My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

Mission Log – Solar Day 21

Today we returned home loaded with soil samples and fireball food. Fireball now has three kinds of gems to eat, quartz, quartz of different colors and quartz of other colors; the remaining few have to make do with three-quarters of a microwave meal cooked with high technology.

Fireball seemed to have mixed feelings about this discovery. On the one hand, according to Starlight, pure white quartz (apparently the majority in the Crystal Cave) is like tapioca pudding to a dragon; on the other hand, he is very interested in the small amounts of yellow, red, and purple crystals he has found along the way. Excited... and the two small handfuls of dark gray crystals made him so excited that he forgot all about it. Now he was busy slowly grinding the crystals into powder with his paws and carefully scooping them into one of my test tubes. It looks like a pepper shaker.

The key is that now that there is no risk of landslides in the residential area, Fireball can finally enjoy what he considers to be the most delicious food. Armed with a space suit full of energy and a new carbon dioxide filter, Starlight and I conducted a thorough exploration of the cave today. I enlarged the entrance of the cave a little more so that I wouldn't have to bend down every time to get in. This is also the only two narrowest place in the cave.

I don't think this cave is a complete geode. In some places, the crystals slowly change color, just like the color gradient in PS, but there are also some narrow openings. The crystals at one end are white and the other end is orange or purple. There are small lattice-like spaces everywhere, with other types of crystals growing there. According to my guess, there should be a bunch of bubbles appearing in the lava, which merged with each other due to various factors. At some point in the past, the boundaries between the geodes may have been damaged, and deposited minerals sealed them together.

All in all, the cave extends almost all the way to the center of Area E - about 600 meters deep. There was just a bit of sand and dust at the far end, not enough to cover the gems, so I guessed the opening wasn't geologically open that long. As long as it takes more than 10 billion years, this place should be completely silted up by sand. In any case, we were only operating within safe limits and did not set foot on any exposed crystals. My lighting was bright enough to see clearly that at the far end was a wall of gray crystals, which I guessed was part of an ancient magma chamber.

But those are just words on paper. Now we get down to the practical stuff: How do we use this cave?

First of all obviously we can get a lot of crystals out of it. Starlight used her magic to cut two full boxes of samples from the cave walls. It seems that the nickname "Master Yoda" I gave her before is quite good, after all, her horn can be used as a top-notch lightsaber. Most of one box would become Fireball's snacks for the next month, and the other box contained four chunks of crystal cut from giant crystal pillars, each flawless and the same size as the one in her magic battery. . It should be obvious by now what Starlight plans to do with them.

But those are little things. The real question is: Can we convert caves into farms? The area within the second chamber, about 80 meters away from the cave entrance, is almost our best choice. It is at least 20 meters wide and more than 200 meters long - even on the earth, this cavity can be regarded as a giant cave; it is the 0.4 times gravity environment of Mars and the scattered crystals from top to bottom. The result of the joint action of columns.

Most of my soil samples are dug from there with a sampling auger. About two dozen sample packs were packed, ranging in depth from 10 centimeters, 30 centimeters, to 50 centimeters—roughly 20 inches in the U.S. system of measurement. I will be doing the same type of testing on these samples that I did on the surface soil around the habitat, but not until a few days later.

While Starlight and I were rummaging around, everyone else was busy covering the cabin with 10 centimeters of Martian soil and flushing all the perchlorate to the bottom of the soil so we no longer have to breathe toxic dust all day long. . There are now 92 square meters of soil with almost no nutrients accumulated in the living cabin. We're scheduled to add more water tomorrow, but we're going to hold off because the next day will be the first of what I call "soil doubling."

The first batch of soil we brought in had been mixed with earth soil and compost, and it was going well. At least it already looked like well-hydrated and fertilized sand... which is actually true. I checked with a microscope and the Earth's soil bacteria are growing well. The best news is—the organisms that ingested the perchlorate have had their work cut out for them. Perchlorate levels dropped by three-quarters compared to previous data measured outdoors.

But those are only 15 square meters, leaving 77 square meters of poor, sterile, nutrient-free soil in the cabin. So my plan is to take out the part of the soil that's full of Earth bacteria (except for those alfalfa seedlings), cover the bare area with some untreated Martian soil, pour the treated part on top, and dot some more Recently freshly made fertilizer.

I'll have to do most of the work, and Fireball might be able to help. The remaining ponies have to do the most dangerous job of all: convincing Fireball to do the job for me. It was also going to be a long physical day, so I didn't plan on doing anything else that day. After this task is completed, I will continue to process the soil samples in the cave.

The soil doubling takes at least two days, realistically three days, before we are really ready to start planting. Potato seeds will probably be planted after the second doubling - it will depend on how the first doubling goes. But these are limited to growing spaces within the living pods. If we were to try to develop alien spacecraft, we would have to use half as many as we have now. If we wanted to turn the geode into a farm, we would need as much treated soil as the rover could fill to modify the soil already in the geode.

I admit that reclaiming the cave is indeed a difficult task, but Starlight believes that all major problems can be solved through simple magic, but I am not so optimistic. I'll try to remember to talk to her about it during the usual "prize quiz" tomorrow. She didn't have the energy to do any more magic tonight.

For your convenience, here is an outline of the problems I can think of when growing crops in caves:

1. Lighting. You can't see out of your hand within a few steps of walking into the cave, and I didn't have any mushroom spores on hand, so we needed to get enough light for the edible plants to grow. Currently, the lighting in the habitat module uses specially designed LED lights that are adjusted to simulate the sunlight received on Earth, including a small amount of infrared, and ultraviolet light that does not cause burns; and I bet you I can't believe that Pony's spaceship uses incandescent light bulbs.

