The BFS spacecraft was falling into the Martian atmosphere!
When the news came from Mars orbit, it was already five minutes later.
Lu Zhou's first reaction was "sh * t". Then, he thought, "Those people at NASA sure are ruthless!"
The BFS spacecraft didn't have a problem earlier, but it just had to have a problem now. This was too much of a coincidence. If it was an accident, he wouldn't believe it even if he was beaten to death!
Especially for a spacecraft like this to self-destruct. It was actually quite simple. All they had to do was descend to the atmosphere and wait for the planet's gravity to pull the spacecraft back to the surface.
Normally, when a satellite reached the end of its service life, it would be manually guided to an area far away from land.
However, Lu Zhou didn't expect the Americans to be so generous. They would rather crash the BFS spacecraft than let their astronauts take a look at it …
It's not like looking at it would make you pregnant, why are they so excited?
In the ground command center, Hou Guang stood next to Lu Zhou. He looked at Lu Zhou and spoke.
"What do we do now?"
Lu Zhou thought for a bit and spoke.
"Can we determine the coordinates of the BFS spacecraft crash?"
Hou Guang shook his head and said, "We can't determine the specific coordinates. We can't directly observe the Martian atmosphere. However, even though we can't directly observe it, we can roughly calculate the possible impact area based on its trajectory. "
Lu Zhou immediately spoke.
"Mark the calculated area. I need to know its relative location to the New Virginia outpost."
"Okay."
They stood next to the console and quietly waited for ten minutes. Soon, a three-dimensional grid image appeared on the big screen. The New Virginia outpost was marked as a blue dot according to the coordinates provided by the Americans. The possible impact area of the BFS spacecraft was marked as a red circle with an area of about 40 square kilometers. The distance between the center of the red circle and New Virginia was around 30 kilometers.
At the speed of the Mars rover, it would take around an hour to arrive.
Lu Zhou stared at the screen for a while and suddenly had an idea. He looked at Hou Guang and spoke.
He looked at Hou Guang and said, "Let Starlight contact the New Virginia colonists."
Hou Guang: "Then what?"
"Then take them home." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "But in exchange, we can charge them a tip as a ticket home."
…
"… I repeat, this is Colonel Xu Zhenghong of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Astronaut Team. My friends on Mars, how are you?"
The heavenly voice echoed in Johnson's ears. He used all his strength to grab the headset and put it on his head. It was like he was grabbing onto the last life-saving straw.
He switched to the reply channel as he spoke in a hurried tone.
"We're fine! No, no, no, our situation is terrible … Did NASA send you? No, I mean — "
The person on the other end of the communication channel interrupted Johnson's words and continued.
"… That's not the case. Out of humanitarian principles, we are lending you a helping hand. We are not hired by anyone. If you wish to return home safely, please follow our instructions. "
Johnson frowned and said, "What are you talking about?
"What do you need us to do?"
Xu Zhenghong: "Please turn on the data transmission system."
After some hesitation, Johnson finally accepted Xu Zhenghong's request and opened the data transmission system.
This method was quite risky. If the enemy took the opportunity to plant a virus in the control system of the life support system, they only needed to shut down the air exchange system to kill them.
However, he had no other choice.
Just as Colonel Xu said, if they wanted to go home, they could only do as they said.
The data transmission system was turned on, and a progress bar quickly appeared on the screen.
Johnson frowned and asked.
"This is?"
"For the investigation and identification of the cause of the accident, we need to collect some necessary information."
What does the accident have to do with the Chinese?
However, now was clearly not the time to complain about this.
Johnson looked at the progress bar and took a deep breath. He couldn't help but ask.
"Are we going to wait here for the loading bar to finish?"
"No, we need you to do something else."
Johnson had a bad feeling about this, so he gulped and asked.
"What is it?"
"We've updated the approximate landing location of the BFS spaceship to your mission log. It's about 30 kilometers away from New Virginia. Of course, I believe you have a more direct way to locate the BFS spaceship. No matter what method you use, we need you to follow our instructions and retrieve the black box of the BFS spaceship, as well as sample the materials in the designated area … "
Xu Zhenghong paused for a second and spoke in a serious tone.
"This is also your request."
Johnson swallowed hard.
He didn't have the energy to think about whether or not Lu Zhou was telling the truth.
"There's a sandstorm outside, we can't —"
"The density of the atmosphere on Mars is only one percent of that on Earth, so there's nothing to be afraid of. If you have something we want with you, maybe we will be more careful when retrieving the return pods. "
"Okay then, that's it.
"I look forward to hearing good news from you."
The communication was cut off.
Johnson looked at the dialog box on the screen and slammed his fist into the wall.
"Sh * t!"
Jones, who had been holding his breath and not daring to speak since the beginning, asked nervously.
"Will NASA make these requests?"
Travis looked at Johnson and said nervously, "Listen, buddy, no matter what they want, we'll just give it to them. NASA gave up on us anyway, right? Otherwise, why would they crash the BFS? Don't tell me it was an accident! Even if it was hit by a meteorite, it wouldn't crash like this! "
Johnson went silent for a while and didn't say anything.
After a long time, he seemed to have made a decision. He said, "Go prepare the rover."
"Okay."
For once, Travis obeyed Johnson's orders and didn't talk back.
After all, he could go home now. Even if he was stupid, he knew that he shouldn't cause any trouble.
Johnson looked out the porthole and suddenly sighed. He seemed to be answering Jones' previous question and trying to convince himself.
"I don't care if it's NASA's request or not, now that the BFS has crashed, only Starlight can contact us … We can only trust them."
His wife was still waiting for him.
And his two adorable kids.
No matter what, he had to go home!
If NASA was going to give up on them, then there was no reason not to cooperate with the Chinese …
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