The Science Fiction World of Xueba

的 In the deep space, 15 million kilometers away from the earth, the Hermes nuclear-powered spacecraft has entered a deceleration phase.

It turned the bow of the ship, pointed the stern in the direction of the earth, and the high-speed argon atoms ejected from the ion engine gave the spacecraft an acceleration opposite to its flight direction.

In the next 20 days, its speed will slowly decrease to within the first cosmic speed, and will eventually be captured by the gravity of the earth, slowly reducing its speed to 3.07 kilometers per second, which is opposite to the International Space Station in geosynchronous orbit.

Inside the International Space Station, after completing a comprehensive medical examination, members of the Ares III team will take a small shuttle to cross the atmosphere to return to the earth and accept human heroes.

Everywhere they went, there were flowers and applause.

This should have been a wonderful return journey, but the news that the Earth failed to launch the supply ship recently made all members of the Ares III mission team lose their interest in speaking.

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

"Fuck!"

Sergei Panteleev slapped on the table, then straightened up and entered the gym, he would use strenuous exercise to vent his depression.

Kitagawa Haruko had tears in her eyes and sobbed softly.

Baker, Gross, Friedrich, they were silent.

To the members of Ares III, Watney and Pang Xuelin have been comrades-in-arms for many years. They finally accepted the news that they were alive, but finally watched as they lost all hope on Mars and died. The blow is not easy for everyone.

"Okay, everyone is gone. There are only twenty days left. Even if Pang and Watney really can't come back, I hope everyone here can go home safely!"

I don't know how long it took, Colonel Lewis returned from sluggishness and turned to his teammates.

Ding 咚 ——

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

"Receive anonymous encrypted email, open it?"

上 College Lewis froze slightly. She came to a display, clicked on it, and said, "Open!"

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

晴 "Haruko, come here, this file is a bit strange, jpeg should be an image file format, how can I not open it."

"Let me see!"

Haruka Kitagawa wiped a tear and stepped forward to replace Lewis.

Her hands fluttered on the keyboard, and the window on the screen quickly opened and closed. After a while, she said, "This must be a broken JPEG header. It may be damaged during download. Let me use binary Encoder to see what it is ... "

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

Bei Beichuan frowned: "Strange, this is not a JPEG file, but an ASCII text file. It looks like a bunch of mathematical formulas."

Lewis froze a little, she bent down and looked at the text, then turned back to Friedrich: "Friedrich, come and help us see!"

Friedrich is a PhD in Mathematics and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago and a pilot of the Hermes spacecraft.

He quickly walked over and looked at the formula on the screen. His eyebrows frowned for a while, then released, while muttering to himself: "This ... seems like a derailment plan ... my God ... …too crazy!"

Uh ...

Twenty minutes later, including Sergei Panteleev, who was sweating in the gym, all members of the Ares III team gathered in the Hermes.

Lewis ’eyes glowed wonderfully:" This is probably the case. We now choose to accelerate orbitally, cut into earth orbit half a month later, merge with the supply spacecraft launched on the earth at a distance of 350 kilometers, and then use the gravitational slingshot Effect, Hermes once again gained an acceleration and is expected to fly to Mars in 230 Mars in the future-this scheme is more than a hundred days faster than the original supply spacecraft scheme. The only effect is that we will be in space Let ’s wait another 585 days! Perhaps the Ares plan command is not optimistic about the plan, so someone left it to us and let us choose! ”

"Colonel Lewis, what do you think?"

Baker said.

Lewis said: "I don't want to lie, I want to do it like this, we left Pang and Watney, and I want to pick them up with my own hands. But the hidden dangers I hope everyone has a clear understanding, if we cut into the Earth's orbit If it is wrong, the ship may be destroyed and people may be misconnected with the supply ship. It may also cause disasters. Even if everything goes smoothly, the 585-day long journey, any problems during the Hermes period may cause us to have No return. So I would like to ask everyone's opinions, as long as there is an objection, I choose to give up this plan! "

"I agree!"

