My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

Mission Log – Solar Day 392

The new air supply system is already online and operational in the cave - there will be enough time.

The applets Johnson is talking about are not software patches. What she wrote was a completely independent control program that ran in the background most of the time. There's even a self-checking process built into the program, because Beth Johnson is no ordinary nerd, but a super nerd who understands that especially in space, everything needs to be checked over and over again.

We set up all the connections and the system works great. The fuel generator releases carbon dioxide, which prevents the air in the cave from escaping from the fuel generator back to the outside. The pressure valve opens slightly, just enough to allow the carbon dioxide to flow in. After the computer issued a stop command, the fuel generator also shut down on time.

In order to double check, I took a small oxygen bottle and sprayed it directly towards the atmospheric analyzer. Then the computer (after seven minutes—leaving the analyzer on would quickly overload it) sensed that the CO2 concentration was low and issued a command, causing the fuel generator to release more CO2. I turned off the oxygen bottle again. Ten minutes later, the data read by the computer reflected that the carbon dioxide concentration had reached the appropriate level, so I turned off the fuel generator again.

In other words, this almost purely mechanical solution works without any problems. In order to ensure that there is enough power to support the operation of this device, we will also need to move another set of hydrogen fuel cells from the residential area and the few remaining solar panels that have not been requisitioned, but other than that There are no more problems with this set. Earth gets one point this round!

As I said just now, there is barely enough time. Tomorrow is the last potato harvest. We only keep a small portion of the tubers we dig up, and most of them are replanted.

Yes, I said replanting. In addition, we also need to gradually move the potato plants and all the soil in the habitation cabin (the soil fertility is almost exhausted) into the cave. What is this for? Because, at least in theory, the more life forms there are, the more magic power there is. Those rainbow crystals that have been fooled by the starlight and drive the circulating water supply for us will need all the magic energy we can provide. Moreover, if the sunlight crystal cannot generate enough heat after the heating water source is turned off, we will need to make some more rainbow crystals with heating enchantment to make up for the heat loss. In this way, the consumption of magic energy will further increase.

Of course, the cost of doing this is that the magic energy in the habitat will be reduced, which means that the charging rate of all the batteries we store there will drop to about half of its original rate. But we couldn’t bring the plants with us to Schiaparelli. Every extra kilogram over and above the necessary supplies means more energy consumed by the wheel motors, resulting in shorter driving times per day. Plants, and the soil they need to grow, are a luxury we simply cannot afford. So if we have to give them up, we might as well arrange them where they will produce the most long-term benefits.

In view of this, when we dig potatoes in the cave tomorrow, we will also dig out the previously buried water pipes and rearrange them. Starlight is already coordinating with them to fill up the water at the very back of the cave as much as possible. We would reconnect the pipes all the way through almost the entire Tangled Corridor, and then use a channel made of scrap metal to direct the water to the very back of the cave where it might reach as far as the orb. The running water seeps into the uncultivated soil and sinks to the bottom of the sealed chamber of the cave. Some of it will become permafrost, but most will not freeze, allowing plant roots and water-pumping enchanted crystals to circulate water up from deep within the soil. Ma Xing will monitor the flow. We can turn on the faucet and leave. When enough water is added, they will close the valve in time to prevent too much water from being added to the system and causing the black sludge last time. That kind of mess.

This is obviously not a perfect solution. Human beings have never succeeded in creating a truly sealed, self-sufficient and self-sustaining ecological environment. At best, it is just a small bottle scene. Not to mention absolutely no experiments of this type have ever been done with alfalfa and/or potatoes and/or whatever type of tree. The difficulty of building a balanced complex ecosystem increases exponentially with system size. But in order to build a system that has a glimmer of hope of surviving without maintenance for six years until the launch window of the next Ares mission opens, we have done our best. Just hope our efforts are rewarded enough.

Mission Log – Solar Day 394

We are almost halfway through transplanting the plants and soil in the habitat. Mature tubers were cut and replanted around the perimeter of the original cave farm, while other plants (as well as some alfalfa cuttings) were planted in the cafeteria area.

The Rainbow Crystal irrigation system was already working - at least the one that ran from the well at the back to the front of the chamber where the farm was located. Starlight has also begun laying out a second, smaller line—actually a pair of water lines that pull a little water up from beneath the soil in the cafeteria to irrigate the crops we grow there. Until the water line there is completed, the rest of our time in the cave will be spent hand-watering the plants, giving them as much chance as possible to take root and survive.

But we're going to use Pony's space suit for this. The hydrological system that we amateurs tinkered with has now absorbed the entire water supply from the main life support system equipment box. So tomorrow we will dismantle the life support system equipment box and reinstall it back on the pony spacecraft.

Just curious what Ares 5 or other visitors will find when they return to this place six years later? Is it a ruined and desolate plant cemetery where a certain part rusts, breaks, or cracks, causing all the air to be lost, and then all frozen into mummies? Or is it a glass garden where even though the plants have survived, they are all looking sick and struggling to survive? Or is it a dense jungle of wild alfalfa and potato plants, half-hidden by the dense green shadow cast by the thick, leafy branches of cherries?

Common sense tells me that the first ending is most likely, but my hope is the last one. We are all. The farm has not treated us badly in the past year, and now that it’s time to repay the kindness, we will definitely do our best to give it a chance to survive.

Mission Log – Solar Day 395

Today I changed the Morse code message from the pile of rocks to read: "solar day 395 - testing rover modifications, expected to depart on solar day 451." Not that there is really a need to do this; Pathfinder does not Damn, if something goes wrong we can still establish communications via pony radio. But it’s been more than a hundred days since I last updated this stone blog. It’s time to have a blast, and I’m in the same mood now.

After that we all started working to load the mobile home. Starting today, all items that will be on the road with us will be stored in the car. The food was already in the car, along with my tools, all the spare parts we were going to pack with us, and any other personal belongings we might have to take with us. Because we plan to store as much energy as possible in the battery, we haven’t put the magic battery in the car yet.

Precisely because we haven't put the batteries in the car yet, we have to convert them to a comparable weight of Martian rocks when testing. So we had to go around the residential area and the area around the cave farm to collect rocks weighing several tons and load them into the car to make up for the weight difference. When we returned to the living cabin at night, even Fireball was complaining of back pain for the first time. It would take a lot of rocks—literally a mountain of them—to equal the weight of fifteen quartz blocks, each five feet long, plus a bunch of small batteries.

We'll have a day off tomorrow - a whole day. This holiday is earned by our hard work. Then we will start the first round of formal testing of the complete mobile home - drive it around for a few times within a range of about two kilometers from the residential area to see how far it can drive at one time when fully charged. Also test its passing performance through the small canyons crisscrossing the Ashidaria Plain area. If you can't even cross this kind of terrain, it will be extremely difficult to climb up to the Arabian Mesa, not to mention how difficult it will be to cross.

Let's change the subject; tonight is game night. I could tell there was going to be a lot of trouble; Tingting asked me if I could let her create a new character. I wasn't too worried at first, but she asked me for a Nac Mac Feegle template again...

Mission Log – Solar Day 395 (2)

The end result was that Angus McHenderson was thrown out, and everyone cheered (except Dragonfly).

But I still want to leave a file for this character for future reference... If D&D becomes normalized after I return to Earth, and a city lord deliberately tries to mess with us in a game set in Discworld, I can use this method. Way to express my dissatisfaction...