The total area of the heat-resistant tiles that needed to be inspected exceeded twenty square meters. Mai Dong lacked professional inspection tools. There was no ultrasonic flaw detector or X-ray machine. She could only rely on her own eyes.
"The ablation is very serious."
Mai Dong reached out her hand and gently pressed on the surface of the black belly. "The surface is very rough. It looks a bit like plastic."
"This is a phenolic impregnated carbon ablation material. Its fixing agent is phenolic, which is Bakelite plastic."
Old Cat explained, "So it's normal for it to look like plastic. Some car tires are made of this material as well."
The Eagle lander had experienced friction and burn during its first atmospheric entry. The high temperature of two thousand degrees Celsius would cause the heat-resistant tiles to evaporate and sublimate. This made its belly look far less clean than when it left the factory. It looked like a severely burned patient with not an inch of intact skin on its body.
If it wasn't for Cryptic Yang's girlfriend who was a supervisor at NASA, her brother's mentor's nephew's seventh granduncle, who said that there was no problem, Tang Yue wouldn't have been so confident. The heat-resistant tiles looked rather miserable after being burned by the high temperature. The surface was bumpy and badly burned. It felt rough to the touch, and large areas had melted into glass that glistened with oil.
Fortunately, the Eagle lander's ability to function didn't depend on its appearance.
No matter how badly it was burned, as long as there was enough redundancy in the original design, it would definitely be able to withstand another atmospheric entry.
The arm moved slowly with Mai Dong. Through the glass mask, the girl carefully inspected the heat-resistant tiles of the lander.
"The parts that look miserable from the burn are not important. It's a normal phenomenon."
Old Cat reminded her. "The heat-resistant tiles on the Eagle take away heat through combustion and sublimation. Miss Mai Dong, you have to pay attention to the deeper cracks and bumpy areas."
"Cracks and bumpy areas?"
"Yes. Cracks can cause stress concentration in extreme environments, causing the cracks to expand and the heat-resistant tiles to fall off."
Old Cat looked at the image and nodded. "Bumpy areas can cause uneven heating, causing the heat-resistant tiles to crack. These situations can cause accidents."
"I understand."
Mai Dong panted and adjusted the LED headlights on both sides of her helmet.
"What should we do if there are cracks?" Tang Yue lowered his voice and asked, "Should we fix it?"
"With what?" Old Cat asked, "Do you have 502 glue?"
"No." Tang Yue asked, "Can 502 glue be used to fix this?"
"Obviously not." Old Cat shook his head. "But you don't even have a bottle of 502 glue."
"What … what should we do?"
"There's no other way," the Old Cat said. "So you'd better pray that there won't be any fatal cracks."
Tang Yue was speechless. He didn't know when it started, but he had gotten used to the days where there were always backup plans. If Plan A didn't work, there was Plan B; if Plan B didn't work, there was still Plan C; and behind Plan C, there was still DEFG. They just had to call the engineers on the ground, and the engineers on the ground would assemble a bunch of solutions within twenty minutes for them to choose from.
At that time, he really didn't know how lucky he was. Now that he thought about it, those were the days when he had a huge team of nurses with thousands of top-notch support. He didn't know how to cherish it back then, and now it was too late for regrets.
As the saying goes, there's always a way out. It's just that someone has paved the way for you.
If Old Cat said there was no other way, then there really was no other way. There was no hope at all, and you could knock your head and bleed. These four words were so simple and cold.
"No cracks found."
Mai Dong's voice sounded in the channel. "The heat-resistant tiles are tightly attached, but I saw a protrusion …"
Mai Dong moved the camera so that the Old Cat and Tang Yue could see it clearly.
"It's really bulging." Tang Yue stroked his chin. "Could this be the Eagle's lifeblood?"
The girl gently pressed on the protrusion with her hand. On the flat belly of the spacecraft, there was a very obvious bulge, like a wart on the skin. "This should be the material expanding due to heat. Mr. Cat, is this important?"
