Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 386 Martian Sunrise
The next morning.

Zhong Cheng woke up from his deep sleep, came to the command center of the Star Reacher, and welcomed the sun's rise on Mars with everyone.

Yesterday the advance team was busy laying the airstrip and had no time to watch the sunrise. Today, it is considered to have leisure time.

5:30 a.m. Martian time.

From the far end of the horizon in the east, accompanied by light blue light, a round of blue sun is rising.

The light blue sun dispelled the darkness, shining the first ray of sunlight on the desolate Meridian Plateau, and also on a group of alien visitors on the Asterisker.

A new day has begun on Mars.

Because the distance between Mars and the sun is much greater than the distance between the earth and the sun, the size of the sun seen on Mars is only two-thirds of that seen on the earth.

If the sun seen on the earth is the size of a basketball, the sun seen on Mars is like a volleyball.

The color of the sun itself is white.

Because the earth has an atmosphere, sunlight will be absorbed by particles when passing through the atmosphere, and a small part of it will be refracted to the earth, and it will turn yellow or red in human eyes.

But on Mars, what people see is a blue or white sun.

Like Earth, Mars has an atmosphere, but only a very thin one remains.

In addition, there is abundant hematite on Mars, and even the surface of Mars is covered with a layer of red.

As a result, Mars' atmosphere is slightly reddish.

When the sun shines on Mars, the light is severely scattered and refracted.

Red light with longer wavelengths is more easily scattered, while blue and violet light with shorter wavelengths are left behind.

However, blue light is easier to see than violet light, hence the blue sunrises and sunsets seen on Mars.

After watching the sunrise and eating breakfast, Zhong Cheng arranged everyone's tasks.

Because of supply problems and Mars is moving away from the earth, it is impossible for large forces to stay on Mars for a long time.

In the ignition plan, the Star Reacher will stay on Mars for only seven days, and will return to Earth with most of the people after seven days.

Hu Bo and Li Qiwei led engineers to build the scientific research base on the spot, and Zhao Wei led people to collect and study relevant information and data on building the Mars ladder.

Ye Wenhao and eight astronomers and related technicians set off in four Mars engineering vehicles in four directions and circled Mars for a week.

They will study in detail features such as the atmosphere and mineral composition and topographic relief on the surface of Mars, most importantly the condition of the Martian magnetic field.

In fact, in the Meridian Base, everyone has detected the weak magnetic field on Mars, which is only equivalent to one ten-thousandth of the strength of the Earth's magnetic field.

Still, it's an exciting discovery, proving that Mars' magnetic field has been slowly recovering after being disrupted for more than 30 billion years.

However, according to this recovery rate, the sun may be dead, and it will not reach the level of the earth's magnetic field.

Therefore, it is still necessary for humans to exert external force to speed up the progress of Mars' restoration of the magnetic field.

The diameter of Mars is about half that of Earth, about 6779 kilometers, so the circumference of Mars is also half that of Earth, about [-] kilometers.

The exploration teams will spend 5 days orbiting Mars. After returning to the Meridian Base, they will return to Earth the next day, and the time is still very tight.

Ye Wenhao and his four team members will head west along the equator and return from the east, passing through the Sailor Canyon and Mount Olympus.

Because along the equator will be the most prosperous area on Mars in the future, most of the human immigration cities and wood grain plantations will be built on the highlands or plateaus around the equator.

Their main task is to examine the future immigrant city and the location of the wood grain plantation.

Another expedition will head straight north, passing through the Arsidalia Plain in the north, to reach the Arctic Plateau.

Then cross the Arctic plateau and go south to the Amazon plain, cross the Lukus plateau on the equator, and reach the Antarctic plateau.

The main task of this exploration team is to study the geographical and geological conditions of the north and south poles of Mars and the restoration of the magnetic field.

The other two detection teams headed northeast and northwest respectively, and finally returned from the southwest and southeast.

The detection range of the four exploration teams will cover 60% of the surface of Mars, and they will obtain the most direct and extensive detection data on Mars in human history.

Everyone drove five Mars engineering vehicles off the Star Reacher, and the exploration team will drive away four vehicles, leaving one for emergency.

Unlike the lunar engineering vehicle, the Mars engineering vehicle is more similar to the large electric flying vehicle on the earth. It also has a triangular tail, which can reach 5 times the speed of sound with the help of the air buoyancy on Mars.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, four detection teams set off.

Zhong Cheng watched them leave, feeling very regretful in his heart, he really wanted to lead the team to travel around Mars himself.

But he has more important work to do.

Not only did he have to sit in the Meridian Base and command the various teams in the center, but he also had to work with Zhao Weiyi to confirm the construction plan of the Martian Ladder.

While on Earth, the project team of the second phase of the Nantianmen Project proposed three plans for the construction of the Martian ladder.

The three options are to build a space station in a geostationary orbit above the Martian equator, and then connect it to the ground with a space elevator.

The difference is how the counterweights that stabilize the space station are built.

The first option is artificial construction, because the ladder system of Mars is much smaller than that of the earth, so artificially manufacturing an iron ball weighing several million tons can meet the needs.

The second option is to go to the asteroid belt to capture an asteroid much smaller than Icarus.

The third option is to directly use the satellite of Mars - Deimos.

When on Earth, everyone's opinion leans towards the second option, because Mars is very close to the asteroid belt, and asteroids smaller than Icarus are much less difficult to capture.

To capture another asteroid to serve as the counterweight of the Mars ladder, the amount of work is much smaller than that of the Star Reaching Project.

But after observing and analyzing on Mars in the past few days, Zhong Cheng changed his mind.

He found that it is more feasible to change the orbit of Deimos to make it a geostationary satellite of Mars, and then build a space station directly on Deimos.

Deimos is the smallest satellite of Mars, with an average radius of 6.2 kilometers and a distance of more than 2 kilometers from Mars. It circles Mars in a period of 3 hours, and its orbital speed is 30.3 kilometers per second.

The orbits of Phobos and Deimos are almost circular and close to the equatorial plane of Mars. As long as the orbital speed of Deimos is reduced, it will automatically descend to the Mars geostationary orbit more than 1 kilometers away from the surface of Mars. It can keep it relatively still with the ground of Mars without any external force.

Although Deimos has a mass of more than 1800 billion tons, it is not too difficult to just slightly reduce its speed.

In this regard, Red Star Company also has rich experience.

Deimos has an average density of 2.2 g/cm, and like Phobos is an ice ball.

Relying on Deimos to build a space station will not only save trouble, but also provide the space station with inexhaustible water resources.

After discussing with Zhao Wei and others, Zhong Cheng and Zhao Wei all agreed that the plan of using Deimos to build the Martian ladder is the most economical and practical.

Zhong Cheng didn't want to waste any more time, he held a remote video conference with the senior management of Red Star Company on Earth.

The plan was finalized at the meeting, and Zhou Hu arranged for Lanyue to come to Mars with the corresponding equipment that captured Icarus last year, and immediately began the orbit adjustment project for Deimos.

Because it is necessary to change the orbit of Deimos, which weighs more than 1800 billion tons, even if it is fine-tuned, it will take more than half a year.

(End of this chapter)