The Science Fiction World of Xueba

Chapter 32: Green shoots and hope

Finding the Mars Pathfinder is only the first step in restoring a communications plan.

But the way back was more difficult than Pang Xuelin imagined.

It took him exactly seven Martian days to return to the habitat, which was one more Martian day than Chengjia searching for Mars Pathfinder.

Originally, it didn't take so long under normal circumstances, because Pang Xuelin could return along the original rut track instead of spending a lot of time calculating the guide route.

But on the third day of the return journey, which was the ninth day after his departure, Pang Xuelin encountered a large-scale sandstorm.

The scorching sun and the dark sky covered up the traces of the rut, and also blocked the sun. Even charging the solar cells became a problem.

Pang Xuelin can only nest inside the rover and maintain the power supply of the rover through RTG.

The sandstorm lasted for two days before gradually dissipating. Pang Xuelin ate and drank Lazarus in the car, and almost collapsed.

It was not until two days later, when a ray of sunlight cut through the sky, that Pang Xuelin realized that he had passed the most difficult moment.

At this time, Pang Xuelin had less than 200 kilometers from the habitat.

The rest of the work is simple.

Without the rut marks, Pang Xuelin repositioned with Phobos. As long as he determined the approximate direction and drove his rover within 40 kilometers of the perch, he could find the navigation beacons from the perch.

59 59th Mars Day.

At noon, the white dome's perch gradually appeared in Pang Xuelin's line of sight. This time it was originally planned to last eight Mars days, and finally the long journey of 13 Mars days finally came to an end.

进入 When entering the radius of the perch capsule within 20 kilometers, Pang Xuelin contacted Watney through the on-board radio system.

Wotney, originally worried by Pang Xuelin, wore an EVA spacesuit to go out to greet him.

I didn't see them for 13 days. The two met again, but didn't say much. They just shook hands and hugged, everything was in silence.

Then, the two began to work.

The discarded carbon dioxide filter is thrown aside, the solar panel is re-expanded, and it is connected to the energy system of the habitation cabin. The contents of the vehicle sewage tank are also moved into the habitation cabin to prepare for the next batch of bio-fertilizer. The perch, but the landing volume is too large to fit in, and the two can only keep the thing outside.

As for RTG, if the radioactive material inside this thing leaks, it is not a joke.

The two of them put it back to the pit where it was buried, and dig it out when needed next time.

When I returned to the habitat, Watney didn't ask the Mars Pathfinder for the first time, but smiled: "Pang, I show you something good!"

"What good?"

Pang Xuelin froze slightly.

"follow me!"

Watney opened the gate between the living cabin and the planting cabin, and then made an invitation gesture.

Xi Pang Xuelin seemed to realize something and hurried towards the planting cabin.

After entering the planting cabin, Pang Xuelin immediately smelled a breath of long-lost soil, which was different from the time when they applied biological fertilizers. After more than ten days, the soil in the planting cabin had faintly dark brown similar to the earth ’s soil. The humidity in the cabin is also much higher than the outside living cabin.

But what attracted Pang Xuelin's attention most was the touch of green in the soil.

And more than one crop, the entire planting cabin, over a hundred square meters of land, is covered with small green shoots.

Little green buds are little by little. On the brown soil, it seems like a ray of hope, breaking through the haze that Pang Xuelin's heart has covered for many days.

Xi Pang Xuelin slowly crouched down and gently brushed the young sprouts just out of the ground with her hands. Some were unbelievable and some were surprised, and her voice choked involuntarily:

"Wotney, us, is this successful?"

进入 Since entering the rescue world of Mars, although Pang Xuelin seems calm on the surface, the shadow of death has been lingering in his heart.

Until he saw the green shoots of this tree, he did not really have hope for survival.

Watney can fully understand Pang Xuelin's mood. In fact, when he saw the first green shoots, he couldn't control his tears at all, and his performance was even worse than Pang Xuelin.

Watney: "Pang, I think we can stop worrying about food, at least for a short time!"

"This is a good start, we must ... definitely survive."

"Yes, we can live."

Uh ...

The two quickly calmed down.

Pang Xuelin found the Mars Pathfinder, but this does not mean that they can easily communicate with the earth.

First, they had to restore the old antiques that landed on Mars 40 years ago.

一 In the early morning of the next day, after a night of trimming, the two officially started working.

