Part 2: The Voyage Out Summary

The introduction to Part 2 explains that Michel Duval, a psychiatrist, was sent with a hundred and fifty finalist scientists to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, where they lived and worked together, learning specialized equipment, for a year. This was done to choose the final hundred that would travel to Mars as the first colonizers. Fifty men and fifty women were chosen, thirty-five of whom were Russian, and another thirty-five were American. The remaining thirty were from other nations. Because of his time spend with the crew, Michel is sent to Mars.

Part 2 opens with Maya Toitovna and the rest of the one hundred colonists beginning their journey to Mars on December 21, 2026, as their ship, the Ares, leaves the orbit of the Earth. Maya is the leader of the Russian group. The crew celebrates their first night on the...