Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
It had been almost two weeks since they landed on Mars, three days since the life support system was named “New Virginia”.
During this time, the New Virginia survey plans went quite smoothly. Even though they encountered a 17-hour sandstorm, it passed away without doing any harm.
In fact, Mars’ atmosphere was a hundred times thinner than Earth, so a sandstorm itself was not particularly dangerous. What was dangerous was the electrostatic lightning that came with the sandstorms and the decline of sunlight. This prevented the solar-powered devices from getting enough energy.
However, this kind of event had already been taken into consideration by Space-X’s Mars colonization project team. The life support system was equipped with a methane generator, which could replace the solar-powered devices to supply energy.
The first thing these colonists did after landing was to install lightning rods for their home, to prevent any possible accidents…
Although they encountered many difficulties adapting to life on Mars, they were able to overcome them. They cooperated with the NASA ground command center to complete the scheduled scientific research missions. Johnson usually took half an hour every day to film his “Mars Diaries”.
He was the “Columbus” of this new “continent”, so he obviously hoped that more people would be interested in “New Virginia”. Therefore, when he was shooting videos, he usually chose to show the more glamorous parts of his Martian life. He never filmed the dangerous and bad sides of his life.
Actually, his “vlogging advertisement” was quite successful. People took the bait and began to discuss living on Mars. Each episode of the Mars Diaries caused enthusiastic discussions on Facebook and Twitter.
So far, five episodes of “Mars Diaries” had been released. It had become one of the most popular Internet shows in North America. Many TV stations even purchased broadcasting rights from Space-X.
Today was the filming of episode 6.
Johnson placed the camera on the table and took two steps back. He then smiled brightly, exposing his white teeth, as he greeted the camera.
“Hello, guys! It’s Johnson here, the captain of the Heart of Gold! It’s been a while since we last talked!
“Unfortunately, we encountered a sandstorm! We can’t explore outside today… But don’t worry about us, we’re not worried about being blown away by the wind, and the tornado barely tickles us.
“I want to use this opportunity to show you guys what we do on Mars when we can’t explore outside…”
Johnson picked up the camera equipment from the table and walked to the common area. He explained to the audience what they did to kill time, such as playing VR games or running on the treadmill.
“This is our entertainment lounge… It is a bit small, but this is still in the early stages… Hey, Travis, say hi to everyone.”
Travis was playing video games. He gave a fake smile at first, but when he noticed Johnson’s scary eyes, he changed it to a real smile.
Johnson gave him a thumbs up.
“I’ll cut that out, you’re welcome.”
“Thanks, Johnson.”
Travis rolled his eyes and put on his VR goggles. He then went back to playing his video game.
Actually, life up here was rather boring. It was far less utopian than Johnson had portrayed.
However, the downsides were obviously not shown in the vlogs. Even if he accidentally filmed it, the team at Space-X would cut the “bad” parts of the video out.
However, that was often not necessary.
Because he rarely filmed the negative side of things.
By speaking into the camera, he was communicating with people from tens of millions of kilometers away. It became a daily routine for him. If there were more things to film and editing didn’t take as long, he would gladly film one vlog per day.
After showing the viewers Travis playing video games and Julia reading a book next to the coffee machine, Johnson walked into the garage and stood next to his “car”.
“All good things come to an end. It is time to say goodbye. I look forward to talking to you guys again. I hope you look forward to the next episode, bye…”
Johnson put on a cool pose in front of the camera and ended today’s shoot.
He heard footsteps coming toward the garage. Travis, who had finished playing his video game, walked over.
He looked at Johnson standing next to the rover and folded his arms. He complained to Johnson.
“This damn vlog doesn’t make me feel good at all.”
Johnson smiled and tucked the camera into his pocket. He walked up to Travis and patted him on the shoulder.
“Take it easy, buddy. After the sandstorm passes, I’ll take you out for a drive.”
Travis said, “I don’t want to drive, go yourself. There’s nothing but sand here! God damn it, why did I come here?”
There obviously were no roads on Mars, so driving over sand was fine, but last time, they had to drive around the more rocky areas to collect samples. The drive was extremely bumpy and uncomfortable.
After living on Mars for a while, Travis was quite resistant toward outdoor missions. He demanded his work be moved indoors.
Johnson decided to approve his demands.
Instead, Julia was transferred to outdoor missions.
Fortunately, these missions didn’t require many people. Most of the pieces of equipment were highly automated, so most of the time they didn’t even need to get off their rover.
Before sending the life support system to Mars, NASA considered the case where none of the colonists would want to leave the cabin.
To put it bluntly, their main mission was to test the life support system, and most of the other scientific activities were just supplementary.
“Okay, bud, everything will be okay. We flew for two months just to get here, the fun is just starting to begin.”
Johnson didn’t know how to respond to his teammate’s complaints, so he could only try to comfort him.
Regardless of whether Travis was comforted or not, this was the only thing Johnson could do.
However, what Johnson didn’t know was that tens of millions of kilometers away, the NASA ground command center was in chaos.
That’s right.
There was nothing scary about a Mars sandstorm.
However, a Mars sandstorm could last more than six months. Even if they used the methane generator as a backup power source, they might not last six months…
