My encyclopedia entry has come true

Chapter 96 Water ice, dry ice, start farming

There are many craters on the moon, some of which are very large in diameter. There is a deep pit in the middle of these craters, and there are towering upright rocks around them. The height of the craters is generally between 7 and 8 kilometers.

The craters vary in size and diameter. The diameter of the small crater is less than 10 kilometers, and some are only the size of a football field; the diameter of the large crater is more than 100 kilometers.

The largest crater is the Bailey crater near the south pole of the moon, with a diameter of 295 kilometers, which is a little smaller than Zhejiang Province in the eastern country.

The total number of lunar craters with a diameter greater than 1000 meters has reached more than 3300.

Most of the craters are named after famous astronomers or other scholars, such as Copernicus crater, Archimedes crater, Newton crater, Iba Valley crater, Cassini crater, Shishen crater, Zhangheng crater, Zu Chongzhi crater and Guo Shoujing Craters etc.

However, most of the craters cannot form permanent shadow areas, because the moon also revolves around the sun like the blue star, and most of the interior of the craters can be exposed to sunlight. Since the moon has no atmospheric buffer to absorb heat, this direct sunlight Can form a high temperature above 100 degrees in any area...

Only in the north and south poles of the moon, some small and relatively tall craters, and at the same time, the angle of the sun's irradiation is relatively inclined, can form a permanent shadow area.

Kelin crater is one of them. Its diameter is only 21 kilometers, and the inner moon crater covers an area of ​​about 320 square kilometers, which is equivalent to the area of ​​a city in Dongguo. The average altitude of the crater is above 5000 meters. Then a little calmer.

Originally such a high crater, it was difficult to climb over and enter the interior.

But now, on the Rainbow Valley side of Hawk Island Outpost, a magical mountain pass has been discovered.

After further testing by Hawke Island, this mountain pass is speculated to have been formed by an asteroid impact hundreds of millions of years ago.

The huge impact force of the asteroid made a hole in the originally towering crater, and the large amount of moon dust caused by the impact filled the bottom of the crack, forming a perfect entrance...

What a miracle of nature, a miracle of nature!

Just like the Mediterranean Sea on Blue Star, there is such a large ocean, but only a small opening like the Strait of Gibraltar is left to connect with the Western Ocean. It really makes people suspect that it was intentional by the Creator...

This mountain pass was named Shuibing Pass by the astronauts at the Hawk Island Outpost.

They hope that this name will bring them good luck and let them find the most critical resource of the moon base, water ice!

Inside Moon Palace-13, they remotely controlled the "small tank" Queen NO.[-] lunar rover, passed through the water ice pass, entered the permanent shadow area, and explored this area that humans or human probes have never entered...

The 13kg nuclear battery carried by Queen NO.1200 allows it to obtain 2000W of electricity and 15000W of heat even in the absence of sunlight...

The power of the decay nuclear battery is not high, but it can provide a stable supply for 10-15 years, which is the advantage of the nuclear battery...

The gravitational force of the moon is only one-sixth of that of the blue star. It suffers less friction and consumes less energy when walking. The power of 2000W not only allows it to move forward steadily, but also provides electrical energy for various detection instruments...

Including lunar soil composition detector, multi-spectral camera, navigation terrain camera, lunar surface magnetic field detector, etc...

However, it has no analysis function itself. Artificial intelligence has not yet reached this level. It just collects a lot of data, takes a lot of photos, and then uses the lunar module and Blue Star Hawk Island to let professionals analyze the data.

After five days of detection, it collected about 20G of data and photos in the permanent shadow area and sent them to the lunar module and Bluestar Hawke Island.

And the analysis results of these data and photos made Roger Andre and others extremely excited again!
According to their analysis, in the permanently shadowed area of ​​Colin Crater, there really is water ice!

And its reserves are far beyond their previous estimates. It is conservatively estimated that there are at least 2 million tons!

This reserve is actually not worth mentioning on Blue Star. After all, the total water reserves on Blue Star are 136 billion tons. The fresh water reserves of Lake Baikal alone are 23.6 trillion tons, and even Dianchi Lake has 15 billion tons of water. by many orders of magnitude...

Calculated, it is actually equivalent to the water volume of 20 West Lakes...

If it is spread evenly inside the crater of 320 square kilometers, it will have a thickness of less than 0.6 meters.

But, this is the moon!This is the moon where transporting a ton of water from Blue Star costs at least tens of millions of pounds!
At this price, 2 million tons of water is equivalent to a value of 2000 trillion pounds...

This major discovery made it possible for a permanent lunar base and even a lunar space city!
Human immigration to Blue Star may really come true!

Water is so important!

It is not only a necessary resource for Blue Star immigrants to eat, drink and even bathe, but also to provide hydrogen and oxygen for immigrants as a stable energy reserve, completely getting rid of unstable solar power.

Hydrogen can also be used as a reducing agent to smelt ilmenite, which is widely present on the surface of the moon, into titanium alloys, steel and other metals, and become an important construction material for lunar bases!

In addition, in the permanently shadowed area inside the Colin Crater, Queen NO.13 has also explored a large amount of dry ice!

According to preliminary estimates, the reserves are about 1.5 million tons!

Dry ice is also carbon dioxide, which can further react with hydrogen generated by electrolysis of water. Under the action of lunar soil catalyst and sunlight, through hydrogenation reaction, compounds such as methane and methanol can be generated. Methane is the main component of rocket fuel one.

It does not require additional input of energy, and can obtain oxygen and fuel only by using resources on the moon and sunlight, which is called "alien photosynthesis" by researchers.

Future moon bases or space cities can use these dry ice to produce steel, rocket fuel and biological materials, which are crucial for robots or humans to live on the moon!
Queen NO.13 even found a small amount of nitrogen ice in the permanently shadowed area!That is solid nitrogen!
They are located at a depth of 50 meters below the permanent shadow area, which also proves that the moon may have had an atmosphere similar to that of the blue star, but because the gravitational force is too small to retain the atmosphere, only a small amount of solid nitrogen can survive Stay in permanently shaded areas.

According to preliminary estimates, the reserves are about 200 million tons!

Although the reserves are small, for the early human lunar bases, it is enough to mix with the oxygen released from the water point to create artificial air!

After all, it would cost tens of millions of pounds to launch a ton of air from the blue star to the moon...

Hawke Island has not disclosed these discoveries to the outside world, because these resources are non-renewable resources, and the amount is not very large for the moon base. They are important strategic resources. If they are made public, I am afraid that the battle for the moon will soon happened.

They quickly drew up a plan for a new moon base based on these newly discovered resources.

In this new plan, based on these newly discovered resources, they will initially transform the environment of the moon base and establish an ecological circle to make it suitable for the survival of blue star creatures!

(End of this chapter)