Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

“Oh God, please tell me you understand where the heat goes. I can’t figure out what the heck it’s doing with the heat energy!” “We have figured this out, yes,” said Dimitri. “With lasers. It was very illuminating experiment.” “Was that a pun?” “It was!” “Good one!” We both laughed. Stratt glared at us. Dimitri cleared his throat. “Er…yes. We pointed tight-focus one-kilowatt laser at a single Astrophage cell. As usual, it did not get hotter. But after twenty-five minutes, light starts to bounce off. Our little Astrophage is full. Good meal. It consumed 1.5 megajoules of light energy. Does not want more. But this is very much energy! Where does it put all this energy?” I’m leaning way too far forward over the table, but I can’t help myself. “Where?!” “We measure Astrophage cell before and after experiment, of course.” “Of course.” “Astrophage cell is now seventeen nanograms heavier. You can see where this goes, yes?” “No, it can’t be. It must have gained that weight from reactions with the air or something.” “No, it was in a vacuum for the test, of course.” “Oh my God.” I was giddy. “Seventeen nanograms…times nine times ten to the sixteenth…1.5 megajoules!” I flopped back into my chair. “Holy…I mean just…wow!” “This was how I felt, yes.” Mass conversion. As the great Albert Einstein once said: E = mc2. There’s an absurd amount of energy in mass. A modern nuclear plant can power an entire city for a year with the energy stored in just one kilogram of Uranium. Yes. That’s it. ...