Chapter 287 Conception
On the evening of December 20th.
The Lunar Exploration Engineering Office of the Aerospace Development Commission once again released news, preliminarily confirming that a large-scale ice deposition zone was found under the Qom impact crater.
Although it is still unclear and there are only a few blurry pictures, it does prove that there is quite a lot of ice under the Qom impact crater, which is at least enough for early exploration.
This news had a huge impact on the international aerospace community. The most important thing was that it greatly increased the interest of various countries in the moon.
The presence of water means that organic matter can be synthesized, which means that it is possible to achieve self-sustainment on the lunar surface, greatly reducing the pressure on the ground.
At the same time, this also shows that it is possible to colonize the moon. Although it is not a small project, it is much simpler than Mars.
The European Space Agency, which was the first to react in the media, immediately announced that the area around the Qom crater is rich in resources. The European Space Agency will immediately launch an early unmanned exploration mission and is expected to launch a satellite into lunar orbit within 6 to 8 months. and a lunar surface rover, tentatively named Project Pandya.
This plan was unanimously approved within ESA with unprecedented speed, and it also made them pay more attention to the "Selene" plan.
Following closely behind is NACA.
Claire immediately thought of a solution after receiving the call, and finally found one: Perseverance.
In 2011, NACA sent the first nuclear-powered Mars rover to Mars, Curiosity, which weighed more than 900 kilograms. It also carried out follow-up projects similar to Curiosity. It was called "Perseverance" after its public collection and naming in 2020. , now it is simply called "Mars Rover 2" internally.
The "Mars Rover 2" weighs slightly more than one ton, and its basic skeleton and structure are the same as those of Curiosity. It just carries many different scientific research equipment. It has been carried out in a leisurely manner, and there are no technical difficulties anyway.
Claire's request is to modify the "Mars Rover 2" and launch it to the moon.
So the original "Perseverance" of later generations was directly named "Isis" by him.
Isis is the goddess of life, magic, marriage and fertility in ancient Egyptian mythology, and water is the source of life.
For Isis, which uses the same chassis as Curiosity, working on the moon is not very troublesome and only requires minor modifications.
The lowest temperatures of both the moon and Mars are more than 100 degrees below zero. The difference is that the temperature of the moon is extremely high when it is exposed to direct sunlight, but it can be modified to sleep, which is also a minor problem.
The main thing is that the equipment needs to be replaced and remanufactured, which may take some time.
Rockets are readily available. Astros 5, which can send the rover to Mars, can also send Isis to the moon. There are many ULA medium-sized disposable rockets.
The lander does not need to be significantly modified. Even if the parachute is cancelled, the sky crane will be enough under the low gravity of the moon, and there is even room to modify the program.
So Claire set the launch date of Isis around early March 2017, and two months was enough to modify Isis.
But before they could announce it, SpecaX was the first to react.
Musk first praised the Aerospace Development Commission on Twitter and Weibo, and then said that the first batch of 10 Starlink satellite launch missions in January will be canceled and will be sent to the moon by a Falcon 9 rocket after modification.
"Star Chain" is finally here.
…
Class B base.
Serev looked at the six "Explorer IIs" assembled in the workshop and scratched his hair.
Compared with external disclosures, the Aerospace Development Commission has operated two Yutu-3s in the past few days to conduct more detailed explorations. Based on the model of the lunar geological conditions, it is speculated that there should indeed be a cave under the south pole of the moon, that is, under the Aitken Basin. Huge ice sheet.
The cause of formation is unknown, but the area may exceed 3,000 square kilometers. The average depth is about 20 to 50 meters from the surface. The thickness is temporarily unknown, but it is conservatively estimated to be more than 20 meters.
The Qom Impact Crater is likely to be a higher point of this ice layer. It came into contact with the ice layer when it was formed by an impact many, many years ago. This resulted in the average depth of lunar soil covered in the impact crater being less than 25cm, and the thinnest The place is even only a few centimeters.
The conservative ice reserves in the entire estimated ice area are approximately more than 600 million tons, which is an unimaginably huge resource.
There was a huge commotion within the Aviation Development Commission at that time. The missions of Chang'e-6, 7, and 8 were planned at once, and they were prepared to launch the detectors as quickly as possible, just to occupy more space for no other reason. .
Before astronauts set foot on the ground to establish a scientific research station, they can only rely on robots to encircle the land and occupy the shallowest and best land first.
Xinyuan Company built a total of 12 Explorer IIs when manufacturing Explorer II, and the remaining 6 have been completed and placed here, ready for launch at any time.
These six have been designated as Chang'e-6 patrol vehicles. The lander will be completed within this month, and the Chang'e-6 mission will be launched in early January. Xinyuan-2 has plenty of them anyway.
The space agency bought two of the six detectors, so that there would be 8 robots in the Qom Impact Crater, forming a crushing advantage over the world.
In Lin Ju's words: "If their detector dares to enter the land we occupy, we will cut off their solar panels! Dismantle them and throw them into the crater."
Although it is a joke, it does illustrate the large number of robots in the Aerospace Development Commission. There are currently 7 robots on the moon!
However, Shelev knew that both Explorer I and Explorer II were mostly exploration in nature. After finding the confirmed ice layer, he has been thinking about the next generation of practical machinery, which can produce water, purify and synthesize the required compounds with considerable efficiency.
First of all, the quality issue. The lunar orbit capacity of Xinyuan II B (third stage) is 18 tons, which is a very large number. It can send a maximum of 6 tons of payload to the lunar surface.
6 tons... 6 tons is too rich for a probe, but it is a very small number for engineering machinery, especially on the moon, the payload weight that can be used for working equipment is not high.
The simplest way to produce hydrogen by electrolysis is to produce 1 cubic meter of hydrogen and 0.5 cubic meters of oxygen. It takes about 4.5 kWh of electricity. If a 6-ton machine is used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water and compress it, the weight is almost enough.
According to the commonly used catalyst and proton membrane electrolysis method, 5 cubic meters of hydrogen can be produced in one hour, which is 120 cubic meters of hydrogen and 60 cubic meters of oxygen in one day.
120 cubic meters of hydrogen is only 10.788 kilograms, which is definitely not enough to be used as rocket fuel, but it is enough to synthesize materials to supply a scientific research station.
More importantly, oxygen. 60 cubic meters of oxygen is 60,000 liters. An adult consumes about 550 liters of oxygen a day, which means that an electrolysis device can provide oxygen for 100 adults to breathe a day, which is enough.
Such an electrolysis device consumes about 20 to 40 kilowatts of power. The nuclear power car being developed at Qingshan Base can provide 38KW of power, which is enough.
In addition, a mining machine is needed, and it may be necessary to tow a nuclear power car to provide electricity, as well as some gas tanks for storing hydrogen and oxygen. They can be made larger and preferably buried under the lunar soil. So do we need an excavator?
Shelev roughly calculated that 6 tons is the better controllable mass of these engineering machinery and large equipment. It will take about 6 launch missions, costing at least 2 billion yuan, but the Aerospace Development Commission can be involved, and more than 60% can be shared, so it won’t cost much.
Shelev thought about it and wrote down the "Draft of the Early Small Development Mission of Luna-1" on the tablet, conceiving the design of the base.