The last human in the universe

Chapter 6 Spinach
The Falcon [-] spacecraft landed slowly. Zhao Changxing, who was wearing a space suit, 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 completed, the Falcon [-] spacecraft stayed here to provide energy for it.At this moment, looking at the searchlight on the isolation door of the soilless cultivation workshop illuminating the dark night, and looking at the big boxy house in front of him, Zhao Changxing couldn't help feeling a sense of accomplishment in his heart.

After skillfully inputting instructions, the outer hatch of the soilless cultivation workshop slowly opened.Zhao Changxing went in, pressed the button, and the outer hatch slowly closed.The pressurization equipment starts to operate, and a large amount of gas is released until the internal pressure is pressurized to an atmospheric pressure.

After verifying that it was correct, Zhao Changxing took off the spacesuit and hung it on the hook on the wall.This made the small isolation room of only about one square meter more crowded, but there was no way, such a small area was squeezed out by Zhao Changxing.

Pressing the button, the inner cabin door opened, and a corridor less than one meter wide appeared in front of him.

Because of the same internal and external air pressure at this moment, the air did not fluctuate at all after the hatch was opened.The temperature inside and outside is also the same, allowing Zhao Changxing to live here comfortably.

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 space.

Opening the exit on the other side of the isolation gate, a long and narrow spinach planting area appeared in front of Zhao Changxing.Zhao Changxing opened the box, revealing some black-gray things that looked like sand in the box.

This stuff was collected from the surface of Sedna, and its elemental composition is similar to some rocks on Earth.This thing has no nutrition at all, and it can't support the growth of crops at all.The reason why Zhao Changxing got these things was just to fix the root system of the plants.

A large box of sand has only covered half of the four-layer planting frame.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 many large stones, which he had to grind into powder with the small grinding equipment in the Falcon [-] spacecraft. use.

After being busy for more than six hours, all the four-layer planting racks in the spinach planting area were covered.

Next is the connection of the water circulation equipment.Also because the life support area has not yet been built, the water circulation channel can only be connected to the Falcon [-] spacecraft first, and the deployment of nutrient solution can only be carried out here temporarily.

It took another two hours, and when everything was finally done, more than eight hours had passed since the landing.

Carefully sprinkle 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 is needed 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 time to end today's work.The construction of the life support area must be accelerated, because if the life support area cannot be built in one day, the two Falcon spaceships will stay here.And he only has these two spaceships in total.

This is too risky, in case both spaceships have an accident, he can only stay here and wait to die.To be on the safe side, it is better to have a spaceship as a backup to stay with the Pylon spaceship.

So after eating some "starch bento", he devoted himself to the task of building the life support area.

More than three hours passed in the busy time, and the construction task of the life support area came to an end for the time being.But he still can't go back at this moment, he still has one thing to do.

In addition to the routine collection of water ice to bring back to the Pyro spacecraft, he also has to collect some specific compounds for the configuration of nutrient solutions.You know, at the moment, only spinach has been planted in the soilless cultivation workshop, and the rest of the rice, millet and soybeans have not been planted yet.

Driving the "Red Flag" space vehicle - during this period of time, he finally assembled this thing and brought it to the Sedna star. According to Zhao Changxing's detection by the resource satellite, a place that may be rich in solid nitrogen or nitrogen compounds Drove over.

Through spectral analysis, the resource detection satellites released before can roughly determine these things.The Hongqi space vehicle is equipped with higher-precision elemental analysis equipment for close-range use.This made him no longer have to use the handheld device to search for it as hard as before.

The wide tires of the space vehicle were spinning and jumping on the uneven surface mixed with dark red and black gray, and the huge searchlights in front of them reflected far away.Zhao Changxing concentrated on driving the car according to the satellite image, feeling extremely peaceful in his heart.

He is lonely, but he is not at a loss for the future.He always knows exactly what he should do and what the result will be after doing it.So he took one step at a time, followed the planned path to do things day by day, and watched himself advance farther and farther day by day.

