My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 44

ARES 3 solar day 47

Starlight looked at the two pictures on the whiteboard. One depicts a sphere rotating around a central axis; the other depicts a star orbiting a planet, its trajectory represented by a large circle with an arrow.

"One day," Mark said, pointing to the sphere. Then he pointed to the orbiting planet and added, "One year."

"One day, one year, I understand." Starlight responded. It was extremely boring, but at least she was able to get some useful information out of Mark. The other Amicitas team members currently have their own ways of passing the time; while Starlight chooses to use her spare time to learn some English from their hosts. In fact, she has no choice but to do it now, because Feihuo and Berry recently reached a resolution and ordered her to absolutely ban the use of unicorn magic within two weeks.

At this time, Mark drew a smaller sphere with patterns of residential areas and Amicitas on it, and then marked arrows representing the direction of rotation around it. "A solar day," he said, "is slightly longer than a day [on Earth]."

"Solar day." Earlier, when they had restarted the Amicitas ship's onboard clock, Starlight had noticed that Equestria's time did not match the time on their planet. A day here is about 37 to 38 minutes longer than normal. In this way, Mark's behavior of having a separate name for this completely makes sense.

Mark then drew a second orbit outside the planet in the second painting, and drew a mini-Mars next to the Earth, adding a direction mark for co-rotation—counterclockwise—just like the Earth. , said, “A little shorter than two years.”

"How many days?" Xingguang asked.

"How many days?" Mark corrected, "Six hundred and eighty-seven days."

Logically speaking, there's nothing wrong with it. Running on a longer and slower track, the year will naturally be longer.

Mark drew a bunch of funny-looking irregular objects next to the earth. "This is Hermes," he said. "On mission Ares 4."

Hermes refers to the spacecraft that Mark came to Mars on, but now left him alone. His crew was on an Ares 3 mission, and he was obviously referring to the next one.

Mark drew a dotted line on the whiteboard extending from the Earth to Mars and said, "Four years." He wrote a line next to the mini-Mars: Solar Day 1412. "You can go home in four years."

This...well, sounds ridiculous, but still okay. "Why four years?" Starlight asked, "Why... so big..."

"Why does it have to be so long?" Mark gave a hint.

"What is 'long'?"

Mark stretched his arms as vertically as possible and demonstrated to the starlight: "This is high." He moved his arms again, hugging them horizontally, and said, "This is wide." He raised one hand to his chest, and the other Just move as far forward of the body as possible, "This is long." He moved the outstretched hand back to his chest and ended the demonstration, "This is short."

Starlight wasn't sure she understood everything, but at least she now had a rough idea of ​​what Mark meant. "Yes, why does it have to be so long?"

"They don't know we're here." Mark said slowly, thoughtfully, "Ares comes and goes every four years."

"We have to contact them quickly!" Xingguang suddenly became emotional.

"Yeah, this is no joke." Mark muttered.

"What's a 'joke'?"

Mark gave up treatment and shook his head in frustration. "Nothing." He said, "When can you get here?"

This move successfully opened up the topic. "I don't know." Xingguang replied, "We got here because of an accident." "Accident" is the longest English word that Xingguang knows so far, but it is quite commonly used. "They don't know how to get to Mars. Mars here," she added, pointing to the ground beneath her hooves, emphasizing that she was referring to the current planet and not another in a parallel world.

Mark shook his head, sighed, and said, "TMD."

Of course Starlight didn't know the specific meaning of this word, but since Mark always said this word when he was angry, she could guess that it was a dirty word. "Yeah, no fucking kidding." She replied, imitating Mark's previous grumpy and low tone.

After hearing this, Mark laughed for a full minute before stopping.

"I smell food. Is it time to eat?" Dragonfly suddenly appeared from beside Starlight.

"What the hell? Wait! I..." Starlight was startled, took a deep breath, and tried hard to put aside her dislike of Tingting in her mind, and focus on things such as inventor Tingting, pilot Tingting, and communication. Thinking like a dragonfly, a dragonfly who is full and has nothing to do (wait a minute, something strange sneaks in...). Anyway, Tingting is my team member. She has saved our lives several times. She is alert, attentive, and a lot of fun to be with. And she needs our love right now.

Even with so much effort, Starlight still took a long time to finally calm down and hug the changeling, and it only lasted a few seconds.

"Uh... thanks, I'll try not to waste it..." The changeling's ears turned, looking a little hesitant. She pointed at Mark again and said, "But you made a mistake. I was referring to him just now."

At the same time, Mark observed their every move with interest. He said slowly, "Dingting, hello."

"Hello, Mark." Dragonfly replied, "What are you doing?"

Mark seemed a little surprised by this and replied, "Not bad!"

