Dead on Mars

“So… you pulled out all of the wiring from the engine?”

Tomcat nodded.

“Can it still be restored?”

“No.”

“Then, can the rocket still be used?”

“No.”

Tang Yue suddenly felt faint.

“Tomcat, you b*stard, I want to strangle you!”

“Why are you so agitated? Take a step back! Don’t you come near me… Take a step back! You just said that we shouldn’t be overagitated in any way.” Tomcat waved its claws lightly. “It’s not a big deal anyway. The Descent Vehicle’s engine can’t be used anyway. So what if it’s spoiled? It’s fine as long as the Ascent Vehicle works.”

Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief, slumping into his seat.

He had really been given a fright back when Tomcat informed him that it had destroyed the rocket engines below. His mind went blank as a chill ran through his entire body.

If the rocket engines were really damaged, everything would be over.

Tang Yue threw the maintenance manual on the console deck, covered his face, and took a deep breath.

“Why did you pull out all the wiring?”

“Because it was all wired wrongly. It was in disarray,” Tomcat replied. “It’s completely different from what’s described in the design plans. Some of the wiring was in completely the opposite direction. I’ve no idea who installed that crappy engine. You guys were lucky that the lander didn’t transform into a huge firework when landing… So I decided to pluck them all clean, and clean up the engine’s control system from the beginning.”

Tang Yue was stunned.

“Holy sh*t, that serious?”

“That serious.” Tomcat nodded and said categorically. “Clearly, the workers who did the installation were poorly educated. They couldn’t even understand the most basic pictures. SpaceX is such a huge corporation, how could they recruit such people… Wait a moment.”

Tomcat suddenly frowned as he realized that the problem wasn’t that simple.

“What’s wrong?” Tang Yue asked.

“Eh…” Tomcat hesitated for a few seconds. “Tang Yue, do you know Occam’s razor?”

“Oc… What? What razor? Is that some new razor brand?” Tang Yue wore a blank look. “I’ve only heard of Philips and Flyco.”

“Occam’s razor can be considered a godly tool, a godly tool for research problems. It’s a philosophical principle: “more things should not be used than are necessary.” It means that when faced with a particular problem when researching or raising a particular hypothesis, it’s best to have as few conditions as possible. The more conditions you add, the more your viewpoint doesn’t hold,” Tomcat explained. “Occam’s razor is used to simplify the conditions, rejecting any unnecessary assumptions.”

Tang Yue thought for a few seconds. “I kind of get you. Is it this? If I were to lie, I would have to project more lies to support the original lie. Finally, the truth always comes out, so it’s better to not lie from the beginning.”

“Kind of.” Tomcat stood on the ladder and nodded.

“But why are you telling me this?”

Tang Yue didn’t know why Tomcat had suddenly mentioned Occam’s razor to him. What did this principle have to do with the previous situation?

“Regarding the wiring of the engine, I believe that there could be a few reasons that could lead to such an outcome; SpaceX had poor management, and the Americans did it perfunctorily. The installation workers were poorly educated and unable to understand the installation procedure. On the night before the installation, they had too much to drink. Finally, it could be a mistake in the design plans.” Tomcat paused, “But after careful thinking, I discovered that Occam’s razor could eliminate all these complicated assumptions, leading to a simple outcome. This outcome is the true reason.”

Tang Yue nodded.

“So what’s the true reason?”

“I held the plans upside-down.”

…

Tang Yue sat in the command module of the Eagle, inspecting the lander’s computer system according to the maintenance manual.

“Navigation… Where’s the navigation…”

“Communications. The communications channel… OK.”

Tang Yue debugged the button on the console. Under ordinary conditions, this work was left to the commander. The commander was the pilot, and he was only a passenger.

Now that the pilot was gone, the passenger could only bite the bullet and do it himself.

Thankfully, the lander was highly automated despite it being complicated. The computer did all the work from the launching to the docking. All Tang Yue needed to do was ensure that the computer’s numbers were correct. Then, he just needed to press a button and the Eagle would complete the rest of the procedure.

This was like driving a fully autonomous car. Under normal conditions, the driver was only there to handle any unexpected situations. Even without the driver, the car would still be able to drive on the streets.

If this was a crappy car from the previous century, needing humans to control things from the steering wheel to the brakes, all the passengers onboard the car would be doomed if the driver fainted.

“Where… Where’s the docking system?”

Tang Yue looked up and widened his eyes to scrutinize the dense array of buttons on the console. A spacecraft’s buttons were mostly made huge and conspicuous. This was to prevent any manual mistakes, but the huge number of buttons left one bedazzled. Furthermore, there were all sorts of English acronyms written above the buttons. With Tang Yue’s standard of English, he was definitely incapable of understanding them all. Thankfully, he had an instruction manual, otherwise, he would definitely have been left dumbfounded.

“UHF… UHF, ultra-high frequency…”

“Linear quadratic regulation trees… LQR-Trees? There’s even a simulated verification… Hmm…”

“Autonomous orbital transfer control parameter…”

Tang Yue matched the maintenance manual and circled around the command module, checking through the dense screens and buttons around him.

“Tomcat, what’s GNC?”

“Short for Guidance, Navigation and Control,” Tomcat answered.

“What about PPL?”

“Pin-point landing.”

“EDL?”

“Entry, descent, and landing.”

Tang Yue directly asked Tomcat whenever he encountered any English acronym he couldn’t be sure of. It saved him time compared with checking in the manual. Tomcat could give an answer within a second, and it was indeed a good dictionary.

Even though the manual had more than 10,000 lines, most of them were functions that didn’t need to be used. Just as Tomcat said, the manual was in the style of an engineer—belaboring every contrived matter. More than half of the manual contained explanations of the manual operations. Without a doubt, the manual operations for the Eagle wouldn’t be of any use. The launch of the spacecraft didn’t have any human loads. It was purely a cargo spacecraft.

Since there wasn’t anyone in the command module, the manual controls were naturally useless. One couldn’t expect the sandwich in the crates to crawl into the command module to commandeer the spacecraft.

This part of the system could be shut off before the launch, so Tang Yue didn’t need to inspect it. This greatly reduced the difficulty of his work and saved him time. He believed he could finish the mission within two sols, if he rushed.

Whether Mai Dong successfully survived this disaster, depended entirely on Tang Yue and Tomcat.