Scholar's Advanced Technological System

Chapter 794: Return Ticket

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

BFR spacecraft is crashing towards Mars!

When Earth heard the news, they were already five minutes too late.

Lu Zhou was shocked; he didn’t think NASA would be this cunning!

There was no way it was just a coincidence that the BFS spacecraft happened to crash right now.

Especially since it wouldn’t be difficult to make a spacecraft self-destruct. They just had to drop the orbital height and let the gravity of Mars slowly pull the spacecraft to the surface.

Generally, after a satellite reached the end of its useful life, it would be manually guided to fall into the sea.

Lu Zhou didn’t expect that the Americans would rather destroy the spacecraft than to let the Chinese astronauts have a look around the spacecraft.

Why are the Americans overreacting so badly?

1Inside the ground command center, Hou Guang was standing next to Lu Zhou. Hou Guang opened his mouth and asked, “What do we do now?”

Lu Zhou thought for a second and replied, “Do we know where the BFS spacecraft crashed?”

Hou Guang shook his head and said, “We don’t know the specific coordinates. And we can’t observe the Mars surface due to the global sandstorm. However, we can roughly estimate the impact area.”

Lu Zhou immediately replied, “Mark the estimated impact area. I need to know its relative position to the New Virginia village.”

“Okay.”

Lu Zhou stood beside the console and waited quietly for ten minutes. Soon a three-dimensional composition grid image was displayed on the screen. The New Virginia village was marked with a blue point, using coordinates provided by the United States. The estimated BFS impact area was painted with a red circle, with an area of around 40 square kilometers. The distance between New Virginia and the center point of the red circle was around 30 kilometers.

It would take the Mars rover an hour to drive from New Virginia to the BFS impact site.

Lu Zhou stared at the image for a while and suddenly had an idea. He looked at Hou Guang and said, “Ask Starlight to contact the New Virginia colonists.”

Hou Guang: “Then what?”

“Then take them home.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “But we’re going to charge them for the return ticket fee.”

...

“I repeat, this is Chinese astronaut Xu Zhenghong. How are you doing, my Martian friends?”

The voice echoed in Johnson’s head. He grabbed the headset and put it on his head.

He quickly replied, “We are good! No, we’re not doing good... Did NASA send you guys? No, I meant—”

The other end of the communication channel interrupted Johnson, “Not quite. We are helping you out based on humanitarian principles, and we are not employed by anyone. If you want to go home safely, please follow our instructions.”

Johnson could tell something smelled fishy, so he frowned and asked, “What do you want us to do?”

Xu Zhenghong: “Please open the data transmission system.”

Johnson hesitated for a bit before agreeing to Xu Zhenghong’s request. He opened the data transmission system.

This was quite risky. If the other party were to implant a virus in the life support system, the other party could shut off their oxygen supply and kill them.

However, he was out of options.

If he wanted to go home, he had to follow the orders.

When the data transmission system was turned on, a progress bar popped up on the screen.

Johnson frowned and asked, “What is this?”

“We need to collect data to investigate the accident.”

Why do you Chinese people have to investigate the accident?

However, now was not the time to complain.

Johnson looked at the progress bar and took a deep breath. He couldn’t help but ask, “We just wait here until it is complete?”

“No, we need one more thing from you.”

Johnson gulped and replied, “Yes?”

“The approximate location of the BFS spacecraft crash has been sent to your mission log. It is about thirty kilometers from New Virginia. Of course, I believe you have a more accurate way of determining the location of the BFS spacecraft. I don’t care how you find the spacecraft, but I need you to recover the black box and sample the materials in the crash area...”

Xu Zhenghong paused for a second and spoke in a serious tone, “This is NASA’s request.”

Johnson gulped.

He didn’t have time to think.

“But there is a sandstorm outside, we can’t...”

“The atmosphere on Mars is only one percent as dense. There is nothing scary about a sandstorm. If you bring us what we want, we’ll take care of you.

“That’s it.

“I look forward to your good news.”

The communication channel was closed.

Johnson looked at the screen and punched the wall.

“Goddamn it!”

Julia whispered, “Do you think NASA made the requests?”

Travis nervously said, “Hey man, who cares what they want, just give it to them. NASA abandoned us. Why else would they crash the BFS? Don’t tell me it’s an accident!”

Johnson went silent.

After a long time, he seemed to have made a decision. He slowly said, “Prepare the rover.”

“Okay.”

Travis obeyed Johnson’s order.

After all, this was his chance to go home.

Johnson looked out the porthole and suddenly sighed. He muttered to himself, “Whether or not this is NASA’s request, BFS is gone. We can only contact Starlight... We have to believe them.”

He still had a wife waiting for him.

And two beautiful children.

No matter what, he had to go home!

If NASA wanted to abandon them, then there was nothing wrong with working with the Chinese...

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