My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 192

ARES 3 solar day 191

[08:08] JPL: Good morning Mark, Venkat here. Sorry for not being here the last few days, it's been so busy here, even today. But I finally have some news to tell you.

[08:32] Watney: Finally it made me wait! I was going to practice swearing in Klingonese here if you didn't reply to my message today. (Don’t tell me there are no curse words in Klingon. As long as you have a strong temper, you can use swear words in any language.)

[08:59] JPL: It's Klingon. But who can tell whether you are spitting out fragrance?

Without further ado, this is the current situation. Hermes recently performed an orbital maneuver to use a gravitational slingshot to accelerate around the Earth and fly past the Sun, returning to Mars on Sol 551. It will take another 211 days for the spacecraft to return to Earth.

The problem is that Hermes will not be able to enter orbit. Strictly speaking, there will only be one flyby opportunity. This also means that Ares 3B MAV no longer exists. That means you have to take your friends and tons of parts to Schiaparelli, find the Ares 4 MAV, and modify it to achieve Mars escape velocity.

At the same time, we also need some help from your friends to build a new sparkling engine that can operate in multiple modes: MAV first upgrade, MAV second upgrade, MAV cockpit, and Hermes and MAV cockpit docking configuration. If all of this can be achieved, it will only take you one week to reach Earth after rendezvous with Hermes.

There are many other requirements, and these are just the broad outlines of a rescue package.

[09:28] Watney: Reply: Klingonese: That’s right.

Reply: The rest of the content: Are you all crazy? ? ? Is anyone online at Hermes now? Is this the plan you chose? What are you thinking about? ! Of course I would be more than happy to be able to leave this lifeless stone two hundred solar days in advance, but I have never agreed to let my team members take another risk! ! !

[09:51] HERMES: Watney, Lewis here. First of all, let me correct you, it’s my team member. Secondly, NASA presented us with this solution, and we believe its risks are within control. But the situation is different over there. This decision was unanimously adopted by us. Regardless of whether you are willing or not, we will come to take you back.

[09:56] JPL: Mark, we also know that the risks are very high this time, but the possibility of something happening to you on Mars is too high. We want you to get off this planet as soon as possible, and we think a Hermes flyby would be the best solution.

In the next day or two, we will send you detailed testing procedures for the Pony spacecraft engine and remaining maneuvering thrusters. The data we focus on are the precise mass of the thrusters and the magic battery system used, the maximum specific impulse of a single thruster, and the overall dimensions. You are free to schedule these tests as appropriate over the next thirty solar days or so.

After this the next crux of our mission was to make travel plans for the transfer to Schiaparelli. This will be an extremely difficult task - we need to find a way to carry the six of you, life support systems, food on the way and about fifty solar days after arriving at Schiaparelli, power and heating equipment , all of Pony's thrusters, magic batteries, and Sparkling engine components traveled three thousand two hundred kilometers on Mars.

Finally, there is some bad news. We need you to keep food packages for everyone for seven days and store them in the MAV as emergency supplies in case of unexpected rendezvous and docking failures. Our backup plan for this involves using the Shining engine, attempting a secondary docking, or heading straight to Earth, depending on the situation. Since food parcels are easier to pack and store than potatoes, we also need to save all the remaining food parcels for the trip to Schiaparelli. Mark, this means no more food packets before you go. I deeply apologize to you.

[10:25] Watney: I am extremely frustrated with the boring life of the next two hundred and fifty solar days. I saw this picture of Cherry Berry dancing and singing "I Can Go to Heaven Again" in the file upload queue right now. The photo disappeared instantly.

[10:27] Watney: Starlight here. Don't forget that we need to conserve battery energy to make new batteries and handle various other needs, so every test that requires magic support will slow down our progress. In addition, as part of the rescue work, Twilight Sparkle successfully developed an adjustable version of the Sparkle engine about three months ago, and multiple mode settings are already available.

[10:51] HERMES: All the lines are ready here: "Starlight obeys the command, forward mode warp speed 1, start."

[11:17] Watney: It seems that there will be something to tell the story tonight, everyone looks confused. Commander, thank you.

[11:42] HERMES: Watney, you never mentioned Kirk or Picard to them? Does NASA have any penalties for failure of duty?

[12:06] Watney: If you want to punish me for lacking the spirit of science fiction, just wait until I land on earth and you can deduct as much salary as you want. Xiaowen, I look forward to your final results.

All kinds of heavy equipment roared day and night in JSC Building 5, transporting away the physical model of the space station, standard Ares habitation module, and Hermes spacecraft. What will be replaced by two testbed versions of the Ares rovers and the rough outline of a mostly dismantled and tattered alien spacecraft will be in place by tomorrow.

In a conference room in Building 5 specially set aside for mission planning, Venkat Kapoor faced a group of NASA elite engineers—men and women from different teams gathered together to discuss the construction of human settlements, EVA Top experts and scholars in the fields of systems and procedures and general mechanical engineering.

