Dead on Mars

Chapter 189: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, Where There Are People, There are Programmers

Translator: CKtalon Editor: CKtalon

Stationary Plasma Thruster, SPT276.

The electric rocket with the strongest thrust in the world, a product of JAXA and its prime contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

It had a thrust as high as 70 N.

“Is it still around?” Tang Yue had a deep impression of this rocket. It was an engine that had been removed from the Hayabusa III asteroid probe years ago. It was presently kept inside the space station and had been successfully repaired by Mai Dong. “See if it was damaged in the accident.”

“I’m checking… But the data transmission isn’t stable.” Tomcat stayed in front of the computer, its brows furrowed tightly. “This darn transmission speed is like Baidu Cloud when you aren’t a paid member. What crappy speeds.”

Tang Yue wanted to talk to Mai Dong but was stopped by Tomcat.

“Cut the chit chat. Don’t take up bandwidth. All that’s connecting us to the space station is a thin thread.”

The space station’s computer was uploading the data at full speed. It was a massive amount of data, and what Tomcat was doing was equivalent to using a telephone wire to download a 4K high-definition movie from the Internet.

Tang Yue was filled with agony. The space station could encounter a change in situation at any second while in orbit, and here he was, limited by his network speed.

“How much more time is needed”

“We are now using a road the width of an alley, but it requires a width that allows an aircraft carrier to pass through. How long do you think is needed?” Tomcat whispered. “Let me take a look. The total amount of data to be sent exceeds 88 GB. The average transfer speeds are 200 KB/s. That means a total of 128 hours are needed… 5 days.”

Tang Yue widened his eyes.

“That will be too late!”

“I know! Shut up! I need to compress the data. I need to compress the data…” Tomcat also began to break out in a figurative sweat. “I need to write a compression algorithm for the slow computer on the space station so that it can filter the data and send it down in a compressed archive! The data connection probably still has room for improvement… There’s still room for improvement. I need to do some frequency spectrum compression just like the seniors at IEEE did in the past!”

Tomcat’s paws moved at the fastest speed ever, hitting the keyboard so quickly that it nearly broke apart.

“How’s that? Does it work?”

“Hehe…” Tomcat grinned, revealing its white teeth. “Tang Yue, do you know how they did the live broadcast of the Apollo moon-landing?”

Tang Yue was taken aback.

“Coding monkeys have infinite wisdom. Where there are people, there are programmers.” Tomcat moved its paws rapidly. “Do you know who said that?”

“Alan Turing?”

Tomcat shook its head.

“John von Neumann?”

Tomcat shook its head.

“Claude Shannon? Moore? Bill Gates?”

“Wrong!” Tomcat hit the “Enter” button. “Is there a need to guess? Of course, it’s Lu Xun!”

In heaven, Lu Xun said, “…”

“OK! The filtering is done. The compression is done! The total data only weighs in at 36 MB! The average transfer speeds have reached 3 MB/s! It’s estimated to take twelve seconds! 10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Transfer complete! Commencing decompression and restoring of data—” Tomcat was like an auctioneer as it shouted out those numbers. The screen in front of it rapidly refreshed as a string of processes was completed quickly. The screen popped out a schematic of the United Space Station.

It was then zoomed in.

“SPT276 is operational!”

SPT276 was installed on the left of the space station’s truss. There was a tiny platform there that could be used to launch satellites.

With the United Space Station in the middle, the right truss had been sliced through by Orion II and could be considered a lost cause. However, the left truss remained intact.

Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief when he learned that SPT276 could still be used. There was finally a piece of good news. After Orion II had exploded, making the spacecraft lose its stability on all three axes, this electric rocket was the only driving force.

“In preparation to change the spin!”

The United Space Station had left the shadow of Mars, allowing Mai Dong to see sunlight once again.

The Sun and Mars moved at blistering speeds past her eyes. The space station was spinning once every six seconds, giving it an average angular velocity of 60°/s. The sun flew past the window, only to fly past again six seconds later as it repeated without end. As for Mars, it was revolving around it. The entire world seemed to be a wheel that spun. Mai Dong felt as though she had been placed in a huge can by someone before the person crazily tossed it around.

As a trained astronaut, Mai Dong’s balance and sense of direction were better than the average person. However, it only made it worse in such situations. She had no choice but to shutter the window and secure herself in a corner.

The centrifuge they had used during her training had a time limit.

However, the spinning of the space station knew no end.

Only when the space station reached the back of the Sun was Mai Dong able to observe the damage of the United Space Station. She was surrounded by large amounts of fragments and space trash. At that moment, the space station looked like the scene of a terrible accident. These fragments came from the space station itself and Orion II. The small ones were about the size of a fingernail, while the big ones were as big as a basin or a manhole cover. They too were spinning at the same speed and direction as the space station.

“Miss Mai Dong? Please answer if you copy.”

“Copy.” The girl’s face was pale. “Mr. Cat.”

“Miss Mai Dong, are you alright?” Tomcat asked.

“Still alright,” Mai Dong replied. “But to be honest… I’m feeling terrible. My head hurts and my entire body aches.”

“Please secure yourself, Miss Mai Dong. What we will be doing next is abandoning the damaged Hope and Discovery modules. There will be some slight tremors and impact.”

SPT276 only had 70 N of thrust. To receive a significant speed reduction, the lower the mass of the space station, the better.

Orion II had practically halved the mass of the space station, so with Tomcat abandoning the damaged modules, the Mars United Space Station would be left with the Crystal core module and the Hub CBM module. The total mass would only be a third of its original.

Just as Tomcat said that, the space station trembled.

Mai Dong looked out of the window and saw the remaining half of Hope distancing itself from her. She imagined that Discovery had been detached on the other side. These two modules would continue on their kinetic state and keep moving towards infinity. Mai Dong looked at the Hope module’s white hull as she recalled the plants she had grown.

“Next job will be to fold up the heat dissipation board and solar panels.”

Tomcat folded the remaining four solar panels. They were the lifeblood of the space station, so it absolutely couldn’t allow anything to happen to them.

“Initializing SPT276.”

Once the thruster was initiated, the space station would gradually decelerate, but the items around it wouldn’t. Therefore, there was a risk of further collisions.

At such times, all they could do was pray that the Crystal remained resilient.

“Mai Dong, we will be with you always.” Tang Yue’s voice sounded over the earpiece. “Always, forever.”

“Okay.”

Mai Dong nodded and closed her eyes.