Chapter 372: Landing an Asteroid
It is believed that in the near future, this desert will be covered with green, and it will be a luxury for the desert to become fertile land.
There are a total of 700,000 square kilometers of desert in Kyushu, and it is believed that under this model, it will also turn from a desert to a large area of fertile land.
In space, the asteroid was flying towards the target, and all the crew members on it were sitting in their seats solemnly, because they were about to approach their destination.
In the space in front of them, an asteroid was flying in his fixed orbit at a constant speed, and this asteroid was the target of their expedition.
This is also the reason why the astronauts are all on guard, first after approaching the asteroid, they will adjust the flight attitude of the space plane to keep the plane and the asteroid at the same speed.
At this time, they will carry out mapping of asteroids, and conduct various professional scientific research on asteroids in space, and wait until they have first-hand information about these asteroids, and then continue downward.
For astronauts, space is not particularly unfamiliar, after all, they have been shuttling back and forth between the earth and the moon before this, but for the accompanying scientist, landing in space is a novel experience.
And now they are about to approach an asteroid, and they are still very excited in their mood, after all, what they are about to do is to approach an asteroid for the first time in the entire world, and even in the following time, they will control the space plane to land on the asteroid.
As the distance between the two sides continued to shorten, the mood of the people on the plane also stabilized.
Through the unremitting efforts of the astronauts, the astronauts finally kept the attitude of the aircraft in a state of constant speed with the asteroid, or this state is more appropriate to be called companionship.
The plane stabilized, and at this time, a robotic arm stretched out from one side of the spaceplane, and the robotic arm carried an instrument with mapping functions.
When the instrument stretched out of the fuselage, the space plane also moved, began to take the asteroid as the center, and began to orbit and map the asteroid.
The space plane flew around the asteroid in circles, but fortunately, the volume of this asteroid is not too large, its diameter is a total of one kilometer, and the orbiting time is not too long.
Moreover, there are anti-gravity systems on the current aerospace planes, and although they are orbiting the asteroid as a whole, they do not have the feeling of orbiting.
Otherwise, they are constantly circling the asteroid now, and everyone on the plane must be stunned, maybe for the astronauts, this feeling can be bearable, but the scientists with the plane must not be able to stand it.
If you are really dizzy in this constant surrounding, your stomach will definitely turn upside down, and the most serious condition is vomiting.
I can't stand the image just thinking about it, the whole helmet is covered in vomit, and it feels absolutely sour.
They surveyed the asteroid as quickly as they could, and eventually they got the detailed topography of the asteroid.
After getting the full terrain of the asteroid, the space plane resumed flying with the asteroid again, but the astronauts on the plane got together, and all their eyes fell on the big screen of the plane.
What was on the screen was the terrain map of the asteroid they had just mapped, and what they were going to do now was to discuss how they were going to land at each location of the asteroid.
In the end, they chose to land at the highest point on the asteroid, which is also the most suitable place for them to land.
They planned their plans for the future, and then left one of the officers on duty in the cab while the others returned to the living quarters to rest.
When they have rested enough and their spirits have fully recovered, they will continue downward.
At the same time, another space plane from Earth is also floating in the universe, and at this moment they are only halfway through their journey to their destination, Mars.
Their journey is still waiting, and they are still flying towards Mars, just like the people who went to Mars before, all of them are working towards various movies and TV series.
When the astronauts were flying near the asteroid, all the astronauts were ready and tied to their seats.
As everyone was ready, the plane was moving, the plane was constantly adjusting its attitude in space, and the distance between the plane and the asteroid became shorter and shorter.
Since asteroids don't have an atmosphere and aren't very large in gravity, it's fairly easy for planes to get close to asteroids.
However, this simplicity is also relative, the asteroid's rotation time is only two hours at most, think of a star with a diameter of only one kilometer, his rotation time is only two hours, then his rotation speed is unimaginable.
Therefore, the current flight speed of the plane is not much slow, and it is also difficult for the plane to land on such a body.
It was in this state that the plane finally landed on the asteroid, and when the plane successfully landed on the asteroid, the plane's engine did not immediately go out, but was still running.
After the landing gear of the aircraft came into contact with the asteroid, due to the gravity and the asteroid's rotation, in order not to be thrown into space by the asteroid, the landing gear reached out with a mechanical arm on the fuselage after landing.
What the robotic arm carries is a small drilling equipment, which keeps drilling into the ground, and in the subsequent time force, the drilling equipment drills to a certain depth, and the drill bit retracts and casts an anchor at the deep well that has just been drilled.
Under the pull of this anchor, the plane finally stopped firmly on the asteroid, and it was at this time that the engine of the space plane could be extinguished.
It was a cumbersome operation, but it didn't take much time, from drilling underground to dropping anchor into a deep well to secure the plane, it didn't take more than five minutes.
And the role of the drilling just now is not only to fix the plane on the asteroid, but also to lift the soil from the underground drilling of the asteroid, which is also the raw material for the astronauts to analyze next.
It can be said that this move can be regarded as a double win. The astronauts in the plane, after the plane was completely stable, they also began to make preparations for the next warehouse on the plane.
