The Science Fiction World of Xueba

Martian day 1. (That is, a solar day on Mars is equivalent to 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35.24409 seconds, which is only 2.7% longer than that of the earth)

When he woke up, Pang Xuelin and Mark Watney sat together again.

"Watney, I think we have to plan our work and life ahead!"

Perhaps because Pang Xuelin was too calm, Mark Watney looked much better, and his mood was not as desperate as it was at the beginning!

Mark Watney said: "It is true, no matter what, Pang, we have to find a way to survive!"

Pang Xuelin said: "We are now splitting up. You are responsible for counting the supplies in the cabin. I will do a quick EVA (Extra-activity extravehicular activity. EVA spacesuits generally last for four hours, so one EVA activity is equivalent to three to four hours." Hours), check the material loss outside the cabin, and see if you can get back the butterfly-shaped satellite communication antenna that was blown away by the sandstorm!"

Mark Watney nodded: "Good!"

...

More than three hours later, Pang Xuelin returned to the habitat cabin a little tired, and took off the heavy EVA spacesuit helmet.

Mark Watney came out of the supplies cabin, looked at Pang Xuelin with some hope and said:

"Pang, did you find the satellite dish?"

If the satellite dish can be retrieved, it is hoped that communication with the earth will be restored. This is the prerequisite for whether the two can return to the earth alive.

Pang Xuelin shook his head, smiled wryly and said, "I searched the surrounding area for three kilometers, but found nothing!"

The expression on Mark Watney's face could not help but freeze.

"How about you, how is the inventory in the cabin?"

Watney said: "I roughly calculated that our mission to the surface of Mars was originally planned to last 31 days. In order to prevent accidents, we prepared food for 56 days. The previous eight people consumed six days and left The amount of fifty days, now only the two of us are left, enough for us to last for two hundred days."

"This is good news!"

Pang Xuelin laughed.

Watney continued: “We still have nine spacesuits, an interior spacesuit for liftoff and landing, and eight EVA suits.”

Pang Xuelin nodded. There were originally eight of them, and each of them had two spacesuits, one in-cabin spacesuit and one EVA spacesuit.

EVA spacesuits are relatively bulky and strong, and are suitable for surface operations outside the cabin. Before the Ares 3 mission team, six people took the MAV to return to the Hermes in Mars orbit, and wore six sets of spacesuits in the cabin. Watney's own set was punctured by the antenna, so the remaining nine sets.

Watney paused, and continued: "I also checked the oxygenation machine, and the oxygenation machine is currently working in good condition, but once there is a problem with the oxygenation machine, we only have one short-term spare part that can be spared. This spare part It can only be used as an emergency, because it is similar to the carbon dioxide filter on the EVA spacesuit. It cannot directly decompose carbon dioxide to produce oxygen, but can only absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale in the cabin. And the upper limit of this kind of parts is only five days, just It will enter an irreversible saturation state, but there are only two of us now, so its upper limit should be twenty days. We better hope that the oxygenation machine does not fail, otherwise, our lives will end in twenty days."

"The water circulation device works well. Even if we exhale half a liter of water vapor every day, the air filtration system in the habitat can recover the water vapor. The EVA spacesuit also has a certain water vapor recovery capacity. The reserve water in the habitat reaches 500. Liter, as long as there is no problem with the water circulation system, we don't have to worry about running out of water. The only problem is that there are no spare parts for the water circulation system, so let's hope that this thing will not go wrong!"

"Also, we have enough medicines and enough morphine to die painlessly at the last moment.

We also have a lot of multivitamins in large bottles and mealworms in an incubator. These two things can provide us with rich protein and vitamins to ensure our nutritional balance on Mars. In addition, we also have the seeds of many crops, including potatoes, corn, wheat, cabbage, tomatoes, etc., as well as some mushroom spores. "

"Now, the only troublesome thing is the carbon dioxide absorber of our extravehicular spacesuit. This thing is irreversible, and it takes one less time to use it. We landed on Mars this time, and we carried a total of 800 of them. We have used 25 of them so far. Seven hundred and seventy-five, if calculated in terms of time, we have 3,100 hours of outdoor work. What about you, did you find anything, how about the loss of our external equipment?"

