Amelie Durand: Previously on Mars.

Ben Sawyer: We knew Mars wouldn't welcome us with open arms.

Mae: Warning, systems offline.

Robert Foucault: Permission to switch from primary to backup.

Ben Sawyer: Do it.

Hana Seung: Prepare for retropropulsion.

Ben Sawyer: We were ready to give everything to get there.

Hana Seung: Mission control, this is Daedalus, we're looking at a red planet.

[Cheers]

Ben Sawyer: And we knew we'd have to fight even harder if we wanted to stay.

Marta Kamen: How far did we sh**t?

Sam: 75.3 kilometers.

Robert Foucault: Mission control confirmed the rover is 2,000 kilos over maximum payload.

Hana Seung: The odds are we won't make it.

Ben Sawyer: But no matter what happened, we'd do everything we could to make the workshop module our new basecamp.

Because the thing that kept us pushing, it wasn't just inside us.

Our species has always been driven to build beyond what we know.

We migrated across all of earth.

Created settlements, constructed cities, and when we finally left our home planet, we knew the risks involved.

John F. Kennedy: As we set sail, we ask god's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Ben Sawyer: However will is a double edged sword.

Again, and again it's taken us farther than we ever thought we could go.

But this time we had seized on an object so vast, so difficult to attain.

I couldn't help but wonder if we might have finally pushed too far.

♪ ♪

Robert Foucault: A.I. Guidance is good.

Javier Delgado: We keep this pace, we'll be there in a little under 15 hours.

[Hearing voice in head]

Ben's dad: It's a lot of work this space thing.Is it worth it?

Ben Sawyer: Did you?

Amelie Durand: Ben, are you okay?

Ben Sawyer: Yeah, I'm fine.

We're gonna have a lot of work to do when we get to base camp.

Robert Foucault: I packed the blanket substrate from the secondary panels...

[Multiple overlapping voices]

Amelie Durand: Ben!

♪ [Theme music plays] ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

[Footsteps]

[Hammering]

[Breathing]

[Coughing]

Amelie Durand: No, no no, no, no, you're having difficulty breathing.

Ben Sawyer: I'm ok.

Hana Seung: You are not ok.

Amelie Durand: Your blood oxygen is dropping and your heart rate is too high.

Hana Seung: You knew.

You knew, and you wouldn't let Amelie examine you.

Ben Sawyer: We didn't have enough time.

Amelie Durand: I think you've got blood in your lungs.

You need aspiration to get it out and I can't treat you without the equipment at basecamp.

Hana Seung: We've gotta drive faster.

Javier Delgado: The rover isn't designed to do more than ten kilometers per hour.

Robert Foucault: If I adjust the software protocols I can push that to twenty, but with the terrain between us and base camp, it's gonna be a rocky ride.

Hana Seung: Ben...

Ben Sawyer: I don't want this vehicle going over fifteen, do you understand me?

Robert Foucault: Got that, captain.

Ava: Someone modified the rover's speed protocols.

Oliver: I've got them pushing 12 kilometers per hour and climbing.

Ed Grann: What the hell are they doing?

Sam: It's Ben, play it.

Mission control: Cueing rover audio feed now.

Mission control 2: Bringing satellite up.

Sawyer's biometrics coming online.

Amelie Durand: Your blood oxygen is dropping and your heart rate is too high.

I think you've got blood in your lungs.

I can't treat you without the equipment at basecamp.

Hana Seung: We've gotta drive faster.

Ben Sawyer: There were people who asked us why we wanted to go to this place that would almost surely k*ll us.

And whether anything we did to prepare ourselves would be enough.

Charles Bolden: Humanity has never undertaken anything like sending humans to another planet.

So how do humans get ready to go to Mars.

Or how do they survive for this mission?

President Obama: Now last month we launched a new spacecraft as part of a reenergized space program that will send American astronauts to Mars and in two months, to prepare us for those missions, Scott Kelly will begin a year long stay in space.

So good luck, captain, we're proud of you.

Reporter: An American astronaut is hours away from beginning his one year mission on board the international space station...

