Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 361 Icarus Asteroid

The Suzaku fighter flew out of the Okator crater, and flew towards the equator of Ceres from a low altitude of 1000 meters.

This is also a silent, lifeless planet with a cold, pitted and uneven surface.

Research at the Penglai base has proved that although Ceres is rich in water resources, it does not have any signs of life.

The results of the study, published last year, once again dashed hopes for life in our solar system beyond Earth.

At that time, there was a heated discussion, and the argument that life on earth is a special phenomenon in the universe once again gained the upper hand.

Ten minutes later, a huge "iceberg" reflecting seven colors of light appeared on the horizon, with many bright stripes on both sides, resembling a huge pyramid.

It is not too much to think that such a mountain peak appears on the desolate land.

Zhong Cheng had to admit that Ceres was far superior to the moon in terms of tourism value alone.

Raymond said it was Mount Ahunammons, named after the astronomy community, and they called it "New Tianshan".

The peak of this mountain is 4000 meters above sea level, but this is not the highest mountain on Ceres.

Scientists at the base have determined that the bright streaks on the sides of the mountain are actually salt deposits left over from the formation of Ahunammons.

A column of brine and mud rising from the interior of Ceres at that time pierced the surface of Ceres, forming the mountain seen today.

Scientists think this mechanism is somewhat similar to volcanoes formed by magma flows from land.

Beneath Ceres' surface lies a highly salty, cloudy "mud" that rose up and eventually passed through the crust, forming Ahunammons Mons.

Raymond didn't go into details, but said with more interest that they will build a permanent military base in New Tianshan, as one of the most important nodes of the asteroid belt defense line.

In this military base, it will be equipped with a large number of super giant electromagnetic guns and laser cannons, which can cover the starry sky of several million kilometers centered on Ceres.

Because of the revolution of Ceres, this will also be a mobile space fortress.

Zhong Cheng didn't hit him, because planets like Ceres are constantly moving, so building a line of defense in the asteroid belt is a huge project.

This requires the establishment of ground turrets on hundreds or thousands of asteroids, as well as a space fleet cruising, in order to build a tight defense system.

If these planets do not move relative to the earth, the amount of engineering will be reduced by more than 80%, but of course this is impossible.

This asteroid belt defense project federation has not been announced to the public, that is, it is worried that such a large project volume will be attacked by public opinion, which is inconsistent with the current peaceful atmosphere in human society.

After the Suzaku fighter flew over the equator of Ceres, it flew west along the equator.

Along the way, Meng Ye introduced to Zhong Cheng some famous craters and high mountains on the ground, and some "scenic spots" that he thought were worth seeing, and he also flew over to let Zhong Cheng see them.

But Ceres is indeed too small, and the circumference above the equator is only more than 3000 kilometers. At the cruising speed of the Suzaku fighter here, it takes more than ten minutes to make a circle.

Meng Ye took Zhong Cheng to "walk around" for four hours, then circled Ceres and returned to the Penglai Base.

But during these four hours, Zhong Chengcheng saw more than a dozen meteorites smashed to the ground of Ceres, as well as more than 100 asteroids across the sky.

He clearly realized that Ceres exists in the asteroid belt and is the largest celestial body in it.

The huge mass of Ceres unconsciously attracts asteroids that "pass by" from around, and pulls some of the less massive ones into its embrace.

This is actually the process of the formation of a large planet like the earth, but because Jupiter is "watching" aside, Ceres lost the opportunity to grow.

……

Eighteen days later, the artificial rework system at the Penglai Base was completed on schedule.

However, only a small half of the Taiyi Alloy 401 brought by Zhaixing was used, and the rest was handed over to Xu Yongfu for use in the subsequent base construction.

Zhong Cheng asked them to use it freely, and Red Star Company will provide it in large quantities in the future.

More than half of the carrying capacity on the Star Reacher was empty, and a large amount of supplies and power materials were loaded.

There is no atmosphere on Ceres, so there is also no shortage of helium-3 elements.

Although the Penglai base has not yet built a large-scale helium-3 refining plant, excess helium-3 has also been produced using experimental equipment.

The base personnel lived in a room with the same gravity as the earth, and their health quickly recovered.

The stagnant construction and scientific research projects of the base were restarted, and the "gloomy clouds" hanging over the base were swept away, and it was full of vitality again.

The seriously ill patient recuperated on the Asterisker has been able to walk on the ground.

Except for 68 people who really couldn't adapt to the environment here and needed to take the asterisk to return to Earth, the others moved back to the residence of Gushen Building,

In this way, the crew of the Star Reacher has reached the approved number of 180 people.

Zhong Cheng promised that Wu Tie's rescue mission was successfully completed, and the rest will be their own mission, which is also a project that has never been carried out in human history-capturing asteroids.

Earth time on September 3.

When it was time for the Asterisker to set sail again, the Penglai base held a simple farewell party for everyone.

Zhong Cheng bid farewell to Xu Yongfu and Meng Ye with regret.

If there were no accidents, it would be impossible for him to come to Ceres again. He could only hope to see them on Earth, or on Mars in the future.

Since there is no air to provide lift, the Star Reacher just uses the Zhurong electric pusher installed under the belly of the fuselage to lift the head of the fuselage and take off at an elevation angle of 30 degrees.

The escape velocity on Ceres is 0.51 kilometers per second, which is only 15/1.5 of the escape velocity of the earth, equivalent to only [-] times the speed of sound.

The Star Reacher easily broke free from the shackles of Ceres, and flew straight to the sea of ​​stars after leaving the orbit of Ceres.

They wanted to find a suitable asteroid among the hundreds of thousands of asteroids moving at high speed in the asteroid belt.

The asteroid must meet strict criteria for mass, density and shape.

But this seemingly task of finding a needle in a haystack is actually not as difficult as imagined.

Because when he was on the earth, Yang Xi studied all the asteroids with recorded data in the asteroid belt and screened out 36 suitable targets.

After arriving at Ceres, he obtained first-hand information from the astronomers in the Penglai base.

Finally, a target was identified: the asteroid Icarus, numbered 1566.

The asteroid Icarus has a diameter of about 1.5 kilometers, a revolution period of 408 days, and a rotation period of 2 hours and 16 minutes.

It is the asteroid with the smallest orbit (semi-major diameter of 1.6 million kilometers) and the largest eccentricity (0.827) among known asteroids.

Therefore, its perihelion distance is 0.278 million kilometers, which is closer to the sun than Mercury.

And the most important thing is that according to the first-hand observation data of the Penglai base, the Icarus asteroid is composed entirely of basalt rich in iron or titanium, with a mass of about 2 million tons.

It just meets the needs of Red Star Company to build the ladder counterweight.

The asteroid Icarus is currently orbiting in a triangular position with the Earth and Ceres, about 2.5 million kilometers away from Ceres and about 3 million kilometers away from Earth.

Now Zhaixing is going straight to the asteroid Icarus, preparing to capture it and bring it back to the earth. There will be a long journey of 5.5 million kilometers!

(End of this chapter)