Because it was to be landed before, in case the astronauts were fully armed, so there was no need to prepare for the equipment at this time, just a check was enough.
After checking that the various states of the spacesuits were in good condition, the astronauts began to pack up the various instruments to be used in the next exit.
All kinds of testing equipment, large and small, were taken out one by one, and made a final inspection before leaving the warehouse, and after getting everything in good condition, they separated two people to stay on the plane, and the other four people walked towards the airtight cabin of the plane.
On the small asteroid, a plane more than thirty meters long stopped steadily, and at this moment, a circle of white mist appeared somewhere on the body, and then with the appearance of the fog, a hatch appeared on the fuselage.
As the hatch opened, four fully armed astronauts dressed in Wu Gang's spacesuits stepped down from the plane.
When the feet of the four astronauts stepped on the land of the asteroid, all the astronauts who went out of the warehouse were inevitably a little excited in their hearts.
It was a feeling they had never experienced before, and they had accomplished a worldly feat.
Before this, no one on the earth had ever landed on an asteroid, and some studies on asteroids only used some kind of instrument to come to the vicinity of the asteroid and impact the asteroid.
For example, a few years ago, Xiao Ri hit an asteroid with something, and did an extremely basic test on the asteroid.
Such a move can make Xiao Ri blow in the aerospace world for a long time, not to mention what they are doing now, this is much more high-end than Xiao Ri, Xiao Ri is still smashing asteroids with things, but they have already transported people to the asteroid.
The technical difficulty and strength gap in the middle are very obvious in front of people.
The three astronauts and a scientist who got off the plane also began to move on the asteroid after calming down the mood of themselves and the others.
First of all, they carried out a comprehensive and rigorous analysis of the soil that they had just drilled up underground with instruments and equipment to analyze the various components of the soil.
Because of the gravity on the asteroid, the astronauts never dared to release the leash hanging on their bodies to move freely, so if they moved freely, they might be free in this life.
Fortunately, they still have a lot of weight on them, which makes it convenient for them to move around asteroids.
Because of the limited range of activity, they can only carry out activities around the aircraft, in fact, compared to asteroids, their range of activity is not small, the size of the aircraft plus the length of the tow rope, so that their range of activity reaches a radius of 100 meters.
Such a range of activities is already able to allow them to do a lot of things on asteroids, who made the asteroids not large in size!
"The Great Luo of the Worlds"
Time passed minute by minute, everyone was carrying out various testing activities within the scope of activity, and while they were still collecting various asteroid detection samples, the detection instrument they turned on first was completed.
At this time, everyone also put down all the work in their hands, and the four people who were originally divided into two groups of activities soon returned to the plane, and their eyes were all locked on the instrument that had completed the test.
The composition of the asteroid's soil was analyzed by the instrument, and they transmitted the results from the instrument to their personal terminals, and everyone watched intently.
While the three astronauts were still looking at the analysis results, the scientist cheered excitedly, and his cheers were transmitted to the ears of several other astronauts through the communication channel.
At this time, all the astronauts looked at the scientists, and they all understood that this should be a major discovery made by the scientists in the analysis results, otherwise the scientists would not be the way they are now.
Just when everyone's eyes were fixed on the scientist, the scientist also understood that others were waiting for his answer, but at this moment, his heart was agitated, and he couldn't say a word at all.
Returning to the results of the analysis they had just obtained, the composition of the soil extracted from the asteroid's surface was clearly displayed.
There are many rare elements in the entire soil composition, and there are two elements in that place alone, and the content is extremely high.
Now, according to the scientist's calculations, the entire asteroid may have all the soil composition like this, if it is really the same as he guessed, then the asteroid they are targeting this time is an asteroid composed of rare earths.
Just such a discovery, the asteroid under their feet, is worth all the means they take to drag it back to Earth, although Kyushu is the country with the highest distribution of rare earths in the whole world, but who dislikes their own good things?
And from the performance they have found now, they can actually have a rough guess about the origin of this asteroid.
One of the physical and chemical properties of rare earths is the lack of sulfides and sulfates, and rare earth elements are oxygen-friendly.
In space, there is generally no oxygen, and these asteroids have so many oxygen-friendly rare earths, isn't this a great contradiction?
So in the scientist's speculation, the asteroid is likely to be part of a star with sufficient oxygen, and it is not up to him to know why the asteroid will separate from the star.
Anyway, all the discoveries now have made them a major help in understanding the asteroid, and this is still a theoretical help.
The value of the entire asteroid will only be higher, you must know that this asteroid contains a large amount of rare earth elements.
Just when the scientist was staring at the previous ingredient analysis table, an astronaut who had not received a response made another discovery on the ingredient list.
This discovery made him feel that it may be more important than the rare earth elements discovered, and the astronauts' knowledge reserve is actually very rich, and they can understand some basic things.
For example, the last few substances in the ingredient list can still be understood, and it is also because they have been on the moon base for a while before, so they are very familiar with all kinds of organic matter.
And now the astronauts have discovered the existence of organic matter on this ingredient list in their hands.
They found organic matter in the soil of an asteroid in space!