Chapter 556: Journey (I)
Boom! A huge spaceship, spitting out reverse thrust engines, slowly landed above the Utopia Plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
The spacecraft is a 6,000-ton Allspark-class spacecraft.
It did not come to Mars alone, but was combined with four other Spark spacecraft. A huge anti-radiation shield was installed at the back, and then it used the nuclear explosion of a miniature hydrogen bomb to quickly advance to Mars.
Currently, using nuclear explosion propulsion, it only takes 45 to 127 Earth days for Sapiens' unmanned spacecraft to travel to Mars.
Five Spark spaceships were tied together, one of which was a nuclear bomb warehouse and thruster core, and the remaining four Spark spaceships were here to carry out missions.
Two of them will land in the Utopia Planitia region in the northern hemisphere of Mars and establish the first Martian surface scientific research station - Utopia Station.
The other two Spark spacecraft will remain in Mars' sun-synchronous orbit and serve as Martian space stations.
At this time, in the cockpit of the Spark spacecraft that landed on Mars, three robots were controlling the spacecraft.
"Captain, everything is normal, we can land." The robot spoke, with a nameplate on its chest that read: HX-0075.
"Permitted to land," another robot ordered directly.
"Roger that, start landing."
The nozzle of the Spark spacecraft's reverse thrust engine was constantly adjusted, and the light blue flame it spewed out was also weakening little by little, until the bottom of the spacecraft was less than 5 meters from the ground.
"Deploy the buffer rack."
Twelve mechanical legs popped out from the bottom of the spacecraft and inserted directly into the loose sand on the surface. The hydraulic pumps and shock absorbers of the mechanical legs, as well as the spacecraft's own automatic balancing and stabilization system, allowed the spacecraft to stay steadily on the sand.
Then the light blue flame from the engine nozzle went out.
"Landing successful." Robot No. 0075 made a slightly joyful sound.
Robot 0074 looked at the dashboard and then ordered, "King, check all systems."
Robot 0076 immediately replied: "Received."
As the captain of the robot No. 0074, he immediately contacted the captain of the other spaceship. The two sides communicated for a few minutes and confirmed that there were no problems before writing a report to reply to the headquarters on Earth.
These robots are not artificial intelligence, but real "people".
To be precise, it is the people who control the robots, not the supercomputers and intelligent programs.
Although intelligent programs, which are supported by huge computing power, can simulate humans and perform some relatively rigid tasks according to set programs, they are ultimately not as flexible as humans.
Especially when conducting extraterrestrial exploration, alien planets are often very far away from the earth, and the artificial intelligence of the spacecraft alone is not enough to cover all aspects.
After research, the Space Division decided to use the previously developed 16-fold magnetic monopole crystal as communication equipment.
In an ultra-low temperature environment, the 16-fold magnetic monopole crystal has a maximum service life of 2739 Earth days. With a service life of more than seven years, it is obviously ready for practical application.
This improved version of the magnetic monopole crystal, as the core of the communication system, can communicate without delay.
At least for now, there is no obvious delay between the Mars landing spacecraft and the Earth headquarters.
This is also the reason why these robots can be controlled by humans. In the robot's communication module, there is a magnetic monopole crystal communicator, which corresponds to an exclusive control cabin at the Earth headquarters.
In this way, space division staff can directly control the robot to perform tasks on Mars.
Although this new type of magnetic monopole crystal has a service life of only over seven years, its delay-free communication performance is so attractive in the eyes of the space division.
…
The operator of robot 0074 is called Dimash, one of the two captains of the Mars landing spacecraft.
He had just reported the landing mission to Earth headquarters, and another robot, Gene 0076, reported the status of the spacecraft's various systems to him:
"Captain, all systems of the spacecraft are normal, and there is still 62% of chemical fuel remaining."
"Well, you and Wang, get ready. We will start to ."
"yes."
The Spark spacecraft weighs 6,000 tons and carries a total of 2,760 tons of cargo, excluding some fuel and spacecraft structure.
These include two cobalt rod nuclear power cabins, seven experimental cabins, four tool cabins, and four supply cabins.
These cabins are not assembled, but need to be installed and debugged on site.
Dimash walked out of the cockpit. The sky was gray and hazy. It was the season when sandstorms were frequent in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
Since the various movements were sensed through the robot's sensors, even though Sapiens' biosensor technology was very advanced, Dimash could still feel a hint of unreality.
There is always a sense of disharmony when the robot steps on the sand, and Dimash is very helpless about this, and he knows the reason very well.
Because the robot is on Mars at this time, while its main body is on Earth, the different gravity coefficients and air densities between the two will make the robot operator feel uncoordinated. This is a very normal situation and cannot be avoided.
Unless Dimash himself comes to Mars, this sense of disharmony cannot be eliminated.
Under the influence of sandstorm.
Dimash only saw a hazy outline more than a hundred meters away, which was another landing spacecraft.
He looked up at the sky and saw a light blue sphere looming in the dust cloud.
That's the sun.
The sun seen from Mars is light blue.
This is because the Martian atmosphere is mainly composed of carbon dioxide, so after the sun passes through the carbon dioxide filter, it becomes light blue.
He checked the surrounding terrain through the built-in auxiliary system and the spacecraft's own magnetic field detector.
Although the Utopia Plain is very flat, it is only relatively flat. Some terrain undulations of several tens of meters are actually the norm.
Walking on the surface of Mars is like walking on marshmallows. Not only is the body of the aircraft light, but even the sand can easily leave footprints.
This situation is caused by the relatively low gravity on Mars. The frequent sandstorms, coupled with the low gravity, make the sand layer accumulated on the surface very soft.
Through careful scanning of the magnetic field detector, he quickly identified a lowland 330 meters away to the west, where there was a stable bedrock layer about 50 meters underground.
Although the various cabins do not have high requirements for terrain, and there are no frequent major earthquakes on Mars, there is no need to worry too much about the terrain.
But Dimash still chose a relatively low-lying area with hard bedrock.
Although Mars does not have strong geological activity, it does not mean that we can sit back and relax.
On the contrary, Mars is more dangerous than Earth.
The reason is that Mars itself has a thin atmosphere and is close to the asteroid belt and Jupiter. Those asteroids thrown out by Jupiter's gravity can easily approach the orbit of Mars.
Therefore, Mars is easily attacked by asteroids. Without a dense atmosphere to wear away the surface, asteroids can have great destructive power on the planet's surface.
This is also an issue that must be considered when building a base on the surface of Mars.
Dimash and Chen Baojun, the captain of a landing spacecraft, determined the specific location of the base layout, and then the two of them began to lead their respective team members to start the base construction work.
However, considering safety, the bases built by the two teams were not together, but were about 200 meters apart.
This is to take precautionary measures to prevent the base facilities from being concentrated together and being destroyed by an asteroid.
