My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

"Sorry for being late," Teddy said, walking into the room. He walked to his desk, placed his briefcase on the table, and pulled out a few folders, stacking them neatly next to his notepad. When he was about to turn around and sit down, he looked around, suddenly froze, and asked, "Where is Ms. Parker?"

"She is still dealing with satellite communications." Venkat replied, "It is just dawn in the residential area. She has to monitor the EVA images taken by the satellite."

"I understand." Teddy nodded and sat down. Several others were already present at this time. Venkat was leaning against a wall as he was accustomed to; Mitch was slumped on the sofa, his eyes obviously closed, but the music playing in his headphones was extremely loud, and even Venkat on the other side of the room could faintly hear it. heard. Bruce Wu had just flown in from Pasadena, and judging by the two big bags under his eyes, he wished it was early in the morning instead of eight-thirty at night. Of course, Annie was also there, never taking her eyes off the phone screen, sending various messages all the time, and busy putting out all kinds of big news made by the media.

"Venkat, how is Watney?" Teddy asked.

"From what we know so far, he is still alive," Venkat said. "There was no EVA yesterday, but we photographed the tall boy going out to clean the solar panels; two orange and white hens made a round trip. Area e, it took about five hours of EVA time. It has been two weeks since we last saw the white box movers."

"Do you think something happened to the movers?"

"We have no way of knowing." Venkat shrugged, "Mark hasn't updated his news yet, so for now we can only assume that he may have suffered from some disease."

"Can you roughly deduce what the aliens are doing in Area E? Have you found any clues?" Teddy asked.

"No great ideas. But we did find some new data. Infrared sensor data from orbiting climate satellites showed small temperature anomalies on the surface. The conditions were more pronounced at night than during the day."

"Abnormal temperature?" Annie asked.

"There is a place at the upper edge of the northeastern corner of Zone E where the temperature is higher than the surrounding areas." Venkat said, "Recent infrared measurements of the local area show that the high temperature area almost extends to the center of this area. However, The location where this phenomenon initially occurs is still the hottest. At night, the maximum temperature can even exceed the background temperature by as much as 20 degrees."

"Is it related to the crash location?" Teddy asked.

"It's impossible. The crash site is in the southeast corner, and even the location doesn't match up."

"This issue needs to continue to be studied." Teddy said, "Bruce, is there any progress on the supply mission?"

"Progress is very slow." Bruce replied, "We discussed the plan of bundling the Delta 9 rocket with the Red Falcon Heavy in an attempt to obtain a larger speed increase for linear orbital flight, but in the end we found that it was not feasible from an engineering perspective. Not feasible. Even taking a step back, implementing this solution would require two Deltas, and the only one we have currently is the Hawkeye 3 launch vehicle. It will take several months to wait for ULA to provide another one .”

"Then what else can we do with the resources we already have on hand?" Teddy was still unwilling and continued to ask.

Bruce just shook his head. "You mean the next two to three months? There's nothing we can do. If we were to launch Hawkeye 332 to Mars tomorrow, the payload would be a box of crackers and a wish. Good luck card to him. Even so, these would have to wait until Sol 613 at the earliest before they could be received by Mark. If we wanted to get enough traffic to warrant a launch, the final arrival date would be pushed all the way to Sol after."

"However, Space-X assures us that the three red Falcon Heavy rockets will be ready within four months. Under ideal planetary orbit conditions, each rocket can deliver thirty-four tons of payload to Mars. However, Where we stand in four months, a rocket can probably only carry about a metric ton. And to feed Mark and his guests, plus a whole new radio system, and a few other things, we're going to All three Falcons must be used, in addition to the launch vehicle of Hawkeye 578. But these rockets will not reach Mars until Sol at the earliest."

"Even according to the most optimistic scenario, Mark and his friends will all be dead by then." Teddy was a little anxious after hearing this.

"I know," Bruce just shrugged, "but I can't move things around, nor can I change the gravitational constant at will. We either have to hurry up and send them a bunch of supplies that won't last them until rescue arrives, or By the time we could deliver enough food to them, we found it was too late."

"Keep trying to figure it out for me," Teddy said. "Have you ever tried to reduce the weight of the landing stage?"

"Uh, I..."

Bruce's words were suddenly interrupted by Venkat's cell phone ringing. Venkat took out his phone from his pocket, glanced at the caller ID on the screen, answered the call and said, "Mindy, what's the matter?" "We're in a meeting now... What's wrong with him?... That's good Ah, but why are you calling me now to tell me something like this...wait, what?...which protocol?...oh my gosh. ugh. Don't take any high magnification shots of anything in that area just yet But let me closely observe all movements in the residential areas and southern areas. I will be there in half an hour."

Teddy watched the Mars mission chief put his phone back in his pocket and asked, "Venkat, what happened?"

"Watney drove the rover south of the residential area," Venkat said. "Mindy thought he was going to find where Commander Lewis had buried the RTG."

"What is he going to do?!" Mitch suddenly jumped up from the sofa, his eyes widening.

"Oh, my God." Bruce lamented.

"Are you sure?" Teddy looked a little unbelievable.

"Stop, don't rush into it yet." Annie put down the phone in her hand and waved her arm to indicate, "Before you discuss it, could you please explain to me what the heck RTG is?"

