What is it like to fall from a height of hundreds of kilometers?
Lu Zhou felt that after this expedition, he would probably have more say than anyone else except for the orbital airborne brigade.
The feeling of standing on the verge of life and death made the adrenaline in his body soar. He held the armrest of the cushion seat tightly with both hands, and he could even hear his own heartbeat.
The moment the capsule fell into the sea of sand, Lu Zhou felt for the first time that life was so beautiful.
And …
The Institute of Aerospace Science and Technology of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study should think about the user experience.
Following a violent tremor, the thick alloy cabin door opened outwards with a loud rumble.
The strong wind wrapped in yellow sand from outside the cabin, blowing on everyone's body.
Professor Vernal, who unconnected the cabin life support system, stood up from the cushion seat and staggered out of the cabin. He looked at the vast desert in front of him. His eyes were filled with indescribable shock.
"God … It feels like I'm in Egypt."
"Egypt?"
"Yeah …"
Professor Vernal, who was kneeling on the ground, picked up a handful of sand from the ground and held it in his hand. He felt the touch of the alien planet through the graphene fibers. His face was full of excitement and shock.
"I once worked there for three years. From the Nile River to the Sahara Desert, our archaeological team traveled across the entire country … But even so, I have never seen such a spectacular scenery."
"Was there a civilization here?" Lomonov stepped over the cabin door that had fallen to the ground. He squinted his eyes and looked through the heavy sand and dust. He looked at the disc-sized light above the skyline. He then glanced at the gamma counter on the wrist-mounted computer and said, "Even Chernobyl wouldn't be worse than here."
"From an astronomical point of view, it is still possible." Professor Aubrey narrowed his eyes and said, "Compared to the age of the universe, our civilization is only a short moment.
"According to the academic view, maybe three billion years ago, maybe four billion years ago, before the core of Mars cooled down, there used to be an atmosphere thicker than Earth. At the same time, there were freshwater lakes and oceans on the surface of the planet. In theory, there were conditions for the birth of life. On the contrary, Earth at that time was a living hell, just like Venus is today. "
He turned on the positioning device and set the coordinates. Lu Zhou, who was the last to walk out of the landing capsule, looked up at the approaching rover in the distance and interrupted the chat in the public channel.
"Let's not talk about academic issues for now. Let's pack up and get ready to go to the base."
Although it was said to be tidying up, there was nothing worth tidying up. Each person's personal belongings were only a 26-inch space-specific suitcase embedded in the outer shell of the landing capsule.
When everyone dragged the suitcases with their own numbers out of the landing module, the rover in the distance also drove to the side of everyone.
The door opened outwards, and an astronaut of average height jumped out of the car. He quickly walked up to Lu Zhou, and his voice was so excited that he was incoherent.
"Lu, Academician Lu, you really came here in person?"
Lu Zhou looked at the excited astronaut and shook his hand.
"It's me, don't be so nervous, what's your name?"
"Fan Tong!" The astronaut continued happily, "Can I ask you for an autograph?"
Fan Tong?
This name sounded familiar to Lu Zhou. If he remembered correctly, Fan Tong should be a researcher of the "128 Outliers Project". Strictly speaking, he was under his own research group.
"Let's talk about this when we get back. You go get the car first, I have some things to ask you later."
"Okay!"
After saluting, Fan Tong quickly climbed back into the car.
Lu Zhou also turned around and began to ask others to tie their carry-on luggage to the rover. He then took the lead in getting into the rover and told Fan Tong to drive the rover back.
Because the landing point itself was near the base, it didn't take long. When they approached the base, they happened to see three giant hemispherical eggs slowly falling from the sky under the support of the blue tail flames. They were deployed in the open space next to the scientific research base.
Seeing this scene, several international friends sitting in the rover showed a surprised expression on their faces. Especially the aerospace engineer from Russia, Lomonov, who stared out of the window with his eyes wide open. He was stunned.
"Jesus …"
"How did you do it?"
Lu Zhou smiled and spoke casually.
"As you can see, there's nothing special about it."
Lomonov turned his head and glanced at Lu Zhou with a strange expression.
Nothing special about it.
