Chapter 22: The Scavengers

300 kilometers per second, what does this speed represent?

The speed of the solar wind is about the same as this. That is to say, if a large-scale flare erupts on the sun at this moment, and a strong solar wind erupts, and Xiao Yu escapes into outer space at this time, the solar wind will never be able to catch up with Xiao Yu.

At present, the farthest spacecraft ever built by mankind, Voyager 1, is about 17.8 billion kilometers away from the earth and 16 billion kilometers away from Xiao Yu. If Xiao Yu manipulated the Hope to set off at this moment to catch up with Voyager One, it would only take less than two years to catch up. Voyager 1, on the other hand, has been flying in space for 38 years.

At this rate, it will only take more than two months to fly from Saturn to Earth. In the past, there would have been no years, so don't even think about it.

This is the huge leap that controlled nuclear fusion has brought to Xiao Yu. It is also the reason why Xiao Yu attaches so much importance to controlled nuclear fusion.

A civilization can only be said to be an interstellar civilization after mastering the controllable nuclear fusion jishu!

Now Xiao Yu can proudly announce that mankind has entered the stage of interstellar civilization. Although in the entire human civilization, only Xiao Yu is left.

There has never been such a moment, Xiao Yu felt that his whole body was full of hope.

Xiao Yu couldn't put it down and controlled the Hope to fly around in space, and did all kinds of performance tests on it, until he mastered all the performance data of the Hope and the fuel was almost consumed, Xiao Yu manipulated it to the ground.

During this period of testing, Xiao Yu also found some problems that he had not considered before, as well as some Jishu defects of the Hope. Next, Xiao Yu began the long process of testing and transformation. This is the first interstellar spaceship that Xiao Yu has built, and it must be perfect.

Time passed slowly, and in a blink of an eye, two years passed.

In the past two years, the number of Xiao Yu's bases on Titan has grown to ninety-three, each of which has its own main output, and these materials, after being transported to the main base by the Fengshen helicopter, will be transformed into various construction raw materials, providing strong support for Xiao Yu's great construction era.

In the past two years, the number of Fengshen helicopters has grown to more than 100, and these planes are busy shuttling through Titan's atmosphere, taking on the task of transporting supplies between various bases. Hundreds or thousands of robots, like the rare earth expeditionary corps, will never again be seen walking to their destination.

This is a big jishu progress, which means that Xiao Yu's strength is getting stronger and stronger.

The area of the main base has expanded to two square kilometers, and within the base, there are various factories and buildings, and countless robots shuttle back and forth in them - only in the main base, there are now about 100,000 robots. The total number of robots in all the bases on Titan has probably exceeded one million.

These millions of robots, as well as all kinds of machinery and all kinds of sensors, are all under Xiao Yu's unified control, and they work in an orderly manner. It can be said that on the entire Titan, Xiao Yu's eyes are everywhere, and on Titan, any subtle movement that occurs anywhere, as long as Xiao Yu wants to know, it can't escape Xiao Yu's perception.

Although he had mastered the controllable nuclear fusion jishu, Xiao Yu did not change the power source in the base to nuclear fusion power. Because methane is almost inexhaustible and easy to use on Titan, fusion feedstock needs to be harvested from Saturn, compared to conventional chemical fuels, which are cheaper and more practical.

Even so, Xiao Yu began to think about building a fusion power acquisition fleet. Although Xiao Yu only has a "village" class spaceship now, Xiao Yu has to think about it for the future.

Moreover, the lack of titanium and zirconium also forced Xiao Yu to come up with a way to solve it as soon as possible. The most important case is to find these two deposits on the rest of Saturn's moons, otherwise, the search will be expanded to Uranus and Neptune, and if it is not found, it will be necessary to go to Mars or the original Earth orbit to find it.

Jupiter, Xiao Yu doesn't plan to go for the time being. The radiation source there brought too much psychological shadow to Xiao Yu. Of course, in the future, Xiao Yu will definitely build a fleet that specializes in catching the ghosts of Jupiter like "One", but not now.

"Jupiter Ghosts...... Jupiter Ghost ...... That's a good name, just name those weird radiation source creatures Jupiter Ghosts, or Wood Spirits for short. Xiao Yu thought, "As for these black bugs, let's call them black bugs." ”

Within two years, Xiao Yu launched three more hydrogen bombs, blew up three methane lakes, and harvested at least 1,500 tons of black insect corpses. Of course, with the presence of Hope, Xiao Yu did not waste any more time building rockets to launch hydrogen bombs. At the speed of the Hope, it was enough to escape the hydrogen bomb's area of effect before it exploded.

