I live in the Martian wilderness!

"Please look to the left, everyone. This is the Hohmann transfer orbit used by 'Candle Dragon One'. Its advantage is energy efficiency."

"It will arrive at Mars at a very low relative speed. So it will have ample time and fuel to perform a delicate orbital braking maneuver that will last for several hours."

"Only by transforming ourselves from an interplanetary probe into a stable, low-speed artificial satellite orbiting Mars can we truly achieve this."

"Only it is qualified to play that five-day 'pneumatic capture' (skipping stones) landing game that requires hundreds of precise trajectory adjustments."

His finger pointed to the image on the right, which was a red trajectory that was almost a straight line heading towards Mars.

"The Kuafu spacecraft, in order to arrive within forty days, employed a 'high-speed interception' orbit—academically known as a Brachistochrone!"

"This means that its relative speed when it arrives at Mars will be several times that of Candle Dragon 1! It will crash straight into Mars at a speed of 20 kilometers per second!"

"And what would it take to suddenly slow this projectile down to a point where it could be captured by Mars' gravity?"

He looked at his student, Xiao Qin, and asked a leading question.

Xiao Qin answered in a voice barely above a whisper: "...once...an extremely violent...reverse braking..."

"That's right!" Zhang Zixuan confirmed her answer, "A suicidal, violent braking maneuver! When the braking was completed, nearly six thousand tons of fuel were completely burned up."

"It doesn't even have the capacity to maintain its own orbit. What if we drop a supply pod down at this point?"

"At a relative speed of 20 kilometers per second, any heat shield would be torn apart like paper, and the supply pod would vaporize directly into a metallic meteor in the Martian atmosphere."

"Chief Engineer Zhang is right." Academician Wang nodded, then pulled up a densely packed Δv (velocity increment) budget table.

"The most fuel-efficient Hohmann transfer orbit from Earth to Mars requires a Δv of approximately 5.7 km/s. If that's the case, we would only need to consume less than two hundred tons of fuel."

"But," he changed the subject, "we are now taking the shortest possible route."

"The energy cost required to reduce the voyage time from seven months to just over a month is exponential!"

"When the Kuafu spacecraft leaves Earth, it will activate its liquid oxygen afterburner mode and use 700 tons of thrust to tear open the gravity well."

"Then, during the long journey, it uses nuclear thermal cruise mode to continuously devour liquid hydrogen with a high specific impulse for 1150 seconds, pushing the speed to the limit."

"Finally, upon reaching the end of the journey," he demonstrated an animation of the spaceship flipping, "it will perform a 'flip maneuver,' turning the bow 180 degrees."

"Immediately afterwards, the engine will switch back to afterburner mode, spraying out all the reserved hundreds of tons of liquid oxygen within a short period of time for a violent deceleration!"

"The total travel time will be precisely controlled to be exactly thirty-nine days. On the morning of the fortieth day, we will forcibly stop in Mars orbit, which is more than 85 million kilometers away from Earth."

Academician Wang then pulled up a list of propellant consumption, the figures of which precisely explained the enormous cost of this process.

"To complete this insane maneuver, the Kuafu will need a total speed increment (Δv) of 31.8 km/s!"

"The acceleration phase consumes 15.9 km/s, and the deceleration phase consumes 15.9 km/s."

"This means that 99.1% of the 5900 tons of propellant we risked our lives to send up in thirteen separate launches will be consumed!"

Academician Wang drew a red line on the screen with his finger, his voice deep:

"When it comes to rest in Mars orbit, this massive ship, which weighed over 6,000 tons at launch, will have only 180 tons of net weight left."

"That's 150 tons of engine dead weight and 22 tons of shell structure."

"The remaining 8 tons of payload is the 'communication tool' that we sent to Gu Yu with all the resources of the nation—the Queqiao-2 satellite."

Zhang Zixuan said in a hoarse voice, "There are only 180 tons of propellant left... which means there's absolutely no chance of returning, right?"

