Dead on Mars

Chapter 189 - Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, Where There Are People, There are Programmers
Chapter 189: Sol Three Hundred and Twenty-Two, Where There Are People, There are Programmers

Stationary Plasma Thruster, SPT276.

The electric rocket with the strongest thrust in the world, a product of JAXA and its prime contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

It had a thrust as high as 70 N.

“Is it still around?” Tang Yue had a deep impression of this rocket. It was an engine that had been removed from the Hayabusa III asteroid probe years ago. It was presently kept inside the space station and had been successfully repaired by Mai Dong. “See if it was damaged in the accident.”

“I’m checking… But the data transmission isn’t stable.” Tomcat stayed in front of the computer, its brows furrowed tightly. “This darn transmission speed is like Baidu Cloud when you aren’t a paid member. What crappy speeds.”

Tang Yue wanted to talk to Mai Dong but was stopped by Tomcat.

“Cut the chit chat. Don’t take up bandwidth. All that’s connecting us to the space station is a thin thread.”

The space station’s computer was uploading the data at full speed. It was a massive amount of data, and what Tomcat was doing was equivalent to using a telephone wire to download a 4K high-definition movie from the Internet.

Tang Yue was filled with agony. The space station could encounter a change in situation at any second while in orbit, and here he was, limited by his network speed.

“How much more time is needed”

“We are now using a road the width of an alley, but it requires a width that allows an aircraft carrier to pass through. How long do you think is needed?” Tomcat whispered. “Let me take a look. The total amount of data to be sent exceeds 88 GB. The average transfer speeds are 200 KB/s. That means a total of 128 hours are needed… 5 days.”

Tang Yue widened his eyes.

“That will be too late!”

“I know! Shut up! I need to compress the data. I need to compress the data…” Tomcat also began to break out in a figurative sweat. “I need to write a compression algorithm for the slow computer on the space station so that it can filter the data and send it down in a compressed archive! The data connection probably still has room for improvement… There’s still room for improvement. I need to do some frequency spectrum compression just like the seniors at IEEE did in the past!”

Tomcat’s paws moved at the fastest speed ever, hitting the keyboard so quickly that it nearly broke apart.

“How’s that? Does it work?”

“Hehe…” Tomcat grinned, revealing its white teeth. “Tang Yue, do you know how they did the live broadcast of the Apollo moon-landing?”

Tang Yue was taken aback.

“Coding monkeys have infinite wisdom. Where there are people, there are programmers.” Tomcat moved its paws rapidly. “Do you know who said that?”

“Alan Turing?”

Tomcat shook its head.

“John von Neumann?”

Tomcat shook its head.

“Claude Shannon? Moore? Bill Gates?”

“Wrong!” Tomcat hit the “Enter” button. “Is there a need to guess? Of course, it’s Lu Xun!”

In heaven, Lu Xun said, “…”

“OK! The filtering is done. The compression is done! The total data only weighs in at 36 MB! The average transfer speeds have reached 3 MB/s! It’s estimated to take twelve seconds! 10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Transfer complete! Commencing decompression and restoring of data—” Tomcat was like an auctioneer as it shouted out those numbers. The screen in front of it rapidly refreshed as a string of processes was completed quickly. The screen popped out a schematic of the United Space Station.

It was then zoomed in.

“SPT276 is operational!”

SPT276 was installed on the left of the space station’s truss. There was a tiny platform there that could be used to launch satellites.

With the United Space Station in the middle, the right truss had been sliced through by Orion II and could be considered a lost cause. However, the left truss remained intact.

Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief when he learned that SPT276 could still be used. There was finally a piece of good news. After Orion II had exploded, making the spacecraft lose its stability on all three axes, this electric rocket was the only driving force.

“In preparation to change the spin!”

The United Space Station had left the shadow of Mars, allowing Mai Dong to see sunlight once again.