The Falcon 2 spacecraft landed slowly. Zhao Changxing, who was wearing a spacesuit, held a box in his hand, opened the hatch, and walked to the door of the soilless cultivation workshop.
During the period when the life support area was not built, the Falcon 1 spacecraft stayed here to provide it with energy. At this moment, looking at the searchlight on the isolation door of the soilless cultivation workshop that illuminated the dark night, and looking at the big square house in front of him, Zhao Changxing could not help but feel a sense of accomplishment.
After inputting the command skillfully, the outer hatch of the soilless cultivation workshop slowly opened. Zhao Changxing went in, pressed the button, and the outer hatch slowly closed. The pressurizing equipment began to operate, and a large amount of gas was released until the internal air pressure was pressurized to one atmosphere.
After verifying that it was correct, Zhao Changxing took off his spacesuit and hung it on the wall hook. This made the small isolation room, which was only about one square meter, more and more crowded, but there was no way, Zhao Changxing had to squeeze out such a small area.
Pressing the button, the inner hatch opened, and a corridor only less than one meter wide appeared in front of him.
Because the air pressure inside and outside is the same at this moment, the air does not fluctuate at all after the hatch is opened. The temperature inside and outside is also the same, allowing Zhao Changxing to live comfortably here.
There are three relatively simple isolation doors on the east side of the corridor, each of which leads to a different planting area.
As for the isolation door in the spinach planting area, it is integrated with the isolation door connecting the inside and outside of the soilless cultivation workshop. The reason for this design is also to save area.
Opening the exit on the other side of the isolation door, a long and narrow spinach growing area also appeared in front of Zhao Changxing. Zhao Changxing opened the box and revealed some black and gray stuff that looked like sand in the box.
This thing was collected from the surface of Sedna, and its elemental composition is similar to some rocks on the earth. This thing has no nutrition at all and cannot support the growth of crops at all. The reason why Zhao Changxing made these things was just to fix the plant roots.
A large box of sand only completed half of the four-layer planting rack. As a last resort, Zhao Changxing had to put on his spacesuit and leave the soilless cultivation workshop, and collected some more outside - there were some larger stones among them, which he had to grind into powder using the small grinding equipment in the Falcon 1 spacecraft. use.
It took more than six hours of work to cover all the four-layer planting racks in the spinach planting area.
Next is to connect the water circulation equipment. Also because the life support area has not yet been built, the water circulation channel can still only be connected to the Falcon 1 spacecraft first, and the preparation of nutrient solution can only be done here temporarily.
This took more than two hours. When everything was finally settled, more than eight hours had passed since the landing.
Carefully scatter the spinach seeds on the sand substrate, set the temperature and humidity of the spinach planting area, and today's work is finally done.
All that's left is to wait. If all goes well, in about a month, Zhao Changxing will be able to add delicious spinach to his monotonous recipes.
Although more than eight hours have passed since the landing, it is still not the end of today's work. The construction of the life-support area must be accelerated, because the life-support area cannot be built in one day, and the two Falcon spacecraft will have to stay here. And he only has these two spaceships in total.
The risk was too great. If something happened to both spaceships, he would have no choice but to stay here and wait to die. To be on the safe side, it is better to have a spaceship left with the Spark spacecraft as a backup.
So after eating some "starch bento", he devoted himself to the construction of the subsistence area.
More than three hours have passed in a busy time, and the construction task of the survival area has come to an end for the time being. But he still couldn't go back at this moment, he still had one thing to do.
In addition to the regular collection of water ice to bring back to the Spark spacecraft, he also has to collect some specific compounds in order to prepare the nutrient solution. You know, at the moment, only spinach is planted in the soilless cultivation workshop, and the remaining rice, millet, and soybeans have not been planted yet.
Driving the "Red Flag" space vehicle - during this time he finally assembled the thing and brought it to the Sedna planet. Zhao Changxing followed the resource satellite's detection of a place that may be rich in solid nitrogen or nitrogen compounds. Driving past.
Through spectral analysis, the previously launched resource detection satellites can roughly determine these things. The Hongqi space vehicle is equipped with higher-precision element analysis equipment for use at close range. This finally allowed him to no longer have to search as hard as before using a handheld device.
The space car's wide tires rotated and jumped on the rugged dark red and black gray ground, and the huge searchlight in front illuminated the far distance. Zhao Changxing concentrated on driving the car according to the satellite images, feeling extremely peaceful in his heart.