"I don't mean to say hello. (How are you doing?)" Ding Ting corrected, "I mean to ask what are you doing?"

Starlight looked at Dragonfly and was a little surprised, "You can actually speak Mark's language with correct grammar?"

"There's nothing wrong with some simple sentences." Tingting replied, "I used to watch Mark typing on the computer. In the past few nights, I got up in the middle of the night and turned on the computer to watch educational programs."

"Tell me again, what have you been doing lately???"

"Don't tell him, he will be unhappy." Tingting hurriedly stopped Xingguang from talking, "So, Mark, what were you doing just now?"

Mark looked back and forth at the unicorn and changeling in front of him, seemingly in a dilemma. "We are discussing some concepts about how long a day and a year are," he said slowly, pointing to the whiteboard, "and also related to space."

"Really? It sounds quite fun." Tingting said, "How many years...um...MD, how do you say this..."

Mark wrote a number on the whiteboard: 42, pointed to himself and said, "Forty-two." He then asked, "How old are you?"

"That's not what I'm asking!" Dragonfly was furious.

Starlight pointed at herself and said, "I'm twenty-six." She pushed Dragonfly again, "Tell him how old you are."

"I don't know how old I am!" Dragonfly replied, "The Queen just started issuing birth certificates in the past few years! I don't know how long ago I appeared! Besides, discussing the age of a changeling Does it make sense?”

Starlight narrowed her eyes, grinned, pointed at Dragonfly and said, "You... are thirty-one years old!"

"He really is a spy." Tingting muttered.

"Did I guess it right?" Xingguang looked very proud.

"Mark," Dragonfly quickly changed the subject, "How many years have you been in space?"

The alien didn't respond immediately. He leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with a marker in his hand, carefully thinking about how to reply. Finally, he wiped the whiteboard clean, wrote a number on the far right: 2035, and said, "This is this year." He drew another line extending to the left end of the whiteboard, wrote the number 1957, and drew a star. The little ball with the antenna—which looked a bit like the much-mocked Situ Putnik (Neta, the first man-made satellite from Companion)—said, “The first man-made Satellite. Sputnik."

"Sputnik." Starlight repeated. According to her speculation, it was an artificial satellite. She was curious about why Mark and his race chose to develop automatic machines to replace human-controlled aircraft in the early stages of space exploration. It seemed like a long detour to her.

On the timeline just now, Mark wrote the next number 1961, with a small rocket pattern attached to it. "Human beings entered space for the first time." After a while, he drew a picture of a rocket landing on a planet and wrote the number 1969. "The first man to land on the moon." followed by a small can with wings thrown in an arc; 1971. “The first space station—a place that can stay in space—is built.” A winged thing that looks a bit like Amicitas in profile; 1981. "The first spacecraft to return from space and be reused."

马克思考一会之后，又重新回到时间线上稍早一些的位置，在下方画出了一颗行星代表着居住区所在的火星。1965年。“第一颗飞掠火星的人造卫星。”1969年又添一项。“第一颗环绕火星轨道的人造卫星。”1974年。“第一颗成功着陆火星的人造卫星。”1997年。“第一辆着陆火星的漫游车。”最后终于来到了2027年。“人类第一次着陆火星。”

Starlight could see that. Mark is the product of his species' seventy-year journey to learn how to fly in space, by developing all kinds of technology without the availability of magic. Just unbelievable. It's simply shocking. Simply...

"It's surprisingly slow," said Tingting, "Why does it take so long?"

"Slow?" Mark was obviously confused. "Slow because it's too difficult. That's why!" He handed the marker to Dragonfly. "How long did it take you?"

Dragonfly took the marker with her hoof, stuffed it into the hole on one hoof, adjusted her posture to facilitate writing, and then drew another timeline on the whiteboard. On the far right she wrote the number 1009 and said, "This is our year there." On the far left she wrote 1006. "The first rocket." Afterwards, she pointed at the timeline with a marker and gestured back and forth a few times and said, "It's gone, that's it."

Mark's jaw almost dropped. "Don't tell me that it only took you four years from building the first rocket to getting here???"

"Can you please slow down," Xingguang reminded, "I didn't hear anything clearly."

Both Mark and Tingting looked very helpless at this time. Mark asked again, with a hint of sarcasm in his tone, "You went to space for a total of four years?"

"You talk in this way, I heard it quite a lot before I came out of the cocoon," Dragonfly couldn't help complaining to Starlight about Mark's reply that was deliberately simplified for them, "To be honest, You know we sound like a bunch of kids when we talk right now, right? We have to..."

"Can you two calm down for a while?!" Starlight suddenly roared in pony language.

Mark was stunned, then lowered his head and said softly, "I'm sorry."

