My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 53

ARES 3 solar day 56

"Aa, aa, aa," Mark intoned, "Hand, an, apple."

This is the sixth consecutive day that the members of Amicitas have chanted these incomprehensible words with Mark. Normally this special ritual would have to wait until after dinner and watching an episode or two of E-Party, but today Mark planned to start after breakfast. Dragonfly was curious about what happened.

"Eh, eh, eh," Mark began reading the next sentence, "Lend, men, English."

She could feel Mark's urgency about something at this moment, but Tingting was very sure that this matter had nothing to do with rushing to attend English class.

"Iih, iih, iih. Hit, tin, pimple. Aah, aah, aah. Top, mon, ostrich. Uh. Uh. Uh. Punt, under, cup."

Mark's explanation for why he performs this ritual every day is that when he was taking foreign language classes at school, a teacher used this magical ritual to let them practice their pronunciation every day.

"Ay, ay, ay. Made, quaint, mistake. Ee, ee, ee. Heed, sweet, fever."

At least three-quarters of the words they used as pronunciation examples were unknown to everyone, but the ponies still enjoyed the process of singing together. Tingting was enjoying everyone's happiness at the same time. As for the fireball...at least he didn't object.

"Eye, eye, eye. Tie, file, crocodile. Oh, oh, oh. Row, over, floor. Yuu, yuu, yuu. Usually, rule, ukulele."

Fireball no longer likes to talk nonsense like before. Tingting could see that he had always wanted to do this, and at the same time, his guilt for causing the previous accident that almost killed everyone was gradually fading. She could feel that he had to restrain his reckless impulse from time to time to scream at the sky, the ground, and the air. In fact, Tingting knew that he wanted to explode right now. However, he took one look at the wholehearted enthusiasm on Mark's face, and unconsciously felt a sense of shame in his heart, so he hummed louder and louder.

"Ur, ur, ur. Hurt, her, bird. Ar, ar, ar. Mark, target, pirates."

The meaning of the last few words was unclear, but it still made Mark feel happy for a while, so Tingting just enjoyed this emotional delicacy without asking Mark the reason.

"Or, or, or. More, pork, story. Oi, oi, oi. Foil, oink, spoiled. O. Bow, owl, couch. A. Raw, maul, awed, Uh, uh, uh. Book, took , nook. Ooo, ooo, ooh. Screw, blue, cockatoo!”

The last sentence was drowned in the laughter of the ponies. Tingting couldn't help but wonder, how did they usually talk since they only had a few vowels in total?

After the warm-up activity, Mark took out a whiteboard - in fact, because he couldn't wipe it clean with a dry eraser every time he wrote, it was almost a "gray board" now. He wrote the word "solar day" on the top, and wrote "6" on the far left, saying: "We met on solar day 6." Then he wrote "solar day" on the far right. 1412". "Ares 4 will not come until solar day one thousand four hundred and twelve."

Everyone nodded, including Ting Ting. I've told them about this before.

After careful consideration, Mark added: "But Ares 4 won't come here." Seeing that everyone's expressions were a little confused, he changed his words: "It. Won't. Come. Here." He wrote on the whiteboard. A long string of words, even using Mark's alphabet system, looks very awkward. Schiaparelli. "They're going to Schiaparelli Basin." He pushed his small, thin computer so that the screen was facing the ponies, which was currently displaying a satellite map of Mars. He pointed to a low-lying, flat area in the top center of the map and said, "We are here." He then pointed to a giant impact crater far southeast of his current position and said, "Ares 4 is here."

"How many K's?" Xingguang asked.

"You have to ask, 'How far?'." Mark carefully corrected her statement clearly and clearly, "It's three thousand two hundred kilometers away." He drew a long line on the whiteboard. In a straight line, the left end is marked with 0, and the right end is marked with 3200. "This is the furthest distance the rover can travel at one time." He added a small mark and wrote the number "35" on the right side of the zero position. Gesturing at the huge difference between the two numbers, he concluded, "It's too far to walk."

Tingting felt that his last sentence was originally intended to be a joke; but everyone else present, including her, couldn't laugh now. Not only would Mark have to wait four years before he could make his way home, but he would also have to cross half of Equestria to meet up with the rescue team. And it has to be in a hellish place like this. The current prospects are bleak enough to make even a changeling despair.