2. Heat. In addition to the heat generated by the normal operation of several systems such as water recovery machines, oxygen generators, and air conditioners, the living area also has an independent heating system. The canvas of the habitation module and the polymer material on the ground can effectively insulate from heat and are designed to reduce the loss of heat to the Martian atmosphere. The cave is a different story: it is located underground, and the temperature is already several degrees lower than the surface. The huge amount of soil and rocks act as a huge radiator, making it a big problem to heat the cave to protect plant growth. challenge.

3. Air. Our previous inspections did not reveal any openings such as skylights that could allow air to leak to the surface of Mars through routes other than holes, but this does not mean that there are not hidden cracks or defects behind the large number of crystals. Even without such problems, the geode as a whole is still water- and breathable, so I can only pray that the soil at the top of the cave seals well enough. Another problem is that the living area simply doesn't have enough oxygen or nitrogen to fill such a huge space. Assuming we could actually seal the cave entrance (just a hypothetical), we would either need a large-scale source of breathable air, or find enough gas for the living system to convert to breathable air to make up for the portion we appropriated to fill the cave.

4. Moisture. Currently, ponies' spacesuits can meet the needs of agrarian (soil modification) projects in residential areas, but the needs of huge cave farms are much greater. In addition, judging from the current depth of this cave, there will almost certainly be permafrost in the soil. Too much water or contamination is as serious a problem as not enough water, and there are no water reclaimers in the cave to drain the excess out of the circulation, so the situation keeps getting worse.

5. Hole sealing method. Naturally we need to go into the caves to take care of the farm regularly, and we also need to transport the harvested crops away. Therefore, we cannot simply seal the cave, but need an airlock. I do have the materials to repair the Hab's canvas, and I can remove one of the three airlocks in the Habitat; but I think it's safer to use the cargo bay airlock of the alien ship, so we can There will be no safety risk in the shelter, and it will not affect the use of the spacecraft. After all, this airlock is connected to a damaged cabin of the spacecraft. The docking port actually works, but it's too small—I had to use my hands and feet to get through it—and taking it away would affect the planting in the center compartment of the ship.

6. Soil. The problem actually refers to perchlorate. If the concentration is the same as in surface soil, Earth's bacteria should be able to get through it; but if the concentration is higher, trouble begins. And no matter what the situation is, we must first create a sufficient amount of earth-type fertile soil before we can start construction, otherwise the first to fifth points above will be meaningless.

That's all I can think of at the moment; and I'm sure whatever I miss will end up suffering.

Even ponies are getting tired of the endless Beatles lately. I'll show them Vogel's family photo tonight. These are the only non-text contents on his data disk. I found that we could start language lessons with photos and also give the ponies a look at life on Earth.

After they tire of the family photos (which, in my case, usually takes about 7 minutes), I have no choice but to dig through Commander Lewis's collection. I beg you, Commander, please give me something educational. Anything that can promote vocabulary accumulation will do. Forget it, anything will do.

Mission Log – Solar Day 21 (2)

I actually grew tired of looking at these photos much faster than the ponies did. They talked about the pictures for hours, and of course I didn't understand a word they said. They were so excited that they didn't even bother to "you draw and I guess". But eventually their interest waned a bit, giving me the opportunity to switch to Lewis's disk.

So what does our respected commander, who served as a carrier-based aircraft pilot and nuclear submarine officer before serving at NASA, bring this time?

sitcom.

Sitcom from the 1970s.

A shoddy, terrible, terrible TV sitcom from the 1970s. A plate full of them.

Well, let’s be honest, it’s not all sitcoms, but let’s take a good look at the list.

Laughing Police Bamai.

The invincible female King Kong.

BJ and Bell. (What the hell?)

The Bob Newhart Show.

Offline family. (Watched that movie as a kid. I'm never bored to that point again.)

California Highway Patrol. (Apparently only the first three seasons. Oh? Curious why.)

Justice forward. (The complete series, although there are more '80s than '70s parts.)

Electronic Partner. (What the hell?)

Grizzly Adams. (Seriously, what are you thinking about every day?)

happy time.

Kauchak: Walking in brocade at night. (Hey, this one sounds pretty interesting.)

effort. (Honestly, what kind of medicine did you take? Is it also available on Mars?)

The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

An odd couple. (I actually liked it when I was in high school. How about a "Weirdos" show? Can a human, a dragon, and four quadrupeds coexist harmoniously in the same apartment without driving each other crazy?)

The Partridge family.

Rockford Files.

Sanford and son.

Invincible King Kong.

Police duo.

Threesome.

And finally: Wonder Woman. (I feel like I could watch this movie more naturally if I were alone in a residential area.)

Okay, so there's some action-adventure here, but half of it is sitcom. No cartoons. There aren’t many in the science fiction genre either. Fortunately, there is no such thing as a variety show or a game show.

But seriously, Lewis... would you die if you put even one season of a show like Sesame Street in there? What about Mister Rogers' Neighbors? What about the Smurfs? (Wait, the Smurfs are from the 1980s, so that’s out of scope.) Why don’t you think about it carefully?

All right. At least I've heard of the Partridge family. Musicals - and ponies love music - at least this show can't be as bad as The Clueless. You can try one episode.

Mission Log – Solar Day 21 (3)

I was wrong, it really was that bad.

The ponies begged me to play it again so they could learn to sing the theme song. Think about it, they don't even speak English and they want to learn to sing the theme song.

I feel like I taught a few monsters.