Chapter 614 Mining
Because the starting speed was very fast, the speed of the Magnetic Class 001 spacecraft soon increased to 35 kilometers per second.
At this speed, it would take about 250 to 380 days to reach Jupiter.
Currently, Jupiter is about 760 million kilometers away from the Earth. According to the directions of movement of both sides, we can reach Jupiter in about 277 days.
If it is a Spark-class spacecraft that uses nuclear explosion propulsion, this time will only be 20 to 30 days.
It’s a pity that nuclear explosion propulsion cannot be applied to magnetic-class spacecraft.
However, compared to heading to Jupiter, the destination of the second magnetic-class spacecraft is Mars. At the maximum speed of 35 kilometers per second, the spacecraft only needs 25 to 83 days to arrive.
The third magnetic stage is headed for Venus.
All three magnetic test stages were launched.
And on the spacecraft , the synchronized robot was checking the situation of the monkeys and anthropomorphic bodies.
Judging from the information that has been fed back so far, the experimental monkeys and anthropomorphic bodies are in good condition, and no accidents have occurred to some of the experimental subjects in the freezer.
After all, when Sapiens Company established the Venus Cloud Palace base, it sent two thousand employees to Venus. In terms of human cryopreservation technology, Sapiens Company has a fairly good technical level.
The purpose of testing the magnetic-class spacecraft this time is to eliminate some of the manned Spark-class spacecraft. The speed of these spacecraft is too low, which is not conducive to exploration.
After all, many employees at the Venus Cloud Palace base have already adapted to the gravity of Venus, and no major problems were found during relevant physical examinations.
As the Space Colonization Department that has just taken over Venus, it naturally hopes to send more employees from Earth to Venus.
The old manned spacecraft has a significantly lower speed.
…
Venus.
Cloud Palace Base.
This floating island floating above the atmosphere has now expanded to an area of 15,000 square kilometers.
As Wu Feng, who had just taken over as the head of the Space Colonization Department, he had already gained a preliminary understanding of the situation on Venus.
Taking into account the existence of Venus' atmospheric ecosystem and underground ecosystem, future development work on Venus will focus on floating islands and part of the surface area.
He is currently investigating a new project.
Inside the Yungong Shipyard.
A huge hemispherical device has been completed.
The radius of this hemispherical device is 500 meters.
"Minister, this is the integrated base module we designed and built." Designer Renault patted the outer wall of the hemisphere.
Wu Feng asked worriedly, "Designer Renault, can this thing withstand the high pressure, high temperature and corrosion on the surface of Venus?"
"Don't worry! Minister, we use a high-temperature resistant composite ceramic shell, plus a super-strong alloy layer inside. This thing can last on the surface of Venus for at least 50 years."
Wu Feng looked at the hemisphere in front of him, thinking about the next arrangements in his heart.
This integrated base module is prepared for mining.
Its characteristic is that it can be lifted by an airship and then placed at the required location. After mining is completed, the mining base can be lifted again and placed at a new mining point.
This is the only solution.
If this method is not used, there is no way to mine minerals on the surface of Venus on a large scale.
As the head of the Space Colonization Department, Wu Feng knew as soon as he took office that the bottleneck facing the Venus colony was mineral self-sufficiency.
Why are bases on Mars, the Moon, and Callisto built so quickly? It is because the local mineral resources are self-sufficient and there is no need to transport various raw materials from the Earth.
To colonize a planet, the prerequisite is to achieve self-sufficiency of the colony, so that it can develop steadily.
If we need the earth to deliver basic materials all day long, there would be no question of opening up living space. Instead, it would be a heavy burden.
It is because Wu Feng realizes this that he cares so much about this integrated mining base.
Now, Sapiens Company is not short of oxygen, carbon, sulfur, hydrogen and nitrogen on Venus, but it lacks metal minerals. Although carbon materials can replace a large part of metal materials to a certain extent, some materials must be made of metal materials.
For example, cables, gold-based thermoelectric materials, floating island skeletons, etc., all require the use of metal materials.
In recent years, the Earth Headquarters has transported a total of 470,000 tons of metal materials to the Venus colony, including 283 tons of gold and 1,773 tons of silver.
This kind of reverse transfusion has caused the company's management to be very conflicted.
Wu Feng’s top priority now is to solve the problem of mineral self-sufficiency in the Venus colony.
He ordered Renault: "Start the test!"
"OK."
This hemispherical mining base with a radius of 500 meters slowly opened the hatch at the bottom under the control of the staff, and then was lowered little by little via cables.
Half an hour later.
The mining base was placed on the surface below the Yungong base.
Then came a huge engineering airship, which connected the cable to the mining base. As the gas inside the vacuum sphere inside the airship was pumped out, the buoyancy of the airship rose rapidly.
This airship has a total volume of 5 billion cubic meters and a total buoyancy of more than 2 million tons on the surface of Venus.
The interior of the mining base was empty, and its total weight was only 360,000 tons, so the airship easily lifted the mining base.
Soon the mining base was hoisted onto a pyrite mine.
According to geological exploration data, this pyrite mine is not only exposed on the surface, but the average mineral grade is about 38% to 44%, and the total reserves are about 850 million tons.
In addition, the pyrite also contains some nickel and copper.
As the mining base was completed.
A dozen players on Earth were arranged to work here through synchronized robots.
Of course, in addition to the players on Earth, the Yungong Base also sent several employees to manage the mining base through synchronized robots.
A drill was quickly extended from the bottom of the mining base, and after a mine with a radius of 5 meters was dug, casing was used to ensure that the mine could be separated from the dense atmosphere on the surface.
Miner Li Le turned on the mining equipment, and the pyrite in the mine was crushed and sucked into the mining base.
A heat circulation pipeline is arranged in the insulation layer of the mining base, which uses the 400-500 degrees Celsius temperature on the surface of Venus to generate electricity.
The endless supply of electricity is used directly to separate crude steel, crude sulfur, crude copper and crude nickel through the pure oxygen electric furnace steelmaking method.
In less than a week, the mining base produced 240,000 tons of steel, as well as large amounts of sulfur, copper, nickel and silicon.
The packaged steel was lifted into the Yungong base by the engineering airship.
Seeing that the test of the mining base was going so smoothly, Wu Feng immediately ordered the use of these raw materials, plus some metal materials transported from Earth, to build 10 mining bases.
As long as the mining base continues to expand, the Venus colony will soon be able to get rid of its dependence on Earth for materials.
This means that the size of the Venus colony could quickly snowball.
It wouldn't be too difficult to cover the entire atmosphere of Venus with floating island modules within 10 years.
If the previous plan is followed, it will take at least 50 years for Sapiens to use floating islands to cover the atmosphere of Venus.
Now that many raw materials can be self-sufficient, it means that this time will be greatly reduced.
But Wu Feng also encountered another problem, which was the shortage of manpower.
The current 2,000 Earth immigrant employees at the Yungong base, plus the 13,000 people working on Venus through synchronous robots, are obviously not enough.
He quickly sent letters to various departments on Earth, requesting an increase in the scale of immigration.
