NASA ground command center.
The president’s roar echoed through the building.
“F*ck!
“A bunch of idiots!
“If you knew there were going to be sandstorms, why did you choose this time to send our colonists there?”
The people in the conference room looked at the angry president, and they stayed dead silent. None of them wanted to be called out.
Especially Director Carson.
He looked down awkwardly.
He didn’t expect something like this to happen.
After all, he wasn’t God, how could he have expected this to happen.
“Mr. President… We don’t have a weather observatory on Mars. I understand what you’re feeling right now, but there was no way for us to know what the climate on Mars would be like…”
Director Carson paused for a second and spoke.
“Generally speaking, most sandstorms occur during summer, and global sandstorms rarely occur outside of summer… What is happening now is completely out of our expectations. Although we do have countermeasures…”
The president stared at him and asked aggressively, “What are the countermeasures?”
“But a small accident occurred,” Director Carson said with an awkward expression. “Originally, our plan was to set up methane and groundwater resource collection points so that we could use the resources on Mars to survive. As long as we had these resources, the sandstorms blocking the sunlight wouldn’t be a problem, but…”
“But?”
Director Carson gulped and said, “But our colonists had just landed on Mars and hadn’t set up the methane and water collection points. The methane reserves on board… won’t last very long.”
Simply put, they did not take into account that the weather would be so horrible two weeks after landing.
Even though the global Mars sandstorms were difficult to predict through astronomical observations, one could make rough estimations. According to historical data, it occurred on average every 3 Mars years, which was 5.5 Earth years.
The last global sandstorm was in 2018, only 3 Earth years had passed since then. Not to mention there was also another Hohmann transfer orbit happening soon, which they could use to send resources to the colonists.
However…
No one expected Mars to have such harsh climates. This sandstorm swept the entire planet. Looking at Mars from a ground astronomical observatory, Mars looked like a dusty ball, blocking all sunlight…
Not having solar power wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that they had just planted their crops, and the plants needed sunlight to grow.
There were only two options left for the colonists, either to dispose of all the crops that had just been planted or waste electricity and use artificial sunlight.
Neither option was optimal.
“Why didn’t you think about this before?” The president said to Director Carson angrily, “I spoke clearly in the White House! If we can’t guarantee that our colonists will be 100% safe, I’d rather not send any colonists at all!”
Carson: “Sir…”
The president said, “What? Do you have a question, Mr. Carson?”
“Yes, you did say that.” Director Carson gulped and said, “But you also said during a closed-door meeting… To win the space race at any costs, as quickly as possible.”
The president’s face stiffened, and he awkwardly rubbed his nose and spoke.
“Did I say that?”
The vice president standing beside him nodded silently.
“I remember you saying it… We can find it in the meeting notes.”
The vice president was just a puppet, and he didn’t have any reason to suck up to the president. Furthermore, he was the head of the reorganized National Space Committee, and he didn’t want the blame to be on him.
The president replied, “That’s not the main point! Regardless of what I said, I want you to immediately take countermeasures! Director Carson!”
Carson suddenly stood up straight.
“Yes, sir!”
The president gave him orders.
“I need you to come up with a plan in 24 hours, then implement it over the next 72 hours. I don’t care what method you use! We must ensure the safety of our astronauts and keep them alive!
“If this fails, you know what will happen.”
Carson broke out in cold sweat as he replied nervously, “Yes, sir…”
…
[New Virginia!]
“These people are so optimistic.”
Lu Zhou looked at the popup window on his computer screen and shook his head with a smile.
Lu Zhou was spending his lunchtime at his Jinling Institute for Advanced Study office. He drank coffee while reading some theses.
Coincidentally, he noticed this popup.
“It seems like Space-X is really spending a lot on advertising. They’re even advertising on academic forums.”
The public opinion regarding New Virginia was one-sided.
Ever since the BFS spacecraft successfully dropped the capsule, New Virginia seemed to be the place of dreams. Because of the “Mars Diaries” program, everyone wanted to live on Mars…
North American media outlets gradually stopped talking about the space race. Instead, they focused on interviewing friends and families of the colonists.
Lu Zhou was also a “fan” of the “Mars Diaries”. He didn’t miss a single episode.
After all, if he wanted to defeat his opponents, he had to understand them first.
Even though he felt like Musk seemed too cocky at times, there was no doubt Musk was an accomplished person.
The BFR rocket was the leading chemical propulsion rocket in the world, yet there was still room for improvement.
And he also had his life support system…
In addition to watching the “Mars Diaries” through the Lunar Orbit Committee, Lu Zhou requested electromagnetic wave signals data from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope. He then sent the data to Xiao Ai for analysis and cracking.
Not all of the transmission data could be cracked, but this was another way to obtain more information on “New Virginia”.
If everything went well, he might even obtain crucial information.
For example, the Mars resource survey data…
Lu Zhou closed the webpage and was about to get back to work. However a pop-up window appeared on the lower right corner of his screen.
[Master, file number 0001 has been decrypted! Do you want to look at it now? ψ (` ∇́) ψ]
Lu Zhou looked at Xiao Ai’s devil emoticon and smiled.
“Okay, send it to my desktop… Oh yeah, how are the other files going?”
[Not done yet. They used different encryption methods for each communication, so it is going to take a long time to decrypt… (; ́д`)ゞ]
“No worries, take your time, I’m not in a hurry.”
[Okay! Xiao Ai will try its best!(≧∀≦)ゞ]
Even though Xiao Ai was smart, it still had its limitations.
Even supercomputers couldn’t immediately crack encryption.
File No. 0001 was the first communication signal between the Heart of Gold and the NASA ground command center. The data was collected by the FAST project team two weeks ago.
Lu Zhou opened the cracked file and skimmed through it. Just like he expected, it was all messages such as “everything is fine” and “mission approved”. He didn’t find any juicy content.
Lu Zhou was about to copy the file onto a USB drive when he suddenly heard knocking sounds on his door.
Lu Zhou closed the file and cleared his throat.
“Come in.”
The door opened, and Hou Guang came in.
Hou Guang had a serious look on his face. He skipped the small talk and went straight to the point.
“There is news from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope. They found something unusual.”
Lu Zhou leaned in his chair and said, “What?”
“There’s a global sandstorm on Mars!”
…
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