My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

HERMES – Mission Day 669

"Commander, can I take a minute of your time?"

Lewis heard the sound and walked toward Martinez's workstation. In a few weeks, they will shut down Hermes and start preparing to dock with the MAV - now called Phoenix on the Pony side - so they can only take advantage of the artificial gravity for a while now. "What's wrong?" she asked, "Even if we have to rely on you and Johnson to fly Hermes to them in the end, I think the result of this simulation is quite successful."

"That's right," Martinez replied softly, "but that's the problem. It shouldn't have worked in the first place."

Lewis tilted his head, "Please explain."

“The scenario we gave them was one that we thought was a surefire failure,” Martinez replied. “Two-thirds of the boosters failed. That failure alone should have meant the rendezvous was dead. In addition, there is a failure of the Shining engine. There is also a small fuel leak in the second stage, which will shorten the propulsion time by 10%." He called up the video of the MAV cabin camera and replayed the simulation process, "But they did. But they found a way to solve them all, and their approach was very radical. They threw the flash engine and the attached battery out of the airlock before the second stage was ignited, along with their food and a certain RTG; After directly clearing the 600 kilogram load, they used up the second stage, the main motor thruster and the magic thruster, and then found a way to connect their last magic battery to recharge the magic thruster. It works this way.”

"I could only reprogram the simulator in real time in the middle of the simulation to deal with so many of their changes," Johnson replied. "The original simulator was never designed to take such an extreme approach into consideration."

"After Johansen entered the modified data - the weight reduction of the MAV, the estimated speed increase that the maneuvering thruster can produce, etc. - the simulator said that they succeeded; in Hermes' control It's within our capabilities to get to them one day later than originally planned," Martinez said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"They also discussed that if necessary, they could push the spacecraft outside the cabin," Johnson added. "Pony's spacesuit comes with its own MMU for propulsion. Their estimate is that each spacesuit can provide space for the MAV cockpit. Adds approximately 1.5 meters per second speed increment."

"What is the result given by the computer?" Lewis asked.

"I didn't try it at the time," Johnson replied. "We don't have performance data on the Pony's spacesuit thrusters. And they didn't use this trick in the simulation."

"And I haven't even gotten to the weirdest part yet," Martinez continued. "Look at their faces, especially Berry's." He called up the camera view of the pilot's workstation in the cabin. Cherry Berry gave orders with a stern face, but she could remain unmoved in the face of setbacks one after another, without even blinking. "She was completely lifeless, and she didn't even look a little embarrassed. It's really strange." "Commander, if it were me, I would be furious after encountering the third system failure!"

"Major, I really don't see what's wrong with this situation," Lewis said unmoved.

"The question is, how am I going to tell her now?" Martinez, who was at a loss what to do, spread his hands helplessly toward the screen, "Congratulations on defeating a losing situation! By the way, give me a letter signed by Captain Kirk. This shouldn’t happen at all! There’s definitely something wrong with the simulator!”

"Then what you should say is," Lewis replied, "Commander Cherry Berry, you did a great job." She pointed to the picture on the screen, "Regardless of whether there was any problem with the simulation, she met the requirements on launch day. She has shown some performance. She always remains calm, focuses on solving problems, and has the courage to try unprecedented solutions... If you think this is cheating... then," she shrugged, "Space's methods are not that clean in the first place. Go, right."

Martinez nodded, "That's true," he replied, "But there is still something fishy about this result. It must be like this. I don't want them to rely on the results of this simulation when they actually launch."

"So which one is more important?" Lewis asked, "the pilot who knows what won't work, or the commander who is willing to do whatever it takes to keep the crew alive?"

"Commander, that's a false question," Martinez replied. "It takes both. But I understand what you mean."

Lewis tapped the screen again and asked, "So how is her progress overall? Is it okay to fly?"

"She will never make the same mistake again," Martinez replied. "She is completely familiar with the streamlined control system. Spitfire and Starlight Glimmer have also made good progress. In addition, Dragonfly has also run a few times. I substituted any one of the three in ten simulations, and the results were okay." He shrugged, "Of course, the more flight simulations, the better, but in my opinion, Berry is definitely qualified now. Said there is more..." At this point, he shook his head again and spread his hands helplessly towards the screen.

"Remember, what I want to say is that Berry did a great job." Lewis emphasized again and walked back to his workstation.

Martinez shook his head again and pressed the send button on the communication. "Berryberry, you did a great job." He said, "We spent some more time to check carefully, but we really can't find anything wrong with your performance. What suggestions can you make for improvements? It’s really great.” He smiled and added, “Especially how you stayed calm throughout the whole process, which was very impressive. complete."

"I will archive the data from this round of simulation and send it to NASA for further analysis," Johnson added. "I still feel that I made a mistake in adjusting the simulator."

"Yeah, good idea," Martinez replied, "make sure you tell them I didn't make this up."

"Then why don't you tell them?"

"If I told them, they wouldn't believe it."

The communication delay between Hermes and Mars has been shortened to only about one minute, so only a moment later came Cherry Berry's reply, "Thanks, Rick," she replied, "Keep calm...actually It’s a little helpless. You’ll get confused if you panic, right? Besides, I’ve done things like this before. It’s nothing new.”

Martinez froze. Johnson, who was sitting in front of his terminal, raised his head and his eyes widened. Lewis couldn't sit still anymore, got up again and walked back to Martinez's workstation.

Martinez exchanged glances with the team members around him and then turned on the mic again and asked, "Um, Commander, can you repeat the last paragraph you just said? Did you say that you have been thrown from the spacecraft before? Have you ever sacrificed a maneuvering thruster before to gain speed?" After a moment of hesitation, he glanced at the two people next to him and then added, "Have you ever gone out of the cabin to push a spacecraft?"

Another minute passed.

"Yes, I've done all of this before," Berry replied, "It's quite bad - is that the right word to use, right? It was a bit bad at the time, but as long as I can get home safely in the end, I can use any method. complete."

Martinez looked at Lewis, "Do you understand what this means?" He recovered from the shock, "This means that she has experienced at least one situation before where she had no choice but to take that measure. She also Survived."

"And they put her up afterward," Lewis added. "What that says about the state of their space program, I can't say."

"I now understand why she was always so calm when running simulations in the past." Johnson sighed.

"Do you think this launch will be as bad as anything she's experienced before?" Lewis asked rhetorically.

Martinez waved his hands in surrender, "No matter what, it won't be that bad." He replied, "But now I have another problem."

"What's wrong again?"

"When I report to NASA later to certify Berry's qualifications to fly the MAV," Martinez asked, "I have to list my reasons. How can I organize the sentence to ensure that she will not be deemed to be an obvious Grounded due to insanity?”

Lewis nodded thoughtfully, "This is indeed a problem," she replied, "But it has nothing to do with me." After that, she smiled slyly, turned around and walked back to her workstation.

"Thank you very much (Muchas gracias), commander," Martinez whispered.