Reporter 2: While Scott is in space, his twin brother, former shuttle commander Mark Kelly will stay on earth, the brothers, perfect subjects to study...

Norm knight: The trip to Mars is a long trip, seven months, and so we have to understand, what does it mean for an astronaut to be in orbit for that amount of time.

Pasha Morshedi: Pretty much any system in the body you can think of is affected from space flight.

The cardiovascular system is affected, the muscular system is affected.

The immune system is affected.

Lots of things can go wrong the longer you'll spend in space.

Emily Nelson: Frankly we don't have very much data about exactly what twelve months is gonna do to Scott's body.

It's an unknown, and you're basically allowing yourself to be an experiment.

Amiko: It could cost him his life.

This mission could cost him his life.

Mission control: Ready for the launch, we are ready for the launch.

Scott Kelly: I'm a test pilot, so, I think it's important to push the envelope.

Announcer: We're waving goodbye one last time, before they're loaded in.

Scott Kelly: The risk factor of this, which is high, makes it even more interesting.

Announcer: The engines igniting, ramping up...

[Inaudible radio chatter]

And liftoff.

The year in space starts now, Kelly, Kornienko, Padlanka on their way towards the international space station.

Ann Druyan: Going to Mars, not only will people become invested in the safety and well being of the explorers, but also there is that drama, that sense of suspense, as to whether or not they can survive on a world that they were not made for.

Interviewer: who is Ben Sawyer?

Hana Seung: Ben Sawyer is our commander.

Amelie Durand: Ben is probably the most reliable person I've ever met.

Javier Delgado: Ben is the eye of the storm.

He is a rock.

Robert Foucault: Ben Sawyer is a great commander and I'm blessed and privileged to be one of his team.

Marta Kamen: Ask him.

Ben Sawyer: who is Ben Sawyer?

Uh, he is a member of the team.

Hana Seung: How far?

Robert Foucault: 21 down, 43 miles left.

Amelie Durand: Ben, hey, are you with us?

Ben Sawyer: Yeah, always.

Amelie Durand: Hang in there.

♪ ♪

[Loud bang]

Robert Foucault: Wheels five and six just locked.

Mae: Suspension system compromised.

Recommend visual assessment.

Robert Foucault: The problem is in the rear.

Javier Delgado: I'll get out there.

[Alarm]

Ok, I'm here.

We snapped a load supporting strut above the third wheel-set.

Robert Foucault: Can we weld it?

Javier Delgado: No chance.

Alpha-one-Alpha is split, the whole rocker is blown.

Robert Foucault: Mae, repercussion report on damage to load supporting strut Alpha-one-Alpha.

Mae: Replacement component required for restoration of mobility...

Necessary 3D printer is at the new base camp.

Javier Delgado: We're still 16.2 kilometers away.

Amelie Durand: I really need to treat Ben with the equipment at the workshop.

Hana Seung: We have to walk.

Marta Kamen: It's minus-35 degrees.

It will be minus-70 by nightfall.

We run out of battery, we freeze to death out there.

Amelie Durand: If we walk at a decent pace then we can make it to base camp in four hours.

Javier Delgado: Loading the rover took time, our batteries are already down to four and a half hours charging.

Ben Sawyer: No, it's too tight a margin.

I'm not risking that exposure to my crew.

We charge the suits and we leave when they're at capacity.

Amelie Durand: If you don't get to base camp, then you'll suffocate before those batteries are charged...

Ben Sawyer: I said we charge the...

[Coughs]

Amelie Durand: We don't have a choice.

Hana Seung: If you think ordering us to stay in this rover to watch you die is the right thing to do, you shouldn't be giving orders.

Ben Sawyer: Send a status update to mission control.

Tell them we'll be out of contact until we reach the base camp.

Neil degrasse Tyson: The funny thing about Mars, you know, it rotates once in about 24 hours.

It has seasons, it has polar ice caps.

So on the informational surface it feels like earth.

But you dig a little deeper and you realize it's very cold there, it's very dry there; you can't breathe the air.

It is more hostile to life than any place on earth.

