My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 562

ARES 3 solar day 551

Phoenix Mission Day 1

"Hey. Get up."

"Ouch...what time is it now...?"

"Four o'clock sharp. Time to get up."

"It's so cold."

"It'll be warm when we get to Phoenix. The launch is in two and a half hours. Put on your space suit."

Mission Log – Solar Day 551

At this point I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared shitless. In two hours, I will ride on a MAV that has been disassembled into a skeleton and has no backup, and will be thrown into space at an unprecedented speed by a magical propulsion system that has not been tested much. Of course I have been on a rocket before, but no living person in the world has ever had such a heavenly experience.

Berry and I are currently conducting various pre-flight inspections. We are all wearing our own spacesuits, only the helmets will have to be put on until takeoff later, because even in the Phoenix cabin we will still have the pony life-support system supplying air, as long as a pinch is on time A pea-sized meteorite coming from a plane is enough to destroy us. And another point is that the most effective way to store a space suit during takeoff is to wear it on yourself; the Phoenix was only built for short-term manning at the beginning of the design, and the living environment for long-term flights was not considered, so the cabin did not There are no spacesuit racks designed like the Hab.

The ponies had eaten the last of their hay last night. In addition to fifty potatoes and almost ten kilograms of crushed quartz leftover from Fireball's meal, we will also pack the plane with enough food for me to last for seven days and enough for the ponies to last for six days. (Feihuo ate all the other food packs when he was recuperating after defeating the dust storm, remember.)

In addition, we also need to transport the sparkling engine and seven magic batteries and install them in the position vacated after the console is removed, so that the batteries can be recharged from our bodies during the flight. We also keep an eighth battery just for emergencies. We also left ourselves a load budget of 50 kilograms per person to bring back a few souvenirs, but we didn't use it at all. Each pony has this little nameplate made from the shell of their ship. Berry took Groot with her, and her potted twig that somehow managed to survive all the way from Area E to where it is now. Starlight has her collection of rainbow crystal samples. Fireball's choice was to take the spare computer with him; his idea was to wait until he returned and copy all the books on it before any copyright agreement was signed between our worlds.

As for me, all I have to bring is the piece of antenna that trapped me here in the first place, and the smallest ratchet wrench I have. No socket, just the wrench itself. It is a testimony to the many things I have done over the past year and a half with the help of this group of sweet, silly and strange visitors who have come all the way from another world, just to support our survival to this moment.

Success or failure depends on this. If something went wrong with the launch, we would probably be dead. If we get into orbit but fail to reach escape velocity, we'll miss Hermes, which means we'll have to try our next best option, flying directly to Earth using the Shiny engine. That’s the only reason we have seven days of food on board. Shiny Engine is our escape mode, and no one wants to do this last ditch effort unless necessary.

Throughout the entire implementation of this plan, there was one thing we never mentioned even once: What would happen if everything failed? We missed Hermes and the Shining Engine stopped working; what should we do? Of course it's obvious what happens in this case. We will die in space.

Among the many endings, I didn’t like this one very much.

If the magic propulsion spell squeezed out the fuel tank on the MAV and detonated the entire rocket, the end might not be so bad. We might not even feel it. But if we were trapped in space, the only thing waiting for us would be an extremely slow death of starvation in a month-long process - the dragonfly might go even earlier. She had been looking very ill for the past few weeks.

But I have a solution for this situation. If the only outcome was starvation, I would not be willing to stay and accept my fate. The medical kit in the living area contains a large amount of morphine for injection, which can be used for anesthesia in case of serious injuries that require on-site surgery. The amount of medicine is enough to deliver six lethal doses. I checked. In this way we will fall asleep gently and never wake up again, heading towards the end without pain.

I had to leave this planet with such dark thoughts; but at the same time, I just started to realize that I was really leaving. This floating icy rock in the universe has been our home for the past eighteen months. We found a way to survive here. We build all kinds of devices to improve our lives. We witnessed something no one had ever witnessed before. We told stories, tinkered with cooking with a chemistry set and central air heating elements, and rekindled our love of Dungeons and Dragons.

After that, we drove an RV that was cobbled together from spare parts and traveled across Mars relying on the noisy messages from Hermes and a few small satellites in the sky. We transformed such a rocket that was only used to launch into orbit into a theoretical (and sincerely pray that it will not be actually used) interstellar spacecraft. And even though we were squeezed face to face and slapped on the buttocks all the way, we were able to hold back and not beat each other to death in the end.

Now it all comes to an end. There is only the last leg of the flight, which may be short or long, and then it will be over. We've eaten the last of the food grown on Mars. We read the Earth books together one last time. From now on we will leave no more boot or hoof prints or claw marks on this red sandy earth. Regardless, we are leaving Mars.

It's finally time.

"Hello everyone. Welcome to CNN, and I'm your host, Kathy Warner."

The crowd gathered behind CNN's outdoor stage erupted in cheers. The evening sun in Houston was still blazing, scorching the onlookers at the scene. No one seemed to mind the heat except Kathy, who was sweating profusely even in her full short-sleeved outfit.

"Less than an hour later, Mark Watney and his five alien comrades will launch into space in their modified Ares MAV Phoenix, striving for a unique meeting with the Ares 3 crew on Hermes. opportunity. If this round of attempts fails, they can only choose the only backup plan and try to fly directly to Earth using an untested replica of the original experimental propulsion system that caused the aliens to be trapped on Mars. "

"Businesses are shutting down around the world, and billions of people are staying up all night waiting to get a glimpse of what's about to happen. Here in Houston, the Astros home games have been canceled, leaving both Minute Maid Park and NRG Stadium. The large venues were all vacated, allowing more than 100,000 people to gather in front of the large screen to watch the live broadcast of the launch. In addition, tens of thousands of people blocked the area around the Johnson Space Center, and countless people gathered in Canaveral. Corner, Times Square, Trafalgar Square, Tiananmen Square, Red Square, stadiums, bars, offices and homes everywhere. The eyes of the world are focused here. Stock markets around the world are suspended, almost all retail stores are closed, and even many public institutions are closed. Schools also ended early today, allowing parents to pick up their children before the scheduled launch time.”