In 2045 AD, Ark 1 flew by the constellation Centauri.

In 2049 A.D., the Earth received a three-star signal from Centauri sent back by Ark 1, and mankind completed a historic interstellar exploration mission, causing a global shock, and the Ark Project became the focus of human attention again decades after its departure.

At this time, the earth has broken through controlled nuclear fusion, human beings have partially immigrated to Mars and the moon, and large-scale space industry and resource development in the solar system are underway.

However, the seed that was released from the earth decades ago has always attracted the attention of all mankind like a jewel.

There has been a protracted debate over whether to launch a follow-up interstellar exploration program.

The opponents believe that the risks and costs of interstellar exploration are too high, and the resources of the solar system are far from being developed, so it is of little significance for human beings to carry out interstellar exploration.

The proponents believe that mankind was able to carry out such a majestic interstellar exploration operation decades ago, and there is no reason why mankind has begun to industrialize space, but has become timid.

And there's a more important point.

As a member of human civilization, Pang Xuelin started the first star exploration mission in human history.

This task was driven purely by Pang Xuelin's own efforts.

Therefore, proponents argue that human civilization cannot afford to watch these pioneers die.

It is necessary for humanity to support these pioneers in their subsequent exploration operations within the limits of their ability, and even send interstellar spacecraft to catch up with them and help them return to Earth when technological breakthroughs reach a certain level.

Because of this, after Pang Xuelin and Mu Qingqing completed the exploration of the Centauri Samsung, shortly after entering hibernation, a human star exploration program led by the United Nations was established on Earth.

Mankind has invested a huge amount of resources in this project, and the United Nations hopes to complete the integration of the United Earth Government in a sense through this great cooperation of global countries.

It's just a pity that by the time the United Nations sent this information, Pang Xuelin and Mu Qingqing had already entered hibernation again.

By the time the crew of Ark 1 received this information, it had been 60 years since Ark 1 set off.

It wasn't until 2088 A.D., when the Ark 1 spacecraft flew by Sirius at the speed of fifteen percent of light, that Pang Xuelin and Mu Qingqing woke up again and saw this information.

However, this did not change the Ark One exploration plan.

In 2110 AD, the Ark 1 spacecraft flew by Tianyuan IV at 20 percent of the speed of light.

In 2140 AD, the Ark 1 spacecraft flew by the constellation Cetus 79 at the speed of 23 percent of light.

In 2209 AD, the Ark-1 spacecraft flew by the α Lyra (Vega) at 25 percent of the speed of light.

In 2212 AD, after completing the observation of Vega, Pang Xuelin and Mu Qingqing entered hibernation again.

And this hibernation is forever.

In two hundred years, Pang Xuelin and Mu Qingqing woke up four times, each time lasting two to three years and one or two years.

It stands to reason that the crew has a long life to support them in subsequent exploration missions.

But Ark One couldn't hold out that long.

In addition to the successive problems of various systems in the spaceship itself, the consumption of materials in the spaceship also exceeded Pang Xuelin's expectations.

According to the original plan, in addition to the ultra-long shelf-life space food carried by the spacecraft, some vitamins, proteins, fiber, etc. will be provided by the plant module.

However, when the spacecraft flew by Cetus 79, the plant pod had a problem, and several subsequent repairs failed to fix it.

As a result, the consumption of space food in the spacecraft accelerated.

After completing the exploration of Vega, Pang Xuelin and Mu Qingqing had to go into hibernation and wait for rescue from the earth.

For Pang Xuelin, it also means the end of China's solar world.

……

In the darkness, a faint light appeared.

Pang Xuelin opened his eyes a little dazedly, and a familiar system lottery wheel appeared in front of him.

"Congratulations to the host for completing the exploration mission of eight star systems, in view of the host's outstanding performance in this world, the system will give the host a special reward on the basis of the original reward."

