《火星救援》（節選）

安迪·威爾

CHAPTER 1

LOG ENTRY： SOL 6Im pretty much fucked.Thats my considered opinion.

Fucked.

Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life， and its turned into a nightmare.

I dont even know wholl read this. I guess someone will find it eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now.

For the record... I didnt die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did， and I cant blame them. Maybe therell be a day of national mourning for me， and my Wikipedia page will say， “Mark Watney is the only human being to have died on Mars.”

And itll be right， probably. Cause Ill surely die here. Just not on Sol 6 when everyone thinks I did.

Lets see... where do I begin？

The Ares Program. Mankind reaching out to Mars to send people to another planet for the very first time and expand the horizons of humanity blah， blah， blah. The Ares 1 crew did their thing and came back heroes. They got the parades and fame and love of the world.

Ares 2 did the same thing， in a different location on Mars. They got a firm handshake and a hot cup of coffee when they got home.

Ares 3. Well， that was my mission. Okay， not mine per se. Commander Lewis was in charge. I was just one of her crew. Actually， I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be “in command” of the mission if I were the only remaining person.

What do you know？ Im in command.

I wonder if this log will be recovered before the rest of the crew die of old age. I presume they got back to Earth all right. Guys， if youre reading this： It wasnt your fault. You did what you had to do. In your position I would have done the same thing. I dont blame you， and Im glad you survived.

I guess I should explain how Mars missions work， for any layman who may be reading this. We got to Earth orbit the normal way， through an ordinary ship to Hermes. All the Ares missions use Hermes to get to and from Mars. Its really big and cost a lot so NASA built only one.

Once we got to Hermes， four additional unmanned missions brought us fuel and supplies while we prepared for our trip. Once everything was a go， we set out for Mars. But not very fast. Gone are the days of heavy chemical fuel burns and trans-Mars injection orbits.

Hermes is powered by ion engines. They throw argon out the back of the ship really fast to get a tiny amount of acceleration. The thing is， it doesnt take much reactant mass， so a little argon （and a nuclear reactor to power things） let us accelerate constantly the whole way there. Youd be amazed at how fast you can get going with a tiny acceleration over a long time.

I could regale you with tales of how we had great fun on the trip， but I wont. I dont feel like reliving it right now. Suffice it to say we got to Mars 124 days later without strangling each other.

From there， we took the MDV （Mars descent vehicle） to the surface. The MDV is basically a big can with some light thrusters and parachutes attached. Its sole purpose is to get six humans from Mars orbit to the surface without killing any of them.

And now we come to the real trick of Mars exploration： having all of our shit there in advance.

A total of fourteen unmanned missions deposited everything we would need for surface operations. They tried their best to land all the supply vessels in the same general area， and did a reasonably good job. Supplies arent nearly so fragile as humans and can hit the ground really hard. But they tend to bounce around a lot.

Naturally， they didnt send us to Mars until theyd confirmed that all the supplies had made it to the surface and their containers werent breached. Start to finish， including supply missions， a Mars mission takes about three years. In fact， there were Ares 3 supplies en route to Mars while the Ares 2 crew were on their way home.

The most important piece of the advance supplies， of course， was the MAV. The Mars ascent vehicle. That was how we would get back to Hermes after surface operations were complete. The MAV was soft-landed （as opposed to the balloon bounce-fest the other supplies had）. Of course， it was in constant communication with Houston， and if there had been any problems with it， we would have passed by Mars and gone home without ever landing.

The MAV is pretty cool. Turns out， through a neat set of chemical reactions with the Martian atmosphere， for every kilogram of hydrogen you bring to Mars， you can make thirteen kilograms of fuel. Its a slow process， though. It takes twenty-four months to fill the tank. Thats why they sent it long before we got here.

You can imagine how disappointed I was when I discovered the MAV was gone.