The colony capsule weighing tens of tons was dropped directly from the outer space orbit, decelerated through the active ejection device, and even slightly adjusted the landing area to accurately land in the circled area …
Lomonov asked himself.
Lomonov couldn't help but feel a little sad.
Although he came to the Jinling launch site from Moscow with the purpose of learning, he still didn't expect the gap to be so big.
From aerospace launch technology to outer planet landing, he couldn't find a single area where the Russian Aerospace Group was relatively advanced.
Not only did the Chinese completely control the entire industrial chain, but they even mastered the technology of each link to the extreme. It seemed that they were indeed too far behind the times, to the extent that the gap between them could no longer be described with just a few words.
The rover passed by the functional colony capsule that had just been deployed and slowly drove into the garage of the scientific research base.
As the alloy door fell heavily, it finally cut off everyone's gaze that they were unwilling to shift away from for a long time. At the same time, it also cut off the noisy yellow sand outside the carriage and ship.
The buffer chamber sprayed cleaning fluid, covering every corner of the rover. Then a group of people got off the rover and received a round of cleaning fluid and purified water.
After the ventilation device filled the buffer chamber with air, they changed out of their spacesuits, stuffed them into their cabinets according to their numbers, and took out light clothes to change into.
The alloy door on the side opened. Captain Liang Youcheng, the highest officer of the scientific research base, walked in front of the group of people and spoke to everyone with a smile.
"Welcome to the Mars scientific research base. My name is Liang Youcheng, the captain of the scientific research team stationed here. I hope that in the next month or two, you can get used to life here. I will take you to your respective rooms in a while. Dinner time is at 18 o 'clock sharp, Beijing time. Before that, you can do whatever you want, or you can follow me to visit the interior of the base.
"Also, I've heard about your mission. If there's anything you need help with, just let me know."
After speaking, Liang Youcheng looked at Lu Zhou and asked if he had anything to add.
"… That's the basic situation. You can do whatever you want before dinner, or follow Captain Liang to visit the facilities here. I have nothing to add." Lu Zhou nodded at Captain Liang. After handing over the arrangements of these people to him, he continued to look at Fan Tong, who was standing next to him. "Dr. Fan, come with me."
Fan Tong immediately raised his head, stood up straight, and nodded.
"Okay!"
They separated at the door of the buffer room. The group followed Captain Liang to their respective rooms, while Lu Zhou took Fan Tong to the conference room next to the buffer room.
After the alloy door was closed, Lu Zhou pulled a chair and sat down as if it was his own home. He then gestured to Fan Tong to find a place to sit, and he spoke straightforwardly.
"Tell me about the situation here."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything about the 128 project."
When Fan Tong heard the number 128, his expression suddenly became solemn. He nodded and spoke.
"I've been studying this matter for the past month."
"In order to figure out why those fractured structures suddenly appeared and disappeared, I tried to send a remote-controlled car to explore the underground cave. However, due to the limited transmission distance of electromagnetic waves, I could only use wire-control technology to operate. Therefore, the range of activities of the remote-controlled car was limited. I couldn't go deep, but I still found many suspicious places."
Lu Zhou: "Suspicious places?"
"Yes."
Fan Tong nodded and continued with a solemn expression.
"The terrain below the Hell's Gate mountain range changes very frequently. There will be a relatively large change almost every 71 minutes, and a small adjustment every 34 minutes. As for the seismic structure, it appears randomly, and there's no statistical pattern to it for the time being. At first, we thought it was a special geological structure of Mars, but later, according to the distribution and strength of the seismic waves, we found that things are not so simple.
"There is no sign that a regional earthquake caused such strange and frequent changes in its underground structure. In contrast, it is more like some kind of mechanically driven transportation. "
"Mechanically driven?" Lu Zhou hesitated slightly, then said with a smile, "How is that possible?"
"I also don't think it's possible, but there doesn't seem to be a better explanation." Fan Tong's face showed a headache. "In theory, no matter how great the project is, it will be lost in the long river of time in two to three billion years. However, apart from human factors, I really can't think of any possibility that could cause such strange changes in those tunnels. "
"It's like … it's alive!"
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