Mars Colony Centennial Guide
Or How To Get A Yak Out Of The Airlock
by Eric Klein

Welcome from Anna Marie Persson, Governor General of Mars, October 2135

“Welcome to the one hundredth anniversary of my great grandmother, Commander Anna Persson, first to step onto Mars. It was the second of October twenty thirty-five that after a three week voyage the USS Serenity landed, and after all the post-landing checks she took the first step of a human onto a planet that was not Earth. Her words have been taught to schoolchildren since: ‘That’s another small step for humans, and a giant leap for the human race’.” Applause from the audience. “I would like to invite our oldest ‘native’ resident, Old MacDonald, to tell you about the beginning of our colonization efforts here on Mars.”

“Thank you Governor Persson, for that wonderful introduction. As the Governor mentioned, many of you know me as ‘Ol’ MacDonald’. But my full name is Aadit MacDonald. My father came from the Scottish Highlands and my mother from Nepal. I was named Aadit, which means ‘new starting’ or ‘beginning’ in Nepalese. My parents had high hopes as I was the first child born on Mars. You see my Dad was a barley farmer and my Mom a botanist.

“Now I would like to start with one of my first adventures, one I had when I was ten. There yak in stuck in one of our air lock…

“Ah, I can tell, you want to ask ‘how did we get a yak on Mars in the first place?’ A very good question. Embryos in sacks. 

“Before the first colony mission there was a decision made that rather than transport cows or sheep, yaks would be a better choice. So, ten years after the first colonist landed, we ‘hatched’ our first ‘yaks in a sack, and 9 months later we introduced Yaks to the dome. Now as to why Yaks. They can survive at lower air pressure than most animals. Their milk can be drunk straight or processed into butter or cheese. Their meat is nutritious. Their fur can be turned into yarn or woven. They will eat easy to grow (hydroponically or on the soil) alfalfa. They are docile and will not attack people. Most importantly, when provided with proper pastures and water Yaks have little to no detectable odor, in fact yak’s wool is odor resistant. Other easy to care for meat/fur animals were considered and were used later would be rabbits and limited numbers of chickens (high odor problem to be dealt with). Mountain goats were considered, but they are more aggressive. So, while goats and yaks have sharp horns – you want the less aggressive one when you live in a glass bubble. But the reason that mountain goats and yaks were considered was because of their adaptability to low air pressure. This meant we didn’t need to bring the enclosed spaces up to a full one thousand thirteen point twenty five millibars to match Earth sea level. In fact, we could keep it lower than in most of the living space. The yaks are happy even if we don’t go all the way down to the same seven hundred millibars like that of their ancestors enjoy in the Himalayas. So, we are doing fine at about nine hundred and fifty millibars here in their dome.”

“Maybe I should start a bit earlier. The first landing and settlement were planned to be as close to the Rice Boroughs’ locations as they were in a good location for a landing field and room for a city to grow. I was born at the first test farm at Pedestal Craters in Utopia. This location was chosen as it was a crater with high walls and was close to one of the sites believed to have water ice near enough to the surface for use.”

“Now understand that the first segment of our farm was started almost 100 years ago, it was one of the original test farms. In the first year, all they did was to cover a crater and start hydroponic farming to feed the team and to build up some compost. They chose this crater because it is near the ice fields on Utopia Planitia. For the fields, they then started a ten-year program of phytoremediation using alfalfa to clean soil to safe levels of the arsenic, cadmium, copper, and lead. As alfalfa crops grow fast and can be harvested up to twelve times per Earth year, or twenty-two times per Martian year. This is means it is possible to harvest another crop every twelve weeks, or every thirty point four Sols. The seeds from one harvest were used for the next, while we collected and freeze dried the plants outside the dome. Each year we collected them and they were processed for their metal content to be used in manufacturing. What was left was used as compost for the soil.

