Breakfast consisted of bacon and cinnamon croutons with fruit jelly. There was also pea soup and tuna salad, the standard Apollo era astronaut's meal.
Dehydrated and semi-wet foods were mainly served, along with some heated foods and natural foods (mainly nuts). There was no problem with nutrition, but the taste was passable.
Thanks to advances in food preservation technology, space food in later generations had been greatly improved. In Zhang Heng's era, NASA provided astronauts with more than 180 kinds of food and beverages. You could even eat chocolate ice cream on the International Space Station (of course, even now, it was a luxury), which helped keep the astronauts' emotions stable for a longer period of time.
But for now, Zhang Heng and the others obviously did not enjoy such good treatment.
The storage room in the service module stored enough food for the three astronauts for eleven days. If everything went smoothly, excluding the time needed to land on the moon and return to Earth, the remaining food could last them for another six to seven days, enough for the astronauts to wait for NASA's rescue team to arrive.
However, considering the damage to their communication equipment and the possibility of all kinds of accidents, this training required Zhang Heng and the others not to stay in the same place and wait for rescue.
So after breakfast, the three of them did a simple positioning, distributed food and water, and began their wilderness training. They carried their supplies and moved to their next destination.
This was also the toughest part of the entire wilderness survival training.
The destination was eighty kilometers away. Even if they walked non-stop, it would take them about twenty hours to reach their destination.
What's more, it was now summer. During the day, the desert temperature exceeded forty degrees Celsius.
Under the scorching sun, the body lost water very quickly. If not replenished in time, it was easy to enter a state of dehydration. Fortunately, after this period of hellish training, even the fat man, who had the weakest physique, did not look like he would fall behind. As for Zhang Heng, he had the best stamina among the three, and he had more than once experienced worse situations than this. With his Level 2 wilderness survival skill, the current situation was not much of a challenge for him.
In fact, the emergency backpack provided by NASA and the supplies in the service module had saved them a lot of trouble in the desert. After all, NASA was not training wilderness survival experts. Under normal circumstances, this training only required the astronauts to follow the steps in the emergency manual, make good use of what they had at hand, rationally allocate their physical strength, and then complete the task within the specified time.
Most of the time, it was just physical exhaustion.
However, after walking in the desert for some time, everyone's emotions inevitably fluctuated.
The hot and dry environment not only tortured and tested the body, but it also affected everyone's emotions to a certain extent, especially when all three of them had something on their minds.
On the surface, the three of them were facing the same situation. They were all fighting for the last spot. But in reality, Zhang Heng did not have to do anything. All he had to do was ensure that he survived the training. With his excellent results, he could still successfully board Apollo 11.
On the contrary, Bruno and Jia Lai were more passive, especially Jia Lai. Because of his previous strategy, he was ranked last among the three. He needed to use this last training session to eliminate both of them.
Jia Lai, on the other hand, didn't know what Zhang Heng was thinking. Was he trying to get through the survival training and use his results to board Apollo 11? Or was he going to take the risk to get rid of him and Bruno?
After all, there was still a week left in the quarantine period, and his safety could not be guaranteed.
The main problem was that Jia Lai did not know what kind of person Zhang Heng was. For more than a month, Zhang Heng didn't just pretend to be weak, making people lower their guard against him. At the same time, he was also secretly observing everyone.
He spent different amounts of energy on each person. Jia Lai was too lazy to study people like the brawny man and the high school student. Among them, Zhang Heng was the one he paid the most attention to.
Until today, his understanding of Zhang Heng was severely lacking. Zhang Heng was the most mysterious player in this round. He was a loner, and Jia Lai could not tell what Zhang Heng's occupation in the real world was. He couldn't even determine Zhang Heng's age, and it was difficult to read his mind from his face.
This was the most troublesome part for Jia Lai. Without knowing what type of opponent he was, it was difficult to choose his next move.
When he had three spots, he preferred to maintain a good relationship with Zhang Heng. Now, however, he had to find an effective way to deal with Zhang Heng.
…
In the endless desert, only three lonely figures were moving slowly on the sand dunes. Bruno pulled his collar. He had lost count of the number of times he opened his water bag to drink, but the anxiety in his heart could not be dispelled.
He looked up at Zhang Heng, who was walking in front of him. Since they set off, Zhang Heng's pace had been maintained at the same pace, seemingly unaffected by the environment.
In addition, the silent Fatty behind him also gave him a lot of pressure. After breakfast, the team had been shrouded in an atmosphere as if something was about to happen. However, nothing happened along the way. This feeling of being neither up nor down was more depressing than the hot weather.
In the afternoon, the three of them found a rock wall where they could take shelter from the cold. After lunch, Zhang Heng used a stone to leave an arrow on the ground. This was also part of their training, to point the rescue team behind them in the direction they should go.
After that, the three rested for half an hour before continuing their journey.
By dusk, Jia Lai and Bruno's breathing was noticeably heavier than before. Their clothes were soaked in sweat, and the exposed parts of their skin were red from the sun. Even though they had taken a lot of protective measures, a lot of sand still seeped into their clothes and rubbed against their skin as they walked, making them feel even more uncomfortable.
The ten-hour long trek had depleted their stamina. As the captain of the team, Zhang Heng decided to stop moving forward and look for a suitable place to spend the night.
He gathered some dead branches and dried shrubs and started a bonfire. It could be used to heat up the heated food collected from the service cabin, and the three of them had a hot dinner.
This also made Jia Lai suspicious. So far, Zhang Heng had been carrying out field survival training according to the captain's requirements. Did he really plan to get the last spot with his results?
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