Pang Xuelin was stunned for a moment and said, "System, my task is complete?" How many worlds have I explored? What is the Ark One spacecraft doing now? ”

"The host explored a total of eight star systems, and in 2278 AD, the Ark-1 spacecraft was caught up by a rescue spacecraft launched by human civilization while visiting the GJ357 star (31 light-years away from the solar system), and the rescue spacecraft slowed down and docked into the GJ357d star, which is a living planet with a similar living environment to the Earth. At present, the entropy increase of the solar system has been stagnant within 31 light years, and if the host wants to continue to live in the Chinese solar world, the system will resume the string vibration of the Chinese solar world within 31 light years. ”

Pang Xuelin thought for a while and said, "No need, by the way, after all these years, it's almost time to return to the real world, what is the special reward you just said?" ”

The system said: "In addition to having eight round-trips to the sci-fi world that the host has been to, it can also bring eight sci-fi world characters back to the real world!" ”

Pang Xuelin couldn't help but be slightly stunned, and suddenly felt a little moved.

can bring eight characters from the science fiction world back to the real world, so wouldn't he let Mu Qingqing go back with him.

But then, he had a headache.

Since getting the system, he has traveled through a total of nine sci-fi worlds, namely The Three-Body Problem, The Martian, The Wandering Earth, The Village Teacher, Whale Song, Dark Forest, District 9, Interstellar, Resident Evil, Chinese Sun, and has also experienced several relationships in it.

Wang Muhui in the rural teacher, Zhuang Yan in the dark forest, Chrissy in the ninth district, Murphy in interstellar, and Mu Qingqing in the Chinese sun.

Coupled with Yao Bingxia and Qi Xin in the real world, one of them is enough to make up two tables of mahjong.

If Pang Xuelin got these girls to the real world, Pang Xuelin estimated that his mother would hack himself to death with a knife.

After all, just how to play the balance between Yao Bingxia and Qi Xin is enough for my mother to have a headache, let alone seven.

Therefore, this reward was unfortunate for Pang Xuelin in a short period of time.

Instead, I went back to these worlds to visit those old friends, and got together with these girls, so I could think about it.

Pang Xuelin shook his head and began to focus on the rewards given by the system.

On the roulette, a total of six awards appeared, namely nanomirror film technology and deep space sail propulsion technology, nuclear fusion spacecraft engine technology, curvature engine technology, quantum communication technology (quantum entanglement), positive and antimatter annihilation reactor technology, and anti-gravity engine technology.

Pang Xuelin couldn't help but be a little surprised.

He didn't expect that the various scientific and technological rewards given by the system in China's Sun World would be so rich.

However, from the rewards given by the system, Pang Xuelin also vaguely saw what kind of height the scientific and technological level of human beings reached in 2278 AD.

The curvature engine, the positive and antimatter annihilation reactor, the anti-gravity engine, and quantum entanglement communication (which is not the same as the quantum secure communication we often say) can only show that in the Chinese solar world, in the more than 200 years since the departure of Ark-1, the field of basic science has advanced by leaps and bounds, and it is possible for mankind to complete the development of these technologies.

"The system has given me eight opportunities to return to the major sci-fi worlds, and perhaps, I can find time to return to these worlds and bring the technology inside back to the real world."

Pang Xuelin was secretly worried in his heart.

The progress of basic science is the driving force for scientific and technological progress.

The electromagnetic launch aerospace planes, carbon nanotube chips, molten salt nuclear reactors, fusion nuclear reactors, and so on that he is now working on in the real world are all based on the results of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity in the early 20th century.

At best, it is an application in the field of engineering.

Of course, basic science and applied science are mutually reinforcing.

The development of applied science provides an experimental basis for the exploration of basic science, and the development of basic science in turn pushes applied science forward.

For example, the emergence of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics provided a theoretical basis for the development of nuclear physics.

Then, during World War II, mankind completed the development of the most powerful weapon in history, the atomic bomb.

Then nuclear power plants, silicon-based chips, and the information revolution were all inseparable from the progress in the field of fundamental physics.

Pang Xuelin's eyes stared at the six techniques on the turntable without blinking.

Nanomirror film: a lightweight metamaterial with a reflectivity of up to 99.99999%, which has a strong application prospect in deep space communications, artificial sun, space power stations and other fields. One of the most important applications is as a main material for spacecraft sail propulsion. There are many types of sail propulsion, such as solar sails, laser sails, microwave sails, and particle sails.

The solar sail relies on the light pressure of the sunlight to generate thrust, and the laser sail uses the light pressure of the external high-power laser to generate thrust, because the laser intensity is much stronger than the sunlight, and the thrust is also more, that is, it is necessary to establish a high-power laser infrastructure.

