Who are you calling "little fresh meat"? I'm the king.

Chapter 522 Filming Wrapped Up (13)

This is true!
If such a situation were to occur, the space agency would certainly spare no effort to save it…

From a purely utilitarian perspective, the universe is humanity's ultimate frontier. Encouraging and attracting courageous, wise, and steadfast human beings to fly into the universe is not merely symbolic, but in fact, it helps solve practical problems such as energy, land, minerals, and food.

Furthermore, the fact that an astronaut can survive alone in outer space for a year and a half while suffering severe injuries, perfectly utilizing his knowledge and all available resources to overcome loneliness and all the difficulties he encounters, demonstrates just how strong his mind is!

You should know that the ultimate goal of the entire Mars mission is to explore the feasibility of interstellar migration. Dafei single-handedly pushed the entire mission forward by a large margin, and even explored the feasibility of Martian agriculture. His achievements were almost greater than the sum of the previous Mars exploration missions.

Spending tens of billions to rescue him is an incredibly worthwhile investment.

So money is not the issue at all; the issue is whether it can be successful. As long as there is a possibility of success, the space agency will spare no expense to rescue them.

His safe return to Earth is a miracle in human history, of immeasurable value.

His survival is of such great significance that it is no less than the Apollo moon landing!
Even more importantly, the symbolic significance of the moon landing is considerable…

Dafei proved that humans can colonize Mars, and this could even be achieved within many people's lifetimes.

Another point is that protecting the safety and return of astronauts is one of the purposes of manned spaceflight.

Scientific research is not the only purpose of manned spaceflight. The ultimate goal of manned spaceflight is to enable humans to travel freely in the universe and live and reproduce in other parts of the universe for a long time.

Rescue itself is part of the training and development of manned spaceflight. Since it is the goal in itself, the question of how much cost to invest is irrelevant—unless you don't want to do manned spaceflight at all…

Therefore, whether or not to save them is not a question; the only thing to consider is time!
The timeline is called a Martian day, or Martian solar day, which is equal to 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds, very close to the length of an Earth day.

Dafei needs to solve the problems of water and food!

Drinking water is easy to solve: it can be produced using leftover hydrazine from the descent phase of the landing module, but food shortages are a major headache.

The food left by your teammates can last for about 360 to 400 days.

The next Mars landing is four years away, so Dafei will need to produce more than three years' worth of rations for nothing…

So Dafeike thought of poop...

The Tianwen-3 mission was scheduled to remain on the surface of Mars for 31 Martian days, but an accident occurred on the 18th Martian day, resulting in the six astronauts leaving behind a large amount of excrement during those 18 days.

Uh, to be precise, it's using poop to grow potatoes...

In fact, excrement cannot be directly used to fertilize the soil—even fresh excrement is difficult for plant roots to absorb directly; it requires a long fermentation process beforehand, which is called composting in agriculture.

Oh, the original "The Martian" didn't have a maturation process, which is normal. When it comes to farming, Americans are far behind us!

Dafei's identity is not only that of a botanist but also an agronomist...

Therefore, there is a process of decomposition...

They didn't film a close-up, but instead showed Shen Teng explaining with a stuffy nose, because it was too disgusting!

While working, Shen Teng explained his work: "I must remind you that the biggest problem with human excrement is not in agriculture, but in the unpredictable impact it may have on the Martian environment."

Because everyone has different microorganisms inside their body, including parasites, bacteria, and viruses. Even in a healthy person, the microorganisms in their body may not affect them, but once they enter a completely new environment, no one knows how they will change to adapt. This is why astronauts' excrement needs to be carefully sealed.

"I was thinking, if I go back to Earth, who knows, the next batch of 'Tianwen-4' astronauts might encounter alien monsters mutated from E. coli on Mars!"

"Tsk tsk, I've raised an alien!"

By the way, regarding the Martian storm at the beginning... there's really no way to change it!
The space agency suggested changing it to a meteorite falling from the sky!
After all, Mars has a very thin atmosphere, with an atmospheric pressure equivalent to 0.6% of Earth's atmospheric pressure. Therefore, even the strongest "storm" on Mars would only be as powerful as a gentle breeze on Earth. So, a storm capable of overturning a rocket or stunning a large aircraft simply cannot exist.

In comparison, because Mars' atmosphere is much thinner than Earth's, meteorites cannot be completely burned up in the atmosphere, making meteorite falls from the sky much more likely than Martian storms…

But if it were changed to a meteorite falling from the sky... the main conflict might become how to deal with a sudden extraterrestrial visitor or natural disaster, which would completely change the characters' psychology and action logic.

The conflict in "Mars Storm" was about how to survive in extreme weather. With the change to meteorites, the conflict may shift to how to avoid or reduce the damage caused by meteorite impacts.

This doesn't feel right...

Ultimately, it was changed to a complex disaster—a dust storm. The dust storm caused a short circuit in a communication antenna, resulting in a loss of contact with Earth.
Charged dust particles adhere to solar panels, causing a sharp drop in power generation;
During an emergency repair, a screw was ejected by static electricity (similar to a tiny "lightning bolt"), which punctured Dafei's spacesuit life monitoring system, causing a false "death" alarm.

It has a strong visual impact while avoiding the drawback of insufficient atmospheric density.

By changing the storm to a "statically charged dust storm + technical failure chain," the tense atmosphere can be preserved while still conforming to the characteristics of the Martian environment...

It's much more scientific than a simple Martian storm!

Otherwise, you can't explain why the top cover was simply removed during the final launch from Mars...

He wasn't even afraid of being crushed to pieces by atmospheric pressure...

Of course, these can explain the insufficient atmospheric pressure on Mars... So, where did the storm at the beginning come from?

Schrödinger's storm?

In addition, many scenes have been simulated and upgraded…

For example, the chemical experiment of Dafei making water caused a chain explosion due to a pressure valve failure, forcing him to carry out emergency repairs in the extreme environment of liquid nitrogen coolant leakage, and the habitat was instantly frozen - a scene reminiscent of "The Day After Tomorrow".

Transforming scientific experiments into high-intensity action sequences…

Otherwise, the plot won't be entertaining enough!
They'll definitely need to add some big scenes...

Otherwise, it will be very boring!

Of course, most of the Mars scenes still convey the suffocating feeling of Dafei being alone.

This approach satisfies the demands of large-scale commercial films without degenerating into mindless popcorn movies; instead, it visually presents hard science concepts…

……

Starting in early November, actors began wrapping up filming one after another…

Shen Yan saw them off one by one, continuing until November 25th…

Filming for The Martian has wrapped...

With Shen Yan's "Cut! That was good... I hereby declare filming for *The Martian* finished!"

At this moment, Shen Teng felt that his torment was finally over, and he couldn't help but burst into tears...

Guo Fan smiled and said, "Brother Teng... is so touched!"

Several executive producers standing nearby chimed in, "Yes, this is the first time in Chinese film history!"

Shen Teng waved his hand: "No... I just feel like I've finally said goodbye to diapers... Waaaaah..."

Shen Yan stepped forward and joined in the persuasion: "...It's okay, just be careful to control your sphincter muscles, don't let it become a habit... Once it becomes a habit, it's easy to develop a conditioned reflex, and then you won't be able to hold on!"

"What will happen if they can't hold on any longer?"

"Pulled a whole pocketful..."

(End of this chapter)