The Science Fiction World of Xueba

Chapter 32 Green shoots and hope

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

But the return trip was more difficult than Pang Xuelin imagined.

It took him seven full Martian days to return to the habitat, one Martian day longer than he had gone to Chengjia to search for Mars Pathfinder.

Under normal circumstances, it would not take so long, because Pang Xuelin could follow the rut and return to the original road without spending a lot of time calculating the guide line.

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

The blowing sand covered the sky, completely covered the traces of the ruts, blocked the sun, and even recharging the solar cells became a problem.

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

The sandstorm lasted for two full days before it gradually dissipated. Pang Xuelin ate, drank and slopped in the car, and almost collapsed.

It wasn't until the morning two days later that a ray of sunlight pierced the sky that Pang Xuelin realized that he had passed the most difficult moment.

At this time, Pang Xuelin was less than two hundred kilometers away from the habitat.

The rest of the work is simple.

Without the ruts, Pang Xuelin used Phobos to relocate. As long as he determined the approximate direction and drove his rover within 40 kilometers of the habitat, he could find the navigation beacon from the habitat.

Sol 59.

At noon, the habitat cabin with a white dome gradually appeared in Pang Xuelin's sight. This time, the long journey that was originally planned to last for eight Martian sols and finally lasted for 13 Martian sols finally came to an end.

When he entered the habitat within a radius of 20 kilometers, Pang Xuelin contacted Watney through the car radio system.

Watney, who was worried about Pang Xuelin, specially put on an EVA space suit and went out to greet him.

After thirteen days of not seeing each other, the two met again, but they didn't say much, they just shook hands silently and hugged, everything was kept silent.

Then, the two got to work.

The scrapped carbon dioxide filter was thrown aside, the solar panels were re-deployed, and connected to the energy system of the habitat cabin, and the contents of the sewage tank on the vehicle were also moved into the habitat cabin to prepare for the next batch of bio-fertilizers. The Sojourner rover was moved into the habitat. The habitat module, but the landing module is too large to fit in, so the two can only continue to leave this thing outside.

As for RTG, if the radioactive material inside this thing leaks, it is no joke.

The two put it back into the hole where it was buried, and dug it out for use next time.

Back in the habitat, Watney didn't immediately ask about the Mars Pathfinder, but said with a smile: "Pang, I'll show you something good!"

"What good stuff?"

Pang Xuelin was slightly taken aback.

"follow me!"

Watney opened the floodgate between the living and planting pods, and made an inviting gesture.

Pang Xuelin seemed to realize something, and hurriedly walked towards the planting cabin.

Entering the planting cabin, Pang Xuelin immediately smelled a long-lost smell of soil, which was different from when they applied biological fertilizers at the beginning. After more than ten days, the soil in the planting cabin has faintly shown a dark brown similar to the earth's soil , the humidity in the cabin is much higher than that of the living cabin outside.

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

And not just once, the entire planting cabin, more than 100 square meters of land, was covered with small green shoots.

The small green shoots are dotted on the brown ground, like a ray of hope, breaking through the haze that has covered Pang Xuelin's heart for many days.

Pang Xuelin knelt down slowly, and gently brushed the buds that had just broken out of the ground with his hands, a little unbelievable, and a little surprised, his tone choked up involuntarily:

"Watney,

Us, is this a success? "

Since entering the Martian world, although Pang Xuelin looked calm on the surface, the shadow of death has always been lingering in his heart.

It wasn't until he saw these green shoots that he really had the hope of surviving.

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

Watney said: "Pang, I think we don't have to worry about food in the future, at least not for a short time!"

"This is a good start, we will definitely... definitely be able to survive."

"Yes, we must survive."

...

The two quickly calmed down.

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

First, they had to restore this set of antiques that landed on Mars 40 years ago.

Early the next morning, after a night of rest, the two officially started working.

"Under normal circumstances, the reason why this kind of unmanned detector stops working is basically that the dust covered on the solar panels is getting thicker and thicker, the temperature drops in winter, and the sunshine time is shortened, resulting in insufficient power supply. Wait until the battery power Below a certain critical point, the detector's heating system will also die, and then the electronic components will be too cold to operate, and the control system will also die, even if the solar panels can still provide weak energy. Power support, but the lack of electronic components to issue a restart command, the system cannot be restarted, and the battery system will lose the ability to store power over time."

