The rise of nanometers

At this time, Toad Palace TV is broadcasting a program called "Moon Life", which is a documentary describing how astronauts live at Toad Palace Space Station and Guanghan Palace Base.

Although the picture had been edited and some sensitive areas were covered by ancestral mosaics, Hawke and Wade still watched it with gusto.

Although the two sides have a hostile relationship, as peers, we can still see a lot of things.

In terms of living facilities, the living facilities in Guanghan Palace Base and Toad Palace Space Station are very comprehensive and even somewhat luxurious.

At least the two Hawkes are very envious. Although they have three living cabins, the actual area for movement is only one and a half cabins. The internal volume of the living area is only 37.2 cubic meters, which is a very narrow residence.

There are considerable differences between the two sides in terms of materials related to their space capsules. NASA's old-fashioned space capsules appear to be about the same size in appearance, but Greater China's space capsules are at least 3 to 5 times stronger than the other, and their internal volume is also smaller. Around 1.3~1.5 times.

It seems that Guanghan Palace Base has only 8 living cabins, but in fact, the internal volume of the living area in Guanghan Palace Base reaches 472 cubic meters, which is about 12 times that of Outpost 1.

The Guanghan Palace base currently has 7 astronauts stationed, with an average of 67 cubic meters per person; Outpost 1 has only 2 astronauts, with an average of 18.6 cubic meters per person.

The gap in the quality of life between the two sides is very obvious. Outpost 1 cannot even take a shower. If Hawke and Wade could not use the experimental cabin as a temporary rest room, life would be even more difficult.

It's just that NASA is also very helpless. It's not that they don't want to be equipped with complete living facilities, but the economy doesn't allow it. In addition, two new Saturn V carrier rockets failed to launch. As a result, the originally planned 115-ton 8-cabin design ended up missing two A cabin.

Next, the next batch of space capsules is planned to be launched in September this year.

But Hawke and Wade were a little worried. Their supplies could only last about 136 days. If the support launch in September failed, they would have to wait until October or November.

The two of them could only pray in their hearts, hoping that everything would go well. They didn't want to starve to death on the moon.

After the program "Life on the Moon" has been broadcast, next is "Moon Frontier". This program mainly talks about experiments and planning.

Of course, since it is broadcast as a TV program, the content must have been reviewed and screened, and there will be no technical leaks.

For example, the Hongwan geological exploration currently being broadcast is also being carried out by Outpost 1, and the findings of both parties are similar.

However, Outpost 1 does not carry large-scale drilling equipment and can only collect lunar soil and lunar rocks on the ground. Unlike the Guanghan Palace base, it can drill hundreds of meters underground.

on the show.

Shi Keji pointed to rows of stratigraphic samples and introduced to the audience the specific conditions of Hongwan from the surface to 240 meters underground.

"At the location of the No. 1 borehole, we found that there are ice crystals with a content of about 1.3% to 4.2% in the rock and soil layers 5 meters to 27 meters underground. This shows that there is a layer of frozen soil in the underground rock layers of the moon. .”

Shi Keji continued: "A trace amount of liquid water was found in the rock formations 56 to 84 meters underground."

Through geological exploration, Guanghan Palace Base further understands the underground conditions of Hongwan.

"In the strata 132 to 186 meters underground, we found the existence of liquid water layers. The abundance of these groundwaters is not much different from our expected calculations."

Seeing Shi Keji pick up a bottle of lunar groundwater, Hawke said with envy: "They no longer need to transport water from Blue Star. The gap is getting wider and wider. Do we really have a chance to make a comeback?"

"Who knows? This is not an issue we should be concerned about. Anyway, those gentlemen will not give up easily." Wade replied, spreading his hands.

Hawke also looked depressed and took out his tablet computer to record some data for reference in future drilling.

Time passed little by little, and after watching a science fiction short film, the two got into their sleeping bags and began to rest.

the other side.

In the Guanghan Palace base.

Shi Keji and another astronaut were driving an electric off-road vehicle and slowly exploring the surroundings of the base. At this time, they were already 12 kilometers away from the base.

This is the eighth time that the two have conducted surface exploration. On average, they conduct one to two surface explorations per month. Currently, they have mapped an area with a radius of 12 to 26 kilometers from the base.

Although there are geological remote sensing satellites, remote sensing satellites are not omnipotent. In many cases, manual-assisted exploration is required.

The searchlight of the electric off-road vehicle illuminates the ground ahead. Although the Moon Sea is dominated by plains, it does not mean that the terrain is flat.

Sand dunes, ravines, and small craters can be seen everywhere, and there are very dangerous quicksand areas.

The reason for the formation of the quicksand area is that there are cracks in the ground and the surface is covered with lunar soil, which looks similar to ordinary ground. Once the weight of vehicles passing above exceeds the bearing capacity of the quicksand, a sudden subsidence may occur.

Previously, during Shi Keji's sixth surface exploration, an electric off-road vehicle sank directly when passing through the quicksand area.

Fortunately, there was an emergency ejection system on the off-road vehicle, and the two men were successfully ejected. With the help of the moon's low gravity and the booster of the exoskeleton space suit, they returned to the ground little by little.

Although an off-road vehicle was lost, the two of them finally escaped from the accident.

After re-exploring the quicksand area, Shi Keji sweated for himself. This quicksand area is about 18.4 kilometers away from the base. It is a cavity formed by an underground fault. The deepest position is 53 meters, and the average depth is 27 meters.

But as a blessing in disguise, they discovered that there was a rare lead-zinc mine in this formation. Although after exploration, the reserves were only 11,000 to 15,000 tons of lead and 0.2 to 4,000 tons of zinc.

However, lead-zinc ore is a relatively rare mineral on the moon, because lead and zinc are volatile elements, and the rock formations on the lunar surface lack volatile elements, siderophilic elements, and alkali metals, and are rich in refractory elements.

The so-called volatile elements refer to rubidium, lead, bismuth, arsenic, mercury, copper, cadmium, barium and the like; while the siderophilic elements refer to gold, silver, platinum and the like.

These elements are relatively rare and poor elements in the lunar surface rock and soil.

Refractory elements refer to thorium, cobalt, chromium and rare earth elements. The relative abundance of these elements on the lunar surface is relatively high and they are rich elements.

This lead-zinc deposit was accidentally discovered due to the folding and uplift of the lunar crust movement, and the subsequent meteorite impact that formed the Rainbow Bay, which caused this small vein to appear in the surface rock layers.

Lead-zinc ore plays a very important role for the lunar base. For example, in terms of radiation protection, lead alloy plates are the most suitable material.

Blue Star's Lunar Materials Research Institute is currently designing a processing cabin, using foamed silicon steel as the skeleton, and then pressing lead into it to form a composite plate.

The reason why lead plates are arranged is mainly to protect against solar wind, neutron flow, proton flow, etc.

Although the Guanghan Palace base has a magnetic cage protection system, as a base in a dangerous environment, it is best not to place chips in a single system.

If there is a problem with the magnetic cage protection system and there happens to be a solar storm, many equipment in the base may be affected.

This is why the space capsule at NASA's Outpost 1 base is overweight, because they add a layer of lead plate to the outer shell to enhance the capsule's ability to withstand solar storms.

The Guanghan Palace Base, a bold project by skilled artists, adopted a magnetic cage solution, and the thickness of its own space capsule shell was reduced to only about 0.3 to 0.8 centimeters.

Of course, if the lead-zinc mine is not found, the space agency actually has a backup plan, which is the cabin covering plan.

Cover the surface of the space capsule with lunar soil to form a protective layer.

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