The rise of nanometers

August 8, 18.

Mendeleev City on the far side of the moon.

At this time, it was the white phase on the far side of the moon, and an 8,500-ton striker-class spacecraft soared into the sky here.

This is the third spacecraft of this class. It was originally planned to be kept and used for the manned landing plan on Mars next year to transport supplies to the Mars base.

However, after the Federation readjusted its space development strategy, the weight of Mars in the new space development strategy has dropped significantly.

On the contrary, the weight of Venus and the asteroid belt has increased a lot, and is basically the same as Mars.

Therefore, the striker-class No. 003 was selected and used in the plan to explore Venus.

Venus is actually the planet closest to Blue Star. The minimum distance between the two is only 41 million kilometers, which is more than 10 million kilometers less than the minimum distance between Mars and Blue Star.

In the early days of human exploration of the solar system, Venus was also a key target.

However, after many explorations, the harsh environment of Venus caused humans to abandon this planet and instead focus their efforts on Mars.

How bad is the environment on Venus?

The average temperature is 462 degrees Celsius, the average atmospheric pressure is 92 times that of Blue Star, and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaches an astonishing 96%.

In addition, there is a dense layer of sulfuric acid clouds in the atmosphere of Venus.

The frequent internal volcanic eruptions, coupled with the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, form a terrible greenhouse effect, which is also the reason for the long-term high temperature on the surface of Venus.

Does this environment seem familiar?

That's right, the environment on the ground of Venus is like a hell.

The Federation did not pay too much attention to Venus before, but due to the huge space transportation capacity of the Federation, even though Venus does not receive as much attention as Mars, after all, it is the closest terrestrial planet to Blue Star.

Since 2013, the Federal Space Department has launched a total of 12 probes to Venus, of which 8 are orbiting probes and 4 are ground landing probes.

Except for the Taibai 1 landing probe, which lost contact and crashed during the landing process due to a miscalculation, the remaining Taibai 2, Taibai 3, and Taibai 4 all successfully landed on the surface of Venus.

However, the survival time of these landing probes on the surface of Venus is not very long.

They only survived on the surface of Venus for 5 days, 3 days, and 12 days respectively.

Among them, Taibai 3 was the most unlucky. Not long after the successful landing, it happened to encounter a nearby volcanic eruption and was directly buried by volcanic ash.

However, these short-term detections also brought many rare gains to the Ministry of Space Affairs, including some clear facts about the surface of Venus, which corrected some of mankind's understanding of Venus.

This time, the weight of Mars was lowered, making the Federation pay more attention to Venus.

Aerospace Department Headquarters.

Huang Xiuyuan also came here rarely, mainly because the newly established Venus Exploration Bureau invited him and more than a dozen related experts to make strategic arrangements for the development of Venus.

Academician Li Xiaoqiang, who just became an academician of the Academy of Engineering last year, is one of the authorities specializing in space station construction.

He turned around and said with a smile: "Academician Huang, I think the future development direction of Venus should focus on mineral mining and energy utilization."

"The direction is roughly like this, but considering the requirement of reducing exposure to solar system anomalies, we still need to take a long-term approach." Huang Xiuyuan expressed his thoughts.

"Indeed, to reduce the exposure of the solar system, we must control the scale and shape of giant structures." Li Xiaoqiang nodded.

Another scholar raised his glasses: "If we really want to build a giant structure on Venus, it is not impossible. We can design the space station into a spherical shape and disguise it as a natural satellite."

Huang Xiuyuan agreed with this proposal: "It can be considered that although there are lessons from mega-structure civilization, we cannot stop eating because of choking."

"Back to the topic of Venus development, if we want to mine minerals on the surface of Venus on a large scale, the most reasonable solution at present is to build a space elevator in the synchronous orbit of Venus." Li Xiaoqiang said while turning on the projector.

Looking at the projection screen, Li Xiaoqiang envisioned the Venus space elevator. This project is similar to Blue Star's space elevator project.

Jiang Feng, the head of the Venus Exploration Bureau, raised his head and asked: "Academician Li, if a space elevator is to be built on Venus, how will the ground station be built?"

This question is indeed very important.

"My idea is to use integrated materials to build a ground station in the low-Earth orbit of Venus, and then put it into the equatorial region of Venus." Li Xiaoqiang said his plan.

But everyone did not agree immediately, because they knew the scale of Blue Star's ground station. If it were based on the scale of Blue Star's ground station, then the scale of Venus' ground station would definitely not be much smaller.

"Xiaoqiang, the weight of the artificial structure of the Blue Star Ground Station has reached 1.53 billion tons, plus the weight of the part connected to the earth's crust..."

"Academician Li, the quality of the Venus ground station may be a big problem if we only rely on Blue Star for transportation."

Everyone raised their objections.

Li Xiaoqiang spread his hands helplessly: "But without transporting materials from Blue Star, it is impossible for Venus to form its own industrial system in a short period of time."

At this moment, Huang Xiuyuan spoke: "Actually, we can build an industrial zone on Venus."

"Uh..." Li Xiaoqiang was stunned, and then he realized it was Huang Xiuyuan, and his tone was lowered: "Academician Huang, even an integrated building may not be able to last long on the surface of Venus with high temperature, pressure, and corrosion."

Huang Xiuyuan nodded, then shook his head: "The ground on Venus is indeed not suitable, but industrial zones do not necessarily need to be built on the ground. The upper atmosphere of Venus can also be considered."

The atmosphere of Venus...

Everyone was not stupid, so they reacted immediately.

"Yes! The gas concentration in the atmosphere of Venus is very high, causing the air pressure to be 92 times that of Blue Star. This means that at the same altitude, the atmosphere of Venus can provide more buoyancy."

"With the latest generation of internal vacuum airship technology, we can completely build a floating city floating in the upper atmosphere of Venus."

"In addition, the dense hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus can also be used as industrial raw materials to extract large amounts of water, sulfur and carbon."

Huang Xiuyuan continued to remind: "Actually, everyone is ignoring another possibility."

Another possibility? Jiang Feng asked in confusion: "Academician Huang, what could the other one be?"

"The possibility of modifying the atmosphere of Venus."

Huang Xiuyuan's words made everyone suddenly realize.

At this time, Li Xiaoqiang roughly understood his idea: "Academician Huang means to extract carbon dioxide and other gases from the atmosphere of Venus, and then gradually reduce the air pressure, while changing the composition of the atmosphere to weaken the greenhouse effect."

Huang Xiuyuan nodded: "Yes, the planetary conditions of Venus have the potential to become the second blue star. After all, the gravity of Venus is equivalent to 90.4% of the blue star. This is the Earth-like planet closest to the blue star in the solar system. planet."

His idea is to change the concentration and composition of Venus' atmosphere, making the pressure similar to that of a blue star, and then weakening Venus's super greenhouse effect.

The idea is not impossible.

It is based on the current technology of the Federation. The Federation has large-scale carbon sequestration technology and technology for rapid settlement of volcanic ash.

These technologies can be used to modify the atmosphere of Venus.

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