第一章

日志：SOL 6

我他媽徹底完蛋了。

這是我考慮再三后的結論。

完蛋。

這六天，本該是我一生中最輝煌的兩個月的開端，結果卻成了一場噩夢的前奏。

我壓根不知道誰會看這些東西。我猜總歸有一天，有人會發現它。沒準得等到一百年后。

說正經的，記錄……Sol 6，我沒死。其他隊友想必都認為我死了，這當然不能怪他們。搞不好過陣子會舉行個國葬，而我的維基百科頁面上也會這么寫：“馬克·沃特尼是迄今為止唯一一個死于火星的人。”

說得沒錯。基本沒錯。我很明白我會死在這兒。不過不是像大家以為的那樣死在Sol 6。

讓我想想……從何說起呢？

阿瑞斯計劃。人類去往火星，將人首次送上另一顆行星，永遠擴展人類地平線，等等，等等。阿瑞斯1 的船員順利完成任務，回到地球，個個成了大英雄。各地為他們舉行慶祝游行，他們舉世聞名，受世人愛戴。

阿瑞斯2 也差不多，唯一的區別就是他們降落在不同的火星地點。他們回老家后，大伙兒爭相和他們熱情握手，外加奉上熱騰騰的咖啡。

阿瑞斯3，唔，就是我的任務。好啦，不是我本人的任務。劉易斯指揮官是頭兒，我只是她的船員。事實上，我是所有船員中級別最低的。只有在一種情況下，我才能“指揮”這次任務，那就是任務全體成員只剩我一人了。

說點好玩的，我現在真成頭兒了。

我估摸著，這臺記錄儀找回來時，其他隊友早都老死了。當然，前提是他們能平安返回地球。伙計們，要是你們能活著看見這臺記錄儀的話，聽好了：不是你們的錯。你們那樣做是迫不得已。換作我，也會作出同樣的決定。我不會怪你們，我很高興你們能活下來。

看記錄的家伙中沒準會有門外漢，我還是先解釋一下火星任務是怎么運作的吧。我們以常規方式進入地球軌道，乘普通飛船登上赫耳墨斯號。所有阿瑞斯計劃的飛行任務都由赫耳墨斯送宇航員往返地球與火星。這艘飛船極其龐大并且耗費驚人，因此，NASA 只造了一艘。

登上赫耳墨斯之后，在準備期間，另有四次無人飛行任務為我們運送燃料和給養。一旦所有準備工作完成，我們就啟程飛向火星。實際上沒那么快。如今不像過去那樣，消耗大量化學燃料，才能將飛船送入火星轉移軌道。

赫耳墨斯由離子發動機驅動，以超高速將氬原子向后拋射，從而獲得飛船整體的微小加速度。也就是說，只需消耗很少的反應物質，所以一點點氬氣（以核反應堆來提供動力），就能在一路上給我們提供持續不斷的加速度。那么微小的加速度，在長時間的累積后，也能給飛船帶來相當快的速度，這種事，想想都叫人吃驚。

我可以給你嘮嘮航行過程中大伙之間的各種樂子，但我不太想說。我現在沒這興致。簡單總結下來，在飛向火星的124 天里，我們誰也沒掐死誰。

進入火星軌道之后，我們乘坐MDV（火星降落載具）抵達火星地表。MDV，基本上就是個安裝了若干輕型推進器和降落傘的大罐子。它的設計目的只有一個：將六個人活著從火星軌道送到地表。

下面得說說火星探索最棘手的部分，那就是得把我們所需的狗屁東西全都提前送到火星。

統統算下來，用了14 次無人飛行任務，才送完我們進行地表作業所需的全部物資。他們想盡一切辦法，盡量將裝滿物資的飛行器運送到火星地表上的大致同一區域，結果也說得過去。物資畢竟沒有大活人那么脆弱，所以那些飛船可以高速著陸。不過帶來的問題就是：它們會彈得老遠。

自然，在確定所有物資都抵達火星表面并且包裝完好之前，他們是不會將我們送往火星的。從開始到結束，包括物資運送，整個火星任務得花三年時間。實際上，當阿瑞斯2 的船員還在回家路上時，阿瑞斯3 的物資飛船就已經飛往火星。

所有提前抵達的物資之中，最重要的莫過于MAV，火星升空載具。完成地表作業之后，要回到赫耳墨斯，全得靠它。MAV 與其他那些歡快地砸向地面、跳得滿地皆是的物資不同，它得軟著陸。當然了，它和休斯敦之間一直保有聯絡，萬一發生什么意外，我們就會掠過火星，直接回老家，取消登陸任務。

MAV 超級酷。簡單說來，通過一系列與火星大氣的化學巧妙反應，它每攜帶1 千克氫去火星，就能產生13 千克燃料。不過反應過程很緩慢，得花上24 個月才能填滿燃料槽。這也是為什么他們會提前那么久把MAV 送上火星。

所以，你能想象到，當我發現MAV 不見了該有多么失望。 ? ? □