VANAHEIM STATION BY STEVEN S BEHRAM, MD
Gravity's onset gives you a funny sensation, even at twelve percent. Sarah felt a little nauseous, but she had learned to hide it well as she tried to acclimate back to Vanaheim’s environment.” Sarah Hartman was barely two-anda-half months old when she first learned how to walk. Now, some 37 years later, her spaceship, now inward bound from Mars to Earth, was auto-docking at Vanaheim space station at the second Lagrange point. She grabbed her blond hair, made more voluminous by the lack of gravity, and tied it expertly into a bun with the help of a bungee she carried on her left wrist. Her pale white skin looked creamy due to the lack of direct sunlight, and her face appeared more edematous than usual when she checked herself in the mirror. She was the only passenger in the return vehicle during the long trip home. Normally the craft would carry up to eight passengers, but the circumstances of her departure
05 I SavagePlanets
necessitated her solo return. She fussed over herself to look more presentable as her months-long journey from Mars to the station was coming to an end. Vanaheim Station was her birthplace, but she had never thought she would ever set foot there again. Then again, she never thought she would ever be going to the Red Planet. Commander Sarah Hartman had spent almost a year in orbit around Mars as a mission specialist, supporting the numerous human colonization projects on the planet surface. The Mars Manned Orbital Platform (MMOP) provided near-real-time support for the people working and living permanently on Mars.
It orbited Mars in an areostationary orbit along the Martian equatorial plane, roughly 17,000 km from the planetary surface. Staffed by scientists, military leadership, and medical support personnel, MMOP was the glue that cemented mankind’s efforts at the settlement on Mars nearly 55 million kilometres from earth. She was now keenly aware that her vessel was matching the speed and rotation of Vanaheim Station. The station was designed as a low-gravity platform, and she could now feel the 12 percent G that was the hallmark of the station. The variable gravity platform was originally designed for the benefit of lunar astronauts. It allowed them to acclimate faster between earth and moon gravity. Now, it served
