I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

"73 degrees east longitude, 69 degrees south latitude, 40 kilometers radius."

Serev called up the high-definition color picture of Mars published by NACA and quickly found the location, put it on the maximum for observation.

It is close to the Antarctic ice cap of Mars, but it is still a little far away and nothing can be seen on the map.

Of course, this is also expected. If a satellite could detect anomalies just by passing by, it would have been discovered here long ago, and there would be no system reminder at all.

With a radius of 40 kilometers, that is, an area of ​​almost 5,000 square kilometers, which is almost the size of a medium-sized city. This is not a small place.

Serev stared for a while, then said to himself:

"Unnatural phenomenon, unnatural phenomenon, this word has a meaning."

"What's the term? Shouldn't unnaturalness be caused by human factors...or by intelligent entities?"

Lin Ju was a little puzzled. It was unnatural and should only be used to describe intelligent beings.

Serev shook his head: "Unnatural, the process of transforming into a quantum condensed matter during quantization can also be described in modern physics.

This also includes interference from intelligent bodies, but it does not mean that this is the only possibility. "

Lin Ju: "..."

As soon as quantum was mentioned, Lin Ju's expression began to become confused. Although he understood every word and had no language problems, he just couldn't understand any effective information.

Serev stood up from a leaning position and walked around in front of his desk with his hands behind his back, frowning and thinking. After a while, he stopped and refocused on the marked point on the screen.

"We must go here, and we must take people there. The machine is unreliable, and astronauts must go and find out.

But what is an unnatural phenomenon, and how to study it requires a professional team. Isn’t there a legendary A+ scientist? Let him come over as soon as possible. More people will make things easier. Maybe his expertise is more suitable. "

Lin Ju nodded. He had already used the A+ level character card and was probably on his way there. This time, there was no 15-day time reminder. Maybe it would be faster?

Serev: "There are no named places near the coordinates provided by the system. There is a small plain. Let's call it... Plain Zero. There has never been a special phenomenon before, so there shouldn't be any changes soon. We There’s plenty of time to explore, no need to rush in and land now.

This month we will launch the fire detector, which will allow it to pay more attention, but there should be no gains. "

Lin Ju: "Now I suddenly feel like I have a mission for mankind."

Although this statement is a bit untrue, when Mars clearly tells you that something is there, it is difficult not to resist exploring it, even if this approach may bring unpredictable consequences.

The existence of Plain Zero cannot be revealed yet. We have to try our best to find out without attracting attention. Why does it always feel like in a science fiction movie where everyone is drunk and I am alone?

But Lin Ju would rather not be the savior. If there is really an alien invasion, then he will play Dafa.

Rather than building a space battleship with no concept to fight aliens, he would rather bring back a block of ice from the South Pole of Mars to make tea.

But Serev obviously had different ideas. In his time, searching for aliens was a hot topic, and he knew a lot of inside information at his level.

"From the very beginning, we have shouldered the mission of mankind. This is what aerospace is like. But it was Mars first. I thought it would be Venus. I will go and remind Xiao Okada. Lihuo's thrusters should have been Only after completing the ground test."

Well, the Lihuo probe will not be launched during the window period of 2018, but in January 2017. At this time, the Earth-Sun-Mars three-point-one-line state has just passed. It is the time when the distance is the furthest. Traditional aerospace technology It took twenty months to fly, almost two years.

However, the thruster prepared for Lihuo is equipped with a nuclear reactor and a 50N super-thrust Hall thruster. It can be started during the entire process of Lihuo to Mars. There is only an acceleration and deceleration process and no gliding process. It will take 292 days to arrive. About 10 months.

In other words, it will be launched in mid-January and will arrive in November 2017.

On the contrary, if conventional power is used during the May 2018 window, without the fission-Hall propulsion part, it will arrive in November to December 2018 at the earliest.

Of course, there is a price for leaving the fire so quickly. The fire-departing detector itself has a mass of 10 tons, and the nuclear reactor it is equipped with has a power of 40KW. The propulsion part is also 10 tons, and the reactor power is 90KW.

The power of the 50N Hall thruster reaches 127KW, which means that two reactors must be combined to supply energy. The reactor and heat dissipation part of the 20-ton combination account for nearly half of the mass.

However, the 50N Hall thruster is already energy-saving enough. As a product of the system mall, it saves 80% of power per 1N compared to the current Hall thrusters in the world. There is a huge difference in principle and design, and they are not the same at all.

For a 10-ton thruster, the Hall thruster part is cheaper without R\u0026D costs. The power reactor also has technical reserves but needs to be included in R\u0026D costs. The overall cost is 1 billion yuan, which is unaffordable.

In the propulsion part of the plan, after sending Lihuo to Mars, it has to fly back by itself. Although the power is reduced to 90KW, it is faster because the weight is reduced by half. In addition, the window period for encountering an Earth fire is about 3 months. Returning to Earth is quite fast.

At that time, it was almost February 2018, and other detectors could be mounted and flown to other places very quickly.

However, the specific flight time of Lihuo is confidential. The Aviation Development Commission does not know that Xinyuan has an outrageous Hall thruster with a thrust of 50N. The public statement is that Lihuo will fly for 20 months and is expected to arrive in October 2018.

This is 11 months later than the actual arrival time. Li Huo can carefully study Mars without being known to anyone, and use the various detection equipment he carries to conduct all-round exploration.

This plan was originally intended to launch planetary exploration planning as soon as possible, and the nuclear-powered thruster part was specially budgeted separately. Instead, it went wrong.

Now that the fire detector has been manufactured, half of the three-month manufacturing cycle is spent urging domestic optical instrument manufacturers. Their production of qualified super-standard large-scale ultra-clean lenses is too slow. If it weren't for Xinyuan's "international technical support" "After some guidance, it still has to be postponed for another month.

The imminent launch of the fire detector made Lin Ju feel more at ease. Moreover, what Serev said made sense. It was unlikely that there would be any immediate problems in Plain Zero.

Just as the two men convened the senior engineers in the base to form the "Plain Zero Response Team", Ye Changsi woke up leisurely in an intensive care unit in Chengdu with his head wrapped in bandages.

The instrument detected changes in his body and issued a warning. Doctors and nurses rushed over to check his physical condition.