Artemis

by Andy Weir

If my neighborhood were wine, connoisseurs would describe it as “shitty, with overtones of failure and poor life decisions.”

Earth’s air is 20 percent oxygen. The rest is stuff human bodies don’t need like nitrogen and argon. So Artemis’s air is pure oxygen at 20 percent Earth’s air pressure. That gives us the right amount of oxygen while minimizing pressure on the hulls. It’s not a new concept—it goes back to the Apollo days. Thing is, the lower the pressure, the lower the boiling point of water. Water boils at 61 degrees Celsius here, so that’s as hot as tea or coffee can be.

“Jazz, I’m a businessman,” he said. “My whole job is exploiting underutilized resources. And you are a massively underutilized resource.”

Five a.m. was a largely theoretical concept to me. I knew it existed, but I rarely observed it.

But by the end of it I had a plan. And like all good plans, it required a crazy Ukrainian guy.

I pulled up next to the workshop of Dad’s colleague Zsóka Stróbl, who was apparently named during a severe vowel famine.

“On a scale from one to ‘invade Russia in winter,’ how stupid is this plan?”

Don’t believe me? Put ice water in a saucepan and cook it. The water temperature will stay at 0°C until the last ice cube melts.

“It’s all part of the life-cycle of an economy. First it’s lawless capitalism until that starts to impede growth. Next comes regulation, law enforcement, and taxes. After that: public benefits and entitlements. Then, finally, over-expenditure and collapse.”

“Yes, collapse. An economy is a living thing. It’s born full of vitality and dies once it’s rigid and worn out.