and I’ll buy you a beer later.”

“This is so humiliating.”

Tom smacked his shoulder.  “You brought a smile to an old lady’s face.  Because of that will they kick you out of the Little People Society?” After a moment, Tom gave an evil grin.  “I know they have short fuses, but come on.”

Bill stopped and looked up at Tom for a moment.  Lifting the bucket he stated, “For every short joke you tell tonight, I’m taking a piece of your candy.”

Tom nodded.  “I guess that’s a small price to pay.”

“That’s two,” Bill told him.

Putting his arm around Bill, Tom said, “Well then, we’re going to have to hit a lot of houses for me to get any candy tonight.”

They walked to the next house with Bill muttering words children shouldn’t use.  

***

This story was written in 2015 on a site that I no longer post to.  I recently remembered it, and I decided to revise and repost it.  I don’t really remember the origin of this story, which is probably for the best.

A disturbing thought about Putin

This began when I was thinking about that glorious day when a judge bangs their gavel and Trump is sentenced to prison for … whichever crime he’s committed in the past forty years they finally get him on.  And I figured that Trump wouldn’t take well to prison to the point would he offer details on any deal he had with Putin for a lighter sentence.  Given Putin’s history of assassinating political opponents, he wouldn’t have an issue taking out someone planning on squealing.  And let’s be honest, even if the bullet was engraved with “Love Vlad,” and the shooter was caught on tape, in the act, and immediately did a “Heil Putin,” or whatever, the magats would figure that it was really Antifa who killed their beloved leader and they just might start that civil war they’re always talking about.

All of that was disturbing, but then another possibility came to my mind.  Let’s say that Putin’s little war wasn’t going that well.  He could go nuclear, but that might be too difficult to coverup.  He could go biological or chemical, but it might help if there was some … distraction in the West so that his latest war crime isn’t the top story in the news.  And the mass unrest after the assassination of a controversial figure could be just the thing he would need.

To be clear, I am not calling for the assassination of Trump.  I want him to live out the rest of his miserable life in prison.  I would say maybe Putin could be his cellmate, but I seriously expect that it’s only a matter of time before Putin is “accidently” shot – in the back of the head – while “resisting” arrest.

Random Story – Stupid smoke detector

This is just an odd little story from my life.

My first apartment was in this old house that had been split up into six or seven apartments.  My door was on the second floor, but it opened to a set of stairs that went up to the third floor which was all mine.  A few months after I moved in, I got a crappy midnight-to-eight job at a convenience store.  I’m a bit of a night owl, so the hours didn’t really bother me.  Except during the summer.  I didn’t have air conditioning and, since I sleep best when it’s dark, I had thick curtains over my windows so I couldn’t get a breeze and my bedroom became a little oven.  Also, it seemed there were times when I would just be about to fall asleep and some neighbor would decide to mow their yard. 

Anyway, one day I’m about to fall asleep when I hear a faint chirp.  This repeats a few times, and then I realize it’s a low battery alarm on a smoke detector.  I got up and check my smoke detector, but it was fine.  I figured it was a downstair neighbor’s, who probably wouldn’t be home from work for three or four hours.  So I went back to bed, but this chirp was just loud enough to be heard, which means I’d be drifting off to sleep and then every twenty seconds or whatever I’d be jerked back awake wondering, “What was that?”

I eventually managed to sleep, and when I woke up I didn’t hear it anymore.  I went to work, and the next day I was going to bed when I heard it start chirping again.  So I was rather pissed wondering why this neighbor hadn’t replaced the battery.  I went down to the second floor and listened outside doors trying to figure out who it was, so I knew who to leave a note for.  But I couldn’t hear it.  I was a bit confused, but when I went to go back up to my apartment, I heard it again: coming from my apartment.  For the fourth or so time, I checked my smoke detector, but it was fine.  I then went to each room and listened, and I eventually found the source.

As I said, this was an old house that had rather high ceilings.  Well, whenever they updated the heating system, they had run the ducts just under the old ceiling and hung a drop ceiling to cover it all up.  What they also covered up was an old smoke detector just outside my bedroom door.  It had been there for, who knows how many years, until the battery finally died and ruined two days of sleep for me.