Chapter 16.
In this chapter, Guo Ming, director of China space Administration, plans to launch a rocket to Mars. They want to put an astronaut on Mars. They talk about rescuing the American astronaut, and how that would make them equal to the American Space Administration. The heads of JPL talk about the China Space Administration, and Rich Purnell form Astrodynamics, talks to Venkat about whether or not they should let the Chinese rescue American Astronaut Mark Watney. They talk about Project Elrond, a secret project that can maybe get food to Watney sooner, but it may also end up with astronauts being killed, and the Ares projects ending. Venkat tells the Ares 3 Crew what the plan is, and they decide to return back to Mars to rescue Mark Watney themselves.
Chapter 17.
In this chapter, Mark Watney learns that the Ares 3 crew is coming back to save him. He now has to race towards Schiaparelli, where a MAV is that he can use to get up to space so he can be picked up by the Ares 3 crew. He will use both rovers during this mission. One to drive around in, and the other to use as a supply trailer. Watney uses HAB power to power a drill that he uses to cut 488 holes into Rover 1, but then the drill quits working. Watney discovers that the drill had tripped all three breakers, so he resets the breakers, and the drill works, so he gets back to work. Then he realizes that Pathfinder is no longer sending or receiving messages. He traces the power cord and figures out that the lead has melted. Then he realizes that the Pathfinder stopped working at the same time the drill stopped working, and that Pathfinder might be pulling too much power from the HAB. He realizes that when he leaned the drill up against the metal work bench, it made a metal to metal contact that sent electricity from the drill, through the work bench, through a bunch of precious irreplaceable electronics and finally pathfinder. Pathfinder is dead. Mark Watney losses the way to contact Earth. He is back on his own.
Chapter 18.
In this chapter, Mark Watney works on the Oxygenator, and he also decides he doesn’t need the water reclaimer at all. He will just drink as needed and dump waste on Mars surface. He figures out how to use the oxygenator on the rover, and he also figures out how to use the atmospheric regulator, and how to power both the oxygenator and the atmospheric regulator as well. He hauls rocks and puts them into the trailer to test it and see how much it can carry, weight wise, at least. He gets 57 kilometers before the batteries start to die. The next day Watney wakes up in agony. He has pulled something in his back, so he takes it easy and takes Vicodin, but when it wears off, the pain returns. He takes a week off and makes a hammock out of Johnanssen’s cot. He takes it easy, but after the week is up, he returns to work, albeit easy work so he doesn’t hurt himself even more later. He spells out a Morse code message in front of the camera that says “Injured back. Better now. Continuing Rover Mods.” Later, he experiments with the power panels to see if he can make them power the rover’s but he can’t get them attached to the rover, so he gives up. He decides to make an L brace for the panels that will hang out from the undercarriage that he can stack the panels on. The next day he finishes the L brackets and tests them by hitting them with a rock, but they are solid. He stacks the solar panels on the brackets and connects them up, then he does some driving around to test them, and they never move at all. Happy with that, he strips the trailer and rover of unneeded stuff to make them lighter and to make more space for stuff he needs, like batteries, which he puts in the trailer. Also, according to Watney’s calendar, the Hermes Resupply Probe is being launched in China in 2 days. Watney won’t know how the launch went until he gets to Schiaparelli later.
