Galaxy Technology Empire

June 10th.

At this time, the Dongfanghong base was expanding again, and the Xuanwu-class spacecraft had transported all the materials carried by the Zhangzhou to the Dongfanghong base.

Dongfanghong Base, which has abundant supplies, has finally completed the first floor of the main building, surrounded by 19 standard cabins, like a silver-white honeycomb.

In addition, Chang An and others have built a water resources refining plant (three standard cabins), which is located in the planned third angle area.

The electric crawler truck slowly drove over from a simple road. Zhu Gang collected 10 tons of ice and soil from a water-rich soil layer. The electric crawler truck dragged a sealed bucket, which contained 10 tons of ice and soil.

In fact, there is not only water in these icy soils, but also some dry ice (carbon dioxide) and other minerals that can be used.

But now they can only extract water, and the remaining materials can only be temporarily stored.

"Team Chang, the ice and soil have been transported here." Zhu Gang shouted to Chang An through the intercom.

"Got it, the refining equipment is ready. You drag some ice and soil over and we try the equipment." Chang An quickly replied.

Zhu Gang opened the truck body, and there were storage boxes inside. Each one was made of fiberglass composite graphene material, with a standard storage capacity of one cubic meter.

The density of this ice and soil is between 2.4 and 2.5 tons per cubic meter, which means that a standard storage box contains 2.4 to 2.5 tons of ice and soil. However, the gravity of the moon is only about one-sixth of the Blue Star, so the weight of a box is about Equivalent to about 0.5 tons.

Although it was a 0.5-ton box, it was not something Zhu Gang could carry. He drove an electric forklift from the tool cabin of the main base and moved one of the boxes.

He forked the box into one of the cabins. Chang An was also inside. He pointed at an open reactor and said, "Gangzi, pour the ice and soil into the reactor."

"No problem." Zhu Gang quickly operated the forklift and brought the box close to the entrance of the reactor. Then he got out of the car, opened one side of the box, and used a shovel to shovel the ice and soil inside into the reactor.

After shoveling it down, the ice soil was very sticky and heavy. It took him more than ten minutes to shovel all the ice soil in the box into the reactor.

"Team Chang, I put a cube of ice and soil in it."

"Okay." Chang An pressed the shutdown switch of the reactor, and the reactor slowly closed. Then he started the heating function. For ice soil, there is no need for a complicated extraction process, and only heating can be used to preliminarily separate the water.

Soon the temperature inside the reactor quickly rose, and the ice and dry ice in the ice soil began to change. Most of the ice turned into liquid water, a small part turned into water vapor, and the dry ice directly sublimated into carbon dioxide gas.

These liquids and gases are quickly pumped into a filter separation pipe, and the water is quickly separated. After the water is separated, the carbon dioxide and other substances are pumped into another storage tank for storage.

[The reaction has ended and 457 kilograms of pure water have been obtained...]

"Successful, our base's water problem has been temporarily solved." Chang An said excitedly.

"However, this water refining plant is not perfect yet. The feeding system needs to be sent from Blue Star. There are also transport vehicles, mining robots and others..."

Suddenly the ground shook slightly.

"It's a moonquake." Zhu Gang turned on his holographic bracelet to call up the earthquake detection system of Dongfanghong Base. After looking at the data, he said: "The earthquake's epicenter is in the southwest of the Ocean of Storms, and the magnitude is 2.4."

"These moonquakes are quite frequent, we must pay attention to them." Chang An said worriedly.

"Don't worry, earthquakes on the moon are relatively small, but sometimes they last for a long time." Zhu Gang was not too worried.

A moonquake with a magnitude of 2.4 like this time is already a relatively large earthquake. Moonquakes are generally below magnitude 2 and occur at least thousands of times every year.

However, due to the lack of water and other liquid materials in the lunar strata, the energy depletion of moonquakes is very slow, which is characterized by small magnitude, long duration, and wide range of ripples.

Unless there is a huge asteroid impact, it is possible to cause a high-energy moonquake. Normal moonquakes are below magnitude 2.

This moonquake lasted for about 3 minutes, but this level of moonquake did not have much impact on the Dongfanghong base.

"Quansheng, is the base damaged?" Chang An asked Song Quansheng in the general control cabin.

"It is reported that all systems are operating normally and have not been affected."

"OK."

Feeling relieved, Chang An quickly refined the remaining three boxes of ice soil with Zhu Gang, and obtained a total of 1,854 kilograms of pure water.

Coupled with the 3.2 tons of water stored in their base itself, this water is enough for the four of them to use for a period of time. There is also a water circulation system in the base that can recycle about 96% of the water.

However, if you want to extract fresh water on a large scale, the moon is obviously not ideal. Even if there is abundant solid water near the south pole of the moon, it is still not an ideal water source for large-scale mining.

The idea of ​​the Space Development Committee is to use those near-Earth asteroids that are rich in water resources as water resources extraction sites, and the moon's water resources can be used as self-supply for local bases.

The four of Chang An were busy with matters at Dongfanghong Base.

On the other side, the Zhangzhou was already parked in the parking area of ​​the New Bazhong Space Station.

A Xuanwu-class spacecraft, which is specially responsible for transporting supplies to the Blue Star ground, is quickly moving storage boxes one by one into the cabin of its own spacecraft.

The driver was looking through the cargo list. This time they transported materials to the ground. This was their fifth return mission. The goods transported were mainly 20 tons of platinum, 20 tons of gold, and 11 tons of high-purity tungsten from the Iron Star No. 1 mine. .

There are also some samples and souvenirs.

On June 10, at 11:21 am, the fully loaded Xuanwu-class spacecraft quickly headed for the space port in Bazhong City.

Although the gold and platinum did not flow into the market, the news that the Space Development Council had obtained a large amount of gold and platinum in outer space had already spread like wildfire.

Over the past two months, the precious metals market has suffered a devastating disaster. The price of gold has plummeted from 314 Chinese yuan per gram in April to the current 126 Chinese yuan per gram, which is obviously unimaginable.

The prices of platinum and silver also fell by about 87% and 41% respectively.

Anyway, those who invest in precious metals internationally are bleeding like rivers, and the central banks of various countries are the ones who are really crying.

However, precious metals do not maintain their value and have little impact on Dongtang and Galaxy Consortium. Dongtang Central Bank and Mars Bank have joined forces to repurchase many precious metals in their systems.

If the Dongtang Central Bank still cares about face, Mars Bank is much more simple and crude. It directly announced the abolition of the currencies of member countries such as the Korean won, Japanese yen, and Australian dollar, and directly adopted the Mars currency as a unified currency.

This time the currency unification plan directly made the previously looming Galaxy Consortium territory appear openly and openly in front of all countries in the world.

The Central Bank of the Eastern Tang Dynasty also successfully integrated their economies into the economic system of the Eastern Tang Dynasty by controlling the Mobei Central Bank, Myandian National Bank, Laoguo Central Bank, and Jianpuzhai National Bank.

The Huayuan and Mars coins guarantee each other's currency value, which is equivalent to the same currency system. The power of the electric energy Huayuan has begun to suppress the oil dollar.