Xiao Yu also began to try to raise black insects in captivity. After all, black worms are so useful. In this way, after leaving Titan, Xiao Yu can still be replenished by black insect resources. It's such a thing as a wood spirit, Xiao Yu has never found a way to raise it in captivity. Seventy percent of the radiation intensity of "No. 1" has been used up, and during this time, it has maintained this half-dead state, and no matter how much Xiao Yu uses all means, he can't make it strong again.

"Well, the artificial satellites around Saturn have been built, and the first batch of eighteen will be launched." Xiao Yu thought, manipulating the robot and putting these satellites into the Hope.

Xiao Yu doesn't believe in computer programs. No matter how powerful a computer program is, it is dead, and where can it compare to the flexibility of a human mind? It is for this reason that Xiao Yu built twelve Ares satellites to cover the entire Titan, and now, for the same reason, Xiao Yu intends to make a signal coverage for Saturn. Otherwise, when Hope flies to the far side of Saturn, it will lose contact with Xiao Yu.

There is another benefit to doing signal coverage for Saturn. Xiao Yu's Jihua is to launch 60 to 80 Saturn moons, so that except for some signal blind spots, it is equivalent to almost the entire solar system for signal coverage.

At that point, Hope will be free to fly within the solar system without worrying about losing contact.

After such a long time of testing, Xiao Yu is already handy at manipulating the Hope, and he is familiar with it. As the command was given, a pale blue flame rose from the bottom of the Hope, and it flew quickly towards outer space.

Counting the acceleration and deceleration time, it took about two hours for Hope to reach a distance of 100,000 kilometers from Saturn. After adjusting to the right speed and orbit, Hope opened its cabin and the first Saturn satellite was released.

In the distance, the huge earthy yellow Saturn is quietly suspended there, and around it, the gorgeous rings of Saturn surround it, and the light is strange. With the giant Saturn as the background, the Hope spacecraft resembles a tiny ant.

After the moon is released, the Saturn moon will begin to orbit Saturn under the action of inertia. It carries some fuel on it, which can be used for track adjustment and daily consumption.

Then, Xiao Yu adjusted his orbit again, left here, and in the second position, released the second satellite.

After repeating this eighteen times, the mission was completed. These eighteen Saturn moons, with orbital altitudes ranging from 50,000 kilometers to 2 million kilometers, basically cover the entire Saturn and its satellite system. Of course, at first, due to the insufficient number of satellites, this coverage was only approximate. In the future, Xiao Yu will launch more satellites to complete this project.

After completing the mission, Xiao Yu steered the Hope spacecraft to approach Saturn.

This take-off, there is also a mission, which is to collect fusion raw materials such as deuterium, tritium, and helium. After two years of consumption, Xiao Yu has not much fusion fuel left.

Saturn is more than 760 times the size of the Earth, but only 95 times the mass of the Earth. This means that Saturn's average density is low, even lower than that of water.

Xiao Yu carefully steered the Hope spacecraft and stopped at the edge of Saturn's upper atmosphere.

Compared to Jupiter, Saturn has always been very calm. However, this calm, relatively speaking, Saturn has the fastest storm in the entire solar system, with a speed of more than 1,800 kilometers per hour, which is much stronger than the storm above the earth.

Xiao Yu cautiously analyzed the atmospheric flow, and after a long time, he chose a place and flew in quietly.

Xiao Yu is making observations at all times, so as to adjust his trajectory according to the flow of Saturn's atmosphere, so as to minimize the danger.

After a while, several gaps opened in the shell of the Hope, several large extractors began to work, and immediately, a large amount of Saturn gas was pumped in, and then, inside the Hope, after a series of separation, purification and other procedures, the useful elements were collected, and the useless elements were expelled from the ship.

Saturn's atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen, but ordinary hydrogen is not cost-effective as a fusion fuel. Xiao Yu mainly collected isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, as well as helium-three. These things are much less abundant.

But even so, its content is many times more than that on Earth or Titan. Xiao Yu comfortably roamed in the atmosphere of Saturn and did the work of a "scavenger". Of course, it is only limited to the surface atmosphere, and inside, Xiao Yu does not dare to go. It's too dangerous there.

It took ten days for Xiao Yu to collect enough raw materials, and then Xiao Yu manipulated the Hope to leave Saturn and return towards Titan.

"Continue to build satellites, do signal coverage for the entire Saturn system, and even the entire solar system, and then start titanium zirconium collection! It's time for the wood spirit to capture Jihua and officially start. ”

"Tianyuan Four, wait for me! I'm coming soon! ”