The tires creaked over the gravel.
On the endless Mars desert, a rover slowly marched against the wind and sand flying in the air.
This lifeless zone had been undisturbed for a long time. Apart from this AI-controlled all-terrain survey vehicle, only a few microorganisms were still lingering around.
Time seemed to have taken everything away.
In this dead land, every gravel was carved with desolation.
However, today was definitely an extraordinary day for this dead planet.
The roar of the engine came down in the thin atmosphere as a silver-white ring-shaped object slowly descended from the sky. Four thick flames were burning at its front end, blowing toward the red sand on the surface, setting off a small-scale sandstorm.
As if it heard the movement from the sky, this all-terrain survey vehicle turned its camera angle and cast a “confused” look into the air.
It recorded the thrilling scene.
Like a comet hitting the surface, when the ring hit the ground, the flames were instantly extinguished. The billowing sand and dust rushed into the sky like a waterfall, pulling away in a turbid cloud.
[Data has been collected… Preprocessing.]
[Setting is complete.]
The static words flashed on the display. The rover had lost interest in this silver-white ring and continued to move along its original route. Its owner had set up its route to survey the topography and natural resources of Mars.
It had been doing this for years, and it would continue to do so until the machine was damaged or the battery was dead. It did not have any curiosity in collecting data on insignificant things.
The colony capsule didn’t care about its “colleague” who had come to Mars earlier. After landing, the colony capsule immediately began deployment.
Four or five meters long alloy rods drove straight into the ground, fixing the colony capsule firmly on the ground.
Immediately afterward, the silver-white metal shell expanded outwards in four directions. Like an inflated doughnut, it expanded out a planting area that looked somewhat similar to a car airbag.
The deployment went very smoothly.
It was just like the countless practices they did in the desert.
Liang Youcheng stood in the communication room of the colony capsule. He connected to the Xu Fu colonial ship that was hovering in orbit via the console, then briefly reported the current situation.
“This is the outpost of the Mars colony. We have successfully landed.
“The climate and environment here are worse than we thought, but fortunately, everything went smoothly… The colony capsule has been deployed. The installations have been stable so far, and it seems that there are no malfunctions.
“After a short break, we will immediately start today’s work.”
After finishing the work report as concisely and as quickly as possible, Liang Youcheng sent this briefing to the Jinling launch site and also updated it in Xu Fu’s mission log.
Next up, there would be a series of routines such as walking out of the cabin, planting flags, and taking pictures.
While these routine ceremonies were in progress, a four-wheeled Mars rover that looked like an off-road vehicle slowly drove out of the garage outside the buffer room. It was driven by planetary geologist Dr. Fan, and it traveled along a straight trajectory in the sea of gravel.
His destination was the “water source” 7.2 kilometers away from the colony capsule.
There was an underground ice layer 20 meters below the surface, located in the middle of a small basin. According to estimates provided by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, its reserves were about 150 to 400 million cubic meters.
Although many reservoirs on Earth were much larger, relative to the water resources on the Moon, this reserve was a representation of the “great land and resources” on Mars.
For the colonial outpost, water resources were the first thing that must be obtained. Freshwater resources and oxygen were the most fundamental material requirements for the operation of the entire artificial ecosystem.
Followed by renewable resources such as solar and wind energy.
Although the thin and turbid atmosphere on Mars made solar and wind energy less easy to use, it was better to collect energy locally than to use expensive nuclear energy.
After all, the nuclear fusion technology used on space stations and spacecraft was still a bit different from that on the Pangu reactor.
The latter was a positive magnetic confinement ignition device, which released energy akin to a star. Every chain from ignition to heat emission had been designed according to local conditions and required hundreds of engineers to maintain the stable operation of the device.
Meanwhile, the former was nothing more than a pulsed fusion device based on the sonoluminescence phenomenon in liquid metal.
Although this device was countless times smaller than giants such as Pangu and Xihe, the energy utilization efficiency, total power, and cost per unit of electricity were much lower.
