The Science Fiction World of Xueba

Fifteen million kilometers away from the earth in the deep space, the Hermes nuclear-powered spacecraft has entered the deceleration phase.

It turned the bow and pointed the stern towards the earth, and the high-speed argon atoms ejected by the ion engine gave the spacecraft an acceleration opposite to the direction it was flying.

In the next 20 days, its speed will slowly decrease to less than the first cosmic speed, and finally it will be captured by the gravity of the earth, slowly reducing the speed to 3.07 kilometers per second, and docking with the International Space Station in geosynchronous orbit.

On the International Space Station, members of the Ares 3 mission team will take a small shuttle to return to Earth through the atmosphere after a comprehensive medical examination, and receive the heroic reception of mankind.

Wherever they went, there were flowers and applause everywhere.

This should have been a wonderful return trip, but the news that the launch of the supply ship failed not long ago from the earth made all members of the Ares III mission team lose the interest to speak.

Colonel Lewis stood motionless in front of the porthole of the gravity cabin like a sculpture, his eyes were dull, and the gorgeous starry sky seemed to have lost all its brilliance in her eyes.

"Hold!"

Sergey Pantelev slapped the table, and then got up and went directly to the gym. He wanted to vent his depression with strenuous exercise.

With tears in her eyes, Haruko Kitagawa sobbed softly.

Baker, Gross, and Friedrich were also silent.

For the members of the Ares 3 mission team, Watney and Pang Xuelin have been comrades in arms for many years. They finally accepted the news that they were still alive, but finally watched them lose all hope and die on Mars. Not everyone can easily bear the blow.

"Okay, let's leave everyone. There are still 20 days left. Even if Pang and Watney really can't come back, I hope everyone here can go home safely!"

After an unknown amount of time, Colonel Lewis recovered from his sluggishness, turned around and said to his team members.

Ding dong——

At this moment, the electronic sound of the spaceship AI suddenly sounded.

"Received an anonymous encrypted email, do you want to open it?"

Colonel Lewis was slightly taken aback. She came to a display screen, clicked on it, and said, "Open!"

Soon, a file named kinder.jpeg appeared on the computer screen. Lewis clicked to open it, but the screen displayed an invalid file name. She frowned and chose to open again, but it was still useless.

"Qingzi, come here, this file is a bit strange, jpeg should be an image file format, why can't I open it."

"Let me take a look!"

Haruko Kitagawa wiped her tears and stepped forward to take Lewis' place.

Her hands fluttered over the keyboard, and the windows on the screen opened and closed quickly. After a while, she said: "This must be a broken JPEG header, it may have been damaged during downloading, let me use binary Encoder to see what it is..."

After a few seconds, a string of characters appeared on the screen.

Beichuan frowned: "It's strange, this is not a JPEG file, but an ASCII text document, it looks like a bunch of mathematical formulas."

Lewis was taken aback for a moment, she bent down to look at the text, then turned her head to Friedrich and said, "Friedrich, come and help us look!"

Friedrich holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and astrophysics from the University of Chicago and was the navigator of the spaceship Hermes.

He walked over quickly, looked at the formula on the screen, his brow furrowed for a while, then loosened for a while, and at the same time he muttered to himself: "This... seems to be a plan to change course... My God... …too crazy!"

...

Ten minutes later, including Sergei Pantelev, who was sweating profusely in the gym,

All members of the Ares III mission team gathered in the Hermes.

Lewis’s eyes shone wonderfully: "This is probably the case. We now choose to change orbit and accelerate, cut into the earth's orbit in half a month, meet with the supply spacecraft launched on the earth at the perigee of 350 kilometers, and then use the earth's gravitational slingshot effect, Hermes once again gained an acceleration, and is expected to fly to Mars in 230 Martian days—this plan is more than a hundred days faster than the original supply spacecraft plan. The only effect is that we will be in space Stay in China for another 585 days! Maybe the Ares Project Command is not optimistic about this plan, so someone threw it to us, and we can make our own choices!"

"Colonel Lewis, what do you think?"

Baker said.

Lewis said: "I don't want to lie, I want to do this. We left Pang and Watney behind. I want to bring them back with my own hands. But I hope everyone has a clear understanding of the hidden dangers. If we cut into Earth orbit If you make a mistake, the ship may be destroyed, and the docking error with the supply spacecraft may also cause disaster. Even if everything goes well, any problems with the Hermes during the long journey of 585 days may make us have There will be no return. So I want to ask everyone’s opinion, as long as there is one person here who objects, I will choose to give up this plan!"

