Die on Mars

An hour later, the old cat came back in a panic.

"Damn it, why is the wind getting stronger and stronger in this damn weather?" The old cat looked disgraced, closed the door of the airlock, and untied the safety rope around his waist with a curse, "Tang Yue... what's wrong with you?"

"Autistic."

Tang Yue slumped on the chair, covering his face, feeling hopeless.

The old cat took off the helmet of the cabin suit and placed it on the table. Then he unzipped the suit and jumped out of the suit lightly. "What's the wind speed now?"

"Forty-three meters per second..."

The old cat turned his head and glanced at the display screen of the anemometer, which saw four dazzling red numbers.

43.59.

Old Mao frowned. With a wind speed of forty-three meters per second, the situation was not optimistic.

It looked at the time again. It was now six-thirty in the morning. Logically speaking, the sun had risen by this time, but it was still dark outside the window. Obviously, the poor sunlight on Mars could not penetrate the top of Kunlun Station. More than ten kilometers of sand and dust. The system computers of the Eagle spacecraft have all been started, the self-test has been completed, the automatic docking program has been set, and it can be launched at any time - as long as the wind speed drops below the safety line.

"Do we still have hope?" Tang Yue asked.

"As long as the weather conditions can improve, there is still hope." The old cat replied.

"Can the Eagle spacecraft still be launched at this wind speed?" Tang Yue asked.

He hoped that if the wind speed really failed to decrease, then he would forcefully launch the lander. At least the design limit of the Eagle spacecraft was fifty meters per second, and wind speeds of more than forty meters should not pose much of a threat.

"It's possible, but it's not safe." Lao Mao said. "Even if the storm does not cause the Eagle spacecraft to fail to launch, it will still interfere with the normal entry of the lander into orbit, causing the final rendezvous to fail."

Tang Yue stared blankly at the cup on the table, and suddenly an impulse arose in his heart. He wanted to smash the water cup.

If the final rendezvous and docking fails, there is no point in launching at all.

He stood up and stood in front of the porthole, looking out in the direction of the Eagle spacecraft. Tang Yue knew that the spacecraft was standing a hundred meters away and was already full of relief supplies.

This situation is really worrying. Tang Yue can suddenly understand those who are rescuing people in shipwrecks. You can receive distress signals from survivors. You know that they are all still alive, but because of this damn storm and big waves, carrying The helicopter with supplies and doctors just wouldn't take off.

While you hope for better weather, you watch helplessly as the opportunity for rescue slips away, and the lives of the survivors disappear one by one.

"You said our chance is only one in ten." Tang Yue turned around, slowly slid to the floor against the bulkhead, and whispered, "Then our probability of failure is nine out of ten."

"That's right."

"Is this a long shot?"

"Tell me, how did you get here?" asked the old cat.

Tang Yue was stunned, not understanding what this question meant.

The old cat took a step closer and looked into Tang Yue's eyes. It was very short, not much taller than Tang Yue who was sitting on the floor.

"In this Mars mission, how many candidates will be selected with you in the end?" Old Cat asked.

"Including me...there are ten in total."

"Then you are one-tenth." The old cat pointed to the top of his head, "That girl is also one-tenth. Do you know how many tenths I am?"

Tang Yue shook his head.

"I am the only one among the 10,000 robots in the same batch that passed the review." Old Cat said, "I am one in 10,000."

Tang Yue:...Are you saying this to tell me that you are a thousand times more awesome than me?

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"I want to tell you that the earth is gone, but we are still alive. You, me and that girl are only 3/6.5 billion. If we expand the denominator to include all life on earth, then you may even It’s one in a hundred billion.” The old cat said calmly, “If even one in a hundred billion has happened to you, why should you be afraid of one tenth?”

The old cat returned to the workbench. A rectangular map of Mars unfolded on the computer screen, and then a light blue sine wave appeared on the map.

This sine wave is the trajectory of the United Space Station. To be precise, it is the motion trajectory of the subsatellite point of the space station. The so-called subsatellite point is the vertical projection of the spacecraft on the ground - because the orbit of the spacecraft is somewhat different from the equator. The angles are not completely parallel, so when viewed on a spread map, the projection point of the space station is reciprocating up and down, and the trajectory is a regular sine wave.

When Lao Mao got in touch with the United Space Station before, he re-positioned the space station accurately. Now the orbit of the space station is stored in the Kunlun Station system computer, and is also stored in the Eagle spacecraft computer. This orbit can be very accurate, almost Not bad at all.

Laomao is doing its best to reduce the error. Due to weather reasons, the Eagle spacecraft is likely to lose contact after launch. The Kunlun Station cannot guide it, so the orbit change and rendezvous can only rely on the lander's own computer. This level of difficulty is like hitting a hole-in-one while playing billiards from a thousand meters away... With no one in charge, the probability of successful autonomous docking of the Eagle spacecraft is only 5%.

A more precise figure is 4.837%.

Lao Mao told Tang Yue before that the probability of success was one in twenty. In fact, it slightly raised the possibility. However, the RD-0172 propellant of the upper stage rocket in the payload bay can only support two orbit changes. So success The total probability of docking is 9.44%.

Less than one tenth.

"What's the wind speed now?" The old cat clicked on the keyboard, staring at the computer screen.

"Forty-three meters per second."

The old cat nodded and stopped talking. Its two cat paws were beating like flying on the keyboard. It was correcting the lander's flight program minute by minute, and the parameters that were originally accurate to three decimal places were once again accurate to three decimal places. Five digits, the parameters that were originally accurate to five decimal places are again accurate to ten decimal places.

The only sound left in Kunlun Station was the old cat typing on the keyboard, and Tang Yue did not dare to disturb it.

"What's the wind speed now?"

"Forty-two meters per second."

The old cat's face was as deep as water. It showed the rigor and meticulousness that a robot should have, optimizing the launch procedure of the Eagle spacecraft over and over again. The complex parameters and function images on the screen were reflected in the pair of translucent cat pupils. It is making a last-ditch effort to fight against the 9.44% probability.

Accurate hundreds of parameters may increase this probability to 9.441%.

This only increases the success rate by 0.001%, but it's still meaningful.

After all, the probability that Tang Yue can survive the disappearance of the earth is 0.0000000001%. A probability of one in a hundred billion may not mean anything to ordinary people, and is no different from zero, but it is the entire meaning of Tang Yue's life.

So 0.001% is the meaning of one million Tang Yues.