Tang Yue's heart skipped a beat when he heard that.
Back when Tomcat was explaining to him and Mai Dong, it had made a solemn vow, but only the heavens knew if the cat was puffing itself up at its own cost. As an electrician and dabbler astronaut, he had attended orbital dynamics classes before he went to space … Even though the classes were incomprehensible to him, with him dozing off most of the time, he still remembered a few sentences from the instructor.
"Do not violate the rules!
"Do not violate the rules!
"No matter what, do not violate the rules!
"As long as you strictly follow the instructions in the manual, Orion and the lander will bring you back in one piece. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for us to collect all your ashes because the strong winds in the stratosphere will blow you everywhere."
What did the workbook say?
"Do not touch any buttons."
But Old Cat was obviously violating the rules. Not only was it violating the rules, but it was also overturning all the rules in the workbook.
Tang Yue stood up the Orion spacecraft model that had fallen on the table. "Only five degrees of margin?"
"Yes, this is the result of my current calculations."
Tomcat picked up the model. "You know that Orion II has to maintain a vertical attitude after entering the gravitational field. During its descent, its angle of attack can't exceed plus or minus five degrees. This is because the engine's propellant storage tank structure is very weak. The thinnest part of the tank is only three millimeters thick. To maintain its normal form, it needs the pressure of the internal fuel. For example, Orion II's fuel storage tank is like a taut balloon filled with water.
Old Cat gestured. "Obviously, we can't let this balloon sway at all, or it will burst. We have a total of four such balloons."
How steady would one have to be to hold four inflated water balloons during a rapid descent and not let them burst?
Tang Yue really doubted that the nine Raptor 10D engines on Orion could do this. It was not that he had never seen a Raptor 10D. The nozzle was so thick that an adult could fit in it. Could such a silly thing really meet the requirements of maintaining an angle of attack of less than five degrees?
This was no longer Zhang Fei threading a needle.
This was nine Zhang Yides dancing ballet on the tip of a needle, and the needle could not fall.
"Very difficult."
Old Cat said bluntly, "The Raptor 10D is not used for this. It's not a dedicated attitude control engine, so it can't achieve this precision."
"Is there any solution?"
Tang Yue erected the model of the Orion Constellation and slightly deviated it to the left and right. In his mind, he simulated the concept of a deviation of five degrees.
"I can only try my best to increase the precision of the control. The rest depends on luck," Old Cat replied.
"Luck?"
"Of course it depends on luck. Do your best and leave the rest to fate."
The Old Cat nodded. "Luck is very important in most situations. As the saying goes, 30% depends on your strength, 70% depends on your hard work … The remaining 90% is luck."
"Can you be more reliable?"
"If I'm not reliable, then are you?" Old Cat rolled his eyes.
"F * ck!"
"Alright then. F * ck you, f * ck you. Tell me how to solve the engine control problem.
How do we maintain Orion's attitude within a controllable range? "
"You …" Tang Yue's breath was stuck in his throat.
"Forget it. We can still do our best to control the engine, but some parts are completely dependent on luck. For example, the structure of the truss, the strength of the interface, and so on. We can't control these things at all. We can only pray that they don't have any problems."
Old Cat said lightly, "Letting Orion enter the atmosphere is essentially a gamble. It's never a sure thing. Even if we can ensure that the spacecraft doesn't have any problems, a strong crosswind during the landing process will be finished."
"Probability!"
"What probability?" Old Cat was stunned.
"Probability is what you're best at. Can you calculate the probability?" Tang Yue asked, "What's the probability of Orion II landing successfully?"
Old Cat sat in the chair and looked at the monitor. After a moment of silence, he shook his head.
"That's not the case."
Old Cat said, "We're not guessing a coin, but we're crossing the river by feeling the stones. Can you calculate the probability of there being stones under the water in front of us?
We can only step out first. If we're lucky, we'll be one step closer to the other side. If we're unlucky, we'll miss … "
Old Cat's voice lowered, and he didn't say anything else.
Old Cat was too powerful. This kind of power gave Tang Yue some kind of illusion … that everything was under control.
In fact, there were too few things they could control. A loose screw on Orion could bury the entire spacecraft, but no one knew where this screw was and when it would fall off.
Tang Yue twisted his neck, turned around, took off the Bright Light Armour EVA suit, and removed the life support system from the wall.
"You're going out?"
"Yes."
"Isn't the EVA work already completed?" Old Cat asked, "Why are you going out when you just came back?"
"To go out and look at the stars."
"It's not dark out yet."
"Then let's look at the sunset."
"There's no sunset on Mars."
"Then I'll go look at the UFO."
"There's no UFO on Mars … Remember to take a picture when you see one."
·
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"Tang Yue, are you slacking off again?"
"I'm not slacking off. I've finished all the work, and the part of art history that I'm responsible for is almost done."
Tang Yue leaned against the garage door and sat on the sand. "Tomorrow, I'll edit it carefully, then it can be filed away."
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm looking at the UFO." Tang Yue looked up at the white sky through the glass mask.
"UFO?" The girl was surprised.
"Yes, only when I go out and look at the UFO every day, I feel that my life is meaningful."
Tang Yue replied, "Although I haven't seen it yet, I think that as long as I continue to look at it day by day, one day I will see it … The person of my dreams is an unparalleled UFO, and one day it will come to see me with colorful clouds."
Mai Dong closed the control panel in the core module. She cooperated with Old Cat to adjust the system computer of the Joint Space Station.
"There's still something to look forward to in life. Otherwise, what's the point of living in this world?"
Tang Yue said, "Every day in this universe is different. No one stipulates that the earth won't disappear tomorrow, so no one stipulates that a UFO won't land in front of me tomorrow. After tomorrow, there will be tomorrow. Time is endless. It's like you give a monkey a typewriter. As long as there's enough time, it will sooner or later type out Shakespeare's four tragedies word for word … So the appearance of a UFO is inevitable."
"I hope there will be such a day." The girl smiled.
"There will be such a day."
Tang Yue said, "In this universe, as long as you believe in something, it will happen one day."