"Okay," he said, "the situation is like this. At some point after Sol 400, Mark Watney and the aliens will leave the residential area and travel through various terrains across 4 kilometers to arrive at the Ares 500 MAV in the Schiaparelli Basin. They must arrive around Sol 551 to allow enough time to modify the MAV and wait until Hermes flies by Mars on Sol to rendezvous. The specific modification plan will be determined by JPL Responsible for the formulation, and your task is to transport all personnel and materials required for transformation to the destination on time."

"So...there are six people in total." Venkat started writing on the whiteboard. "And there is enough food for six people to eat for one hundred and fifty solar days, which is about a ton." Then he continued to count the needs and wrote on the whiteboard. Labeled in turn, "as well as shelter, heating and electricity during the journey and after arrival in Schiaparelli."

"What about the air and water?" asked an engineer.

"It will mainly rely on the provision of alien systems." Venkat replied, "If there is additional cargo space, we can also use the main life support system of the habitation module, but considering that we have to relocate many other items, this operation The feasibility of it is not very high." Next he wrote about the alien engine, "We don't know the specific mass of the thruster yet, but as long as it can be used, we have to take it all away." Then there are alien batteries, "Every The block weighs about seventy kilograms, and we want every battery the aliens can rebuild." The rest includes hardware, tools, cables, and pathfinders.

"These are all mission critical," Venkat said. "If I miss anything, please let me know right away."

"MAV fuel and storage tanks." An engineer volunteered to answer. "In order to achieve escape velocity, they must find ways to squeeze out all the speed increase potential of the spacecraft, and stuff as much fuel as they can. And in case the MAV produces excess We also need to find a place to store the fuel.”

"It's a good idea." Venkat agreed and added an additional MAV fuel to the list.

"Living space." Another person said, "On this aspect, you can confirm the situation with Dr. Shields, but I don't know if you still remember the reaction of the Ares team members when they saw the termination of the Mars low-orbit mission. . They were scheduled to stay in the MAV cockpit for three full days, with almost no room to move; and this time the two rovers combined only had enough passenger space to accommodate eight astronauts, unless there was an emergency. This The point space is not even comparable to the MAV, but they have to spend a arduous journey in it that is fifty times as long as the Mars low-orbit mission termination simulation scenario. At least there must be some room to stretch their legs, otherwise it will not be long before they start Killing each other.”

"Isn't this request a bit too extravagant?" Venkat asked.

"Indispensable," insisted the engineer. "You can also consult Dr. Shields."

Venkat shrugged and added the living space.

"There are also EVA space suits." Another engineer appeared next to him, "By Sol 400, their space suits should be almost worn out."

"That's right." Venkat recognized at a glance that the person speaking at this moment was the person in charge of EVA mission operation and control, but he couldn't remember the other person's name. "They have patched Pony's space suit before, Mark I have also replaced two space suits. Therefore, we need two complete sets of space suits as backup in case the space suits are irreparably damaged during the journey."

Venkat knocked on the whiteboard and thought, "We can't back up everything."

"Basically there aren't many things that are more important than an EVA space suit." the EVA mission operations control director responded.

Venkat shrugged again and expanded the list of necessities. "anything else?"

This time finally no engineer spoke again.

"Okay." Venkat continued, "Mark Watney and Starlight Glimmer had achieved good results of driving eighty kilometers per day on their journey to find Pathfinder in the modified No. 2 rover, but at that time There is not much space left in the rover except for the two of them and the supplies they carry with them for the journey. Obviously both rovers must be put into use this time, and most of the supplies can only be hung on the outside of the rover. Total vehicle weight It’s going to be a lot more, so it will be more energy-intensive for the rover to move.”

"Another option is the 'Phoenix' plan proposed by Commander Pony three months ago. The alien spacecraft cannot re-enter, but it may be possible to reset its thrusters and dismantle the mechanical cabin, so that we can We have built a light aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing. However, there are also disadvantages: the alien spacecraft's thrusters rely on magic batteries, and at least in our universe, these batteries can only be used when there are living things around. Recharge. In other words, there is basically only one attempt to fly, and it will take an extremely long time for them to recharge the MAV without a cave farm. In addition, their spacecraft landing gear is still intact. It's towed directly by the rover, but it's very slow based on their past experience."

At this time, an engineer raised his hand. "We have the performance parameters of the rover here," he asked. "The empty mass is 3.5 tons, the rated load is 1.5 tons, and the maximum impact load is 10 tons. Do we know these parameters of the alien spacecraft?"

"Absolutely," Venkat replied, "We are still further calculating the precise data. Based on the rough estimate based on the measurement unit conversion formula obtained by Watney and the alien spacecraft engineer before, the spacecraft will not be included in the calculation of the ship when it is launched. The mass of the crew and supplies is approximately sixty tons, ten of which were the spacecraft's original power supply system and flash engine, which were destroyed during their emergency landing. After removing most of the surface skin, the current estimated mass is at forty About five tons, and the landing gear is designed to withstand a maximum landing impact of ten meters per second, so a reasonable estimate of the impact load for each pair of wheels should be sixty tons."

