Free Web NovelChapter 1389: Chapter 661: The Concept of Constructing a Base on the Moon’s Surface - Part 2
Everyone was looking forward to returning to Earth.
At the same time, the progress of the Mars exploration mission was released and reported by international media, "The Mars-1 spacecraft has passed the most dangerous moment and successfully ascended into space. It will soon enter the designated orbit around Mars."
"At this point, the Mars exploration mission can be said to have mostly succeeded."
"According to the news released by Z country’s aerospace agency and Yixing Company, once the spacecraft formally enters Mars orbit, we can look forward to its return to Earth."
"Now that the most dangerous moment has passed, the spacecraft can slowly fly back to Earth relying on its own performance," they said.
The extensive coverage by international media drew more attention to the situation of the Mars-1 spacecraft, sparking awe and discussion among many people.
Even the successful return of the spacecraft alone would cause a lot of conversation, given that the technological capability involved is overwhelmingly powerful.
At this time, Zhao Yi was still at the aerospace agency, where he would continue working until the spacecraft successfully returned to Earth.
After learning that the spacecraft had passed the most perilous moment, he too took a deep breath, knowing that he could look forward to the spacecraft’s return.
Unable to do anything from the ground, he started pondering the next phase of work.
After the Mars exploration mission ends, the next phase of exploration plans will undoubtedly commence. In the solar system, Mars is the planet most similar to Earth, but it is certain that Mars is not suitable for human habitation.
The main component of Mars’ atmosphere is carbon dioxide, followed by nitrogen and argon, with only small amounts of oxygen and water vapor. Additionally, Mars has a large diurnal temperature variation, and compared to Earth, Mars is extremely cold. Even at the Martian equator, nighttime temperatures can plummet to tens of degrees below zero.
The reason international space exploration is so interested in Mars is not only because of its similarities to Earth but also because Mars is, relatively speaking, quite close to Earth, making research on Mars vitally significant for humanity’s venture beyond our planet.
For Yixing Company, the Mars exploration mission was merely an exploratory experiment. Even within the solar system, the value of Mars isn’t particularly high.
The next stage of space exploration will have to take costs and benefits into consideration.
Zhao Yi had already thought about the direction for the next stage of exploration, mainly in two areas. freёwebnoѵel.com
One is the exploration of Earth-like planets.
There is no doubt that Earth-like planets are very valuable; finding planets similar to Earth, with atmospheres rich in oxygen and abundant surface water, lays the foundation for human and biological life.
With certain modifications, such planets could potentially become destinations for human planetary migration.
Of course.
Exploration of similar planets is unlikely to yield short-term economic returns.
If only economic benefits are considered, planets with precious mineral deposits are most valuable. For instance, some planets are very dense and may have surfaces rich in super-valuable metals.
These super-valuable metals aren’t gold. In fact, in terms of planetary mining, gold can no longer be considered highly valuable.
Some metals are extremely rare on Earth, like rhodium, for example.
Rhodium is a hard, silver-white metal with a high reflectivity and is resistant to oxidation. Even when heated to its melting point, it only temporarily absorbs oxygen from the air, which is then released again during solidification.
Furthermore, rhodium’s resistance to corrosion is quite remarkable, insoluble in most acids and only slightly soluble in aqua regia, with a wide range of industrial applications.
However, the concentration of rhodium in the Earth’s crust is only one part per billion.
On the international precious metals market, the price of one gram of rhodium has always been over five hundred dollars, and sometimes even exceeds a thousand dollars.
Other precious metals, like plutonium and iridium, are also highly valuable.
Precious and rare metals are just one of the goals of planetary mining. On planets with high densities, new discoveries might be made, such as new elements that can be used in industrial manufacturing and aerospace development. At the same time, such discoveries could lead to tremendous scientific and technological progress and create new markets.
And so on.
Yixing Company was a normally operating shareholding company; even when involved in space exploration work, it had to consider the interests of shareholders, and generating profits through the process of space exploration was more than desirable.
Of course.
The detection of Earth-like planets and the mining of planets were tasks to be carried out subsequently; for now, they were just a direction.
The first issue was the need to resolve technical problems.
Yixing Company didn’t need to consider large-scale space exploration, i.e., manufacturing spacecraft for extensive detection, but firing probes toward other star systems certainly demanded ultra-large Z-wave Generation Satellites.
In comparison to the detection of star systems, the existing Z-wave satellites were already severely lacking in power.
Theoretically speaking, the Z-wave satellites orbiting Mars could open a space channel that, at the most, wouldn’t exceed two billion kilometers.
This was already theoretical data.
Although most of the universe consists of a vacuum environment, which has little effect on the coverage distance of Z-waves, ’little’ still means there’s an impact.
There’s no such thing as an absolute vacuum in space; particles do exist there, and, just like the theory of the Higgs field, even in absolute vacuum, Higgs bosons would appear. As long as there are particles with mass, they will affect the coverage range of Z-waves.
When the coverage is too extensive, the impact caused by a very low, or even negligible, particle density also increases, which in turn restricts the coverage range and compression ratio of Z-waves.
For interstellar crossing, where distances are calculated in light-years, the power of Z-wave satellites would need a significant boost.
After a series of calculations, Zhao Yi concluded—
To achieve interstellar jumps measured in light-years, the power of Z-wave satellites would need to be increased by at least fifty times.
Fifty times was not something to be taken lightly.
Spacecraft could achieve interstellar travel because they were powered by nuclear fusion energy, able to provide instantaneous ultra-high power exceeding one million kilowatts per hour, while the power level of Z-wave satellites was measured merely in ’thousands of kilowatts’.
If a fiftyfold increase were to be realized, it would be akin to half an Energy-Gathering Satellite orbiting the Sun needed to supply a single Z-wave Generator. By that time, the reception and conversion blades of the Z-wave device would cover a very large area.
The technical challenges involved were numerous. Such a large-blade installment, even if successfully placed in space, would have a high probability of experiencing issues.
"How can this be solved?"
Zhao Yi delved into deep thought; once he had a direction and ideas, he would certainly go about researching solutions.
The advantage of Yixing Company in space exploration was that they only needed to launch probes to detect valuable planets, thus not needing to consider the safety of shuttle routes.
That was the main reason for the limitations on spacecraft travel.
Quite indeed.
Zhao Yi then thought of a solution—to install the Z-wave devices on a planet without an atmosphere.
The surface of the Moon was an excellent choice because its atmosphere was negligible. Placing devices on the lunar surface was relatively safe and could even involve constructing a living and stationing area for personnel on the Moon’s surface, allowing for prompt control, maintenance, and other operations on the devices.
"By establishing a large Z-wave Generation Station on the surface of the Moon, we could greatly increase the coverage range of the monocrystalline thin films, providing higher power, and enabling direct interstellar jumps."
"Ordinary anti-gravity spacecraft could then carry detectors to achieve traveling."
"As long as high-performance detectors are available, more information can be collected—"
"This is the first step, a crucial one!"
"Moreover, there are many benefits to constructing personnel stations on the Moon. Since the Moon has no atmosphere, we can also instal a super-large radar system for observing the universe—"
