My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 407

ARES 3 solar day 400

[09:03] Watney: Hello, I'm Starlight Glimmer. Mark is very busy today - he is moving the southern weather station to the cave farm so that we can measure how much heat the cave is losing when it is no longer on life support. I have come up with a solution, but I need to be careful when implementing it, otherwise I may accidentally cook the plants we have been trying to protect.

However, this matter cannot be started until Mark collects the data and completes several other things, so today I am working on the Shining engine installed on the MAV. The new driver crystal had been installed on the old control system some time ago. However, since we will not be bringing the computer from the old ship to the MAV, I need your guidance to help me connect the Twinkle Engine to the MAV's onboard computer, or if that fails, I can use one of Mark's mobile computers. .

The operation of the flash engine requires a control signal from the computer. The previous version of the Shiny Engine that got us stuck here had a gap of two meters between jumps. We programmed the computer to trigger a transition every four clock cycles, about once per second. In the universe we originally lived in, there was no problem with this setting, but when we accidentally triggered that cross-universe jump, our battery's energy storage was exhausted all at once. The Shining Engine continued to try to draw energy, and then the battery shattered under the massive load.

In order to avoid such an accident from happening again, the newly designed Blink Engine jumps at much smaller intervals and (at least we think) will only draw what little magic energy the six of us can generate with just our life force around seven batteries. The idea is that the half-meter-per-cycle jump setting for the cockpit and second stage (total weight six tons) should be small enough to give the batteries breathing room to recharge. The new Shining Engine is not designed to jump across dimensions, so the risk of a catastrophic failure of the energy supply system like last time is basically close to zero.

At the same time, we have also prepared two other settings; the jump interval is 0.65 meters, which is only suitable for the cockpit alone, and the jump interval is 0.2 meters, which is suitable for the combination of the cockpit and Hermes. These parameters are calculated based on the quality data provided in your records. Each setting is determined by where the electrodes are placed on the core crystal and cannot be adjusted by a computer.

So what we need is an electrical connection that can be controlled by a computer and send hundreds of thousands of electrical pulses per second (the intensity doesn't need to be very high). We need a specialized set of control programs running on the computer. Finally, we need to update the navigation software to take into account the impact of this system on the flight path.

I'm certainly not asking you to rush out all this stuff overnight. After all, we still have to wait until we get to MAV before we can start the installation. However, I will send the text description and photos of the new version of the system, as well as the relevant technical specifications. Tingting and I have also tried our best to translate it as a reference for your work. When you're ready, just tell me and I'll send everything over right away.

[09:55] JPL: Starlight, I'm Venkat Kapoor. I have several engineers here who are very excited to start working on your work. We have been waiting for this project for several months. You can start sending files.

[10:18] Watney: Thanks. The file transfer starts immediately.

Mission Log – Solar Day 400

Okay, it's official; the cave is slowly losing heat. The heat carried by the infrared and other frequency bands provided by the newly installed sunlight relay crystal is still not enough to make up for the heat energy gap caused by the hydrothermal heating system being offline.

It's not an immediate problem; it only dropped four degrees Celsius in a week. And the environment inside the cave is also likely to reach thermal equilibrium at a higher temperature above zero. But we can't forget that it's summer on Mars, and the length of daylight is shortening. If we just leave the situation as it is, eventually one day the temperature will drop below freezing at night, and then after the winter solstice it will be below freezing all day long. The alfalfa and potato plants above the ground will wilt, and may or may not sprout again in five months. There shouldn't be any problems with the cherry tree, but the water circulation system relies on the vitality magic provided by the plants. If the few remaining plants provide insufficient magic energy, the water will gradually sink to the bottom of the sealed cave chamber. , far beyond the reach of the roots of these trees. Once the water cycle is interrupted, even plant roots and tubers will die, and then there will be no magic, no plants, and the farm will cease to exist. All screwed.

Starlight Glimmer actually said that she could do something with the rainbow crystal - simply put, she could turn part of the crystal into a small heater. The problem with this, however, was that she couldn't specify a specific operating temperature range for the enchantment she applied. Enchantments are not good at making decisions - which is one of the reasons ponies are stuck here in the first place. So she's still thinking about the idea and trying to find a solution.

Then tomorrow is the equipment maintenance drill. I'm going to do some routine diagnostic maintenance on the equipment in the Hab - maybe for the last time. Dragonfly will also repair and patch the ponies' space suits. Their spacesuits would become crucial in the days to come, as the three of them basically walked all the way to Schiaparelli. Starlight will continue to research enchantments to keep the temperature of the cave stable. I don't know what Fireball, Cherry Berry and Spitfire will do tomorrow, but I believe they must have thought about what kind of constructive work they should carry out.

In two days we will attempt the third Sirius V mission. This time we will drive until we have just enough battery left to get back to our residential area. If all goes well, we'll be ready for the next step of the test: spending the night in the trailer.

I also told my guests about this matter. I finally know how to say "slumber party" in pony language.