In addition to being a botanist, Watney also works part-time as a mechanical and electrical engineer. The task of repairing the Mars Pathfinder was naturally handed over to him, and Pang Xuelin was just helping.

Fortunately, the atmosphere of Mars is cold and thin, the gas density is only one percent of the earth, and the content of oxygen and water vapor is even negligible, which makes the appearance of Mars Pathfinder basically intact.

Pang Xuelin and Watney first inspected the Sojourner unmanned vehicle in the habitat cabin, and found that the unmanned vehicle was completely damaged except for the battery, and the rest of the components were intact. As long as the power is reconnected, it can restart work.

But the outer landing pod is not so simple.

Wearing an EVA spacesuit, Watney walked around the landing module, then pried open the battery compartment, took out the silver-zinc battery inside, and said: "This thing is useless, we have to replace the power supply for it. In addition, There is another problem that may be more troublesome."

"what is the problem?"

Watney said: "It's winter on Mars now, and the highest temperature in the Arsidalia Plain is only 55 degrees. The electronic components of the landing module can only be activated when it is above 40 degrees. We have to find a way to heat the landing module, but The landing pod was too big to get through the airlock."

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

Watney shook his head and said, "I'm afraid it won't work. The landing module is too big. The RTG uses natural heat dissipation, and the power is only 1600 watts. Under this temperature condition, it is necessary to raise the temperature of every electronic component inside the landing module to above minus 40 degrees." , I'm afraid it's a bit difficult."

"Then what to do?"

Pang Xuelin frowned, trying to recall the scene in the movie, but in the movie, there didn't seem to be any scenes explaining how Watney dealt with this problem.

The two stared at each other. After an EVA, the two still had nothing to do, so they had to return to the habitat cabin first, and then talk after lunch.

After lunch, Pang Xuelin was resting on the bed. Just two minutes after he closed his eyes, Pang Xuelin suddenly opened his eyes, patted the mattress and said, "Watney, I have found a way."

"any solution?"

Watney was slightly taken aback.

Pang Xuelin laughed and said: "I remember that we only used one of the three auxiliary parachutes for the MDV (Mars Landing Vehicle) parachute, not even the main parachute. 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 module together. As long as the tent is sealed and the air inside cannot circulate with the outside world, then with the greenhouse effect, there will be no problem at all if the temperature inside the tent rises above minus 40 degrees. Turn on the power to the landing module, restart the system of the landing module, can't you use its own heating system to maintain the temperature?"

"Pang, you are such a genius!"

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

In the afternoon, the two carried out the second EVA, Pang Xuelin moved the RTG back, Watney continued to cut the MDV parachute, and then built a small tent in the habitat cabin.

Then, the two worked together to move the RTG and landing module into the tent.

The RTG was very powerful, and it took less than an hour for the temperature in the tent to rise to minus 30 degrees.

Subsequently, Watney went out to reconnect the power to the landing module and the Sojourner unmanned vehicle.

The rest of the work is none of their business.

As long as the landing module resumes its work, it will actively resume contact with the earth.

JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a subsidiary of NASA, which is mainly responsible for developing and managing unmanned space exploration missions for NASA) naturally cannot stay on the signal of this five-person probe that has disappeared for forty years, but the special mission on the earth for A The new generation of deep space measurement and control network that Reese plans to build will definitely be able to receive signals from Mars Pathfinder.

At that time, they will naturally notify JPL. As long as JPL feeds back the signal, the landing module will automatically adjust the position of the signal gain antenna according to the relative position of the earth.

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

"Okay, that's it for today. Whether we can restore contact with the earth, we can only wait for the response from the landing module."

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

...

Pathfinder Log: SOLO

System serial initialization complete...

Time 00:00:00...

Power loss detected, time/date unknown...

Loading the operating system...

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

Internal temperature: minus 34 degrees Celsius

External temperature: invalid

Battery: full