And this was one of the reasons why, even though the Moon Palace was equipped with fusion batteries, it still had solar panels with a surface area several times larger than the main body.
The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study was researching how to build a simplified version of the first-generation magnetic confinement ignition device on the Moon to power the ILHCRC collider and other “high-power experimental equipment” at the lunar scientific research station, as well as researching the second-generation helium trifusion technology to increase productivity on the Guanghan Special Economic Zone.
After all these years of development, the energy requirement on the Moon was increasing, so relying solely on solar panels and storage power stations was not sufficient.
And when it came to the upcoming Mars Scientific Research Station…
They could forget about having high-level energy supply facilities any time soon.
The rover stopped in the center of the basin. Fan Tong stepped down from the rover and put down the mobile drilling machine behind the rover. He measured the formation data with seismic waves, then multiple rock formations samples were taken at depths of 10 and 20 meters.
“The rock sampling is complete.”
After a series of electric noises, Captain Liang’s voice soon came from the communication channel.
“How did it go?”
“It’s unbelievable… I mean unbelievably good.” Fan Tong looked at the tablet in his hand. He was leaning against the mobile drilling equipment behind the rover with weird looks on his face. He said, “The data provided by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study is so precise. I can’t help but wonder if they secretly came to Mars before… How did they collect such accurate data?”
Liang Youcheng was not very clear about the whole story, but he was not particularly interested in these small details. The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study was the world’s top research institution, so they obviously had their own methods.
Besides, they had Academician Lu.
Anything unbelievable became reasonable in the face of that man.
“Perhaps the data was collected from the wreckage of New Virginia. That seems to be a long time ago… Who cares. Since the information is accurate, we won’t have to worry about freshwater resources for the next three years.”
A freshwater reserve of more than 100 million cubic meters.
Let alone three years, even if their population increased tenfold, the water could last them 300 years.
The colony capsule was eco-friendly, the demand for external resource input was small. If everything goes well, they could even achieve a complete internal circulation of water resources, but that would consume much more energy.
“Anything else?”
“Um… One more thing I have to report to you.”
With a hint of excitement in his tone, Fan Tong continued, “When I was doing seismic wave testing, I found a… a large seismic crack near here.”
“Seismic crack?” Liang Youcheng frowned. “Are you sure? Like an earthquake crack?”
“I am sure! It’s correct, that kind of fault structure can only be generated by natural seismic activity. Because of the relatively low terrain, it was not buried by the wind and sand! However, surprisingly, according to the information I have learned in the literature, the geological activity of Mars should have ceased billions of years ago. This kind of geological structure is commonly found in areas of active plate movement… This is very unusual. Can I go and take a look?”
Planetary geology was his major.
The excitement in his heart at this moment could no longer be described in words.
Although it was only a small fracture, its discovery could change human civilization’s understanding of Mars! As a scholar, could there be anything more exciting than this?
Compared to Dr. Fan’s excitement, Liang Youcheng was much calmer.
After thinking carefully for a while, he finally rejected this risky proposal.
“Come back first, your mission today is over, it’s better not to take on additional tasks.”
Fan Tong: “I assure you that there is absolutely no danger! Its depth is only about ten meters, I can climb up even without a safety rope… Of course, I will tie one around my waist.”
“Come back now, that is an order.” Liang Youcheng said in a serious tone, “Photograph your findings and record them in today’s work log. I will let Ming Wenzhe follow you tomorrow.”
There was a long silence, and finally, a soft sigh came from the communication channel.
“Okay… You are right.”
Fan Tong reluctantly glanced at the fracture behind him. He shook his head and threw his tool back into the rover. He then got into the rover cockpit.
Inside the communication room, when Liang Youcheng saw the positioning signal moving on his screen, he was relieved.
Confirming the freshwater resource was the last task for today.
Everything was going well, and he didn’t want to have any accidents.
But having said that, he was also curious about the “earthquake crack” that shouldn’t be there.
He made up his mind that, after Dr. Fan returned, he would report the situation to the ground command center. The researchers on Earth could then decide on whether to conduct further investigations…