"I agree!"

Sergey took the lead and said: "We are comrades in arms in trouble together. If we don't save Pang and Watney, who else can we let!"

"I agree!"

"I agree!"

Baker and Gross spoke out one after another.

Friedrich said with a smile: "Although I miss my wife and children on earth, I am going to complete a great voyage, and they will be proud of me!"

In the end, everyone focused their attention on Haruko Kitagawa.

Haruko Beichuan stretched out a hand weakly, and said with a smile, "I can't wait to see Pang and Watney!"

...

In the joint meeting of the Ares Project, experts from various countries participating in the meeting were arguing over the rescue plan proposed by Pang Xuelin.

Venkat looked at the chaotic scene in front of him and said nothing.

Just then, a staff member quietly walked up to Venkate and whispered something to him.

Venkat patted the table and said: "Okay, everyone, there is no point in arguing anymore. We just received news that the Hermes is changing orbit and accelerating. Obviously, someone shared the plan with Hermes." The crew of the Hermes, they made the decision for us! I think our next energy should be on how to deliver supplies to the Hermes in half a month!"

For a moment, everyone in the conference room opened their mouths wide and focused their eyes on Venkat.

...

When Venkat came out of the conference room, he saw Tian Mu greeted him with a serious face.

Venkat smiled and said, "Tian, ​​what's the matter? We succeeded, and the Ares Project Command decided to carry out the rescue plan proposed by Pang!"

There was no joy on Tian Mu's face, and he said, "Garp, I checked the rescue plan proposed by Pang last night, and there is a problem in it!"

...

"What? You want me to go? Pang, no, this is absolutely not possible!"

Mars, Arsidalia Plain, Habitat, Watney is roaring at Pang Xuelin.

Pang Xuelin sat calmly on the chair and said: "Watney, this is really the last resort. Even with supplies, the fuel carried by the Hermes spacecraft is not enough to make it berth into Mars orbit again, so It can only drop supplies as it passed by the earth, and then return to the earth with the help of the gravitational slingshot effect of Mars. This is an excellent opportunity, you can take the MAV in the Schiaparelli impact crater, and Hull The Mess spacecraft converged, and I used the supplies brought by the spacecraft to continue to stay in the Arcidaria Plain, waiting for the arrival of the Ares IV mission team!"

Watney said, "Then why don't you come with me?"

Pang Xuelin said: "I have already calculated that when Hermes passed Mars, its speed and altitude reached the limit of MAV. Even if you are alone, you need to reduce the weight of MAV on a large scale to make it possible You have reached the orbital height of the Hermes. And the docking process is extremely dangerous, there is almost no possibility of success between the two of us!"

Watney frowned and said, "Then wouldn't it be better for us to use Hermes to obtain supplies, and then patiently wait for the Ares IV mission team on Mars?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head and said, "This is not feasible either. The reason is very simple. The Hermes ship has to perform missions for at least 585 days. In order to maintain mission redundancy, the earth must prepare supplies for them for about 700 days. Hermes The six crew members of the Assassin, plus fuel, need at least 35 tons of supplies. Currently, the largest supply spacecraft used by the International Space Station is China’s Taotie cargo spacecraft, which can carry 40 tons of supplies. Therefore, Ares plans to command The surplus of materials that the Ministry can provide us is only five tons. Among these five tons, except for one ton of food, the carbon dioxide absorber alone will occupy three tons, and the remaining two tons will be allocated to the spare parts of various equipment in the habitat. Parts, including parts of the oxygenator. And because the speed of the Hermes is too fast, the supply cabin cannot perform a soft landing at all, so the risk of partial damage to the supplies after a hard landing has to be considered. Therefore, the five tons The supplies are only enough for me to barely use, if we two, we are still waiting to die on Mars!"

Watney faintly showed signs of being persuaded by Pang Xuelin. After a while, he said, "Then I'll stay, and you leave by MAV!"

Pang Xuelin laughed and said, "Watney, how much do you weigh?"

Watney is nearly 1.88 meters tall, but Pang Xuelin is only 1.75 meters tall.

Watney faintly realized what Pang Xuelin was going to say, and said in a low voice, "Eighty-five kilograms!"

Pang Xuelin said with a smile: "Look, this is the end. I only have 70 kilograms. Your daily calorie consumption is 10% more than mine, and your daily breathing oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide output are also more than mine. , the resources on Mars are already stretched, you say, if you don’t go, who will go?!”