Andy Weir: The hottest it gets on Mars is about 0 degrees celsius.

And that's like high noon in the summer time on the equator.

But at night it will get as low as minus 100 celsius.

Roger Launius: There is a fundamental problem that we're going to have to deal with in terms of a Mars mission that was never the case with the Apollo program, and that is the human body and how do we protect it for long, long periods in space and on the planet's surface.

We are exceptionally fragile creatures.

We are very well evolved to survive at sea level, on this planet and nowhere else.

Pasha Morshedi: In the absence of gravity lots of things can go wrong, your heart doesn't have to work as hard and so it becomes less effective, your brain has challenges, controls your movements, the body seems to be demineralizing your bones, these are all very important to study, not just because academically we wanna know, but because we wanna make sure that they're good to go when they h*t the surface of Mars.

Peter Diamandis: So the physical challenges of getting to Mars is gonna be fun, right, you've been in a zero gravity environment for some eight months which is like being in bed for eight months, and then you reach the surface of Mars.

Your coordination, your cardiovascular system, your respiratory system, all of that is all of a sudden under a gravitational load that was never there and so the question is will you be able to survive during this crucial time of arrival?

Amelie Durand: If we don't succeed, then we will have tried.

Ben Sawyer: For the last seven months, Daedalus had been our armor, shielding us from the harms of our journey, now we had nothing but our E.V.A. Suits to insulate us on the trip ahead.

Javier Delgado: We're still 16.2 kilometers away.

Hana Seung: We have to walk.

Marta Kamen: It's minus-35 degrees.

It will be minus-70 by nightfall.

We run out of battery, we freeze to death out there.

Ed Grann: Jesus.

♪ ♪

Robert Foucault: Easy, easy.

Marta Kamen: We're not moving fast enough.

Javier Delgado: We can't stop.

Robert Foucault: We're averaging 3 kilometers per hour.

Amelie Durand: Ben, we can slow it down, let you catch your breath.

Ben Sawyer: No we can't.

We have to move faster.

Robert Foucault: We wanna make it by nightfall, we're gonna have to reroute across the dunes.

Marta Kamen: He's right.

Robert Foucault: Ok, ok, alright, come on.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

[Heavy breathing]

♪ ♪

Amelie Durand: Ben?

♪ ♪

Robert Foucault: One, two, three!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Hana Seung: Mae, battery report.

Mae: 21% power remaining, advise return to climate controlled environment.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Amelie Durand: Oh my god, Ben, Ben!

Ben, Ben!

[Coughing]

♪ ♪

Charlotte Kelly: He's the type of guy that you'll really never know until you're close to him, he has a sense of humor.

You know, going a day without him cracking a joke it's kind of like you haven't said something that made me laugh today what's up?

John Grunsfeld: I think some people are genetically programmed to want to go somewhere to leave their home and explore.

You know you have to be very comfortable, losing that connection to those you've left behind.

Jim Lovell: The type of person that you select to go to Mars has to have a family that understands the risk.

My wife stayed home, hoping that I would not fall into some tragedy that I couldn't get out of, you have to have mental attitude of being prepared that something is going to happen.

Ann Druyan: When I think about space explorers I think of their willingness to be so heart wrenchingly torn from the earth and everyone they love and everyone they know, to go and do impossible things.

Interviewer: I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about your father?

Ben Sawyer: When I was a child my father and I would, would uh, build little models of the solar system and he taught me all about the stars and taught me how to find my way by the stars, I don't know, right from then I always wanted to be up there, you know?

♪ ♪

[Labored breathing]

♪ ♪

[Heavy breathing]

Mae: Entering auxiliary mode thermoregulation deprioritized, please return to a climate controlled environment and charge suit immediately.

Ed Grann: I don't want matrix, I want position.

How much longer before we hear something?

Ava: Including the delay and if they'd kept their projected pace.

Oliver: They should have arrived at base camp over an hour ago.

Joon Seung: Their suits would have shut down thermal regulation to prioritize oxygen and co2 scrubbing.

The electrigel will have some residual heat.