Sergei took the lead to say: "We are comrades in distress, we will not save Pang and Watney, who else can we go to!"

"I agree!"

"I agree!"

Baker and Gross have spoken one after another.

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

Finally, everyone focused on Haruko Kitagawa.

Kitagawa Haruko stretched out a hand weakly and laughed: "I can't wait to see Pang and Watney!"

Uh ...

In the joint meeting of Ares Plan, experts from various countries participating in the meeting were spitting about the rescue plan proposed by Pang Xuelin.

Wen Carter looked at the chaotic scene in front of him without saying a word.

At this moment, a staff member walked quietly to Wen Carter and whispered something to him.

Wen Carter patted the table and said, "Okay, guys, it's no longer meaningful to quarrel. We just received the news that the Hermes is derailing and accelerating. Apparently, someone shared the plan with Hermes. The crew, they made the decision for us! I think our next energy should be how to supply supplies for Hermes in half a month! "

All of a sudden, everyone in the conference room opened their mouths and focused their eyes on Wen Carter.

Uh ...

Wenwen Carter came out of the conference room and saw Tian Mu greeted him with a solemn look.

Sven Carter laughed: "Tian, ​​what's wrong? We succeeded, and Ares Command decided to implement the rescue plan proposed by Pang!"

Putian Mu's face showed no joy at all, saying, "Kapu, I checked the rescue plan proposed by Pang last night. There is a problem in it!"

Uh ...

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

On Mars, Asidalya Plain, perch, Watney was roaring loudly at Pang Xuelin.

Pang Xuelin sat calmly in his chair and said, "Wattney, this is really the last resort. Even with the supply, the fuel from the Hermes spacecraft is not enough to make it park in Mars orbit again, so It can only drop supplies as it passes by Earth, and then return to Earth with the help of Mars ’gravitational slingshot effect. This is a great opportunity to take the MAV in the Schiaparelli impact crater, and Hull The Moss spacecraft converged, and I used the supplies brought by the spacecraft to continue to stay in the Plain of Asidaria, waiting for the arrival of the Ares IV task force! "

Watney: "Why don't you go with me?"

Pang Xuelin said: "I have calculated that when Hermes passed Mars, the speed and altitude reached the limits of MAV. Even if you are alone, you need to reduce weight of MAV on a large scale. You have reached the height of the Hermes. And the docking process and its danger, the words of the two of us are almost impossible to succeed! "

Watney frowned: "Wouldn't it be better if we used the Hermes to get supplies ~ www.readwn.com ~ and wait patiently for Ares 4 on Mars?"

Pang Xuelin shook his head: "This is not feasible, the reason is very simple. Hermes has to perform a mission of at least 585 days. In order to maintain the redundancy of the mission, the Earth must prepare supplies for them for about seven hundred days. Six members of the USS plus fuel need at least 35 tons of supplies. At present, the largest supply space ship used by the International Space Station is China's Hao cargo ship, which can carry 40 tons of supplies. Therefore, Ares plans to command The Ministry can provide us with only five tons of materials. Among these five tons, in addition to one ton of food, the carbon dioxide absorber alone will occupy three tons, and the remaining two tons will be allocated to the various equipment of the shelter. Parts, including parts of the oxygenator. And because the speed of the Hermes was too fast, the supply tank could not make a soft landing, so the risk of material damage after a hard landing had to be considered. Therefore, the five tons The supplies were barely enough for me to use alone. The words of the two of us are still waiting for death on Mars! "

Wotney has a faint sign of being persuaded by Pang Xuelin. After a while, he said: "Then I stay, you leave on MAV!"

Pang Xuelin laughed and said, "Wattney, how much are you weight?"

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

Watney faintly realized what Pang Xuelin was about to say, and said, "Eighty-five kilos!"

Pang Xuelin laughed: "You see, it doesn't end. I only have 70 kilograms. Your daily calorie consumption is 10% more than mine. The daily oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide output are more than mine. The resources on Mars were already stretched. You said, if you do n’t go, who will go ?! ”