"Isotope thermoelectric generator." Venkat began to explain, "It is used to provide energy when the upgrade vehicle on Mars produces fuel. The reason why this guy is used is because the upgrade vehicle is crucial and indispensable in the entire mission. You cannot rely solely on solar power. There was one on the previous Curiosity rover, and the two Viking landers each came with two of their own."

"Okay, don't just talk about useless things." Annie said, "What's wrong with this thing that scares you all like you're having a heart attack when it's mentioned?"

"It is a fifty-pound box that contains a bunch of iridium metal balls." Venkat continued to explain, "and each metal ball contains a ball of plutonium-238."

"Plutonium?!" Now it was Anne's turn to be shocked, "Ms. Ganlin! How dare you let astronauts touch such a thing?!"

"Those things are sealed inside an iridium metal ball, and there is a graphite-lined shell on the outside." Venkat explained, "There will be no danger until both layers of protection fail."

"But if the two layers of protection really fail, they will basically be dead." Teddy was still a little shocked, "This is why the mission regulations stipulate that once the work situation permits, the RTG must be placed At least four thousand meters away from the residential area. Commander Lewis previously conducted a solo EVA on Sol 4 for this purpose, which satisfied this requirement."

"But why would you send something like this to Mars in the first place?" Annie asked, "And why the hell would Watney want to take this shit now?"

"The RTG has only two functions," Venkat said. "It has a continuous power supply capability of one hundred watts. The electricity is converted from the heat generated by the natural decay of plutonium isotopes. This device is not a complete reactor. In addition, since 1,500 watts of thermal energy is converted into 100 watts of electrical energy, waste heat will be released. He probably wants one of these."

Bruce started typing on his laptop. "One hundred watts of electricity is not enough to cover the extra distance Watney travels in a day." He said after some calculations, "We still assume that he wants to modify the rover for a long trip, right?"

"That's right," Venkat said. "The ultimate goal is the location of Ares 4, but we hope it doesn't get to that point yet."

"I will send some people to study how much further Watney can travel without turning on the rover heater." Bruce said, "But from what I can imagine so far, it should be able to cover the distance he can move every day." Double the size. If that's what he calculated, then it makes sense."

"But I still don't understand." Venkat said, "Watney clearly knows that there is nothing in Schiaparelli except upgraded vehicles, and he will not survive even if he gets there. Then he Why do this now?”

"I'll have Dr. Shields come over here," Mitch said. "This is probably a psychological issue. She knows the crew better than any of us. If anyone can guess what's going on in his head right now, this guy It must be her.”

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 60

ARES 3 solar day 62

Berry didn't wait for the inner door of the No. 1 airlock leading to the living module to fully open before she started to peel off her spacesuit in a hurry. While taking off her clothes, she yelled in Pony language to every ear in the living area: "His brain What on earth is Li thinking?!"

Starlight, who had been busy practicing typing on one of Mark's spare computers, raised his head and looked at her in confusion. Berry kept shouting: "He's standing right behind... Feihuo!" So she had to jump off the work bench in a hurry, jumped over the shelf full of potato seedlings, and ran towards the commander who was sweating profusely. . "Berry, what happened?"

"Oh, I just accidentally traveled back to the insect nest in the wasteland and stayed for a few minutes." Berry suddenly lowered her voice and said, "It's midsummer at noon, when the sun is high in the sky. The only difference is that I wasn't in the wasteland just now. , but in MarkTM’s rover!”

Mark was in no hurry to take off his space suit. He just glanced curiously at his "serious duo" (never mind what that was) partner who was furious at the moment, walked straight to where he kept his tools, and took it out of the tool box. The biggest hammer came with another roll of gray tape. Afterwards, he left Berry and walked back to the airlock alone, closed the door and began to relieve the pressure.

At the same time, Feihuo took a quick look at Berry and said, "It looks like she just sweated a lot. Drink some water and eat some salt and you'll be fine."

"Why are you so hot? You're covered in sweat!" Starlight asked.

"Do you remember the box Mark mentioned to us last night?" Berry asked.

"Of course," Feihuo nodded, "He told us that that thing is extremely dangerous, and we are absolutely not allowed to touch it, move it, cast magic on it, or eat it. Berry, we We were all present at the time, so of course we all remember it.”

"He told us that thing was very warm," Berry said angrily, "but he never told us that it was so hot that you could fry an egg on it!"

"Really?" Starlight asked, "I know that there is a metal inside that device that currently only exists in theory in Equestrian science, but I really didn't know that it would generate heat."

"Mark turned off the heater on the way back," Berry said. "It only took less than ten minutes to drive it, but it was so hot in the rover that I wanted to shave all the hair on my body! I was so hot in the summer before. Having been in the wasteland, I know what it feels like!"

"Well, to be honest, he does need the heat." Starlight commented after some rational thinking.

"But no horse needs that much heat!" Berry Berry was still angry. "I'm sorry now, but I have to take a step forward. I have a date with the bathroom. I need to take a good shower~quickly." Pink Commander The officer ignored Spitfire's eyes after hearing these words, and walked straight across the living cabin to the shower room regardless... except that he deliberately slowed down when passing by the pile of potato plants, trying to avoid being in trouble. Be careful when treading.

After this unpleasant excursion with the alien, staying at the base tending to the plants was obviously a better option for her.