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Boy, I do hope I have some company up there, or else it could get very lonely...
 
I demand it to be sent in a mine!
 
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February 21st, 2026. The five-member Geology team arrived on Mars... and almost immediately made a major discovery. They found a vast and rich deposit of Corbomite which had been entirely missed by the orbital survey... 100,000 tons at 80% purity. Mars now produces five Trans-Neutonian minerals instead of four.

The team will be sent to prospect the comet next... although if they don't make a strike for several months, it will probably be too late to exploit whatever they happen to find.

Governor Taklagarn will be happy to have some company, at any rate.
 
Since it seems to be possible to miss mineral deposits, do you think there could be any chance/risk that the scouts have missed any alien presents in the system they explored?
 
Are puppies standard issue with geo-survey teams?
 
Can the geolists take the puppy with them? Safer for it... (Can they also bring another mine?) :p
 
Why do geo-survey teams receive puppies, while freighter crews have to settle with...ehm...specialist periodicals? Outrage!!
 
Since it seems to be possible to miss mineral deposits, do you think there could be any chance/risk that the scouts have missed any alien presents in the system they explored?

Unlikely, since they were scanning the planets with Thermal sensors as well, which would register any departures from the ambient temperature. The only way to miss aliens would be if the aliens had a body temperature (and their machines operated at a working temperature) exactly the same as their surroundings.

Are puppies standard issue with geo-survey teams?

Cats are considered better adapted to micro-gravity environments.

Can the geolists take the puppy with them? Safer for it... (Can they also bring another mine?) :p

You've got most of the automated mines that are not already deployed to Mars. I'm building more, but it's a slow process. As the population of Mars expands, we can send them some manual mines and start pulling out automated mines... most of which will be earmarked for your comet. We will still need at least one more working site... probably an Asteroid... since even between your comet and Mars, not all of the Trans-Neutonian elements are covered.
 
Don't let me fly away, then I'll resign as a governor! :D
 
Any estimation on how long you will have access to the comet for? If it does disappear with our mines (and Taklagarn), will we ever see it again?

Also has my geosurvey ship found anything of note?

no one cares about Taklagarn or we wouldn't have send him there in the first place...no what we seriously worry about is the puppy we're planning to send him. Do you think he'll suspect something if we ask him to send us back the puppy before the end of the week?
 
Didn't someone tell Tak that this was a one-way trip?
 
Proycon.
Woke up with a headache.
While our intended research is slowly progressing some more pressing issues seem to have been solved by good teamwork. The combination of our improvised fermentation facilities and distillation equipment has yielded enough 'fuel' to keep the party running for the foreseeable future.
 
Didn't someone tell Tak that this was a one-way trip?

Thought it was given, can't have terran territory fly off into space without someone to govern it.
 
March 6th 2026. Captain Arjyla's Battle Fleet has completed its third training mission, and the crews are being given some rotating furlough while the yards overhaul the ships. While our Fighters and Missile bases make a formidable guard-force for the Earth itself, these three ships represent our only long-range striking power... and it seems prudent to keep them in top working condition.

We have started an important and long-range project on Mars. Our scientists and technicians have been working for months to assemble a series of Terraforming Stations for shipment to the Red Planet. Four of the Terraformers have been delivered to Mars, and have been coming on-line one at a time since the turn of the year. Our long-range plan is to turn Mars into another Earth... or better, into an Eden, since we have the possibility to avoid the errors made during Earth's own Industrial Age.

As the first step in the program, we have started flooding the Martian atmosphere with biologically inert greenhouse gasses. We intend to raise the temperature from its natural thermal equilibrium state of -48 degrees centigrade, up towards the freezing point of water. Once the temperature is up in the range where colonists require only respirators and warm coats instead of space-suits, we will start thickening up the atmosphere with Nitrogen, from its current 1% of Earth's density to a substantial fraction of normal atmospheric pressure. Finally, we will raise the Oxygen partial pressure up towards the level at which the colonists can throw their respirators aside, and breathe the air of Mars.

Several of my more vocal political opponents have denounced this whole operation as visionary and unrealistic... altering the atmosphere of an entire planet? At our current technology level? I have even been the butt of a number of rather feeble jokes and comedy routines on television.

Let them laugh. On my desk is a report from the monitoring station at Syrtis Major. The average global temperature of Mars has gone up more than a degree. In two months.
 
Unlikely, since they were scanning the planets with Thermal sensors as well, which would register any departures from the ambient temperature. The only way to miss aliens would be if the aliens had a body temperature (and their machines operated at a working temperature) exactly the same as their surroundings.

Do you have to do anything specific for this to happen or is it part of the standard survey?