It took Dragonfly a while to catch up to the rhythm and follow the same pattern, but the changeling was still smart enough to grab the conversation before Starlight could speak. "Yes, I shouldn't have said those words just now," she said, "I'm sorry, Starlight. But we really have to think of ways to learn his language now."

"Let's talk about it tomorrow." Starlight sighed, "I don't have the energy now. But I'm curious..." She took the whiteboard and whiteboard eraser from Tingting, erased the pattern on the whiteboard, and then used her mouth to I picked up a marker and started writing and drawing. First there was Berry's cutie mark, then her own, then Spitfire's; then the logo on a changeling banner; and finally a cute little dragon.

"Why do you always draw fireballs as Spike?" Dragonfly asked.

"Shut up." Starlight muttered, and then drew a picture of a CSP-style rocket being launched, complete with billowing smoke from the rocket's tail nozzle. Finally she showed the finished product to Mark and continued holding the pen between her teeth. It would be easier, she thought, if they would allow me to use magic again. My health has improved recently... now my horns only ache a little from time to time.

The symbol corresponding to the flying fire is very simple: a bar.

She herself has three stripes.

The one that looked like Spike and represented the fireball had six stripes. The dragonfly has nine bars.

After that, only berries are left. Starlight counted for a while, and after several corrections, he finally drew twenty-eight lines.

"Twenty...eight...missions?" Mark exclaimed. He glanced at the busy berries in the mound next to the alfalfa seedlings that were growing happily.

Starlight nodded. Then she tried to draw a miniature version of Mark's flag pattern, but it was ruined and she had to erase it and replace it with the epaulet pattern on his other shoulder, and asked, "What about you?"

Mark raised a finger helplessly.

"Haha!" Dragonfly cheered, looking very proud, "Xingguang, ask him how to say 'recruit egg' in English!"

"Haha, Dragonfly, you're being cruel." Mark said, "Then how long did you stay in space?"

Starlight thought for a moment. According to previous reports from the Hydro Telegraph, today is the 44th ESA mission, mission day 44. She wrote 96 next to each Amicitas crew number, followed by a plus sign, and paused. She added a zero to Spitfire. Starlight herself had briefly visited the space station and had been on duty for three months, so she gave herself an extra 103 ​​days. Fireball stayed on the station for more than three months at a time; Tingting had two rounds of space station duty, plus her flight to the moon, so... Starlight counted again... Fireball had 193 days, and Tingting had Sky; Starlight also drew a small circle next to it, adding the word "Moon (satellite)" to represent that she had landed on the moon.

Then it was Berry's turn. Minmus mission. Moon mission. Space station launch. There were various other missions, including that special mission that flew by the Moon and Minmus at the same time... This time the calculation was longer, but the final result of Starlight was 198 days, plus two small circles , and explained, "The moon (satellite), the smaller moon (satellite)."

Mark picked up a marker and wrote 47 solar days + 124 days next to the pattern that represented him. Then he crossed out 47 solar days, wrote 49 days, and then wrote an equal sign, which turned out to be 173 days. "Hahaha." He capped the pen in an exaggerated manner, waiting for Ting Ting's response.

"Do you still want me to ask him how to say 'recruit egg'?" Starlight asked with a smirk.

"Alas," Dragonfly muttered, "I still think the number of launches is a more accurate measure than the mission length."

Mission Log – Solar Day 47

I learned something interesting today from my guests: their space exploration is only four years old.

That's right. They went from Companion (satellite) and Mercury (manned spacecraft) all the way to warp drive in four years. In just four years, they flew dozens of flights, and Berry apparently was involved in some aspects of half of them.

In fact, if I heard correctly, Berry Landed on two natural satellites of their home planet. This means that I am now lucky enough to be in the same room as a pony version of Neil Armstrong. Of course it could also be Alan Spade. Or, considering such a huge number of launches, it should be the pony version of the Mercury Project Seven, plus the newly added nine, plus the next thirteen.

Anyway, apparently this is Berry's twenty-eighth mission in four years. Assume that their first rocket launch was on January 1006, 1009 (the Pony Calendar), and the rocket that brought them here was launched on December , (the Pony Calendar). This averages out to about one launch every seven weeks.

Launch once every seven weeks. Just a horse.

I think NASA will never allow the same astronaut to conduct multiple launch missions within two years.

Moreover, the launch interval is only seven weeks, so how much time can be left for training? Considering that including the time on Mars, Berry's flight hours will be almost 3 days, and the actual training time should be shorter. As a member of the Ares task force, I have experienced five years of training.

As I get to know my guests better, many of their questions now have a simple, understandable and irrefutable answer:

These ponies are crazy!