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

Canada, Columbia, Victoria.

At Akkar Airport, local officials were forming a welcoming team, waiting silently for the guests to arrive.

They were notified only last night that China and the United States were about to hold a business meeting in Victoria, and the local government needed to provide a venue. The notifier was Ame, so the authorities naturally had no way to refuse.

But this is the place to choose for these two business talks?

The Victorian authorities treated it purely as an interesting episode and made no preparations other than due etiquette.

The roar of engines began to be heard in the sky. People on the ground looked up eagerly for a while, and then saw two C17 transport planes landing safely under the escort of four F15s.

What came down was not the important person they had guessed, but a group of Ami soldiers who looked like wolves and tigers.

The soldiers drove their Humvees directly from the tail hatch of the C17 to the authorities to greet them. This was quite rude behavior.

"We are the Marines, who of you is the mayor here?"

The famous Ma Run, the president's special fourth-class oxen, and the mayor of Victoria had recognized their costumes, but were a little annoyed by their rudeness and tried to question them.

However, the leading soldier did not listen to his nonsense and directly took out the certificate issued by the Department of Defense of Canada. According to the above description, Ma Run will temporarily control the airport. In order to protect the privacy of the participants, the authorities need to avoid cooperation.

The mayor did not doubt the authenticity of this certificate, but he obviously understood that this was not a "business meeting" at all. Considering the recent turbulent world situation, it could be a secret agreement.

Reason prevailed over emotion, and the mayor left the city hall with his delegation very simply, and the entire Akar Airport immediately entered a state of control.

Not long after, another Y20 came in and landed, and a group of heavily armed soldiers also came down.

After the irrelevant personnel were dispersed, the first 777 passenger plane finally came close to landing.

The people who got off the plane were surrounded by a group of bodyguards and got into the car brought by the transport plane. Even onlookers could not recognize anything at all.

Finally, a C832 arrived, and the passengers who got off were equally secretive, got into their own cars and left in a hurry.

Two different groups of guests met at a seaside manor. Neither party's uniforms were the same, and it was obvious that multiple parties were involved.

Jack Sullivan stood up and shook hands with Xu Rang. The two were considered old friends, but it was obviously the first time that Lu Jianfei and Kevin from Hexagon met, so the etiquette was very comprehensive.

People from both sides sat down on both sides of the long table in the manor in order, and followed Xu Rang's secretary to open the notebook, which read clearly:

"Minutes of Preparatory Talks for the Agreement on a Mutual Defense System of the Solar System"

…

David Usnow was also included in the negotiating team, but his position was not conspicuous. From the Chinese side's perspective, he only played the role of recorder and did not pay much attention to it.

This meeting is very important, related to the construction purposes of the two future space forces and the establishment of the corresponding space order.

In the long run, things about extraterrestrial civilizations will be made public sooner or later, or the construction of two space forces will be irreversible.

In this case, it is necessary to formulate corresponding norms, and it is also necessary to restrain others.

After several exchanges before the talks, the two sides called it "ie" the common defense system of the solar system. Regardless of whether there is an extraterrestrial civilization or not, it will not violate peace if it is disclosed.

After all, there are too many things in the universe that can cause danger to humans. Not to mention asteroids or giant meteorites, a larger-scale solar storm would be enough for the earth to endure.

And this is also the breakthrough point for tearing apart the Outer Space Treaty. We must first break away from its shackles before we can freely develop space armed forces.

The preparatory meeting first needs to determine how to cooperate in amending the "Outer Space Treaty" or simply replace it. Secondly, like the naval treaty after World War I, the scale and scope of space forces must be agreed in advance to avoid strategic misjudgments caused by opaque information. .

If one of the parties does not get enough information and thinks that the other party is seeking an "ally" through alien civilization, the consequences will be dire.

Other details will be discussed after the "Defense Agreement" is passed by the UN General Assembly. Anyway, the space armed forces will still be in the air for a while.

People on both sides were very serious about discussing the next actions. This kind of earthly affairs made David a little tired. From time to time, he looked at the blocked windows and could vaguely see the outline of the moon.