“Over the next ten years, we had a mix of hydroponic farming with a mix of crop plants that don't take up heavy metals like tomato, rye, radish, pea, leek, spinach, garden rocket, cress, quinoa, chives, and potatoes. These were used to supplement the colony’s food options, while more alfalfa was grown to perform phytoremediation on the newer area until their levels were safe. Then we introduced pill bugs to help keep the levels down, should anything leach out of the surrounding stone walls. It is amazing what those little bugs can clean out. In year three we introduced worms to help convert the compost to useful soil nutrients.

“Along the sides of the fields, as dividers, and to mask the walls, we added bamboo plants to help with air cleaning and O-two production while providing food and pulp for paper and cloths. We need to keep it carefully in check or they will take over everything. But by aggressively harvesting and drip irrigation. it we can succeed. 

“Now, the good thing about goats is they eat almost anything, but that can also be bad in a situation where eating part of a pressure suit or electric cable can be fatal. Also, they can be a little bit aggressive. Especially around mating season.

“Yaks are bigger, and a bit pickier in terms of diet, but they are beasts of burden so they can help till the fields along with being nonaggressive – and you don’t want an animal that could potentially head butt your dome wall and cause a leak. Also, Yaks have no smell. Well goats, the less said about their smells the better.”

“So, the decision was easy, Yaks are able to work for their keep, provide fibers for clothing, meat and milk for food, their droppings are good for compost. Also, we find that a cup of gur gur made from tea leaves, yak butter, water, and salt still do wonders to keep us warm.

“As we are working in a canyon, we can keep enclosing new sections and running through the process over and over with each section nice and compartmentalized.” Pointing to a new section being enclosed, “Thus we will slowly grow our terraformed space, increase our food and air supply, all with local made or grown materials.

 
“Growing up in a remote hydroponics farm, there were no school or kids my age. So, I learned by watching and listening to the adults working on the project. On rare occasions we would go down to Helium and I would get to see some of the older kids that had been born on Earth. But they were all older than me and I guess I was a bit shy around them. When I was four there were a few new babies born and I knew that I would not always be alone. 

“I won’t bore you with details about how we were able to harvest alfalfa up to 22 times per Martian year (every 30.4 Sols). Rather I think you might be amused to know that my first pets were a set of Roly-polies – or pill bugs – that were introduced to help remove the harmful chemicals. 

“I met my wife when I was nine and a half years old. My parents decided that I needed a formal education and sent me to Helium for university classes. I can see some in the audience wondering, no I was not so advanced that I went to university when I was 9 Earth years old, I meant Martian years. I think that made me about nineteen Earth years old when I started at University of Mars, Sinai. 

“That year I was taking a class about Pedology to learn about soil morphology and soil classification. One of the classes was scheduled to be outside when the first of the chunks of Saturn’s Rings was, or is it were, going to do their first graze of the atmosphere. We were out collecting soil for analysis when one of my classmates shouted out and we all looked up. It was the biggest and most wonderful thing I have ever seen. First there was this white band, and then the first rainbow on Mars since man had come to live. 

While we were all standing there, I felt someone take my hand. Without thinking about it, I moved closer and held her while we just stood and watched. We married a half a year later and had 3 children grow up here on Mars.

“I see that my time is almost up, and I promised to explain about that yak in the airlock. You see, someone had left one of the pens open and it had wandered in looking for fresh food and could smell the plants in the hydroponic farm on the other side of the airlock door. The door was there both to balance the air pressure and as a safety precaution in case of a breach. 

“One of the newer farm techs was the first to come across this large animal with horns blocking the way out and panicked. First, they tried to shoo it out of the airlock, and that only made it move forward to get away from this noisy person. I must have giggled as they looked angrily up and said ‘ok smarty let’s see you do better.’”

“I climbed over the yak while talking softly to it, trying to calm it down. Then I slid down in front of it and was recognized as someone that gave food. Patting it with a gentle pressure I kept repeating a word to it. Slowly it relaxed and started to backup. Now, of course I had quite an audience watching while the tech was turning red. Once we were out, he came over and asked what it was I was saying. So, I told him ‘Pachiltira.’ Unfortunately, this became his nickname for the rest of the time he was with us. And I am truly sorry about that, no one deserves to be call ‘backwards’ for the rest of their lives.