"Old Wang, are you really willing to give up this Kuafu? It's the culmination of ten years of your hard work."

Academician Wang Tianyuan slowly shook his head, his face showing no regret, only calmness and composure.

"Kuafu chased the sun until he was exhausted and died."

"Perhaps the fate of the Kuafu was written from the very beginning."

Academician Wang's words have inscribed the final epitaph for the future of this national treasure.

Silence fell over the meeting room.

Zhang Jianguo slowly stood up. "Very good. The plan is flawless from an engineering perspective. I also agree to sacrifice the Kuafu."

"But what you've given me is still a choice between two options."

He paused, his voice suddenly becoming sharp, "I'm not satisfied with the sacrifice of the Kuafu; all we got in return was a satellite deployment!"

"I demand that two things be accomplished simultaneously: first, deploy the Magpie Bridge 2 orbital node; second, deliver food supplies to Gu Yu!"

"Commander-in-Chief!" Chief Engineer Zhang Zixuan immediately stood up. "We just demonstrated that if we cut in at a speed of 20 kilometers per second, any soft landing capsule will be burned to ashes..."

Zhang Jianguo's gaze was sharp as a knife, and he interrupted him directly: "I did not allow you to have a soft landing."

"I ordered you to deliver supplies; how you deliver them is your problem. I don't want to hear 'impossible'! I just want a solution!"

This decisive statement spurred all the engineers in the conference room to frantically rack their brains, trying to tackle the seemingly unsolvable physics problem.

Just then, the young-looking female engineer timidly raised her hand.

Zhang Zixuan frowned, about to reprimand Zhang for speaking carelessly in this setting, but was stopped by a look from Zhang Jianguo.

"Let her speak."

"Commander-in-Chief...Chief Engineer...Academician Wang..." The young girl's voice trembled slightly with nervousness, but her thoughts were exceptionally clear. "What if...what if we don't pursue a soft landing?"

"We're abandoning all conventional landing methods—heat shields, parachutes, thrusters... none of them. We're going to have a precisely calculated, controlled hard landing."

She quickly pulled up a concept model she had just built in a few minutes on the holographic screen in front of her.

"Once the Kuafu spacecraft comes to a stop in Mars orbit, we can squeeze some weight out of its 8-ton payload space."

"The supplies were encapsulated in a 'penetrating impact probe' made of ultra-high-strength tungsten alloy and equipped with stabilizing fins."

"The total weight of the probe can be controlled to within 100 kilograms, with an effective payload of about 25 kilograms."

"We removed all the deceleration equipment, leaving only the most basic heat shield. We then sent it hurtling towards Mars like a meteorite."

"Three probes and a total of 75 kilograms of food supplies are enough to extend Captain Gu Yu's survival limit by more than 80 days!"

"This...this isn't a delivery mission, this is an orbital bombardment!" someone exclaimed. "And with three probes impacting at speeds of several thousand meters per second, how can we guarantee they'll all survive?"

"That's the key to the plan!" Xiao Qin shook his head, completely forgetting his nervousness. "We won't let them crash down vertically; we'll make them 'plow' through."

"A very small entry angle can be set, and a disposable, crushable honeycomb structure buffer can be added to the tail of the probe."

"The end result is that it will not form a deep pit, but will plow a trench several hundred meters long and no more than ten meters deep in the ground."

"Our supplies will eventually be half-buried at the end of that ravine."

"The three probes are aimed at three different landing sites one kilometer apart. Through this redundant array deployment, the probability that at least one of the three probes will successfully survive will exceed 95%!"

"Military nutritional paste is designed to withstand high overload. And Captain Gu Yu has a Tian Shuttle engineering vehicle, so he can easily dig out the package."

This well-thought-out concept, presented in one go, perfectly solved the risk control problem of the mission by using the concept of redundant delivery.

The entire conference room began to murmur about the feasibility of this plan.

A smile finally appeared on Zhang Jianguo's face.

"This young woman is quite good; she has a broad perspective and is unconventional in her thinking. What's her name?"