BXBX NOVEL Chapter 854 - The Growing Colony
Chapter 854: The Growing Colony
The deterrent power of the Aurora-20s in the modern world did not apply to the Northern Alliance Area. Although Aurora-20s did not detect the presence of fighter aircrafts that belonged to Northern Alliance Area, those who inherited Pan-Asia Cooperation Technology such as ground-based air defense missiles and laser air defense weapons could be deadly threats to Aurora-20s with.
If a war would break out, the outcome of the war would undoubtedly be decided on land.
Jiang Chen stayed for three days in the apocalypse and then returned to the present world.
This time he brought back ten new Aurora-20s from the Sixth Street Military Factory and the new K1 kinetic skeleton production line built by Zhao Group.
The kinetic skeleton previously was produced by the Sixth Street and Jiang Chen acted as the transporter to move the supplies to the modern world. However, now that the apocalypse must bear the pressure of the Northern Alliance Area, it would be stretched thin to also spare capacity to serve the modern world.
Now Future Military was capable of scaling production and was fully capable of integrating this production line. Following the Hummingbird drone, another set of 22nd-century arms production lines settled on Ange Island.
The whole set-up was tens of thousands of square meters in size. Jiang Chen chose Coconut Island where he docked the Droplet as a “transportation warehouse”. After transferring all the equipment to the island, Jiang Chen called a transport ship of from Celestial Trade, dispatched a frigate to escort the ship, and transported every single screw to Ange Island.
There was a clear bottleneck in the development of the industry due to manpower and resources in the apocalypse. However, this bottleneck did not exist for Future Group. Future Mining sent a continuous stream of ores to New Malaysia Special District, which was processed to steel there and transported to Ange Island. Future Military further treated the steel and refined it into C Grade steel and pour it into molds.
The more sophisticated the internal structure was, the easier it was to be completed by the factory on Ange Island.
All the kinetic skeleton outputted not only could fill the gap in the current expansion of the Foreign Corps in equipment but also could, in turn, meet the needs of the three major Corps of NAC in the apocalypse. Because there had been no war for a long time, the adoption of the kinetic skeleton of the several Corps in the apocalypse was not as high as the modern world.
Though this situation may change very soon.
...
Two weeks passed since the beginning of the moon colonization project. From the images transmitted from the Moon, Guanghan City had already taken shape.
Several barracks were placed on the edge of the crater. The colonists who wore spacesuits placed solar power generators on the open space. Before nuclear fusion generators were sent to Guanghan City, they could only rely on solar energy to maintain the operations of the colony.
The mining stations were not far away from where the moon ice was being drilled and there was also a moon ore mine.
Moon ice was one of the sources of the colony’s drinking water and was also the main source of the colony’s oxygen. The oxygen tanks carried on the spacecraft only could support the twenty-four colonists for a week, and in the following hours, all the oxygen would be obtained by the electrolysis of water.
From the current point of view, it was the cheapest way to obtain oxygen. 1 liter of water that undergoes electrolysis could generate 0.623 cubic meters of oxygen and 1.25 cubic meters of hydrogen. Based on the oxygen content of 15% in air, the amount of pure oxygen consumed per person per day was only 0.5 cubic meters under normal atmospheric pressure. As for the by-product hydrogen, it was stored in a special container, and the carbon dioxide produced by their respiration could used to generate methanol and a small amount of water under the high-temperature catalyst.
Methanol was used in production as an industrial raw material.
As a result, a simple cycle was formed.
Of course, Jiang Chen sent them to the Moon, not just for them to figure out how to live. Every day, in addition to driving a lunar rover to explore the mines and maintain these facilities, they also shouldered the task of assisting ground scientists in carrying out scientific research.
And in all scientific research projects, the most critical step was the collection of helium-3!
The small mine site being built on the moon burdened this important responsibility.
Since there was no global “dipole magnetic field” protection on the moon, solar winds containing carbon, nitrogen, and rare gas ions such as helium, neon, argon, and krypton could bombard the moon’s surface, and enter moon soil particles, making the soil contain quite a lot of helium-3.
As for the value of this energy, a set of data directly explained it. One kilogram of helium-3, if used to generate electricity, could produce 19 megawatts of energy; enough to light Moscow for six years. Only ten tons of helium-3 was needed for the electricity generation to be enough to power China for an entire year.
In addition, for each ton of helium-3 extracted from the soil, 6,300 tons of hydrogen, 70 tons of nitrogen, and 1,600 tons of carbon were obtained. However, compared with the value of the former, the value of these by-products was negligible.
The Moon soil itself was also rich in aluminum, iron, magnesium, titanium and other rare earth metal minerals.
Jiang Chen already possessed the nuclear fusion power generation technology. The power source of Penglai was the nuclear fusion generator from Yizhou Island in the apocalypse and several storage tanks of helium-3. What he needed next was to know how he could efficiently extract helium-3 from the Moon.
It was one of the main tasks of these colonial pioneers and researchers.
So far, the 24 colonies on the Moon cost Jiang Chen one billion Xin New Dollar.
However, the money sepnt would be worth it.
After the video ended, Kelvin spoke with Jiang Chen.
“NASA hopes that we can publicize the living condition of the colonists and share the investigation of the Moon. They’re willing to exchange this information with us for files that have not yet been disclosed to the United Nations.”
“Is that intelligence very important? I mean theirs.” Jiang Chen asked.
Kelvin thought for a moment.
“Not very important, NASA officials disclosed that the unpublished files are mainly about the analysis of KREEP rock and the distribution of helium-3 reservoir in the Moon soil. Our researchers are also studying these things, but we just don’t how far they are.”
“There is no need to exchange information with them. I believe that you will be in front of them in no time.” Jiang Chen paused and then continued, “but the life of the colonists can be shared. After all, this is part of the propaganda. There are rumors on the Internet that is attacking us for using the astronauts as test rats. Are they dead now? Shooting a short video of their lives is a powerful counterattack! As for what content can be disclosed and what must be kept confidential, I think you should know.”
“You can be rest assured.” Kelvin nodded.
After giving him directions, Jiang Chen was preparing to leave. However, Kelvin stopped him.
Jiang Chen turned around.
“What else?”
“There is one more thing. Two days ago, our Space Launch Center received a visit request from the United Kingdom,”
“Visit request? Don’t we receive a stack of those every day?”
“This person is a bit special. I couldn’t directly refuse and must consult your opinion,” Kelvin said cautiously.
“Who? Is it the Queen of England?” Jiang Chen joked.
“No, it’s Hawking.”