Chapter 122 The difficult and long drilling work
“Beep!”
The buzzer sounded again.
The red light on the detector lit up again.
Xia Wanyi reached out numbly and cleaned up the ice-soil mixture spread on the detector.
“Still no discovery?”
Seeing Xia Wanyi’s stiff movements from the corner of his eye, Bai Yixuan smiled bitterly and asked on the radio.
Xia Wanyi sighed slightly, stretched out her hand to put the next batch of test samples into the detector, and shook her head and said, “Not yet.”
“How many meters underground now?”
Bai Yixuan raised his eyelids slightly and glanced at the LCD display on the drill in front of him.
“From the surface, it’s already 25 meters.”
“25 meters?!” Xia Wanyi’s tone was full of surprise, “It’s so deep and you haven’t dug into the real ice layer yet?!”
Bai Yixuan smiled bitterly and shook his head, sighing deeply.
"I think we've made a wasted trip this time."
"Who would have thought that the surface filling at the bottom of this deadly crater is nearly 20 meters thick!" Bai Yixuan's voice was full of resentment, "I think Professor Lu would be stunned if he knew this news?"
Xia Wanyi looked at the drilling steel pipe with only five meters left in silence.
"So, we worked for a long time, but it's equivalent to drilling only five meters underground?"
Bai Yixuan laughed awkwardly.
"Ahem...you can say that."
Xia Wanyi: "..."
Suddenly, Hong Fan's exclamation came from the radio.
"Captain! Stop chatting!"
"The drilling machine seems to have hit the ice layer!"
Looking at the drilling steel pipe whose descent speed was obviously reduced, Hong Fan and Bai Yixuan showed some surprise in their eyes.
...
Twenty minutes later.
"Ding!"
As usual, the red indicator light ruthlessly illuminated Xia Wanyi's numb face through the glass mask.
She mechanically swept the dirt mixed with more ice in front of her to the side.
Seeing Xia Wanyi's action, Bai Yixuan sighed deeply.
"Captain, what should we do now?"
Hong Fan straightened up, gently rubbed his sore lower back with his hands, and whispered: "Do you want to report to Professor Lu?"
Bai Yixuan pondered for a moment and shook his head.
"It's not to this point yet."
"We have only drilled one hole so far, let's continue!"
"After all, when we set out, Professor Lu said that this might be an extremely difficult and long job."
...
Outside the Mars cabin.
There are two "small moons" hanging high above Mars at night.
That is Phobos and Deimos.
Compared with the moon, although Phobos and Deimos are closer to Mars, only 9,000 kilometers and 23,000 kilometers respectively, they are smaller in size, only one percent of the moon.
Therefore, the two often cannot reflect sunlight to the surface of Mars.
Even in some high-latitude areas, these two small satellites are not visible at all.
As soon as he walked out of the Mars cabin, Andrew subconsciously looked up at the sky.
When he saw the two particularly bright large stars in the night sky, he could not help but freeze in his tracks.
"Look, we are lucky."
"We actually saw Phobos and Deimos at the same time!"
Andrew's eyes flashed with excitement, but soon, this excitement turned into regret.
Unfortunately, the sunlight reflected by Phobos and Deimos, as well as the starlight from the infinitely distant stars, could not illuminate the solemn night of Mars.
"Okay, okay, let's talk about our feelings later. Don't forget that our oxygen is only enough to support three hours of extravehicular activities."
Bruno dragged the carbon dioxide absorption equipment and toolbox out of the circular gate with great effort.
"Hey, Andrew, can you turn on the searchlight quickly... I can't even see the road!"
Bruno's unpleasant complaints interrupted Andrew's thoughts.
He turned his head helplessly to look at Bruno behind him, raised his hand and turned on the high-intensity searchlight.
The searchlight was very bright, but it only illuminated the little space in front of the two people.
In the endless darkness, this incandescent light seemed a little dim and weak.
After setting up the searchlight, Andrew reached out and grabbed the toolbox beside him, walked to the area where the air circulation equipment was loaded, and skillfully removed the metal protective shell on the surface of the Mars cabin.
"Joey, has the air circulation equipment been suspended?"
To be on the safe side, Andrew asked Joey in cabin No. 1 via radio.
Soon, Joey's response came to his ears: "It has stopped!"
Andrew closed his eyes slightly, and the scenes of the original training flashed quickly in his mind.
After recalling the operation process, he picked up the tools one by one and slowly disassembled the air circulation equipment.
When he saw the carbon dioxide absorber, he couldn't help but stand there.
The surface of the carbon dioxide absorber was full of red Martian dust.
"The cause of the failure has been found."
Andrew said softly: "It is estimated that NASA did not do a good job of sealing. The carbon dioxide absorber is full of Martian dust."
"Tsk!" Bruno's smacking sound came from the radio, "I said NASA is unreliable!"
"What should we do now?"
"We don't even know where the sealing problem is!"
Andrew's eyes were full of helplessness, and he sighed deeply.
"What else can we do? Let's install the replacement equipment today and wait for the response from Houston."
As he spoke, Andrew installed a spare carbon dioxide absorber.
After restoring all the equipment, Andrew said again: "Joy, start the air circulation equipment and see if it can work normally."
After a few minutes.
No response.
"Joy?"
Andrew's eyes twitched slightly, and he said again: "Joy, are you there?"
The next moment, a panicked voice sounded in the headphones inside the helmet!
"Damn it...Andrew, the air circulation is still not working properly!!"
"It's still the same problem! The carbon dioxide absorption device is wrong!"
Andrew's heart sank.
Could it be that Martian dust has invaded the inside of the equipment?
He took a deep breath and said calmly: "Joy, don't panic."
"Maybe this replacement device is also broken. I'll try another one."
…
With the experience just now, Andrew's replacement movement was obviously much faster this time.
Half an hour later.
"Joy, start the air circulation again!"
A few seconds later, Joey's crying voice came.
"Andrew, it still doesn't work!"
"Carbon dioxide absorber failure!"
Hearing Joey's crying words, Andrew's heart was like a stone, sinking lower and lower in the water.
Andrew's hands trembled slightly as he disassembled the air circulation device again.
This time, he raised the flashlight and carefully checked the fault.
When a hidden gap and a red rock the size of a fist appeared in front of him, Andrew held his breath for a moment.
It's over.
These two words flashed through his mind.
"You two, something might have happened to us."
Andrew took a deep breath and said solemnly.
