"Airbag?" Mai Dong and Tang Yue answered almost at the same time.
In the early Mars exploration missions, the engineers used a rather simple and crude method to deal with the last few dozen meters of landing, and that was airbag landing.
The probe was wrapped in layers of balloons and smashed directly on the surface of Mars. It was cushioned and unloaded by repeated bounces. In essence, this technology was no different from car airbags. It was very old and very simple, but quite reliable.
After the probe left the parachute, it would quickly inflate the airbag and be surrounded by a circle of large balloons within a few seconds. Finally, it would fall into the soft airbag to protect itself.
Before the high-end Mars crane like the Curiosity rover was put into use, many pioneers to Mars relied on these simple balloons to protect themselves.
"Where did we get the airbag?" Tang Yue asked.
There were no parachutes or airbags on the Joint Space Station. In the middle of the twenty-first century, when the Mars landing program was highly advanced, the primitive and extremely limited landing method, such as airbags, had long been phased out. Airbags could only protect small and light landers. Today's landing missions often carried loads of dozens of tons, so only parachutes and rocket thrust could be used.
"We have to thank the engineers of the Russian Space Agency for this …" Old Cat said leisurely. "Who told them to like using inflatable cabins on spacecraft and space stations?"
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"Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Obert, Korolev, von Braun, as well as the great gods of NASA, CNSA, RSA, and ESA, please accept my bow!"
Tang Yue stood in the hall of Kunlun Station and bowed deeply to the memorial tablets on the table. "Everyone in heaven, please bless the landing program to be a success. The lives of your descendants all depend on you."
Old Cat glanced at the memorial tablets on the table. The first name was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
"If you write in Chinese, the spirits in heaven may not understand."
Old Cat spat out a series of retroflex sounds. "You should write Konstantin Tsiolkovsky."
"Go, go, go do your work." Tang Yue rolled his eyes. "We agreed that science is yours, metaphysics is mine."
"Aren't you a fortune-teller?" Old Cat propped up his head. "Let's do it."
"I've already done it."
"What's the result?"
"Upper Li and lower Kan. Not yet," Tang Yue replied.
"What do you mean?" Old Cat glanced at him.
Tang Yue was a genius in metaphysics. Not only could he recite spells, but he could also do fortune-telling. If he hadn't come to Mars, he might have become a swindler.
Old Cat didn't understand why Tang Yue knew these things. In Tang Yue's words, "This was taught to him by the old man who lived next door when he was young. The old man's skills were profound. It was said that he had read the feng shui of society celebrities. He loved to eat cuttlefish and was known as the cuttlefish deity. Tang Yue often went to him to buy teppanyaki squid."
Every time Old Cat dismissed these things as feudal dross, Tang Yue would use the Russians as a shield.
The Russians were still looking for the Patriarch to consecrate their rockets.
"It's not enough, it's not enough, it's not enough," Tang Yue said. "It's a bad omen."
"Big bra?" Old Cat was stunned. "I'm talking to you seriously. Tang Yue, what's in your head?"
"What's in your head?
I'm talking about a bad omen, a bad omen!
A bad omen!
Do you know what a bad omen is? "
"Of course I know what a bra is."
"You stupid cat," Tang Yue said. "Come, read after me!
Bad — omen —!
Bad — omen —!
A bad omen!
Do you understand? "
Old Cat suddenly shut up. His face was serious as he pointed to the table.
Tang Yue turned his head.
Mai Dong's face was cold: Hooligan.
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"It's not enough, the divination is bad." Tang Yue sighed. "The situation is unfavorable, and there are difficulties."
"That's quite accurate. Isn't this our current situation?
There's no way out, and there's despair on all sides. "
Old Cat put his chin on the table. The workstation monitor in front of him flashed, and the screen turned blue again. The sound of the case's fan suddenly lowered. Old Cat kicked the table leg hard. "Damn it, the data overflowed again."
"Not enough is not a good omen. It means that we can't do things successfully. I hope there won't be any problems when we land."
"Metaphysics is not useful on Mars. The things of our ancestors are only applicable on Earth. After all, the Queen of Heaven is not the soil on Mars."
Old Cat restarted the workstation's process, turned off the monitor, and turned it on again. "Let's look at science. Mathematics and physics are universal … Miss Mai Dong, are you ready?"
"OK, Mr. Cat," Mai Dong replied. "All permissions have been granted."
“GoodJob。”
Old Cat connected to the Joint Space Station's computer. At this time, the space station's system permissions were all in the hands of Old Cat. This was requested by Old Cat. It wanted Mai Dong to open up the control system's underlying code step by step.
Old Cat could change the space station's behavior at will. As long as it was willing, it could even bypass the astronauts' commands and directly turn off the space station's life support system. If it really did so, all life in the space station would not survive for more than five minutes.
"Miss Mai Dong, I've taken over the Joint Space Station." Old Cat reminded her. "From now on, don't change the computer's operating mode."
"Understood."
This was a necessary task. In order for Orion II to enter the atmosphere, Old Cat had to completely change Orion's flight program. This was equivalent to rewriting the spacecraft's underlying software.
When Orion II was first designed, the engineers did not intend to let it enter the atmosphere. There was no corresponding software backup in the computer's system, but fortunately, there was enough redundancy in the hardware. Orion's structure and engine could support the program written by Old Cat.
To Old Cat, computer language was its mother tongue.
Old Cat had to design a safe landing route. In the past, this kind of work was discussed by many research teams in an entire laboratory because the workload was quite large. The entire EDL process could be divided into different parts. Entry, Descent, and Landing, each stage was a topic worth researching. The problems involved were many and complicated, and they involved every piece of hardware on the spacecraft.
In addition, there was the equally troublesome GNC system, Guidance, Navigation, and Control modules in the software. These were the tasks of the computer and sensors, and a lot of problems and papers could be derived.
The EDL system was responsible for the safe landing, and the GNC system was responsible for the navigation. Only with the cooperation of the two could Mai Dong safely land.
In the past, this would have been a joint project between more than a dozen universities and research institutes, from the hardware to the software. However, Old Cat alone was responsible for it.
After all, Old Cat was the most awesome crosstalk master and programmer in the universe. Among crosstalk actors, it was the best at coding, and among the code writers, it was the best at crosstalk.
It could spout nonsense like "a lama from the east, a mute from the west" while typing out the control code for the 400-ton spacecraft to land on Mars.