He was lonely, but not at all confused about the future. He always knew clearly what he should do and what the consequences would be after doing it. So he followed the planned path step by step, and watched himself progress further and further day by day.
After collecting some compounds and nearly two cubic meters of ice, Zhao Changxing drove the car back to Humanity Base No. 1.
Finally, after a day's work, he dragged his tired body back to the Fireship on the Falcon 2 spacecraft. After checking the synthetic starch reactor, there were no surprises, and then looking at the artificial womb, there were no surprises either. The embryos inside were developing smoothly, and I finally felt relieved.
After humming a popular ditty on earth in the past and drinking a large bowl of starch paste, it was finally time to rest.
This day, before going to bed, he chose to watch a movie.
Almost all literary and artistic works in the human world are stored in the database of the Spark spacecraft, whether they are movies, TV series, novels or comics. Today, he chose a comedy. Looking at the bustling city and the laughing and noisy people in the film, he was filled with emotion.
Unfortunately, before he finished watching this movie, he couldn't hold on anymore and fell asleep without realizing it. When I woke up the next day, the screen had automatically turned off. I don’t know if Xiao Xi turned it off after noticing that he fell asleep, or if it turned off automatically after the movie.
Get up, wash your face, brush your teeth, cook and eat, collect the starch and put in the raw materials, prepare the building materials to be taken down today, and it’s time for a busy day of work again. But this time, when he was about to set off, he seemed to remember something.
"Xiao Xi, send me the status of the artificial uterus."
"Okay Captain."
Xiao Xi mobilized the nearby projection equipment and projected a picture directly in front of Zhao Changxing. The screen is divided into ten blocks, and each block has dense data.
He didn't pay attention to the data, but looked directly at the small ball of flesh soaked in artificial amniotic fluid and connected to the outside world through a thin umbilical cord.
The meat ball was only a little bit thick at the moment, without any human characteristics. Even at this moment, they cannot be called alive because the first neural groove has not yet developed in their bodies.
But Zhao Changxing knew that these little meatballs contained infinite possibilities and infinite hopes.
Looking at these little meatballs, a soft smile appeared at the corner of Zhao Changxing's mouth unconsciously.
"Children, work hard to grow up, dad is waiting for your arrival..."
After saying hello to the children, Zhao Changxing once again drove the landing spacecraft to Human Base No. 1.
He first looked at the development of the spinach seeds. After discovering that thin rhizomes had appeared in the seeds, he felt much happier and felt more powerful in his body.
The construction of the subsistence area took about fifteen days to complete - of course, it was only partially completed, and it could only support the operation of the soilless cultivation workshop. But this was considered a considerable progress. He quickly brought the spare Falcon 2 spacecraft back to the Spark spacecraft, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
At this moment, the life-sustaining area and the soilless cultivation workshop are connected through a thick pipe wrapped in special materials and buried underground. The air, water, electricity, etc. needed in the workshop are all supplied by the life-sustaining area.
For the second phase of construction in the future, that is, the permanent Humanity No. 1 Base, it will be an overall building. All cabins with different functions will be connected together, and the internal environment will be unified and suitable for human survival. , there is no connection problem between different areas.
Now we are only building a temporary first-phase project, so we can make do with it and save trouble.
The power source of the life-support zone is a miniature fusion reactor that was already built on the earth. Although it is said to be miniature, it is actually more than two meters high and three meters wide, with a total mass of more than ten tons. The Falcon spacecraft took several trips to transport all its parts. Just to assemble it, it used Zhao Changxing spent more than four days.
This thing is said to be high-tech, but it is actually used to heat hot water. After the fusion raw materials constrained by the magnetic field reach the center of the reaction chamber, they will be irradiated by high-energy lasers from all directions, causing fusion to occur. The heat from the fusion is extracted to boil water, and the steam drives a generator to generate electricity.
Of course, it also has some photoelectric converters inside, which can directly convert the light emitted by the fusion process into electrical energy, but compared to the electricity generated by boiling water, it only accounts for a small part.
Now it is in a low-level operation stage. After all, it is just a soilless cultivation workshop and it really does not consume much energy.
The life support area is also a large boxy house with a total area of more than 100 square meters. At the moment, the micro fusion reactor, generator, water circulation filtration, heating, air circulation filtration, heating and other equipment only occupy a part of this big house. Small portion. The rest of the space is reserved for the rest of the area.
After the work here was over, Zhao Changxing came to the soilless cultivation workshop with great expectations.
Although the spinach has not grown yet, he has decided to collect some baby spinach and eat it first.
