Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 408 Venus and Mercury

Zhong Cheng returned to Meridian City, called Yang Xi, Lin Wei and others together, and talked about his thoughts on the development of Venus and Mercury.

Venus is a terrestrial planet similar to Earth and is often referred to as Earth's sister star.

The diameter of the earth is 12742 kilometers, and the diameter of Venus is 12103 kilometers. The density is also similar to that of the earth, so it has almost the same gravity as the earth.

But Venus has the thickest atmosphere of the four terrestrial planets, more than 96 percent of which is carbon dioxide, and the atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus is 92 times that of Earth.

The average temperature on its surface is as high as 462 degrees Celsius, making it the hottest planet in the solar system, hotter than Mercury, which is closest to the sun.

Venus is covered by a cloud of highly reflective, opaque sulfuric acid, which blocks visible light from space that might reach the surface.

And because the rotation speed of Venus is extremely slow, and the rotation period is as high as 243 days, it cannot form a magnetic field.

The original water resources on Venus were decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen due to the lack of planetary magnetic field protection due to photodisintegration, and the free hydrogen was blown away by the solar wind and escaped into the interstellar space, resulting in almost no water on Venus.

Therefore, Venus is almost a hell-like planet, and it is much more difficult to transform than Mars.

Compared with Venus, Mercury is also comparable, and the weather conditions are also extremely harsh.

Mercury is the smallest and closest planet to the sun among the eight planets in the solar system.

Mercury is the planet with the largest temperature difference between day and night on the surface. The atmosphere is extremely thin and cannot effectively store heat. The temperature in the equatorial region can reach 432 degrees Celsius during the day and drop to minus 172 degrees Celsius at night.

Although Mercury has the word "water", it is actually a star that is extremely short of water resources. There are only small areas of glaciers in the polar regions.

Red Star Company has started to conduct detailed investigations on these two planets since last year. Yang Xi led a team to go to Venus and Mercury in person on the Alchemy space shuttle.

Although it has not landed on its surface, dozens of orbiting satellites have been placed and detailed surveys have been carried out.

Yang Xi came to the conclusion that it is best to give up the development of these two planets, and the ratio of investment to income is too low.

Moreover, Mars is enough for Red Star Company to develop for 20 years, and then it can go directly to other star systems to find more suitable planets for development.

Wu Tie's opinion is also inclined to this, but he suggested to Zhong Cheng whether to consider developing a batch of asteroids in the asteroid belt.

But Zhong Cheng still has a grudge about letting go of the two planets that are right next to the earth.

Even if human beings go out of the solar system in the future, if the earth is the center, it will be very important for the future human society to build the three stars of fire, gold and water into the earth's economic circle.

It will not cause a situation where the outside is more important than the inside, and finally give up the earth as the core, resulting in the tragedy that human beings will even forget that the earth is the hometown of human beings thousands of years later.

But Zhong Cheng's plan to transform Venus and Mercury surprised Yang Xi, Lin Wei and others. Even Zhou Hu, Zheng Yilun and others who implemented the recovery plan thought it was too unimaginable.

Compared with the whimsical recovery plan, Zhong Cheng's new plan is already close to fantasy.

Zhong Cheng's plan is mainly divided into two parts.

Part of it is to drive a group of icy asteroids with a total mass equivalent to half the moon from the asteroid belt to Venus.

Then use an asteroid impact scenario similar to the recovery plan but thousands of times larger.

Not only must Venus accelerate its rotation, but also use violent impacts to disperse Venus' dense atmosphere, and at the same time bring more water to Venus than the total water content of the earth.

Although this part is a huge project, it is still within the scope of everyone's understanding.

But the other part of the plan is to drive Mercury from its existing orbit to the orbit of Venus, and let Venus capture Mercury, making Mercury a satellite of Venus.

Then, with the help of the huge tidal force of Mercury on Venus, the rotation speed of Venus is further accelerated to form a global magnetic field.

Mercury can also absorb part of the atmosphere on Venus, increasing the density of Mercury's atmosphere.

And Mercury has moved to the "habitable zone" of the solar system, and the difficulty of Mercury's transformation will be greatly reduced.

The idea of ​​driving Mercury to change its orbit shocked everyone. If Zhong Cheng hadn't said it, some people would even laugh at whether the person who proposed such an idea had watched too many science fiction movies.

Although Mercury is the smallest of the eight planets of the sun, it is not even as large as Ganymede and Titan.

But it is a huge celestial body nearly three times the size of the moon and 3 times the mass of the moon. To drive Mercury, it is necessary to build a real planetary engine, which is a technology that Red Star does not currently have.

Although it is impossible to build a planetary engine with a diameter of tens of kilometers as in "The Wandering Earth", it is not capable of the current large-scale Zhurong electric pusher.

And because Mercury is so close to the sun, the sun's tidal gravitational pull on it is very strong, almost 17 times that of the earth's gravitational pull on the moon.

Taking Mercury away from the sun is like "snatching food from a tiger's mouth", which requires more and more powerful planetary engines.

Zhong Cheng did not discuss technical issues and engineering quantities in detail, because these require rigorous planning and calculation, and his proposal only proposed ideas.

He just introduced to everyone the financial situation of Red Star Company in the next few years.

With the completion of the Earth and Mars ladder projects, the second phase of the Nantianmen project is considered to be over.

The space agency will be responsible for the construction of Tiangong City and Mars. The construction projects of Red Star Company in the next few years will mainly be the construction of spacecraft, the construction of Mars industrial base and the creation of Mars ecosystem.

Although the investment in these projects is also very large, it is much easier than the previous two years.

Moreover, Dream World and Mars tourism will bring a lot of profits, and the planting of wood grains and industries on Mars will also start to make profits in a year or two.

The future financial situation of Red Star Company will be very relaxed.

But the group of them who run the Red Star Company did not expect to make money, and their money was enough for several lifetimes.

Therefore, when Red Star Company has surplus funds, it should be spent on meaningful things, and the transformation of Venus and Mercury is very meaningful.

Even if the investment is greater than the income, they should also shoulder this important responsibility!
If they don't do it, others will not be able to do it, nor will they be able to do it.

Zhong Cheng's speech successfully convinced everyone that Red Star Company should do something that others dare not even imagine.

As for whether it will lose money, it really doesn't matter compared with the results of transforming Venus and Mercury!
Finally, Zhong Cheng also said that although the project of transforming Venus and Mercury is very huge, the time is very loose.

It is acceptable to spend three or four years or even seven or eight years, so there will not be much pressure.

Although the transformation of Venus and Mercury was carried out together, considering the amount of work, Zhong Cheng decided to divide it into two projects and set up project headquarters for them.

The project to transform Venus is named the Alchemy Project, and the project to transform Mercury is named the Water Control Project.

After returning to Earth, Zhong Cheng will personally formulate the general plans for the two projects and submit them to the federal government for approval.

It is expected to start after the Spring Festival next year, but from now on, Yang Xi and Lin Wei will organize researchers from the Kunlun Research Institute to research and develop related technologies, mainly planetary engine technology.

At the same time, it is necessary to organize personnel to start the system modeling work of Venus and Mercury.

Only after these preliminary works are completed, can Zhong Cheng formulate the final project implementation plan.

(End of this chapter)