My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

A large number of cardboard boxes and plastic-wrapped display terminals are scattered on the floor of a small warehouse at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Standing among them are seventeen JPL engineers: software experts, hardware engineers, test experts, and four octogenarians recruited from retirement. As the last few living veterans of the original Pathfinder detector project team, they continue to shine. Get excited and contribute their expertise.

And in the center of it all stood Bruce Wu, next to him a brand new Pathfinder backup machine that had just come all the way from the National Museum, unpacked and freshly baked. This probe is a fully functional backup aircraft of the Pathfinder program. It was originally used to test solutions in the event of an accident during the surface mission. After its successful retirement, it became a museum exhibit as a commemoration of the Ares project and Mars. Part of a larger themed exhibition related to the journey of discovery. Now this old guy is being reused from retirement and recalled here just like those old people.

"Okay, everyone, this is the information we know so far:" Bruce began to speak at the speed of a machine gun, "Mark Watney is driving the rover south-southwest of the residential area. The general direction of his driving route is directly Heading towards Pathfinder. And he could only be there for one reason - to recover the probe's radio equipment. So we're trying to figure out how to receive any messages he sends us before the day he returns to the settlement, and ways to respond effectively.”

Bruce pointed to the Pathfinder, "We currently have to assume that the Pathfinder has not suffered serious damage after spending forty years on the surface of Mars, and it can be successfully started once it is powered on again." He said, "If the Pathfinder If the controller fails to activate or transmit successfully, we are completely helpless, so we will not consider testing these extreme scenarios. But anything other than this must be considered carefully."

"Your task in the next two weeks is to work together to do everything you can to bring this detector back to life. Then we will start to understand its operating system and how to make various adjustments to it. We will simulate the memory, imager, high-gain antenna tracking system, and various failure scenarios with the Sojourner rover. We were going to brainstorm and test ways to get Pathfinder to produce behavior that Watney could understand as communication activity. And in our minds Also be aware that fully two-thirds of these technologies that were originally used forty years ago were relegated to the dustbin by the time most of my generation were in elementary school."

"Okay, everyone." Bruce sighed, "This is going to be the largest nostalgia game you have ever participated in in your life. Since someone can recreate a MAME-powered arcade game, we can definitely complete it smoothly. This project. Let’s get started.”

Wooden crates were opened one after another.

The plastic wrapper was torn off and tossed aside.

Various devices plug into wall sockets.

At this time, a Pathfinder veteran heard his cell phone ringing and stopped what he was doing. He shrugged at Bruce, who was looking uncharacteristically annoyed, and answered the phone. "Hello, sweetheart," he said, "Grandpa is a little busy right now."

A chirping sound came from the speaker of the old man's mobile phone.

"No, I can't come to your party." He said with some regret, "NASA called me to help them do something to help the poor man on Mars."

The chatter on the other end of the phone became a little excited.

"Yes, and his lovely friends."

An emotional barrage.

"Well, I don't know that, honey. We don't even know if the orange leader can speak our language."

Blabla.

"No surprise. Tall Boy was the biggest one, and Jimmy always liked all things big."

Blah blah blah.

"Baby, there are many people here with me now who will go all out to rescue Mark. But everyone else is probably waiting for me now, so..."

Blabla!

"Well, I really didn't think about that," he said. "I guess we can wait until we contact the astronauts and maybe we can get clearer pictures."

Blabla.

"Don't listen to him. From what we know now it could be puppy aliens. Or it could be kitten aliens. What does he think they are?"

Bra.

"Well, that's possible. Why would he say that?"

There was a burst of ridicule.

"Kittens don't mean femininity. And ponies don't mean masculinity. You can love what you love, and don't let Jimmy's words sway you. Now tell him to be honest until I'm done with my work here. Let’s go to the mountains together before the ski season ends.”

Blabla!

"I love you too. Bye."

He put away his cell phone and said, "Sorry to bother you."

"Can we continue now?" another engineer said coldly.

"Tim, what are you doing?" Bruce said, "Mind you, we all understand, but would you please turn off your cell phones now?"

Work to resurrect the Pathfinder probe then continued.