The microwave sail is to use the microwave with a wavelength longer than the visible light to generate thrust, the principle is similar to that of the light pressure of electromagnetic waves, the microwave sail can be woven into a mesh with metal wire to reflect the microwave, which is lighter and stronger than the reflective film of the light sail, and the acceleration is also greater.

The particle sail uses a magnetic or electrostatic field to capture high-speed charged particles, such as protons, electrons or artificially emitted charged particles in the solar wind, to generate thrust. Since those charged particles have mass, and the photon mass of electromagnetic waves is 0, the natural thrust is greater.

The disadvantage is that the velocity of those particles is low, the speed of particles in the solar wind is about 700 km/s - 200 km/s, which is not comparable to the photons moving at the speed of light in electromagnetic waves, and charged particles are more likely to diverge than electromagnetic beams, which means that the thrust decreases quickly with distance.

Compared to propulsion, the sail type is much more practical than the EM engine, because the spacecraft itself is relatively simple in structure and does not need to carry a high-power power generation system. It can be done very lightly, and the thrust-to-weight ratio is relatively high, which means that the acceleration is higher.

Nuclear fusion spacecraft engine technology: Through nuclear fusion, the hot, high-speed expanding helium plasma produced by it is ejected at a speed of 100,000 kilometers per second, so as to provide powerful power for the spacecraft.

Compared with the solar sail, this technology has greater thrust, a wide range of adjustments, and is flexible, and the only drawback is that because of the use of working fluid, it cannot perform long-endurance flight missions, and can be used for internal flights in the solar system, especially for military spacecraft.

Curvature engine technology: The universe is not flat, but there is curvature, if you imagine the universe as a whole, the surface of the film is arc-shaped, the whole film may even be a closed soap bubble, although the part of the film seems to be flat, but the curvature of space is still everywhere.

According to the theory of relativity, mass can change the curvature of space, and the change in curvature is uniformly distributed around the center of mass of the mass object.

The so-called curvature engine is to create a curvature space (space-time trap) in front of the spacecraft that is the same as the singularity of a black hole, so that the spacecraft can quickly fall forward.

Theoretically, the curvature engine can reach a top speed infinitely close to the speed of light (but not beyond it), but according to the mass-energy equation of relativity, the engine needs to consume extremely high energy, and only a positive and antimatter annihilation reactor can provide such energy.

Quantum entanglement communication technology: In quantum mechanics, when several particles interact with each other, because the properties of each particle have been synthesized into a whole property, the properties of each particle cannot be described individually, but only the properties of the whole system, then this phenomenon is called quantum entanglement or quantum entanglement. And the particles that are quantumly entangled, no matter how far apart, even if they are separated from each other at the ends of the universe, when the state of one particle changes, the state of the other particle will also change.

This communication technology can achieve ultra-long-distance real-time communication, which is of great significance to interstellar civilizations.

Positive and antimatter annihilation reactor technology: One gram of positive matter and antimatter annihilation can produce 1.8×10^14 joules of energy, which is the highest level of energy application under relatalistic conditions. The mass-energy conversion efficiency of this reactor is almost 100 percent, and theoretically speaking, the complete annihilation of 500 grams of antimatter is equivalent to the energy generated by the explosion of the world's largest hydrogen bomb. Once the technology is broken, it can provide a steady stream of energy for human beings to carry out interstellar colonization.

Anti-gravity engine technology: The core of the technology is to create a gravitational wave shield, with a gravitational wave shield to wrap the matter, that is, the material and the surrounding space do not have any gravitational interaction, so that the earth's gravity will no longer be an obstacle for human beings to enter space, human beings can easily realize the industrialization of space, and the continuous flow of space resources into the future development.

……

Pang Xuelin's gaze swept over the six technologies one by one, and finally, he took a deep breath and said, "System, let's draw a lottery!" ”

Soon, the turntable began to spin rapidly, and after two minutes, the turntable slowly stopped, and the pointer finally focused on the fusion spacecraft engine technology.

"Congratulations to the host, you have obtained the technical principles of the nuclear fusion spacecraft engine and the roadmap for the realization of related projects!"