Just yesterday, the astronauts of Artemis 7 and 8 moved into the solidified inflatable cabin, making Camp Columbus the first substantial fixed base for Aramco.

Although there is only one cabin, this kind of thing is easy to mass-produce, not to mention that the inflatable cabin has a very light mass and volume ratio. Once it is confirmed to be reliable, NACA can immediately build a lot of them and throw them on.

But David's thoughts were not here, but the invisible sparks.

Counting the time, it’s only been a few days since Tianwen-1 arrived on Mars, right?

…

October 12th, Beijing time.

Survey ships from thousands of kilometers away and the ADC monitoring network in the northwest and southeast of the mainland are all searching for the same target and constantly checking whether the signal is distorted.

In addition to the Typhoon that flew by early, the fastest to reach Mars was the earliest "Tianwen-1" lander launched.

The ADC's first Mars probe is not a satellite, but a patrol car that lands directly, but that doesn't mean there is none.

The latest and largest Tianwen-5, or Zhurong, has 6 large satellites and more than 20 small satellites in one go.

Many of these satellites were not made specifically for the Mars mission, but were modified based on existing models. By transiting through the "Lihuo" on Mars, there is no need to worry about signal problems.

In the announcement to NACA, "Lihuo" arrived almost at this time, and did not arouse the other party's suspicion.

Now, Tianwen-1 has begun the process of active deceleration. It will directly rush into the Martian atmosphere after several laps and will not stay in the Martian orbit for too long.

"Lihuo" has collected enough data and has established communication with it, which can guide Tianwen-1 to land very steadily.

The advantage of doing this is that less fuel can be used, most of the deceleration can be completed by borrowing the atmosphere, and time can be saved.

According to the prior arrangement, Tianwen-1, 3, and 5 will land on the Zero Plain, and the other two probes will go to the northern hemisphere, so if luck is good enough, Tianwen-1 can immediately obtain valuable intelligence.

…

Mars.

The "Lihuo", which had been silent for a long time, finally became active again and communicated with Tianwen-1 using the backup frequency band.

The comprehensive and powerful "Lihuo" has already carefully mapped the entire surface of Mars. Although it is not a high-precision map like the one on Earth, it is completely reliable for reference.

Compared with the moon, the biggest problem of Mars is its atmosphere. Where there is an atmosphere, there is wind. The wind will blow away the sand and gravel rich in iron oxides on the surface, erode loose rocks, and cause local terrain changes from time to time.

Fortunately, the data of "Lihuo" is basically updated in real time. As long as there are no unexpected factors, it can definitely lead Tianwen-1 to land safely.

Now Tianwen-1 looks like a flying saucer with a very inconsistent aspect ratio. Under it is an air shield for deceleration. It is the same technology used by the Dawn spacecraft and will undertake the most violent and most important deceleration task.

Now it inserts from the edge of the Martian atmosphere at a small angle. The thin particles in the atmosphere collide with the air shield at high speed, constantly stimulating yellowish white light outward.

However, that was from the perspective of space. If an observer stood on the surface of Mars, the scene he saw would be completely different:

The atmospheric pressure of Mars is less than one percent of that of the Earth, about 0.7%, of which 95% is carbon dioxide, a small amount of rare gases, nitrogen, argon, and even a little methane.

The light seen from the surface of Mars will have a significant blue shift. The sunset on Mars is the heaviest blue, and the light emitted by the friction of Tianwen-1 will also appear to have a faint blue halo.

This blue meteor did not last too long. After more than ten minutes, Tianwen-1 abandoned the air shield below, and at the same time, the top parachute opened, unfolding three supersonic annular deceleration parachutes with a diameter of more than 25 meters.

Tianwen-1, which was still descending at a high speed, finally suffered a significant blocking effect and continued to decelerate.

When its landing speed dropped to tens of meters per second, the three annular parachutes were cut off, and the sky crane on the top was started, using the reverse thrust rocket for the final braking.

In addition to deceleration, the sky crane can also move the rover below in a small range to find the best landing site.

The entire landing process was completed by AI. At this time, Tianwen-1 had already arrived around Plain Zero and began to search for the best landing point and suspected targets at low altitude according to the set standards.