It was the engineer who spoke again: "But the current body structure of the alien spacecraft is not very reliable, right? They have removed the stern airlock of the spacecraft, and there is still a big hole in the lower part of the hull." He shook his head. Shaking his head, he said, "Things will only get worse after a long tow."

"Can they just dismantle that section of the fuselage?" Another engineer also joined in, "But we didn't bring them heavy tools like welding guns and saws in the Ares supplies."

"Have everyone here understood the so-called 'magic' concept of aliens?" Venkat continued after seeing everyone nodding. "Based on the content of Watney's previous report, we can draw the following conclusion: magic at least has The ability to carry heavy objects and cut objects in a short period of time. At the same time, I also speculate that magic has the ability to weld or even transform matter to a certain extent, but we cannot be sure of this yet."

"Okay." The engineer said, walking over to Venkat, picking up a marker and drawing the rough outline of the alien spacecraft on the whiteboard. "We can ask them to cut off the entire tail part." He Then he explained, "Including the propeller, and everything after the engine room bulkhead partition is not needed. Even if we put the propeller back in later, how much does the spacecraft still weigh like this? Thirty tons? Or thirty-five tons? about?"

Another engineer spoke up, "Approximately how much acceleration can these thrusters provide us?"

"Our latest estimates show that a fifty-ton spacecraft can gain an acceleration of four meters per square second." Venkat replied, "It's just a rough result. We hope to get more precise data from Watney soon." .”

"Then how much acceleration would a thirty-five-ton spaceship have?"

The engineer in front of the whiteboard did a quick calculation and the result was 5.6 meters per square second. "That is to say, the remaining net acceleration after removing the gravity of Mars is 1.8 meters per square second." Then he asked, "What about the fuel situation?"

"The thrusters consume magic energy." Venkat replied, "Two 3.25-kilogram batteries can support the thrusters to operate at maximum thrust for seconds."

The conference room suddenly became quiet. "Will the weight of the battery decrease after consuming energy?" asked the engineer at the whiteboard.

"No." Venkat gave a rare clear answer.

"Dr. Kapol, so much weight is not worth it for so little flight time."

"I know. It was precisely for this reason that we gave up the 'Phoenix' plan before."

At this time, a female engineer finally squeezed her way to the front of the crowd. "Here's a solution," she said. "We don't need to fly into the sky or drag it around. We can just build an RV."

Ignoring the murmurs and confused looks on her colleagues' faces, she drew a rover underneath the sketch of an alien spacecraft on the whiteboard. "Dismantle the No. 1 rover until only the chassis is left." She explained as she drew, "No more pressurized cabins. Throw away all the on-board computers, control interfaces, seats, and life support systems. We use these. No, just keep the tractor hitch, chassis and wheels, so you have a two-ton trailer that can carry an additional eight tons..."

"What a great idea! Then we can stack the equipment on the trailer!" an engineer said.

"No, no, no, listen to me first," the lady hurriedly corrected upon seeing this, "Don't forget that all our tests of the payload were conducted on the Earth, and the gravity of Mars is only two-fifths of the Earth's."

"But the quality will not change no matter where it goes." Another engineer questioned.

"That statement only applies to impact loads in this case," the woman replied. "If there was a flat highway on Mars, this trailer could carry a full twenty-four tons of cargo."

"Even if you are right," Venkat disagreed, "the mass of the spacecraft will still exceed its carrying capacity."

"We gave them two spare rover wheels in the initial supply load." The female engineer responded, "In this way, we can use these spare wheels to replace the front landing gear of the spacecraft. The spacecraft is fixed head-first on the rover chassis, with the nose suspended at the rear and the load shared by the landing gear wheels. This configuration can fully meet the load requirements without exceeding the weight limit, and the entire trailer is also capable of traveling at high speeds "Of course Watney has to be careful to avoid sudden terrain undulations and potholes when driving the rover, but if he is smart enough he will pay attention regardless of whether he is warned or not."

"So we not only have living space but also storage space, and all the needs are solved. There will even be an added benefit: the solar panels can be fixed directly to the top of the alien spacecraft using the numerous hardpoints of the external skin and cooling system , will not damage the integrity of the pressurized cabin. In this way, the rover can obtain more electric energy while driving, and can also save the trouble of going out to EVA for charging. Moreover, the living space of the internal crew is roughly similar to the original space shuttle. This, "She tapped the sketch she drew on the whiteboard and said, "This is the general trend."

Venkat's eyes scanned the entire conference room: "Is this plan feasible?"

Some people nodded, some shook their heads, some didn't look up at all because they were staring at their phone screens, and some were busy scribbling notes with their heads down.

"I think the idea sounds good," Venkat responded, "It just depends on whether the calculation results are correct. If it is confirmed that it is feasible, we can start to develop the assembly process. It must be noted that we can only use Watney The existing resources and capabilities can only include cutting and heavy object handling at most, but others may not be achievable. If you need data, you can contact me directly."

Venkat said his last words, then walked away, leaving room for a room full of engineers to do what they do best: argue with each other about why something was completely impossible until they suddenly discovered a solution.