"Geoffrey A. Landis - Mars Crossing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Landis Geoffrey A)

Mars tugs at the human imagination like no other planet. With a force
mightier than gravity, it attracts the eye to its shimmering red presence in
the clear night sky. It is like a glowing ember in a field of ethereal lights,
projecting energy and promise.
John Noble Wilford, Mars Beckons (1990)



MARS
 CROSSING

PROLOGUE

LANDING

Don Quijote approached Mars in perfect silence.
At one end of the spacecraft was the habitat, a squat, rounded cylinder
sitting on a heat shield. It was separated from the main rocket engine and
now-empty fuel tanks by two kilometers of tightly stretched rope, a
super-fiber tether so thin as to be nearly invisible. The spacecraft and the
fuel tanks slowly rotated around the center of the tether.
"Arm tether separation."
"Tether separation armed."
"Navigation?"
"Nav is go."
"System status?"
"Systems are go."
Mars loomed, crescent in the sky, a mottled brick of craters and wispy
shreds of cloud.
"Check terminal descent engine preheat."
"TDE preheat on."
"Check parachute deploy preheaters."
"PD preheat on."
"Fire pyros for tether sep on my mark. Three, two, one, now."
The spacecraft jerked, and the tether, suddenly cut free, recoiled away from
the spacecraft, writhing and twisting like an angry snake. The engines, solar
arrays, and fuel tanks sailed slowly off into the distance. They would miss
Mars and sail outbound on an endless trajectory into interplanetary space.
"Tether separation confirmed. We're committed."
"How's the trajectory?"
"We're on the numbers. Looking good."
"Instrument check."
"Instruments green."
"Everything green. We're sliding right down the groove."
"Then buckle up, everybody. We're going in."
The spacecraft burned through the Martian atmosphere, leaving a trail of
fire across a pink sky.
A parachute bloomed, another, and a third; bright yellow flowers blossoming
in a lifeless sky. A moment before it hit the ground, the heat shield fell