Die on Mars

"Good morning, Mr. Cat, Don...what's wrong with you?"

Maidong was taken aback.

She saw Tang Yue sitting on the ground wrapped like a rice dumpling, wearing a hat and a mask, covering himself tightly.

"There is a problem with the temperature control system and the control chip is damaged. Now the indoor temperature of Kunlun Station has dropped below zero." The old cat is sitting on the chair, but it looks as usual. As a robot, the old cat is powered by batteries and the motor The driver, with its copper skin and iron frame, is much more tolerant of low temperatures than humans - no matter how low the temperature is, it will only shiver once or twice symbolically to show respect for nature.

Therefore, whether the temperature control system is broken or not does not have much impact on it. At worst, it will shut down and go into hibernation.

"Where's the backup?" Maidong asked.

"The broken one is the backup." Tang Yue muttered, "Before Lao Wang and the others left, they replaced the aging processor and replaced it with a spare one. Then something went wrong with the spare one."

"What about the rest of the backups? Are there no more backups?"

"Who would hoard a lot of these things in Kunlun Station? Miss Maidong, will you install composite armor on the roof of your house?" Old Mao spread his hands.

Maidong was stunned and didn't understand what this meant.

"If you don't build a thick steel plate on the roof, wouldn't you be afraid of meteorites falling from the sky and smashing through the roof?" The old cat shrugged, and raised the chip in his hand towards the camera, "Similarly, the temperature control system It is a low-probability event that the device is completely damaged. This little thing is designed to have a service life of more than ten years, and its performance is actually very reliable."

"But prepare two more to be prepared..."

"Ms. Maidong, do you think it's just to store cabbage? Can you store it in the cellar?" The old cat shook his head, "In a high-irradiation environment, semiconductor chips will lose their life even if they are not used - so it is impossible to store a lot of spare processors. It’s meaningless, because when the processor in your cabinet reaches the end of its life, the pile of spare parts you stocked up will also be scrapped.”

"No matter how low the probability is, it still happened to me." Tang Yue said dullly, "I am the one who was hit on the head by the meteorite."

"The probability of integrated circuit failure in a high-irradiation environment is actually not low. This is a common thing, but specially optimized chips generally do not have major failures." Lao Mao said, "But among a thousand small problems, it is possible There is a lesion that can develop into a big problem.”

"Without this processor, can the temperature control system be repaired?" Maidong asked, "For example, can it be manually controlled? Or let the computer at Kunlun Station manage it?"

"Every method has been tried." Tang Yue shook his head, "It didn't work."

He and Old Cat spent the whole night last night trying every method that might work. Although the temperature control system was at most as good as a Gree air conditioner, the trouble was that it was connected in series with OGS. Tang When Yue tried to repair the temperature control system, he had to carefully take care of the molecular sieve and electrolyzed water modules, carbon dioxide filtration and absorption module, and fresh water recovery module. The complexity of these things was far more than that of an air conditioner, and they were very precise.

Tang Yue and Lao Mao didn't dare to go too far. They didn't dare to move out the home appliance repair set on Earth. If there was a problem with the OGS, Tang Yue would cut off the oxygen source, and the severity would be far greater than the temperature control system.

Tang Yue wrapped his clothes tightly. The cold wind was blowing in Kunlun Station. He missed the spring in the south of the earth, when the peach blossoms were in full bloom.

If the earth had not disappeared, he would have returned to the earth with Lao Mao and Ophiopogon japonicus long ago - the Kunlun Station will be closed anyway, and the OGS and temperature control system will be completely shut down, so it doesn't matter whether the damn processor is broken or not. After I leave, I won't care about the flood.

As for the next group of teams coming to Mars, they will bring brand new backups and just replace them.

There was an RTG beside Tang Yue. He went to the garage to move the isotope thermoelectric generator. The isotope thermoelectric generator relies on the decay of plutonium 238 to release heat and does not require external energy. At this time, Tang Yue can only rely on this thing to keep warm... He couldn't even light a fire, and everything in Kunlun Station as far as the eye could see was filled with flame-retardant materials.

However, plutonium-238 is a frightening radioactive element. Although RTG has shielded the radiation with a thick protective shell and is actually very safe, Tang Yue still carries a Geiger counter in his hand.

RTG moved to Kunlun Station, and the heat source in the garage was lost, so the fermenting stools may have a hard time.

However, Tang Yue could not protect himself at this moment, so he could only feel wronged by Brother Shi.

"What should we do?" Maidong was very anxious. "Are there any other rescue measures? If the temperature keeps dropping, how will you live?"

Tang Yue hugged RTG tightly, no matter what kind of radiation it was, he hugged him even if it was an atomic bomb. Then he sighed happily and hummed like a sow: "The generator is still warm. , I have decided that I will never leave RTG for the rest of my life, and no one can separate us."

"Did you see that?" Old Mao turned his head and glanced at Ophiopogon japonicus, kicked Tang Yue on the butt, and shrugged, "This guy has a tougher fate than Xiao Qiang, and his ability to survive is the best in the world, why are you still worried about him? Can’t survive?”

Maidong: "...But you can't just let it go, right? The temperature control system must be repaired."

The heat emitted by the isotope thermoelectric generator is very limited. Using RTG for heating is only a temporary measure. If the temperature continues to drop, the RTG will not last long. Tang Yue can sleep with his arms around the isotope thermoelectric generator, but he cannot carry this thing on his back. Work.

"The temperature control system must be repaired. We have one last method..." Old Cat nodded, "But I need the assistance of the United Space Station."

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Three hours ago.

"Is there one last method?" Tang Yue was surprised, "What method?"

Lao Mao threw the processor to Tang Yue, who reached out to catch it, "Look carefully."

"What are you looking at?"

"Look at this processor." Old Cat said.

Tang Yue carefully observed the processor in his hand. It was just a very ordinary chip, about the size of a fingernail, with a black package and fine metal pins on the edges. The outer casing was printed with Intel's trademark and two lines of product numbers - TCU1524M2051120914, does not seem to have any abnormality. Its brothers are everywhere on the earth, including the Xiaobawang game console.

"Is there anything wrong with this thing?" Tang Yue frowned. How could such a simple thing still show its flowers?

"I have seen this kind of chip, TCU1524M temperature control processor, Mars Mission Engineering Application Edition." Old Mao pointed to the processor in Tang Yue's hand.

"Nonsense." Tang Yue rolled his eyes, "I've seen this thing before. We maintain the OGS cabinet every day and meet every day, whether it's the previous one or this one."

"No...I'm not talking about these two." The old cat shook his head and raised three paws, "I'm talking about the third one."