Pang Xuelin said: "Our habitat module is basically intact. The three main compartments, the living module, the material module, and the energy module are all very complete. After the Mars Ascension Vehicle (MAV) took off, there are still some bases, including the landing gear. , fuel storage tanks and supply pipelines, and there is still some fuel in the fuel storage tanks. In addition, our Mars landing vehicle (MDV, equivalent to a landing module, is mainly used for personnel landing. When landing, the main and auxiliary parachutes are opened one after another, approaching When the surface was three meters above the ground, the rocket engine at the bottom of the MDV started to cushion the impact of landing) was buried by sand, and the soft landing nozzle was completely damaged, but the main and auxiliary parachutes are still intact, and we should be able to recycle them.”

"The two rovers are in good condition, half buried in the sand. I have cleared them out and drove one of them around our camp. Observatory, two were lost in the dust storm and I recovered two. The solar panels around the camp were mostly sand-buried and inactive, and I cleaned them out as well. Also, our nickel The hydrogen battery is also in good condition, with normal use, it can reach the limit of 5,000 charge-discharge cycles."

"The biggest trouble now is that we don't have a satellite communication antenna. I checked our remaining communication array. Without an antenna, there is basically no possibility of repairing it!"

Watney frowned. "Is there a way to cobble together an antenna out of aluminum foil or some scrap metal around our base?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head and smiled wryly: "You think too much, the communication between Mars and the earth in deep space is not that simple, even if I make it, it can be used as a walkie-talkie at most."

Watney sat down on the chair and said: "Communication is the most important thing. We must find a way to restore communication with the earth. In addition, if the follow-up Ares plan is not canceled on the earth because of our death, then four years later, The Ares 4 spacecraft will land in the Schiaparelli impact crater, which is about 3,200 kilometers away from the Asidalia Plain where we are now. It is impossible to reach there by our own strength. If we can If we get in touch with Earth, we might be able to look forward to rescue."

Pang Xuelin actually had a solid idea of ​​how to establish communication.

More than 100 kilometers away from their camp, there is a "Mars Pathfinder" rover launched in 1996.

In the movie, Mark Watney rediscovered the rover and established contact with the earth.

But now, this guy obviously hasn't thought of this section.

Pang Xuelin said: "Watney, I will find a solution to the communication problem. The most important thing now is food. Our food can only last for two hundred days. Even if we save as much as possible, it can only last for a year at most, and Ari It will take four years for Sisi IV to arrive, and for the remaining three years, we will have to find a way to grow our own food. You are our botanist, and it is up to you!"

Watney nodded and said: "We need food for at least three years, 1095 Earth days, which is equivalent to 1067 Mars days, we have sufficient vitamin guarantees, and protein can be provided by mealworms and part of the aerospace protein we store, the only shortage Calories are what we eat. Among our seeds, potatoes have the most calories, which contain 810 calories per kilogram, but according to our height and weight, even if we are a little hungry every day, we still have to consume 1,500 calories, that is to say, almost four A kilogram of potatoes is about 1.5 tons of potatoes a year. The yield of potatoes is only 1.5 tons per mu. Our material cabin is only about 100 square meters. Even if all of them are used to grow potatoes, the output may only be 250 kilograms , just enough to feed us for 90 days."

Pang Xuelin said: "Watney, you forgot one thing. In many places on the earth, due to climate reasons, potatoes can only be planted for one season a year, but we can provide a constant temperature and humidity environment here, and we can even harvest three to four seasons a year. !Also, the potato vines feed the mealworms, which can also be a great source of calories for us.”

Watney's eyes could not help but brighten. In this way, although there is still a gap between the expected annual production of 1.5 tons, it can barely guarantee that the two of them will not starve to death.

But then, Watney frowned again: "If we plant, we need soil, at least 40 liters of water per cubic meter of soil, 100 square meters of planting area, almost 20 cubic meters of soil, It is equivalent to 800 liters of water, where does our water come from? There are only 500 liters of water in the water circulation system, we have to leave at least 200 liters, so where do we get the remaining 500 liters?"

Pang Xuelin laughed and said: "The water problem can be solved. As long as we provide electricity to the fuel station under the MAV take-off base, it can produce carbon dioxide for us at a rate of two liters per hour. We can collect this carbon dioxide and then Oxygen is produced through the oxygenator. As for the hydrogen problem, do you remember our teammate Friedrich? When we landed on the MDV, he handled it very beautifully, leaving us with hundreds of liters of fuel at least. Those United Ammonia can be decomposed into hydrogen and nitrogen, and we collect the hydrogen and burn it with oxygen, can’t we produce water?”

Watney looked at Pang Xuelin and said with a smile: "Pang, you are a genius! If we can really do what you said, we might really live to the day when Ares 4 reaches Mars!"