"So I need," Mark continued, noticing that everyone here looked solemn, "try to modify the rover so that it can drive farther." He paused, wrote a few words on the whiteboard, and spoke loudly Read, "Modify, change - to make different. Modify - to change something intentionally."

Starlight raised a hoof in gesture. "What does 'intentional' mean?"

Marx paused for a moment and responded: "Purposeful. Planned. Intentional. Not accidental."

Starlight nodded, put down her hoof, and motioned for Mark to continue.

"Besides," Mark said, drawing a small spaceship, "Ares 4 has a crew of six." He drew six little stick figures. "Six down. Six back." He added a seventh stick figure. "Maybe we can bring seven. NASA," he said, pointing to the badge on his shoulder. "NASA is very smart. These are no problem. But what if there are twelve?" He drew another match dragon and four matches. The pony was later crossed out along with the seventh added matchmark. He shook his head and said, "It can't be done. Someone will always be left behind."

Now Ting Ting could feel the burning anger in Fire Ball's heart. The dragon leaned forward slightly and muttered, "Are you going to leave us here?"

To Mark's credit, he responded without any hesitation. "No." He looked directly into Fireball's eyes and replied resolutely, "If we want to leave, let's go together. Staying here will only lead to death. And we must all go back alive."

Dragonfly was almost so excited that she couldn't help but cheer like a pony. She could feel that every word Mark spoke was sincere. No jokes, no boasts, just determination and perseverance.

"But NASA doesn't know...well, it won't know that we are here." Mark forced himself to speak slowly and slowly. "We have to tell them that there are six people (horses) here and they need to be rescued. It will take a few years. Use it to plan and they'll figure out how to get us all home."

"But you don't get in touch with them." Berry said.

"I can't contact them." Mark corrected her grammar, "Yes, that's right. The radio here," he drew a pattern of an antenna with a few lines radiating from the end, "is on Sol 6 It was damaged. I can't fix it." He pointed to Schiaparelli Basin again and said, "The radio there works, but now there are no habitation modules. There is no food, no caves, and no farms. If we now Just go and we’re dead.”

Starlight raised her hoof again and asked, "Why is there a radio over there if no one can live there?"

So Mark drew a tall triangular object with small supporting legs. "This is MAV," he said, writing out the full name, "Mars, ascendant, vehicle. Ascendant means going upward. A vehicle is something that can carry people (horses), similar to a car , or..." Then he said the pony word with almost accurate pronunciation - "Amicitas."

"MAV." Starlight read it once, and everyone else (including Tingting) listened to her pronunciation and read it again.

"MAV will make its own fuel," Mark continued, "but it will take time." He wrote "500 solar days" next to the MAV's logo. "So it came before anything else...uh..." Apparently, the word "anything else" was too complicated for all the horses except Dragonfly, and Mark noticed it from their expressions. , "It means it is the first one to come, stay here to make fuel, and then other things arrive one after another. People are always the last ones to arrive."

"So we don't have a radio here," Starlight said, pointing to the ground beneath her hooves, "and we can't use the radio there. So what should we do?"

Mark pressed a button on the computer, and several points lit up on the satellite map. "These are the locations of the other radios on Mars," he said. "Maybe I can fix one of them. But I have to get to them first." He put aside the first whiteboard, which was almost full, and pulled out the second one. On the second block, he drew a very rough sketch of the rover and said, "So now we have to modify the rover first, test it, and make sure it meets the requirements, and then get the radio."

He looked at everyone with a smile and said, "We have to come up with a plan today - we are all going to be involved in this discussion together."

Tingting looked at the data on the whiteboard, her mind completely focused on solving the problem. She had always had a strong creative urge that was inconsistent with the changeling tradition, and the problem at hand was more interesting than designing a self-deploying parachute or a working space toilet (both of which she had done) too much. Although her usual work is not as exciting as pulling out seven G's during hard re-entry and return to the atmosphere, she is always happy and proud of her achievements when she completes the task.

"The rover's battery pack has a capacity of nine kilowatt-hours," Mark said. "Don't ask me how big a watt-hour is. That's not the point."

The others shrugged and continued listening. Dragonfly was a little reluctant - the conversion from Mark's energy units to pony energy units would be helpful in future work - but she also understood that explaining how to convert now would distract everyone. Since only Mark components will be used on the rover, it is enough to only use Mark and their unit system for now.

"When NASA designed (made) the rover..."

"What is 'made'?" Fireball asked.