"Under normal circumstances, the reason why such unmanned detectors stop working is basically because the dust on the solar panels is getting thicker and thicker, the temperature in winter is falling, and the sunshine time is shortening, resulting in insufficient power supply. Wait until the battery power If it drops to a certain critical point, the detector's heating system will hang. Then, the electronic components will not be able to operate because the temperature is too low, and the control system will hang, even if the solar panel can provide a weak Power is supported, but without the restart command issued by the electronic components, the system cannot be restarted. Over time, the battery system will also lose the ability to store power. "

In addition to being a botanist, he is also a part-time mechanical and electrical engineer. The task of repairing the Mars Pathfinder was naturally handed to him. Pang Xuelin just beat it.

Fortunately, Mars' atmosphere is cold and thin, the gas density is only one percent of Earth's, and the content of oxygen and water vapor is very small, which makes the Mars Pathfinder's appearance basically intact.

Pang Xuelin and Watney first inspected the Sojourner unmanned vehicle in the habitat, and found that the unmanned vehicle except the battery was completely damaged, and the rest of the components were intact. As long as the power was reconnected, the work could be restarted.

But the landing capsule outside is not so simple.

Watney wore an EVA spacesuit, made a circle around the landing capsule, then pried open the battery compartment, and took out the silver-zinc battery. "This thing is useless, we have to replace it with a power supply. In addition, There is another problem which may be more troublesome. "

"what is the problem?"

Watney said: "It is winter in Mars now, the highest temperature in the Asidalya Plain is 55 degrees, and the electronic components of the landing capsule can only be activated above 40 degrees. We have to find a way to heat the landing capsule, but The landing module was too big to pass through the airlock chamber. "

Pang Xuelin frowned, saying, "How about we dig the RTG out again and put it on the edge of the landing capsule to heat it?"

Watney shook his head: "I'm afraid not. The landing capsule is too big. The RTG is naturally radiating and the power is only 1600 watts. Under this temperature condition, I want to make the temperature of every electronic component inside the landing capsule rise to minus 40 degrees. I'm afraid it's a bit difficult. "

"What then?"

Pang Xuelin frowned, struggling to recall the scenes in the movie, but in the movie, there does not seem to be a shot explaining how Watney handled the problem.

The two eyes widened and eyes narrowed. After an EVA, the two still had no choice but to return to the habitat first and talk after lunch.

After lunch, Pang Xuelin lay down on the bed and just closed his eyes for two minutes. Pang Xuelin suddenly opened his eyes and patted the mattress. "Wotney, I think of a way."

"any solution?"

Watney froze slightly.

Pang Xuelin laughed and said, "I remember that we only used one of the three parachutes of the MDV (Mars Landing Vehicle) parachute. Even the main parachute was useless. It's actually very simple. We just need to build it outside the habitat. A small tent, and then put the RTG and the landing cabin together. As long as the tent is sealed, the air inside can not be circulated to the outside, then with the greenhouse effect, the temperature in the tent will rise to minus 40 degrees above zero. Power on the landing module and restart the landing module system. Can you use your own heating system to keep the temperature? "

"Pang, you are such a genius!"

Watney's eyes lit up and he immediately recognized Pang Xuelin's method.

In the afternoon, the two performed a second EVA, Pang Xuelin moved RTG back, and Watney continued to trim the MDV's parasol, and then set up a small tent in the perch.

Then the two teamed up to move the RTG and landing capsule into the tent.

RTG is very powerful. In less than an hour, the temperature inside the tent rose to minus 30 degrees.

Subsequently, Watney went out to reconnect the power to the landing module and the resident drone.

The rest of the work has nothing to do with them.

As long as the landing capsule resumes operation, it will actively restore contact with the earth.

JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a subsidiary of NASA, mainly responsible for the development and management of unmanned space detection tasks for NASA) It is naturally impossible to squat the signal of this five-person detector that has disappeared for forty years ~ www.readwn.com ~ However, the new generation of deep space measurement and control network specially created for the Ares program on Earth will definitely receive signals from Mars Pathfinder.

At that time, they will naturally inform JPL. As long as the JPL returns the signal, the landing capsule will automatically adjust the position of the signal gain antenna according to the relative position of the earth.

Therefore, Pang Xuelin and Watney can determine whether they are connected to the earth according to the gain antenna changes of the landing module.

"Okay, that's it for today. Can we restore contact with the earth? We can only wait for the response of the next landing module."

After completing all the work, Pang Xuelin and Watney returned to the habitat.

Uh ...

Pathfinder Trail Log: SOLO

System sequence initialization is complete ...

Time 00:00:00 ...

Power loss has been detected, time / date is unknown ...

Load the operating system ...

VXWARE operating system (C) WINDRIVER system starts hardware self-test:

Internal temperature: minus 34 degrees Celsius

External temperature: invalid