Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 419 Taibai City and Chenxing City

A day later, the Asterisker reached Venus.

Because of the sulfuric acid clouds in its atmosphere, Venus looks like a lava fireball, only golden yellow.

You can feel the purgatory-like environment of Venus from the outside, no wonder Yang Xi suggested giving up the development of Venus back then.

In a geostationary orbit more than 3 kilometers above the equator of Venus, an iron asteroid a hundred times the size of Icarus is already orbiting.

This asteroid was also captured from the asteroid belt. It is used as the current headquarters of the Alchemy Project, and in the future it will be the counterweight of the Venus space elevator, and the space city will also be built around it.

Because Venus was called Taibai, Xingxing or Daxiao in ancient China, it appeared in the east in the morning and was called Qiming, and it appeared in the west at night and was called Changgeng.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Sima Qian, the author of "Historical Records of Heavenly Officials", found that Taibai was white from actual observations, which was connected with the theory of "five elements" and officially named it Venus.

So this future Venus space city was named Taibai City.

The current Taibai City has built a temporary space port, and built an engineering command center under its ground.

But there are not many resident personnel at present, mainly some ecology experts and astrophysicists, who are responsible for observing the reproduction of mutated sulfur bacteria on Venus and the mutual influence between Venus and Mercury after they approach.

Qin Wenyu took her team to stay in Taibai City base.

Since they went to Venus three years ago and released hundreds of batches of mutated sulfur bacteria, these tenacious low-level life forms have spread out on Venus and spread all over the surface of Venus.

Since there are no natural enemies, their number has increased exponentially, and the number can be calculated in trillions. Their effect on the environment of Venus is becoming more and more obvious.

A large amount of carbon dioxide gas is absorbed and decomposed by them, and the overall mass of Venus' atmosphere has dropped by 5%, and the decline is still accelerating.

Qin Wenyu optimistically estimates that within five years at most, the mutant sulfur bacteria will absorb and decompose 90% of the carbon dioxide gas and decompose all the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere of Venus.

However, Zhong Cheng also found some disturbing data from their observation reports, that is, the mutant sulfur bacteria are evolving rapidly at a level far exceeding the natural evolution rate.

Now, multicellular mutant sulfur bacteria have appeared, whose size has grown from unrecognizable to the naked eye to black spots of a few microns, and even phagocytized each other due to competition for living space.

They not only fully occupy the surface of Venus, but also have evolved some populations that can float into the atmosphere, and some populations can penetrate below the surface.

However, Qin Wenyu explained that this is a normal phenomenon, which is the result of extreme evolution of a single species, so there is no need to make a fuss.

The entire Venus is an experimental field, and it is also a huge cage. No matter how these mutated sulfur bacteria evolve, they cannot escape the control of human beings.

Only when they develop stronger individual abilities can they complete the mission entrusted to them by humans.

Zhong Cheng had long understood Qin Wenyu's madness in scientific research, and privately told Liu Yuzhu to pay close attention to the evolution of mutant sulfur bacteria.

If there are uncontrollable changes, be sure to notify him as soon as possible.

Zhong Cheng only stayed in Taibai City Base for three days before leaving for Mercury.

A new asteroid has also been added to Mercury's geostationary orbit above the equator.

Different from Taibai City, Chenxing City, a space city built on the basis of this asteroid, has already begun to take shape, and a simple space elevator has been connected to the surface of Mercury.

Because of the need to build 108 giant planetary engines on Mercury, the water control engineering project team had to build a space elevator in advance to transport a large amount of equipment and materials to the surface of Mercury.

And after Venus captures Mercury, these planetary engines need to be dismantled, and then transported away from the ground of Mercury by a space elevator.

Because of the big collision between heaven and earth that will follow, the surface of Mercury will be turned upside down.

Ten years ago, Red Star would have been unable to support such a huge amount of engineering, but now that the Mars industrial base has been built, the industrial manufacturing capacity has been doubled.

After Zhong Cheng and his party arrived at the Chenxing City base above Mercury, they took the Mercury space ladder with only two passages to the ground of Mercury.

The surface of Mercury is very similar to the moon, full of craters, great plains, basins, radiances and cliffs.

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°C during the day and drop to -172°C at night.

This is also a planet with extremely harsh natural conditions, and the engineering armor worn on Mercury requires a special heat-resistant design.

However, people usually do not operate in the open air on Mercury. Planetary engines are built deep in the surface, and only the jets are exposed hundreds of meters above the surface.

A planetary engine is an underground base, and now 108 underground bases have been built.

But these underground bases would all be destroyed a few years later when an asteroid hit Mercury.

Zhong Cheng sighed again, if it was not for the long-term interests of mankind, he would never have carried out such a huge temporary project.

The craters on Mercury are the same as the craters on the moon, and humans have also named them.

The craters on the surface of Mercury are all named after literary artists, not scientists, because most of the craters on the moon are named after scientists.

However, like other planets in the solar system, the geographical names on Mercury are basically named after Western celebrities.

Zhong Cheng and his team took the Mercury engineering vehicle to the No. 036 planetary engine base located in the Abidin crater.

Most of the planetary engines on Mercury are built in the center of the crater, because the crater is an impact crater in ancient times, and the rock formation at the bottom of the crater is relatively stronger.

Engineering vehicles drove directly into the base from the tunnel on one side of the base, which was built at a depth of 3 kilometers below the surface.

Yang Xi personally participated in the construction of each planetary engine, and he took everyone on a tour of the base with ease.

After the evacuation of the construction engineering personnel, there are still more than 500 personnel in the base, who are mainly responsible for the operation and maintenance of the planetary engine and mining rocks on the surface as the engine's injection fluid.

The main body of the planetary engine is built under the surface, but the shadow of the nuclear fusion engine on the Xuanwu spacecraft can still be seen, but it is several times larger.

Of course, it is much smaller than the planetary engine in "The Wandering Earth". It's not that the Red Star Company cannot build such a huge engine, but the crust of Mercury simply cannot bear such a huge driving force.

Therefore, only by slowly changing the orbit of Mercury, it is far from driving a huge celestial body like Mercury, and the time needs to be calculated in years!

Fortunately, human society has been unified and the era of peace has come. Zhong Cheng has enough patience to wait for Venus and Mercury to meet.

(End of this chapter)