Ava: They're in full night.

Oliver: Without power, they're gonna freeze out there.

[Coughing and grasping for air]

Amelie Durand: Ben, Ben?

Stop.

Ben, Ben?

He can't hear me, Hana, you're in command now.

Hana Seung: We've gotta keep moving.

It's gotta be close.

We're moving, let's go.

♪ ♪

Ed Grann: How long till visual?

Computer: Satellites are still out of range audio and visual contact with crew is not possible until they reach the workshop module.

Robert Foucault: We should see a beacon by now.

Hana Seung: Horizon's closer here, we're in a valley.

Marta Kamen: I can't remember any songs...

Hana Seung: It's gotta be here.

Marta Kamen: Can anyone remember a song?

Hana Seung: We can't stop guys, we can't afford to stop.

Amelie Durand: Stay with me Ben.

Mae: Warning, your battery power is at 2%.

Co2 scrubbing is now compromised.

Javier Delgado: The air is going toxic.

My vision is fading.

Hana Seung: One more hill, hurry.

Amelie Durand: You're doing great Ben, you're doing great.

We're not very far.

We're gonna make it Ben, we're gonna make it.

We're not very far.

♪ ♪

Ben's father: If you try to draw the solar system on a piece of paper, the planets will be microscopic.

The only way you can get a sense of the scale is to build a model.

It's a lot of work this space thing.

Was it worth it?

Amelie Durand: He can't breathe!

Where is the workshop?

Robert Foucault: It's there!

Ah, come on.

Amelie Durand: We need to work fast.

Hana Seung: Come on!

Amelie Durand: Fast, get him in!

Mae: Pressurization complete.

Amelie Durand: Javier, pull his helmet and back pad very gently.

Plug in his biometrics.

We'll worry about the infection later.

Get me the monitor and two large pour IVs, I'm cutting the kevlar to expose his torso.

Robert Foucault: I can see his heart rate climbing.

Amelie Durand: Dammit Ben there is blood in his left lung and pleural space!

Get me a chest tube; We need to drain this now!

Hana Seung: Prepping the chest tube.

Amelie Durand: Get him 100 mikes of Fentanyl, he's going to feel this!

Gloves.

His blood pressure is too low.

Scalpel.

His heart is constricted by fluid.

Marta Kamen: Oxygen saturation is at 88%.

Amelie Durand: Clamp...

Hana Seung: Ben...

Amelie Durand: Chest tube.

I'm inserting the tube now.

We should see relief with symptoms.

Start suction.

Show me his vitals.

Hana Seung: Stay with me!

Amelie Durand: His blood pressure is still dropping, something else is wrong!

I can't feel anything through his suit, I need to do another cut.

Scalpel.

His whole abdomen is full of blood, he has ruptured his spleen.

Ben, stay with me!

Prep for a laparotomy.

I need to clamp up the blood supply and remove the spleen, hurry!

Hana Seung: We're not finished here Ben!

Stay with me, come on!

Amelie Durand: We're losing him, we're losing him.

Javier prep 1ml of...

[Distant overlapping chatter]

Joon Seung: I've got them.

Amelie Durand: I'm so tired joon, we're all so tired.

He knew what he was doing.

He did it because he knew it was the best chance any of us had...

I can barely believe he's still hanging on.

Blood was obliterating the lung and pleural space in the left, diminishing lung capacity and preventing him from properly oxygenating.

After evacuation of a large volume of blood and clot, his spleen was noted to be extensively damaged.

I was able to safely remove it but his vital signs remain unstable and he's still in guarded condition.

He lost so much blood, joon, it's impossible to say now if he lives, or...

The only thing is to wait...

♪ ♪

Ann Druyan: I think sending humans to space is our latest expression of the ancient human practice called human sacrifice, but really in the service of something much greater.

David Dinges: The early astronauts were risk-takers.

They were brave people.

They had been test pilots and flown in the early age of the jet engines, and more than a few of them died.

Mission control: Challenger now heading downrange.

[expl*si*n]

Obviously a major malfunction, we have no downlink.

