My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 536

ARES 3 solar day 526

When dinner time came, the six refugees gathered in the living quarters of the trailer. Fireball chewed the crystals in his mouth; the ponies nibbled on the hay that had been dried for several months in their bowls, garnished with a plate of sesame vegetables from Mark's food bag as a side dish with their meals. Mark ate the main course and dessert from the food package, with a few potatoes to go.

Not very busy today. In the morning, they loaded and secured emergency food packages for a week on the MAV, and the work was completed in about an hour. The Hermes crew also took a day off and suspended the guidance of simulation training, so Berry Flying Fire and Starlight could make free arrangements like other team members this afternoon. They read for a while, played with the RPG scenes for a while, and spent a lot of time looking out the window at the familiar Schiaparelli scenery; however, most of the time because there was really no other sensory stimulation, they He just put his thoughts back in his heart and wandered aimlessly in his mind.

By dinner time, things finally changed. "Mark?" Tingting leaned on Mark shamelessly as always, and suddenly asked, "Why doesn't MAV have a name?"

"Actually, there was originally a competition to name MDV and MAV during Ares 1," Mark replied, "However, the candidate list submitted was filled with a bunch of assholes, similar to... I won't go into details. Anyway, no one in their right mind would give the spacecraft such a name. In the end, NASA changed its tune and said that the two spacecraft were disposable vehicles, so there was no need to name them. As he spoke, he took out a small piece of teriyaki chicken from the food bag and asked, "What about you? Do your spaceships have names?"

"No," Starlight replied, "Friendship is the first spacecraft we named because we originally planned to use it repeatedly. Almost all of our other spaceships are space capsules like MAV. We will reuse the cockpit bodies, but we have never given them names.”

"Except for the moon landing," Cherry Berry interjected, "the 'Dreamers' are now in a museum."

"We should give them all a name." Dragonfly muttered in a sleepy chanting tone. "They deserve it. They have done their duty. At least most of them have."

The cabin fell silent again, and only the clear crunching sound of Fireball's meal could be heard.

Then Mark started muttering, "Liberty Seven. Liberty Bell Seven. Friendship Seven. Aurora Seven. Sigma Seven. Faith Seven. Molly Brown (Gemini Three)." Here he paused. After a pause, he continued to mutter, "I feel like none of the other Gemini capsules have names. Neither did the ones of Apollo 7 and 8. But the two of Apollo 9 were Gummy and Spider. Apollo 10 It was Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Apollo 11, the real first moon landing, was Columbia and Eagle. Apollo 12, it was Yankee Clipper and Intrepid. Odyssey and Aquarius, Apollo 14, Kitty Hawk and...well..." He patted his head and said in frustration, "I could recite these by heart before...it was Scorpion Heart, the name of the landing module. However, I don’t remember Apollo 15, 16 or 17. I can only remember that there should be a Challenger in between. And if I remember correctly, the Skylab missions and the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission are not there. Names. And in my opinion, the Russians never give their cockpits names.”

As he spoke, he raised his fist and said, "Then the five space shuttles - referring to the STS, not our current Dream Chaser. The Columbia disintegrated during reentry and return in 2003. I was only nine years old at the time. Challenger, which exploded during launch. I wasn't born yet. Atlantis. Endeavor," he said, clasping his fingers. "In theory, that one is only used. It has flown the gliding test and has never been in space." Then he put down his hand and continued, "There is also the Soviet space shuttle Buran, which has only flown one unmanned mission. Several Dream Chasers have names. , but I only remember the ship I flew on, the Gleason. I can’t think of any other names.”

"Then are there any rules for naming the spaceship?" Berry asked again.

"It's not fixed." Mark replied softly. "Private spaceships usually have names. NASA usually only names aircraft that can carry multiple people and are reusable. These days, they won't give names to single vehicles anymore. The spacecraft used for the first time were named. I think the reason why the spacecraft used in the Apollo missions were named was just because NASA wanted to make the announcement of the moon landing mission more pleasant. "

"Hmm..." Berry thought for a moment, "When I was trying to rebuild the Friendship into an escape ship, what was this thing you kept talking about? There was a name..."

"Flight of the Phoenix," Mark continued to mutter, "I was referring to certain movies. The originals were better."

"What the hell is Feng Huang?"

"Phoenix." Starlight first relayed it in pony language, and then switched back to English to add an explanation, "It's that kind of flaming bird. Celestia's pet is one, you should know this. I told you a long time ago Already told.”

"Will your version also burn out and then rise from the ashes?" Mark also asked.

"That's right." Starlight replied, "Fluttershy told me before about the phoenix she saw Celestia for the first time. She thought she killed it at the time. It scared her silly; it turned out later that it was just pretending to be dead."

"Okay." Cherry Berry said, pushing away her own share of uneaten hay, standing up and reaching for an old laptop in the living cabin placed in the storage compartment.

"What do you want to do?" Mark asked upon seeing this.

"The communication window doesn't close for a few hours, right?" she replied, "I need to send a message."

[18:41] MAV: Please rename Ares 4 MAV "Phoenix". We who fell to the ground and were burned will eventually be reborn in flames and magic. Cherry Raspberry

[18:43] HERMES: Hermes message received. Phoenix, good luck.

[18:59] Houston: Request received, will be taken into consideration for naming. We will notify you if this name is approved.

[19:17] MAV: An interstellar spaceship needs a name. Maybe this ship doesn't have to fly that far, but it will have the ability. We here decided to call it Phoenix. What you want to call it is your problem. Berry

[19:35] Houston: Berry, remind me, this is our spaceship.

[19:51] MAV: It used to be. Wa hahaha. Berry