Die on Mars

Tang Yue sat down panting, leaning against the airlock door, looking up at the Eagle lander a hundred meters away. The majestic eagle head painting on the white fairing was majestic.

The Eagle lander is really a big thing, almost as high as a four-story building. It is supported by four thick hydraulic legs. There are four embedded convergence-diffusion nozzles at the bottom of the descent stage rocket. These four nozzles will be used when landing. The tube will eject high-temperature and high-pressure gas at several kilometers per second and provide a huge thrust of up to 120 tons. In addition to the four main nozzles, there are also four small swimming engines responsible for maintaining the stability of the lander's attitude. .

How to land the Eagle spacecraft safely is also a problem. Humanity's space program has never allowed such a big thing to re-enter the atmosphere - except for the space shuttle, but the space shuttle does not need to land vertically, and the return capsule of the general spacecraft is two to three meters. It is a small, tall thing that can hold up to a few people. It is light in weight and has a strong structure. It can be effectively slowed down by using a parachute.

But the Eagle spacecraft cannot do this because its size and weight are too large, and the atmosphere of Mars is too thin. The density of the Martian atmosphere at an altitude of ten kilometers is only 0.0065 kilograms per cubic meter. In comparison, the Earth is at this altitude. The density of the atmosphere is 0.413 kilograms per cubic meter, a difference of sixty times.

In this case, the parachute cannot provide effective deceleration. It cannot pull such a huge thing at all. When the Eagle spacecraft re-enters the atmosphere, its speed exceeds more than ten times the speed of sound. It will roar across the sky and then land on the surface of Mars. It was smashed into a bag of slag.

This problem has never been solved well, and various plans have been rejected for various reasons.

Finally, the legendary Caltech JPL stood up and waved his hand, "I'm here!"

A group of technical geeks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory locked themselves in a room with their chicken coops on their backs, wore slippers and ate instant noodles for half a year. These top bald guys on the planet consumed half a ton of scratch paper and finally got the When they came up with a solution, they decided to use parachutes and rocket reverse thrust to slow down, and designed heavy insurance for the lander.

This group of people designed the lander as a lifting body, which is completely different from the traditional blunt-cone spacecraft. It no longer uses ballistic re-entry into the atmosphere, but glides in the atmosphere and gradually slows down through long-distance gliding.

The lander entered the Martian atmosphere at an altitude of about 120 kilometers. At this time, its speed was as high as 21,000 kilometers per hour. After one and a half minutes, it opened the inflatable reducer on its abdomen. The so-called inflatable reducer is a huge air cushion. , the Eagle spacecraft came down sitting on this atmospheric cushion. I don’t know what it looks like. Imagine the Arabian flying carpet.

The inflatable reducer is the first deceleration. It can reduce the speed to about 2,000 kilometers per hour. At this time, it starts the second deceleration, discarding the deceleration air cushion, and at the same time, a huge ring parasail with a diameter of 30 meters is opened.

The parachute reduced the speed of the Eagle spacecraft to 300 kilometers per hour. At this time, the altitude had dropped to several hundred meters. The reverse thrust rocket started and the lander slowly landed in a vertical attitude.

Finally, the landing gear was lowered hydraulically.

Stand firm.

mission completed!

This was the final design of the Eagle spacecraft in front of Tang Yue. It looked like a space shuttle standing on the ground, but it didn't have wings as big as a space shuttle and looked like a steamed bun with rounded lines.

The white part Tang Yue saw was the back of the Eagle spacecraft. The belly on the other side was actually black and covered with heat-insulating tiles. When the Eagle spacecraft entered the atmosphere, it faced down on its belly and flew down on its stomach. It was quite a release. .

Tang Yue glanced at the display on his wrist and said, "The temperature is minus 29 degrees. It's really hot."

"Try taking off the Mingguang Armor before you say this." Old Cat's voice sounded in the earphones.

"If I were a Martian, I would definitely feel that this temperature is very hot." Tang Yue even fanned himself with his hands, even though he couldn't feel anything through the mask, "On a scorching summer noon, I really want to eat popsicles... …The ice cream frozen with Martian sandstone and perchlorate is filled with carbon dioxide. Ah, one bite is full of the taste of childhood.”

Old Cat: ...What are you talking about?

"I'm recalling my childhood growing up on Mars." Tang Yue said and hummed softly, humming to the tune of Luo Dayou's "Childhood", "On the rocks beside the crater, cockroaches were screaming. In the summer, there are only spaceships parked in the valley beside the desert..."

"Why are there cockroaches on Mars?" The old cat was stunned.

"Mutated cockroaches." Tang Yue replied, "Have you seen the Martian alien species? There are mutated cockroaches in it."

Old cat:......

"Have the solar panels been put up?"

"Put it away."

Tang Yue spent two hours moving out the solar panels one by one and spreading them out on the sand in front of Kunlun Station. He had to do this job every morning and evening.

Tang Yue climbed up with difficulty and pushed the cart with a clanking sound, like a migrant worker from Mars.

The old cat was sorting supplies in Kunlun Station. It was slowly circling in the hall. Distributing supplies was really a troublesome thing. Since Tang Yue stated that he wanted to distribute them equally, the old cat couldn't favor one thing over another. An adult would do it every day. It requires an intake of 80 grams of protein, 3500 mg of sodium, 3000 mg of potassium, 1000 mg of calcium, and a variety of vitamins. In order to maintain nutritional balance, old cats have to study it carefully.

Although Tang Yue's request is to share the food in half, the old cat can't be so rude in terms of quality, half and half. Ophiopogon japonicus and Tang Yue have different physiques, genders and even workloads. It has to allocate food according to energy consumption.

Tang Yue pushed the car and slowly parked it under the Eagle spacecraft.

The landing frame of the lander is thicker than Tang Yue's arm. There is a foot pad with a diameter of half a meter under each leg to reduce the pressure. The weight of hundreds of tons is pressed on these four pillars, standing majestic and very special. stable.

Tang Yue used a long-handled rake to pull away the gravel around the lander. The landing site of the Eagle spacecraft was hard ground, with a large hard rock at the bottom, covered with a thin layer of soil, which was very smooth. , an almost natural landing and launch site.

Tang Yue walked slowly around the Eagle spacecraft, looking up at the lander, and a strange idea popped into his mind.

"Old Cat, do you think we can go up there on this thing?"

Tang Yue had not thought about going up together, but this plan was tacitly rejected by him and Lao Mao from the beginning.

"That way you will die faster." The old cat said calmly, "With the self-sustainability of the space station, it is enough to maintain the survival of Miss Maidong alone. If you are added, the space station will crash in less than two years. ”

"Isn't Orion 2 still there?"

"Orion 2 is still there." Old Cat asked, "So what?"

"Can we go back on Orion 2?" Tang Yue asked, "I want to see with my own eyes whether the earth has really disappeared."

"No problem, of course you can go back." The old cat said simply, "But if you go there, you can't come back. No one will guide you to correct the orbit. You can't even reach the earth's orbit. Even if you can enter the earth's orbit, you won't be able to come back." Captured by the earth's gravity, you will only become a giant piece of garbage in the vast space... Do you still want to go back?"

"Pretend I didn't say anything."