Ronald Reagan: Sometimes painful things like this happen, it's all part of the process of exploration and discovery.

The future doesn't belong to the faint hearted, it belongs to the brave.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Scott Kelly: Having been up here for a year, I now realize that a year is longer than I though it was, cause I feel like I've lived my whole life up here.

In space I never feel completely normal.

There's always something that is a little bit not right.

Pasha Morshedi: These astronauts when they put themselves at risk they're not just putting themselves at risk for the things that we know.

These people are putting their bodies at risk in ways that we might not ever understand.

For us, and for the human race.

Emily Nelson: We won't really know what the mission has done to him for years.

As we continue to monitor him through time, and as we continue to see how the remainder of his aging process works out.

We many not know for a long time exactly what he sacrificed.

Charlotte Kelly: I have small worries, you know I'm at school and someone calls me to the front desk it's like, is dad okay?

But I have a lot of faith in the space program and I know they're safe, but there's always that um, idea that you had false hope and that there is a possibility.

Scott Kelly: Okay.

Here, I'll put this headset on, hold on.

How you doing?

Charlotte Kelly: Good, how are you doing?

Scott Kelly: You don't look very excited.

Charlotte Kelly: Of course I miss him.

[Laughs]

I miss him.

I just don't know how to show that I miss him.

Watching movies with him and just kind of hanging out.

It's like the things that don't seem important at the time, but when it comes down to them being gone you realize they're the most important.

Scott Kelly: I saw your report card.

Charlotte Kelly: Yeah.

Scott Kelly: It was pretty good.

You've gotta do better in Spanish, though.

Charlotte Kelly: Yeah, I know.

I don't like other languages, and it's just hard.

Scott Kelly: Languages are just hard to learn, cause I've been studying Russian for like, I don't know, 18 years and there's no secret, it's just hard work.

Charlotte Kelly: For the last year of my life, he has missed me growing about four inches taller, me going into a new school, new friends.

A lot.

You know, he's sacrificing time on earth and life, in a sense.

Scott Kelly: Next time I see you Charlotte, you'll be at the bottom of the steps when I get off the airplane.

Charlotte Kelly: Yep, the first thing I'm gonna do when I see him is I'm gonna give him a giant bear hug because that's what he wants me to do.

Scott Kelly: I don't want the one-armed half hug.

I want, I want the big bear hug...

Both arms.

Charlotte Kelly: Two arms all the way around and squeeze him.

Scott Kelly: Yeah, just like that.

Charlotte Kelly: He's like planned it out for me, everything.

Announcer: Mikhail Korniyenko, Scott Kelly, Sergei Volkov on their way home.

Robert Zubrin: What is a good life that we should aspire to?

Is a good life one that is enjoyed with pleasure and without risk or is a good life one that has a chance to achieve great deeds?

Scott Kelly: There's the immediate risk of the rocket bl*wing up.

It's kinda like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, while you're on f*re.

As soon as you realize you're not gonna die it's the most fun you've ever had.

♪ ♪

We have to go to Mars.

It'll require more sacrifice, more radiation, more risk, more time away.

[Cheering and applause]

I'd still do it, though.

Hana Seung: I will miss my sister, and I'll be worried that she's worried about me.

Joon Seung: I'm sorry, sir.

Ed Grann: I didn't hire you because I was convinced you could keep your feelings separate from this mission.

I hired you because I knew you couldn't.

Cause I needed someone who understands what I understand.

For something like this to work, it has to be personal.

♪ ♪

[Grunting]

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Ben Sawyer: We dream.

It's who we are.

Down to our bones, our cells.

We'd come tens of millions of kilometers through the darkness.

All of us prepared to sacrifice everything.

Because we knew that making a home in this place was the only chance humanity had to go on dreaming.

I thought I'd find you up here.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

[Speaking Russian]

Marta Kamen: Farewell.

Hana Seung: He was gone. I was in command now. With Ben's strength to guide us, we had made the longest journey in the history of humankind. And I knew we had even further to go without him.
{"type": "series", "show": "Mars", "episode": "01x02 - Grounded"}