Son of the Stars

Chapter 192 Regaining Strength
The time it takes for a society to recover from collapse after losing 25% of its population and then resume basic operations was once one of the coalition government's key research topics. They called this minimum time the "Durkheim target time."

According to the coalition government's research and analysis, the Durkheim target time mainly depends on the degree of damage to various institutions, the loss rate of personnel, and the "Durkheim target participation rate" of the entire society.

The closer a society is to full employment, the longer Durkheim's target time will be. Therefore, maintaining a certain employment gap, leaving enough general population for various technical positions, and maintaining the enthusiasm of the entire society to spontaneously restore order will help shorten the Durkheim target time.

The Durkheim target time for Dongyang Special City is seven hours and twenty-five minutes, as long as the population loss does not exceed 25% and the key core equipment - power stations, water plants, hydrogen energy filling plants and transportation and information core nodes - can still operate normally.

The Durkheim target time for the entire coalition government area is seventy-four hours and thirty-nine minutes. The more sparsely populated the area, the longer the Durkheim target time.

In the entire area controlled by the coalition government, there are three places where the Durkheim target time is less than five hours. The Durkheim target time in the area where the coalition government is located is one hour, the Durkheim target time in the area where the academic committee is located is two hours, and the Durkheim target time in the space administration's base and launch plant is two hours and fifteen minutes.

Three hours had passed since the mass collapse. Lu Chen and Yang Weimin were surprised to find that their authority to command the manned landing on Mars had not been revoked.

All communication requests sent to the control center of the Space Administration and the launch plant went unanswered, and the United Government and the Academic Committee did not respond either.

It can't be that all the academicians of the regulatory team and the academic committee were wiped out in one wave?
However, the so-called Durkheim target time should only be the best data under ideal circumstances. People who have escaped from the collapse may not be able to return to work immediately - Lu Chen now feels a little drowsy and can't muster up energy.

It had been more than ten hours since he fell ill.

Actually, it was not a big deal that the control team and the academic committee were all wiped out. According to the rules and regulations, members of other positions could take over the positions temporarily, and then re-election would be held. But the problem was that there was no news from the Space Administration.

The astronauts on Mars have submitted several applications requesting to start the landing operation - Lu Chen, Yang Weimin, Tang Qinglong and others discussed it and decided not to authorize it directly and wait until the Space Administration is back online.

Such an important matter as the Mars landing is left to a group of outsiders to decide whether to proceed... This responsibility is really too heavy.

Having said that, the astronauts, who had been lying on Mars for more than ten hours and had to pee in their pants twice in order to save all mankind, could no longer hold it in.

"The General Administration gave us the right to make decisions freely, and then gave us a research group... I think their original intention was to let this research group support us!" Nakamura Takuya shouted with red eyes, "The landing plan can be carried out according to what we discussed at the beginning, why do we have to wait for their authorization?"

"Because of their command, we just saved nearly four billion people on the entire earth." Valentina lay in her seat, moving her body with difficulty to adapt to the gravity of Mars. "Then it's okay to continue to follow their command, right? At least there won't be any losses."

The gravitational acceleration on the surface of Mars is 3.724 meters per second squared, which is about 37.5% of that on Earth. After living in a gravity-free environment for more than a year, the Dawn crew had a hard time fighting against this intensity of gravity.

Fortunately, they landed on Mars. If it was a planet with a mass similar to that of Earth, the entire landing crew would have to lie down for at least a month. Even under the gravity conditions of Mars, it would be difficult for the members of the Dawn crew to stand up and move around. Therefore, their landing space suits were equipped with mechanical skeletons to assist in supporting the body.

Under such conditions, it is unrealistic to want to leave the cabin and complete the landing activities immediately - it is more appropriate to lie down for a while to adapt to gravity.

"We have submitted three applications, but none of them have been approved." As the commander, Field obviously considered more than other crew members at this time. "I think the research team may not know what to do either - at this time, doing nothing is actually less risky."

"So are we just going to wait like this?" Nakamura Takuya raised his arm tremblingly and pointed out of the porthole. "Outside is Mars. If we step on it, we can put our name together with Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin!"

There was a moment of silence in the landing module. After a long moment, Jin Yuzhe muttered, "Hey, at most people remember Armstrong, but who remembers Aldrin? There's no need to worry, because the commander will definitely be the first one to step on the moon."

Astronauts certainly have their own little thoughts, which is a dilemma that humans cannot escape. But humans know themselves well enough, so they have already set up corresponding solutions.

NASA stipulates that the first person to set foot on Mars must be the commander of the mission. If the commander is unable to complete the mission, the deputy commander, pilot, on-orbit engineer, and payload specialist will take over in that order.

The space suit with an exoskeleton is locked in order of permissions, so the possibility of putting on the space suit in advance and landing first does not exist at all.

"Let's wait." Field made a quick decision. "It will be good for us to get used to the gravity of Mars. Let's start with the basic deployment of the landing module and shorten the construction time."

After discussing for a long time, they decided to continue waiting. Nakamura Takuya snorted, crossed his arms, and fell asleep with difficulty. The other astronauts also gradually entered the working state. They also had to contact the Dawning 7 in the orbit of Mars, and the Dawning 6 scheduled to enter the orbit in five days.

In short, there is always work to be done - rather than lying there gasping for breath, astronauts would rather have some work to distract themselves.

As time went by, the landing module on Mars had completed its pre-launched work - the hard support built a hard structure in the Martian atmosphere, and then four layers of puncture-resistant and pressure-resistant soft interlayers fully covered the structure. Through the inflated and pressurized interlayers, the landing module completed the main construction of the forward base in a fully automatic manner.

The next step is to move the equipment to the designated location, start digging into the Martian surface, and search for water ice beneath the surface to start operating the long-term life support system.

The energy supply on Mars is also a problem. The efficiency of solar panels is relatively low, and there are also problems with Martian storms. Fortunately, the power capacity of the fusion furnace of the landing module is large enough. If it is combined with the fusion furnace of the landing module of Dawn 6, it will not be a problem to build a small city on Mars.

However, the installation and disassembly of the fusion reactor is extremely difficult. Otherwise, for the necessity of long-term arrangements, the forward base should be equipped with a separate fusion reactor.

(End of this chapter)