Old Cat stared at the screen and pondered for a moment.
"It's a safety hazard. It's best to eliminate it."
"How do we eliminate it?" Tang Yue asked.
"The way of the world is to take from what is in excess and make up for what is in deficiency. If it's in excess, we'll make up for it.
If it's in excess, we'll remove it, "Old Cat answered." The way to eliminate it is to remove the excess. Miss Mai Dong, the inspection work will end here for now. Return to the space station and rest. The next time you exit the module, you can resolve this problem. Deal with it like how you deal with acne. "
"That violent?" Mai Dong was taken aback. Girls had a blood feud with acne that was irreconcilable.
"Yes, it's that violent," Old Cat said.
"Then what should I use to resolve it?" Mai Dong asked. "Use high temperatures to soften it?
Or find a way to dismantle it and reinstall it?
But there aren't many tools in the space station … "
Mai Dong believed that repairing the heat-resistant tiles was a complicated and precise job. It might require a large set of machine tools, but the space station clearly didn't have such conditions.
"What tool should I bring?"
"A file."
·
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"Tang Yue, I'll take these dirty clothes to wash." Old Cat hugged a huge pile of clothes. "There's nothing in the pockets, right?
If there's anything shameful, hurry up and take it out. "
"No." Tang Yue bent down and got into the Bright Light Armour. He reached his hand into the spacesuit. "Take it and wash it."
"It smells like heather."
Old Cat picked up a pair of dirty underwear and frowned. "I told you a long time ago. Don't always hide under the covers and watch Zheng's educational videos …"
"Get lost!"
Whether it was Kunlun Station or the space station, washing clothes was a very troublesome problem. Fresh water was a very precious resource, and it couldn't be wasted on something as trivial as washing clothes. According to the practice on the ISS, clothes didn't need to be washed. Once they were dirty, they could be changed. The dirty clothes were directly stuffed into the cargo spacecraft and thrown into the atmosphere to be burned.
In the early days of the Mars mission, the Joint Space Station basically followed this pattern. There was no washing machine in the Joint Space Station, and everyone carried enough disposable clothes sealed in bags. They were all soft, deodorant, and antibacterial materials. Underwear was changed every six days, and outerwear was changed every month. When the time came, they were thrown into the garbage bag.
However, as the duration of the Mars landing mission continued to increase, the astronauts needed to bring more and more clothes to change into. A team of six people would need to change into 400 sets of dirty clothes in a year, which was quite a terrifying number. The Orion spacecraft had no choice but to make room for the clothes.
So later, they installed a small washing machine in Kunlun Station.
It was very small, not much bigger than a microwave oven.
Tang Yue didn't know how it worked. It didn't need detergent. Perhaps it used high-temperature steam to sterilize and disinfect. But the recycling efficiency of waste water wasn't high, so washing clothes was quite a luxury for him. Tang Yue accumulated a lot of dirty clothes every time, and he had to wash them all in one go.
Tang Yue precisely grasped the frequency of washing clothes to achieve the purpose of saving water. He was familiar with this set of operations. After all, this was a necessary skill for every man who had undergone a university education.
How to take as few baths as possible for as long as possible and ensure that the body didn't ferment as much as possible.
"Be careful, I only have a few pairs of underwear." Tang Yue was very dissatisfied with Old Cat's rough actions. "If it's torn, it won't change."
"I know, I know, don't worry."
Old Cat wore a helmet on its head and tried to pinch Tang Yue's underwear from a distance with a long pair of pliers. But its left arm was very clumsy, and it couldn't pinch Tang Yue's underwear up.
"Then I'll go out and move the solar panels."
"Good luck." Old Cat was still poking at the underwear on the floor.
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An hour and a half later.
"Tang Yue, don't be angry, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me, this hole is intentional, really, really … This hole is used for ventilation, it can let your balls breathe in fresh air …"