After collecting some compounds and collecting nearly two cubic meters of ice, Zhao Changxing drove the car back to Human Base No. [-].

Finally finished the day's work, he dragged his tired body and drove the Falcon [-] spacecraft back to the Ignition spacecraft.I checked the synthetic starch reactor and there was no accident, and I checked the artificial uterus. The embryos in it developed smoothly, and my heart finally let go.

Humming a little song that was popular on the earth in the past, and drinking a big bowl of starch paste, it was finally time to rest.

On 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 Tinder spacecraft, whether it is movies, TV series, novels or comics, everything that one expects to find.Today, his choice is a comedy.Looking at the bustling city in the film, and the laughing and noisy people, his heart was full of emotion.

Unfortunately, before he finished watching this movie, he couldn't hold on anymore and fell asleep unknowingly.When I woke up the next day, the screen had automatically turned off.I don't know if Xiaoxi turned it off when he realized that he was asleep, or if it turned off automatically after the movie was over.

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 another busy day at work.But this time, when he was about to leave, he seemed to remember something.

"Xiaoxi, send me the situation of the artificial womb."

"Good captain."

Xiaoxi mobilized the nearby projection equipment and directly projected a picture in front of Zhao Changxing.The screen is divided into ten pieces, and each piece is densely packed with data.

He didn't pay attention to those data, but directly looked at the small lump of meat soaked in artificial amniotic fluid and connected to the outside world through a thin umbilical cord.

The meat ball is only a little bit at this moment, without the slightest human characteristics.They can't even be called life at this moment, because they haven't yet developed the first neural groove in their bodies.

But Zhao Changxing knew that there were infinite possibilities and hopes in these small meat balls.

Looking at these little meatballs, a soft smile unconsciously appeared on the corner of Zhao Changxing's mouth.

"Children, let's work hard and grow up, Dad is waiting for your arrival..."

After saying hello to the children, Zhao Changxing drove the landing spacecraft to the human base No. [-] again.

He first looked at the development of the spinach seeds, and found that after thin rhizomes appeared in the seeds, he felt much happier and felt more powerful in his body.

The construction of the life support area took another fifteen days to complete—of course, it was only partially completed, and it can only support the operation of the soilless cultivation workshop at present.But this was quite a big progress, and he quickly brought the spare Falcon [-] spacecraft back to the Tinder spacecraft, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, the life support area is connected to the soilless cultivation workshop 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 support area.

For the second phase of construction in the future, that is, the permanent human base No. [-], it will be a whole building, all cabins with different functions will be connected together, and the internal environment will also be unified and suitable for human survival. , there is no connection problem between different regions.

Now it's just a temporary first-phase project, so it's enough to make do with it and save trouble.

The power source of the life support area is a miniature fusion reactor that has been manufactured on the earth.It is said to be miniature, but in fact it is more than two meters high, three meters wide, and has a total mass of more than ten tons. It took the Falcon spacecraft several trips to transport all its parts. Zhao Changxing for 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 material confined by the magnetic field reaches the center of the reaction chamber, it will be irradiated by high-energy lasers from all directions, so that fusion occurs.The heat of fusion is channeled to boil water, and the steam drives a generator to generate electricity.

Of course, it is also equipped with some photoelectric converters inside, which can directly convert the light emitted by the fusion process into electrical energy, but compared with the electricity generated by boiling water, it only accounts for a small part.

Now it is in the 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 big house with a total area of ​​more than [-] square meters. At this moment, the micro fusion reactor, generator, water circulation filter, heating, air circulation filter, heating and other equipment only occupy a part of this big house. small portion.The remaining space is reserved for the rest of the area.

After the work here, Zhao Changxing came to the soilless cultivation workshop full of expectations.

Although the spinach has not yet grown, he has decided to collect some young spinach and eat it back.

(End of this chapter)