Epoch of Twilight

The interstellar voyage has entered the countdown.

Not long after collecting the corpses of space behemoths, in order to make up for the resources consumed by the mother ship during the period before departure, the first asteroid mining finally started.

An asteroid not far away became the target this time.

This asteroid is quite large, about six kilometers at its widest point and three kilometers at its narrowest point. Its surface is covered with ice and snow. Because it is close to the sun, its tail pulls out a 100-kilometer-long tail, which looks spectacular.

Fortunately, during the detection, the thickness of ice and snow on its surface is not very large, only tens of meters thick, and there are a lot of iron meteorites inside, which contain a lot of other elements.

Humans don't consume a lot of water resources, but metals consume the most. This mining is mainly to collect metals, and a meteorite like this is enough to make up all the stocks.

Hundreds of engineering robots in the early stage, loaded with a large amount of materials and tools, began to land on the asteroid. In the next time, they will clear ice and snow on the asteroid, level the ground, build simple power plants and lay lines for the asteroid.

In addition, on one side of the asteroid, they will also install three engines to keep them from drifting too far.

The whole tee project took less than a week.

Immediately afterwards, the second batch of engineering robots pushed the modular factories like giant containers and set off into space. The flames of plasma spewed out from behind the robots from time to time, kept swallowing, and gradually landed like fireflies one by one. meteorite.

The modular factory slowly fell according to the designed position, and the concealed buckles arranged on the ground were seamlessly locked with the bottom of the factory, and the factory began to gradually unfold.

These are real unmanned factories. There are no extra lights on them, and there are no passages extending in all directions. A large number of circular or cylindrical huge metal smelting equipment with complex structures are crowded together, making full use of all the space. .

Not long after it was rolled out, a huge metal pipe with a diameter of nearly 30 meters slowly rose up like a monster waking up. Its pipe mouth was pointed straight at an open space not far away. distributed in the pipeline.

Soon the ground began to soften like a liquid, and it continued to extend downward while absorbing matter

The reason why this metal pipe has such a large diameter is because it is telescopic, with hundreds of layers of metal pipes nested inside. According to the design, it can penetrate five kilometers underground to absorb minerals.

Asteroid mining technology is quite mature in the Bossian civilization, with a complete set of procedures, and as humans who inherit and absorb this technology, even though it is only the first time, everything is in order and familiar with it.

...

Time will soon arrive in April 2020, and humans have been parked in space for four years.

All the preparations for the long-distance voyage have been completed. For the sake of safety, even the countless gullies on the outer armor of the mothership have been restorated to make the entire spaceship look brand new. Even those that are far from scrapped and have been used All parts that have been used for a certain number of years have also been replaced.

In the past month, countless spaceship maintenance engineers with various detection instruments can be seen everywhere, repeatedly inspecting every corner in order to find possible hidden dangers.

...

Unknowingly, the originally stable and peaceful social atmosphere became tense and depressing.

Although a large number of news media repeatedly promote and inspire every day, as time goes by, everyone's face becomes more and more anxious and disturbed.

Even Luo Yuan often feels hesitant in his heart.

After all, this is an adventure with an unknown future. Maybe this is the long march of mankind to recreate its glory, or it may be a road of no return for mankind, but no matter how hesitant he is, the time of departure is still approaching day by day.

The route of the star road has already been determined.

The Barnard Star System, located about 6 light-years from the earth, is the goal of this time. The reason for choosing this star is that it is relatively close, and it is the first voyage. Too far away is too risky for human beings. The risk is too great.

On the other hand, because it emits the weakest light, this is a red dwarf star, which belongs to the old and late stars. It emits a faint red light and is a good hiding place.

In fact, due to the astronomical distance between the two civilizations, it is not easy to detect each other. No matter how advanced the detection system is, no matter how efficient the computer is, it is powerless in front of the vast and vast starry sky.

And because they are far away from each other, moving is calculated in light years.

A light-year is the distance traveled by light in one year. For example, Boxing is 28 light-years away from the earth, and it takes 28 years for the light emitted by it to reach the solar system, which means that the images of Boxing obtained by human beings are completely historical pictures of 28 years ago.

And the reverse is also true.

It is less than five years since the Boxing advance force is wiped out, that is to say, for at least the next 23 years, human actions will be completely invisible, unless the opponent has developed a superluminal detection capability that does not rely on light, or Battleships fly faster than the speed of light.

No matter how the former hides, the target of humans has been locked, while the situation of the latter is slightly better, at least there is still a period of invisibility.

But this is only the worst case scenario!

Generally speaking, as long as its detection system still relies on light, the darker the area, the lower the chance of being found, like the vast black space between the stars, if you want to find a spaceship, the low probability can be completely ignored Regardless, it is impossible for human beings to hide in the dark area forever. It is a region close to an absolute vacuum, and it is almost impossible to obtain material supplements.

It may be possible to hide like a mouse for decades, but what it pays is at the cost of restricting human development.

In the past six months, humans have given birth to 240,000 newborns, of which 50,000 were born by mothers, and the remaining 190,000 were born in laboratories. With this growth rate, the number of human beings will double in more than ten years. Last time, the spaceship will become more crowded and cannot accommodate any more people.

Therefore, human beings must find new star systems to live temporarily.

According to the mothership's detection, there are rocky planets and gaseous planets in Barnard's star system. Whether it is a resting place for resource replenishment or permanent development, it is quite suitable, and it is completely a position that can be advanced or retreated.

As for the harsh and cruel environment there, it is not worth mentioning to humans who have already stepped into the interstellar civilization.

As long as enough time is given, with the scientific and technological strength of today's human beings, it is completely possible to transform a planet, but the efficiency is high or low.

"Mayor, here's the good news from the antimatter laboratory!" At this moment, secretary Chen Xinjie opened the door with a happy face and left.

"Oh!" Luo Yuan took the document and flipped through a few pages, his brows that were originally tightly locked suddenly relaxed slightly: "The energy conversion rate has reached three million to one!"

In fact, the first antimatter experimental preparation factory has been built for half a year, but because the technology is not yet fully mature, and the safety is not fully guaranteed, it has been in a state of technical verification.

Even the production is within the safe dosage range. After all, this is a spaceship. Once an accident occurs, it is enough to cause serious damage.

"It's a pity that this kind of thing is too dangerous. It can't be produced in the spaceship, so it can only be used as a technical reserve." Luo Yuan then said to Chen Xinjie: "Send a reward announcement and let their laboratory continue to work hard!"

"Yes, Mayor!"

Chen Xinjie left quickly, Luo Yuan picked up the materials again, flipped through them, full of joy.

Regardless of the fact that the energy conversion ratio is only 3 million to 1, in fact, when this ratio is reached, large-scale antimatter production is basically mature, and the energy production efficiency of nuclear fusion furnaces is basically 6 million to 10 million tons of pure water. , one ton of antimatter can be produced.

It may be too extravagant to be used as a power source, but as a final strategic weapon, it is far from being measurable by its surface value!