All-rounder Artist

Chapter 1300: Chapter 1084: Master Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, and You’ll Have No Fear Traveling Across Mars

Wei Continent.

Shen Zong was engrossed in reading “The Martian”.

As a renowned science fiction author from Wei Continent, Shen Zong was shortlisted for the Best Medium-to-Long Science Fiction Grand Prize at this Galaxy Awards.

He had thought he would win the award.

Unexpectedly, a novel from Qin Continent snatched the grand prize away.

Truth be told.

Shen Zong was somewhat unwilling to accept this.

Shen Zong believed that the other two shortlisted contenders probably felt the same unwillingness, which is why he immediately purchased “The Martian” upon its release to thoroughly understand where he had fallen short.

…

This novel fit the criteria for a medium-to-long work perfectly.

The story originated from the Wei Continent Space Bureau’s series of Mars landing missions called Ares—the God of War.

The protagonist, Mark, was one of the six astronauts of the third landing mission.

On the sixth day of landing, they encountered a huge sandstorm. Mark, unfortunately struck by an antenna and separated from his crewmates, couldn’t be rescued despite their best efforts; his teammates had to return to the Messenger spacecraft in orbit using the only escape pod.

Everyone thought Mark was dead.

After receiving the news, the Wei Continent Space Bureau held a press conference to announce the failure of the Ares III mission and the sacrifice of astronaut Mark.

That was the setting of the novel.

…

After going through the background introduction, Shen Zong raised his eyebrows slightly.

He didn’t expect that the story background of Chu Kuang’s book would take place in Wei Continent.

It seems that Chu Kuang was really targeting the readers from Wei Continent this time.

However, this setting was not abrupt.

Given the high level of technological development in Wei Continent of Blue Star, it could nearly rival that of Zhong Continent.

Moreover, many authors on Blue Star do not necessarily use their own continent as the background for their stories for the sake of plot development, as the characters are unified across all continents, which is acceptable to readers from all continents.

In addition.

Concerning the depiction of aerospace technology in the novel, Shen Zong couldn’t find any flaws.

Chu Kuang’s knowledge base in this area even surprised Shen Zong, a science fiction writer from Wei Continent.

After all, it had beaten him.

Indeed, it had some substance.

But just this level was of course not enough for Shen Zong to be truly convinced.

Dipping his finger in saliva, Shen Zong turned the page to continue reading.

In the book.

Of course, the protagonist Mark wouldn’t die. He was impaled in the abdomen by an antenna, causing his spacesuit to leak.

“Oxygen crisis?”

Shen Zong subconsciously thought this, but as he read on, he could not help but feel his cheeks burning with embarrassment.

He was contradicted.

Mark wouldn’t run out of oxygen.

On the contrary, Mark was worried about too high an oxygen concentration.

One of the important functions of the spacesuit is to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide produced from breathing.

It first uses a simple chemical device to absorb carbon dioxide, and when the absorber is exhausted, it will automatically open a vent valve in a ‘bloodletting’ mode. Although this gets rid of carbon dioxide, it also reduces the pressure inside the suit. To maintain pressure, the suit will automatically inflate. When the limited supply of nitrogen is depleted, it will use pure oxygen for pressurization.

You must know, the concentration of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere is only 21%, which is comfortable for respiration.

High concentrations of oxygen can burn a person’s nervous system, lungs, and eyes.

Shen Zong naturally understood this.

It’s just that Shen Zong evidently lacked understanding of this function of the spacesuit.

Struggling back into the undestroyed Hab, Mark finally took off his helmet and breathed deeply the air inside.

Thus began the daily life of a human botanist and mechanical engineer on Mars.

After checking all the equipment, Mark concluded through calculations:

The food he had left could sustain him for less than a year at most, while the earliest ground rescue would not arrive on Mars for another four years.

He had to solve the food problem!

Reading up to this point, Shen Zong smiled; he already guessed what the protagonist was going to do.

There is a science fiction novel from Wei Continent called “Mars Base Project”.