You were told to build a tractor, but you're building a rocket? Chapter 293 - 286: Conception1

December 20th, evening.

The Office of Lunar Exploration of the Aerospace Developnt Committee once again released news to the public, preliminarily confirming that a large-scale ice deposit band was found beneath the Krum Impact Crater.

Even though the details were still unclear and only a few blurry images were available, it had indeed proven that there was a considerable amount of ice under the crater, which was more than enough for the early stages of exploration.

This revelation had a huge impact on the international aerospace community, the most significant of which was the greatly increased interest of various countries in the Moon.

The presence of water implies that organic compounds can be synthesized, which ans that it might be possible to maintain a lunar surface outpost autonomously, greatly reducing the pressure on Earthly resources.

At the sa ti, it indicated that colonizing the Moon could be plausible. Although it would still not be a small endeavor, it would be much simpler than Mars.

The European Space Agency, which was the first to respond in the dia, imdiately announced that the area surrounding the Krum Impact Crater was rich in resources and that they would initiate an unmanned exploration mission imdiately. Their estimate was to launch a satellite and a lunar rover to the Moon’s orbit within 6 to 8 months, tentatively nad the "Pangea" project.

This project was unanimously approved within the European Space Agency at an unprecedented speed, and it also led to an increased focus on their "Selene" project.

Following closely was NACA.

Claire, upon receiving the call, imdiately looked for a solution and eventually found one: Perseverance Rover.

In 2011, NACA sent the first nuclear-powered Mars rover to Mars, the 900-kilogram Curious, and also developed a successor program similar to Curious. It was publicly nad "Perseverance" in 2020, but internally it was simply referred to as the "Second Mars Rover."

The "Second Mars Rover" weighed slightly over one ton. Its basic fra and structure were the sa as Curious, except it carried different scientific equipnt. The developnt was not urgent, as there were no significant technical difficulties.

Claire’s requirent was to modify the "Second Mars Rover" and launch it to the Moon.

As a result, what would in a later era be known as the "Perseverance Rover" was directly nad by her as the "Isis Rover."

Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of life, magic, marriage, and fertility, and water is the source of life.

For the Isis Rover, which uses the sa chassis as the Curious, working on the Moon is not very difficult, and it requires only minor modifications.

The minimum temperature on both the Moon and Mars is over one hundred degrees below zero. The difference is that the temperature on the Moon can get extrely high when directly exposed to sunlight; however, a bit of hibernation modification is a minor issue.

The main task was to replace equipnt and rebuild it, which might take so ti.

The rockets were ready; the Cosmos God 5, which could send a Mars rover to Mars, could naturally also send the Isis Rover to the Moon. ULA had plenty of these dium-capacity, disposable rockets.

The lander didn’t need major modifications either. Even if parachutes were omitted, the Sky Crane system would be more than adequate under the Moon’s low gravity, and it was rely a matter of tweaking the software.

So Claire set the launch date for the Isis Rover around early March 2017, as two months would be sufficient for the modifications.

However, before they made their announcent, SpaceX had already made a move.

Musk first heaped praise on the Aerospace Developnt Committee on Twitter and Weibo, and then announced that the first batch of 10 Star Chain satellites scheduled for January would be canceled and instead delivered to the Moon by the Falcon 9 Rocket.

"Star Chain" was finally happening.

...

B-level Base.

Xie Liaofu scratched his head as he looked at the six "Explorer II" that had been assembled in the workshop.

Compared to what had been disclosed to the public, in recent days, the Aerospace Developnt Committee had controlled two Yutu-3 rovers to conduct more detailed surveys. According to the model speculated on the geological condition of the Moon, there indeed should be a huge ice layer beneath the Lunar South Pole, naly under the Aitken Basin.

The cause of its formation was unknown, but the area might exceed 3000 square kiloters, with an average depth of about 20 to 50 ters from the surface; the thickness remained unknown, but it was conservatively estimated at over 20 ters.

The Kuom Impact Crater was likely a higher elevation point of this ice layer; having been impacted many years ago, it made contact with the ice layer. That was why the average depth of Moon Soil covering the crater was less than 25 cm, and in the thinnest places, it was only a few centiters.

The whole estimated ice layer region conservatively had an ice reserve of over 600 million tons, an unimaginably vast resource.

Inside the Aerospace Developnt Committee, there was an uproar at the ti; missions for Chang’e 6, 7, and 8 were planned out in one go, ready to launch probes at the fastest possible speed, not for anything else, but to stake out as much territory as possible.

Before astronauts could set foot and establish a scientific research station, it could only depend on robots to stake a claim first and take the shallowest and best spots.

While the Xinyuan Company manufactured a total of 12 Explorer IIs, the remaining six were already completed and lying here, ready to launch at any mont.

These six had already been earmarked for the Chang’e 6 rover; the lander would be completed within the month, and the six missions would launch at the beginning of January. There were plenty of New Yuan-2 rockets available.

The aerospace agency even bought two of the detectors, giving the Kuom Impact Crater a total of eight robots, creating a crushing advantage over the rest of the world.

In Lin Ju’s words, "If their probes dare to enter our staked territory, just cut their solar panels! Take them apart and throw them into the teorite crater."

Although it was a joke, it did indeed reflect the vast number of robots the Aerospace Developnt Committee had; there were already seven on the lunar surface!

However, Xie Liaofu knew that both Explorer I and Explorer II were mostly for detection purposes. After finding a confird ice layer, he had been pondering the next generation of practical machinery that could extract water, purify it, and synthesize needed compounds with a substantial efficiency.

First was the issue of mass. New Yuan-2B (third stage) had an 18-ton capacity for lunar orbit, a very significant figure, capable of delivering a 6-ton payload to the lunar surface.

tons... 6 tons was overly abundant for a detector, but it was a very small number for engineering machinery, especially since the payload to equipnt weight ratio on the Moon was not high.

The simplest thod of using electrolysis to obtain hydrogen gas required about 4.5 kWh to produce 1 cubic ter of hydrogen and 0.5 cubic ters of oxygen. Assuming a 6-ton machine was entirely dedicated to electrolyzing water to obtain hydrogen and compressing it, the weight should be about enough.

Using common catalysts and proton exchange mbrane electrolysis, it could produce 5 cubic ters of hydrogen per hour, equating to 120 cubic ters of hydrogen and 60 cubic ters of oxygen per day.

cubic ters of hydrogen is just 10.788 kilograms; definitely not enough for rocket fuel, but entirely sufficient for synthesizing materials to supply a scientific research station.

More importantly was the oxygen. 60 cubic ters of oxygen is 60,000 liters; an average adult consus about 550 liters of oxygen daily. This ans one electrolysis unit could provide the breathing oxygen for 100 adults for one day, which was more than adequate.

Such electrolysis equipnt would require a power consumption of about 20 to 40 kilowatts; the nuclear vehicles in developnt at Qingshan Base could provide 38 KW of power, which was sufficient.

In addition, there would need to be a mining machine, possibly a nuclear vehicle for power supply, as well as so tanks for hydrogen and oxygen storage. These could be made larger and preferably buried under the Moon soil, so perhaps a digging machine was also necessary?

Xie Liaofu did so rough calculations; 6 tons was a manageable mass for these engineering machines and large equipnt. Approximately six launch missions would be needed, costing at least 2 billion yuan, but it was possible to bring in the Aerospace Developnt Committee, spreading out over 60% of the costs, so not much money would be spent.

Xie Liaofu, thinking this through, wrote down "Lunar-1 Preliminary Small-scale Developnt Mission Draft" on his tablet, envisaging the design of the base.