Tingting tried her best to resist the urge to complain. They talked about the conjugation of the verb "to design/make/do" two days ago. She was listening carefully at that time. After all, examples such as "do this and that" are one of the largest parts of the larval early education class.

"I 'did' it (present tense) today, and I 'did it' (past tense) yesterday." Mark explained with an example. Seeing the fireball nodded and leaned back in his seat, he began to continue, "NASA designed the rover to be able to drive thirty-five kilometers on a single charge. It is planned to be able to conduct EVA for five hours, and in extreme cases it can last up to eight hours. .Need to return to the residential area to recharge.”

The word "recharge" came up when they were discussing emergency magic batteries. Dragonfly and Starlight naturally understood it very clearly, but the changeling was not sure whether the other horses understood the meaning of the word until he saw everyone nodding.

"So if I leave the living area, I have to take something with me that can charge the rover's batteries." Mark continued, "Like solar panels..." - The ponies are not very familiar with this phrase yet, so Mark drew a few patterns on the whiteboard to illustrate - "... we can take some from the residential area to power the rover... to charge the rover." He pointed to the sketch of the rover, "The problem Yes: You can’t put the battery panels inside the rover. You need enough space... and you have to put food, water, potties, etc. in there.”

Hearing this, everyone's faces didn't look very good. They knew the word "potty" all too well. They were used to the stench of the compost bin in their living area, but no one could say they liked it.

"Put it... uh..." Berry stretched out a front hoof and patted the top of her head and said, "Put it here on the rover."

"Put it on the roof of the rover?" Mark pointed to the roof of the rover on the whiteboard when he mentioned the new word (roof). "Yes, we can tie it up with ropes."

Feihuo racked his brains to think about what to say, and finally asked: "Can it be recharged when... uh... can it be charged while 'Gulu Gulu'?"

"It's while driving." Mark reminded gently, "No, you can't charge while driving. This requires too many battery panels. You have to stop, spread out the battery panels like outside the residential area, and wait for charging. .”

Dragonfly walked over to Mark and grabbed a marker through the hole in his hoof. She scrawled the formula "800 / 35" on the whiteboard. "You just said that the radio is eight hundred kilometers away from us, right?" She spoke carefully, always paying attention to her pronunciation.

"Yes, the nearest one." Mark replied. In order to illustrate the usage of comparative/superlative, he stretched out his two hands and kept approaching each other a little bit, indicating, "near, closer, closest."

Dragonfly quickly finished the calculation; the result was twenty-two and six-sevenths. She crossed out the number, rounded it off and wrote twenty-three. "It takes twenty-three days to get there and twenty-three days to get back," she said. "It's too slow."

"Absolutely...well, I mean, yes, this is too slow." Mark nodded in agreement, "We have to be able to drive farther every solar day. We need more energy."

Tingting made a suggestion: "How about gluing the solar panels to the outside of the rover?"

Mark's expression changed and he said, "It's best not... I mean no." He made a gesture to stick the two things together, "I have glue, but I can't take it off like this."

Dragonfly made a screwdriver motion with her hoof.

"Absolutely not use screws or anything like that." Mark firmly disagreed.

"But you need more energy," Dragonfly still insisted on her point of view, "Where can you find more energy?"

"Can we use other rovers?" Starlight suggested.

"That's right!" Mark pointed to the starlight. "I can take it," he said, pretending to have something in both hands, "the battery for Rover No. 9000." So he erased what was written on the whiteboard. The number is written on it in a smaller font.

Dragonfly thought: Look! Done (Voila)! (She had heard before that voila was French for "It's done, now it's time to pay me.") "So you can now drive... uh... twice as long as... uh... in one go." Did you?" Tingting hesitated a little when talking about words that she didn't know much about.

"It's twice the distance." Mark nodded in agreement. "Distance is the length between places, and the general length refers to a certain object. The distance from the residential area to the cave is ten kilometers." He opened his hands and counted. Counting, he said, "One time... two times... three times."

The ponies, Dragonfly and Fireball all nodded to indicate they understood.

"So if all this energy is used by me to drive..." Mark wrote a series of calculations on the whiteboard: " / 200 = 180 / 2 = 90 km," he said, "because it consumes two hundred watts per kilometer. hour energy, so it can drive ninety kilometers a day." However, after he finished speaking, he sighed, shook his head, and added, "But this can't be done."

"Why not?" Berry asked.