It flew over one protruding hill after another, and finally locked onto a flat highland, using the last bit of fuel to slow down in that direction.

50 meters, 30 meters, 10 meters, the sky crane hovered at this height, the explosive bolts connected to the rover were energized, and the rover was quickly lowered by several traction ropes. When it was about two meters away from the ground, the fuel of the sky crane was almost gone, and the explosive bolts at the end of the rope were energized and disconnected.

The rover that suddenly lost its restraints, that is, the "Firefly 1" Mars rover, made a solid hard landing, but the two-meter height could not do anything to it under the gravity of Mars, and the shock absorber calmly absorbed most of the potential energy.

At this time, the sky crane had already deflected autonomously, ran out of fuel, flew to the side and fell, and stopped 70 or 80 meters away.

After being on standby for nearly half a year, Firefly 1 was successfully awakened by the heat preservation of the isotope battery and sufficient power. The folded monitor was unfolded and raised. It first used the fisheye camera to slowly circle around, taking the first panoramic photo while checking whether its appearance was damaged.

Firefly 1 took about 10 minutes to check its entire body functions, and did not first ensure contact with the earth like other probes.

This is mainly due to the existence of "Lihuo". Its relay forwarding is much stronger than that of Firefly 1 itself, and there is no need to worry about losing contact.

It was not until it was confirmed that its functions were intact and the landing site was accurate that Firefly 1 sent the first log back to the earth, and attached more than a dozen high-definition pictures.

…

Space Administration, Deep Space Command Center.

"Here it comes!"

Shen Zuozhou, who was staring at the screen, shouted, and finally relaxed.

Within the planned time, "Lihuo" has begun to forward the signal sent back by Firefly 1, and it is still a large data packet, indicating that the landing must have been successful.

All the high-ranking officials of the Aerospace Development Commission were gathered here, and there were also many confidential secretaries present, ready to report the news to their superiors at any time.

Knowing that there was a suspected alien civilization on Plain Zero, the risk of landing here rashly was not low, but in the end this decision was not changed.

This is mainly because many landers have visited it before. If "its" reaction was really so sensitive, it would have noticed something wrong long ago.

Besides, the activity range and reconnaissance capabilities of the detectors sent at this stage are very limited. If they are more biased, the detection efficiency will be too low.

As most people had expected, the landing of Yinghuo 1 caused little reaction, at least not a noticeable one.

If anything happens that triggers an AI alarm, what is sent back is not a data packet, but a series of urgent beeping signals.

Sure enough, after unpacking the signal, there was only one log and more than a dozen pictures taken from different angles, all in color.

Yinghuo 2 weighs 1.3 tons and is supported by nuclear power. It does not need to carry an overly heavy high-gain antenna, so the quality of the detection equipment is relatively generous. There is no need to use a black and white camera to save power, otherwise it will have to be ground processed and then colored. .

What the Aerospace Development Committee has received now is the original real-life picture of Mars - it is not as yellow as imagined, and even a little white, maybe due to the light. In short, it does not have a strong feeling of another world.

It's like a no-man's land full of Gobi, with rocks scattered everywhere on the ground. From the perspective of Yinghuo 1, you can see a vast area.

Without anyone's instructions, several experts huddled together on the screen and found the main area of ​​Plain Zero without even needing to compare.

According to the latitude and longitude provided by the system, the place that can be accurately located has no characteristics and is only a few kilometers away from Yinghuo 1.

The camera captured part of its appearance. No matter how hard you opened your eyes to observe, all you got was a featureless desert.

Lin Ju couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when he saw this scene. He really didn't find any man-made traces, so what else could he do? Find it!

Tianwen-3 will land in eight days, and it will take another 19 days, that is, next month for the Zhurong to carry out detection with full power.

If it doesn't work, Tianwen 2 and 4 can also change their itinerary, which requires almost no effort.

After having such an idea, Zhong Cheng, who was slightly disappointed, sighed and patted Lin Ju on the shoulder:

"Let's show it to the Yankees when they come over. With so many photos, it will be enough to achieve some results."