Chapter 635: Rapid Progress
The Qinglong-class space battleship flying to Mars accelerated for 20 hours and reached a speed of 200 kilometers per second.
At this time, the distance to Mars is 160 million kilometers.
At a speed of 200 kilometers per second, it would only take 222 hours to reach Mars.
Of course, considering the deceleration time, it is estimated that it will reach Mars after 237 hours.
It takes less than 10 days to fly from Earth to Mars, which is very fast.
Captain Yin Siyong and several pilots were in the cockpit, closely watching the star zone monitoring system.
The speed of the battleship is extremely fast, but the risks also increase.
At the current speed of the Qinglong-class ship, if it hits an asteroid, the consequence would be the destruction of the ship and the death of people on board. Although Yin Siyong and others are serving through synchronized robots, the cost of building a Qinglong-class ship is not small.
Therefore, they must keep a close eye on the star region monitoring data and monitor any asteroid with a diameter exceeding 1 cm.
"Report, an asteroid with a diameter of 3.4 meters has been detected 14,783 kilometers ahead."
"Report……"
Yin Siyong looked at the densely packed asteroids on the holographic star map with a serious expression on his face.
Although there are few large asteroids, there are quite a few asteroids ranging from a few centimeters to a few meters between the orbits of the Earth and Mars.
These asteroids are a deadly threat to spacecraft traveling at high speeds.
Sailing too fast is also a problem.
First mate Michel thought for a while, then turned around and suggested, "Captain, if new propulsion systems are deployed on a large scale in the future, the speed of spacecraft will be very high, and we must find a way to clear the asteroids on the route."
"Well, I will propose it to the headquarters." Yin Siyong certainly knew that the asteroids on the route were an issue that must be taken seriously.
If we don't pay attention to it now, the company's increasing number of spacecraft in the future will become a huge hidden danger.
The battleship constantly adjusted its flight direction during the flight.
Fortunately, the warship has entered a state of inertial flight at this time and does not need additional power to continue accelerating. The auxiliary thrusters that change the direction of navigation and the internal power system of the warship do not use nuclear fusion power generation, but nuclear fission reactors.
The reason for using a nuclear fission reactor is to achieve cost-effectiveness and to use good steel on the blade.
The nuclear fusion power system is mainly used to supply energy to the main thrusters and weapons and equipment, while the electrical energy from the nuclear fission reactor is used for auxiliary thrusters and internal electricity.
In this way.
This time , the voyage will take 20 hours of acceleration and 20 hours of deceleration before the nuclear fusion power system will be started.
It was only powered on for 40 hours, and only two of the Levis rings were activated, which greatly increased the service life of the lithium-carbon nanolayer of the nuclear fusion power system.
In this way, the Qinglong-class nuclear fusion power system can fly back and forth from Earth to Mars 150 to 180 times before the lithium-carbon nanolayer of the nuclear fusion power system needs to be replaced.
210 hours later.
At this time, the battleship was very close to Mars.
Yin Siyong immediately ordered: "Start slowing down!"
Next to the main thruster at the rear of the battleship, there are six secondary thrusters. The nozzles of these secondary thrusters are slanted forward and outward, exactly in the opposite direction of the main thruster.
The function of these six secondary thrusters is to slow down.
As the two Levis rings of the nuclear fusion power system were activated again, the six secondary thrusters began to spew out dense, high-speed plasma.
The battleship's speed decreased.
It is expected that after 20 hours, the speed of the battleship will drop to about 6 kilometers per second, at which time the battleship will be captured by the gravity of Mars and become a "satellite" of Mars.
And Mars' rotation orbit.
Phobos and Deimos have completely turned into the shape of Homo sapiens, and the surface of the planets is covered with various artificial facilities.
Among them, Phobos is the location of the first shipyard on Mars and the spaceport where the Qinglong-class battleship is planned to be docked.
20 hours later.
This Qinglong-class space battleship slowly docked not far from Phobos, with the distance between the two being less than 150 kilometers.
About half an hour later, a maintenance spacecraft arrived next to the Qinglong class.
A large number of maintenance personnel boarded the Qinglong class and began a comprehensive inspection of the battleship, especially the nuclear fusion power system, which was installed on board for the first time, and was the focus of the inspection.
In addition, repairing spacecraft also brings a large amount of water resources. These water resources are the nuclear fuel of the nuclear fusion power system. The water is ionized, and hydrogen is used as fuel for nuclear fusion, and oxygen is used as the working fluid of the plasma thruster.
Water is the best fuel for spacecraft traveling within the solar system. After all, pure hydrogen is very troublesome to store. Using water kills two birds with one stone: hydrogen is used as nuclear fuel and oxygen is used as the working fluid of plasma thrusters. Water is very easy to store.
Seeing that the maintenance would take about 50 hours, Yin Siyong and others took the battleship's synchronous robot offline, and then temporarily put the synchronous robot of Mars Zhurong City online to take a tour here.
Zhurong City on Mars.
Not on Mars, but in Mars' synchronous orbit.
This is a huge spiral space city with a spiral arm length of 15 kilometers. In order to build this space city, the Homo Sapiens company hollowed out more than a dozen iron-nickel asteroids in the asteroid belt.
At the end of the huge spiral arm is the standard gravity living area.
The eight spiral arms are connected in a series of annular cabins.
Yin Siyong arrived at the standard gravity area through a synchronous robot, where the pseudo-gravity is similar to the gravity on Earth.
The annular cabin is also very large, with a diameter of 300 meters.
There are 2,793 new humans living here.
Standing on the ground of the annular cabin, it feels like being on the surface of the earth. There are specially built villas on the ground, as well as a large number of flowers, plants and trees.
Yin Siyong even saw some dragonflies and bees.
"It seems that this pseudo-gravity can already replace the Earth's gravity."
"Probably not yet!" First mate Michel squatted next to a field of tulips and smelled the strong fragrance of the tulips.
That’s right, the new generation of synchronous robots can smell and provide the same smell feedback to the main body.
Yin Siyong shook his head: "In fact, there is a way for Mars to become Earth."
"Are you talking about the additive plan? This project is too risky and the headquarters probably won't agree to it." Michelle stood up with a look of surprise on her face.
The so-called additive plan is one of the backup plans of Sapiens to transform Mars.
The core principle is to transport asteroids from the asteroid belt and mine some of the minerals from Jupiter's satellites, and then fill these minerals into Mars.
As long as Mars has the same mass as Earth, then Mars' gravity will be the same as Earth's.
This plan could solve the gravity problem on Mars once and for all, but the risks of doing so are extremely high, and the plan has been shelved for the time being.