"Because the rover has to provide energy for other things." Mark replied, "such as lighting, fans and so on." He made a whirring sound from his mouth and moved his fingers in circles to simulate the working of the fan, "and heating. Especially the heater, which has a power of four hundred watts." He continued to write calculations on the whiteboard:

400 * 24.66 = 4 * 2466 = 9864.

- 9864 = 8136

8136 / 200 = 40.68 km

Dingting raised her head, looking very confused, and argued: "But this almost returns to thirty-five kilometers a day!"

Mark nodded in agreement with her statement and said, "The heater won't turn on when I'm not in the rover. But if I leave the living area, I will... I will be in the rover all day. .So the heater has to be on all the time.”

"But thirty-five kilometers is useless no matter what!" Ding Ting was still not happy, "What should I do?"

Mark shrugged and answered bluntly, "I don't know. Does magic work? Do you have any ideas?" He patted his head to signal, lest the ponies forget what "ideas" meant.

At this time, a burst of fire suddenly came from the direction where the fireball was. Tingting turned around and looked over, and saw the dragon blowing out two small flames from its nostrils. At this moment, his face was filled with the proud look that appeared for the first time in Tingting's memory since the cave explosion incident. For a moment, Tingting almost felt that he looked like a strong dragon from the land of Qilin... Well, Tingting calmed down and took a closer look, and found that there was only a slight resemblance.

Mark looked taken aback. "Yo, that's cool," he said, "Maybe this will work."

"Fireball, it looks like you're going on a self-driving trip." Spitfire joked in pony language.

Tingting thought this method was worth a try. But she also remembered one thing: dragons are actually more afraid of the cold than ponies. This also means they are not very good at heating the air around them. But on the other hand, at least Fireball started to take the initiative to help with ideas again - and the idea he came up with now should not cause any life danger.

But there must be a better way. Maybe the space suit's air supply could be used to heat the rover? Speaking of which, there is another question. Is a space suit enough to provide breathable air for two people (horses) in the rover cabin?

"Okay, we will give it a try." Mark said, "At that time, we will try our best to wander around the residential area until we are sure that the experiment is successful before continuing. Now we have to think about it... uh... let's plan how to put the first Put two batteries on the rover."

"Use glue?"

Mark glared at Tingting, looking a little impatient. "Glue won't work." Then he paused and thought... "Well, maybe glue will work. But I hope we can find a better way."

Later planning discussions began to involve a lot of details. The second battery was a pain to deal with because it was too big to fit through the airlock or fit in the luggage rack. Dragonfly came up with various ways to hang it on the outside of the rover, most of which were rejected by Mark...until she suggested that it could be tied to the outside with a rope, which became the final solution.

Mark had some spare canvas that was originally intended to be used for temporary repairs in the event of a leak in the base's dome. He also has some adhesive to connect them. With these two things, you can make a saddle bag for the rover. The battery is placed in one of the pockets, and a pile of rocks is used as a counterweight on the other side. In this way, the saddle bag can be easily removed after they return from the trip, and the second battery will not be permanently retained on the No. 2 rover.

They also discussed some other issues at the same time. Starlight Glimmer made some suggestions for navigation aids, specifically using the positions of the Sun and the natural satellites of Mars. A slightly smaller sampling bucket was chosen as Mark's crumb bucket - the lid of that bucket was particularly tight. Another sampling bucket was used by Fireball to preserve food during his journey, and another bucket was used to hold enough water for the entire trip.

By the time the basic content of the plan was discussed, it was long past lunch time. Everyone finished their lunch and started happily doing their afternoon work. They were in such a happy mood because they had just overcome difficulties together. They did their part.

Tingting's thoughts were not here. She looked at Mark making a detailed plan for the canvas saddle bag on the whiteboard, and realized that he didn't have much sense of accomplishment or satisfaction at the moment, at least it was different from the mood of other horses. She thought Mark's current mood should be... complacent.

In fact, the way he felt now reminded Dragonfly of the Queen's smugness when some of her schemes were successful. But what medicine can he sell in his gourd? He just asked us to discuss and solve it together...

...problems that he already knew how to deal with.

ha. In other words, he doesn't need our help with these things, right?

Tingting suddenly felt like an enlightenment. He turned his planning time into an extended language lesson. He only involves us so that we feel like we have something to do. At the same time, it is also to give us the opportunity to practice English. All this has been planned by him.

Tingting tried hard to suppress her smile, thinking to herself: I quite like Mark, his mind is very similar to that of a changeling.