The Science Fiction World of Xueba

The 371st Martian day.

This is my first time writing a log.

Watney suggested that if you feel too lonely, keep a journal and record your own life every day.

I think you can give it a try.

Made two breakfasts in the morning before I realized Watney was gone. Although I know he is still on this planet, I always feel empty in my heart.

For me, from the moment he left the Arsidalia Plain habitat, I was the only one left on Mars, and I had to spend at least 1,500 days and nights on this desolate and lonely planet.

I thought I was mentally prepared for this.

But when the moment actually came, I realized how uncomfortable this feeling was.

After Watney left yesterday, I sat outside the Hab for a day and made a trip back to the Hab to replace a CO2 filter.

Then continue to go outside the cabin, staring at this desolate world in a daze.

When I returned to the habitat at night, I could feel Tian Mu's roaring saliva through the computer screen.

Sorry, let me be self-willed for a day today.

After all, human beings are social animals, and loneliness is the natural enemy of human beings.

This is a sentence that a senior sister who studied philosophy once said to me when I was in college.

At that time, I didn't quite understand it, because I rejected her pursuit. I thought that a person could live a happy life with the company of mathematics, but having another girlfriend would cause a lot of trouble.

Now I find that I was wrong. Although I was accompanied by mathematics before, I at least had a tutor, classmates, relatives and friends, and maintained the most basic social interaction.

But on this planet, there is only me.

Only friend Watney is gone.

For me, Watney is a lifelong friend, a comrade-in-arms, a brother who can give his back to the other party. This is the first time I have made such a friend when I grow up.

Wish him the best of luck!

...

The 378th Martian day.

It's been a week, and I'm getting used to living alone on Mars.

Without Watney, those lovely tomato vines and potato shoots would have taken care of the CO2 I breathed out, and they'd even saved me a ton of oxygen through photosynthesis.

My daily work checks the working status of various equipment, records the data of potatoes and tomatoes, weighs myself, and then arranges my diet according to the recipes of the nutritionist.

Occasionally, the Ares Project Command will arrange some simple scientific investigations for me.

In general, the workload is much larger than when Watney was here, but I have already exercised. After living on Mars for more than a year, I feel that my hands-on ability has been greatly improved.

Watney didn't go very smoothly. It took him seven days to walk less than 400 kilometers. During this period, he made a mistake in the direction and couldn't find the indicative landmarks on the map.

But fortunately, Venkate told me, Watney seemed to realize his mistake later and re-corrected the course.

I wish him well.

...

The 398th Martian day.

Last night was another night of sandstorms with a wind speed of close to 100kph. Exit 1, where the explosion occurred, was purely supported by the MDV parachute canvas. The strong wind kept me awake all night, for fear that the parachute canvas would not stand the test.

It turns out that I was overthinking it. In terms of strength, this thing is not inferior to the carbon fiber canvas of the habitat.

After a busy day outside, I cleaned up the dust on the solar cells and checked the status of the habitat.

The habitat is generally okay, no major problems.

But the data shows that the photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar cells is gradually declining, which is an inevitable problem. Fortunately, Tian Mu said that there are many brand new solar panels in the supply cabin.

Hope the resupply mission goes well.

...

The 410th Martian day.

I heard two good news today. Watney is only 1,200 kilometers away from the Schiaparelli impact crater. If all goes well, he will be able to reach the Schiaparelli impact crater in a dozen days.

The second good news is that the second supply spacecraft was launched from the French Guiana Space Center on the Ariane 8 rocket. It will arrive at Mars on the 860th solar day and land on the Arcidaria Plain.

This batch of materials exceeds 20 tons, and rocket engines will be used for a soft landing to ensure that the materials are not damaged.

Not only did it contain a lot of food, they even packed a new type of living cabin with an area of ​​80 square meters.

That way I can expand my home.

...

The 448th Martian day.

Watney arrived at Schiaparelli crater five days ago and found the MAV standing there for Ares IV.

But his ordeal has only just begun.

The speed and altitude of the Hermes cut into Mars orbit exceeded the limit of the MAV. Watney had to remove a lot of equipment from the MAV, even the portholes and fairings were removed by him.

Haha, he's going into space in an open spaceship.

It was a gut-wrenching adventure.

Fortunately, his protagonist aura is still there.

He succeeded.

The teammates of the Hermes were brave enough to successfully bring Watney, who was in space, back to the Hermes.

At the same time, Hermes also successfully released the supply module of the "Glutton" cargo spacecraft to Mars.

The Ares Project Command is pretty reliable. The supply module landed on a desert 60 kilometers away from the habitat module. It took me three days to drag it back.

The materials inside were surprisingly well preserved, even the delicate molecular sieve material of the oxygenation machine was intact.

This is thanks to the supply pod's flexible metamaterial aerogel.

The cabin made of this material is insulated and soft to the touch, but it is extremely strong and light in weight, making it an excellent material for making spacecraft.

According to the information I got from Tian Maki, this flexible metamaterial aerogel will become one of the main structural materials of the next generation of spacecraft.

I hope this is one of my rewards when my mission is complete.

Watney finally left.

This time, I'm the only human left on Mars.

...

The 468th Martian day.

The past twenty days have been extremely busy, and the arrival of the supply ship coincides with the ripening of the fifth season of potatoes.

I had to deal with the potatoes first.

Germination, harvest, fertilization, freezing, replanting.

Under Watney's training and the blessing of my own racial talent, I became a qualified Martian farmer.

At the same time, I also repaired the oxygenator, and when the blades of the oxygenator compressor gave a slight roar again, I was in tears.

That's the thing that nearly killed me and Watney on Mars.

In the following period of time, I used supplies to replace parts of some equipment and carried out large-scale maintenance on the habitat.

In other words, patch the carbon fiber canvas material of some habitat cabins that are at risk of aging.

The sufficient food supplies can finally let me get rid of potato and tomato sauce. Although the taste of aerospace food is still not very good, my taste buds tell me that they are very happy.

During this period, every crew member of the Hermes and Watney sent me emails. They apologized to me and couldn't take me home with them. I sent an email to each of them. Although I have never met anyone except Watney, I can feel their camaraderie.

Thank you, my comrades!

...

Sol 500.

I found that I became lazy. Sufficient food, sufficient supplies, no need to worry about sudden death, no need to perform EVA tasks every day, this kind of life is really exhausting one's fighting spirit.

But it was two years before the Ares 4 launch, and a thousand Martian sols before they picked me up.

What a boring day.

I decided to continue studying the ABC conjecture.

Fortunately, in this world, there is also hope for a new paper.

Unfortunately, no one can understand his thesis until now, and his generalized Teichmiller theory has not been verified.

The ABC conjecture has become one of the seven major mathematical problems of the new generation in the world.

I decided to study his paper. If I can find the mistakes in his paper, it will be enough for me to return to the real world for a top journal.

I entrusted Tian Mu to find his thesis from the pile of old papers, and then sent it to my computer.

I'm going to start researching.

This is a new beginning of my life on Mars.

Good night!