Chapter 294: Nasa’s Research Is Way Too Useful!
Water is absolutely one of the top elements in the ranking of how friendly a planet is to humanity.
The Moon has no atmosphere, which means it cannot have air, so water is the most important element in finding a base.
Even if you could dig up oil inside the Moon, oil is not as important as water, because the Moon has no air.
In the Moon’s special environment, water cannot exist in liquid form; it can only be in the form of ice.
Finding ice means taking one step closer to turning Shackleton into a Moon Base.
One piece of ice is not enough; it is necessary to confirm that there is a large amount of ice here.
As for what elements are contained in the ice, whether there are microorganisms, bacteria, virus, whether radiation exceeds standards, these are all things to do back on Earth.
Now Wei Xuhang and Li Cong are enjoying the joy brought by this moment.
The ice in his hand shines like stars in the darkness of the Moon’s shadowed region under the illumination of the headlamp.
Wei Xuhang carefully places the sample into a container, seals it, and affixes a label: “Sample number S-01, collection time October 10, 2022, location: Shackleton Crater PSR-A.”
“First sample in hand!” Wei Xuhang said.
At the same time, there is a special camera on the headlamp, which synchronously transmits the ice he captured back to Earth throughout the process. The Wenchang Control Center on Earth exploded like a calm water surface into which a huge stone was cast the moment it saw the ice.
“Americans are indeed good people! Shackleton deserves to be their carefully selected location for Moon Base construction; there really is ice!”
“Now we can relax; having one piece of ice probably means there is a lot of ice in this area, after all, ice cannot exist alone. What we need to confirm now is its reserves and the difficulty of extraction.”
“I now want to know, we discovered ice in Shackleton Crater, and NASA’s Artemis program spent several hundred million US Dollars just on Moon site selection, yet the location they carefully selected was taken by us—what are they thinking now?”
“Musk is probably going crazy again, having to tweet again to name and shame NASA, and accuse NASA’s Artemis program again of why it emphasizes sending minorities and women to the Moon.”
After the cheering at Wenchang Control Center, everyone started chatting in small groups of two or three; with the most important task completed, the entire atmosphere relaxed immediately.
As for the astronauts still needing to return to Earth, as employees of Apollo Technology, no one is worried about the reliability of the navigation system; fuel transfer has already been completed, so it is impossible not to return to Earth.
When photos of the ice crystals spread across China through various live broadcast platforms and CCTV, Chinese netizens were equally boiling over.
With the popular science over the past period, everyone naturally knows the significance of discovering water.
A Chinese official responsible for foreign affairs posted photos of the water ice just found on the Moon from China on Twitter, with the caption: “America promised, China achieved.”
Other officials with accounts on Twitter reposted one after another.
Musk, seeing this scene in his Austin residence, broke down again; although the White House had Hoffman greet him to be careful, he still couldn’t help it.
Hoffman is the founder of LinkedIn, a staunch Donkey Party supporter, and a member of the PayPal Mafia back then; Peter Thiel and Musk are both members of the PayPal Mafia.
“Very happy to see Chinese colleagues find the source of life, water, on the Moon. China’s lunar rover is on the Moon, but where is our lunar rover? Our lunar rover is on Earth!”
He attached a photo of the Artemis mission lunar rover.
(October 2022, Black Point Lava Flow near Flagstaff, Arizona, America; NASA invited media to visit the lunar rover prototype for their future Artemis program, photo source Agence France-Presse)
Of course, in this era, the lunar rover is obviously much more advanced in design than those in the 1960s; the whole vehicle looks like a luxury RV.
But no matter how you put it, your vehicle is on Earth, while theirs is already racing wildly on the Moon.
“NASA gave a contract worth 57.2 million US Dollars to a company named ICON in Texas; this company is engaged in 3D printing and mainly uses 3D printing technology to build residences in Texas.
And our aerospace agency gave it a big contract because they want to research how to use 3D printing technology on the Moon, and as of now, this order only has one concept diagram.
Friends, to build houses on the Moon using 3D printing technology, the premise is that you can find water, and the crater most likely to have water has already had Chinese people start building a base there—what about us? We are still on Earth making lunar rovers and researching how to use 3D printing technology to build houses on the Moon.
This incident perfectly explains where NASA’s money went; NASA’s money is nearly endless, they can waste it at will, and any project can be justified with a phrase like ‘forward-looking research.’
They always create some projects out of thin air that are not realistic at all in the present, and for a long time, you cannot prove or disprove the project; they say our technology can directly complete 3D printing of a base using Moon soil on the Moon.
This is our current NASA, an institution that only knows how to spend budget without knowing how to save it; it is time for change! Change starts with the Senate and House of Representatives election in November! Let us give the White House a roar! Our Artemis program needs real leaders who can lead us to victory!”
(Moon 3D printing renderings provided by ICON company for NASA)
Although there is no DOGE yet, Musk has already begun using his influence and appeal to continuously expose some projects inside NASA that sound utterly ridiculous.
This Texas company named ICON is actually even more outrageous than Musk said, because they do Earth 3D printing construction, and just because scientist Koki Clinton at NASA’s Marshall Space Center is interested in 3D printing, ICON gets the order to do 3D printing construction on the Moon.
Compared to CNSA, NASA has exploding funds, but it also consumes funds impressively.
“By the way, a message I got recently: despite our Chinese colleagues’ spacecraft going to the Lunar South Pole, and now astronauts also going to the Lunar South Pole, while NASA’s Artemis program just says it will go to the South Pole.
But NASA, great NASA has already found three solar cell manufacturers to design solar panels for the Lunar South Pole. I’ve only seen the design proposal from one of them; this company is called Astrobotic. Their design proposal is so stupid, stupid enough to spot the problem at a glance. I don’t know how such a proposal passed NASA’s review.
My friends, I hope you are not as stupid as NASA; I hope you can discover the problem with this proposal yourself before I reveal it.”
(Concept diagram of Astrobotic’s Moon South Pole solar cell power generation proposal for NASA: because at the Moon’s South Pole, the sun can hardly illuminate from above, they designed vertically placed solar panels. Astrobotic panels are about 18 meters high, connected by cables several kilometers long; these solar cell arrays will be fixed on vehicles that can drive them to different positions.)
Musk went all out on Twitter, fiercely criticizing NASA and presenting two classic NASA projects for netizens to judge.
On Twitter, NASA’s projects were dragged out by Musk for whipping; you haven’t even gone there yet, but the money spent on related pre-research is already a huge pile, while the budget for actually going to the Moon was given to Boeing and Lockheed Martin, resulting in a mess.
China has little related research, yet they have already found the water ice.
The contrast between what China Aerospace and NASA are doing is so stark.
Are NASA’s research projects meaningful? Of course they are; without NASA’s projects, China wouldn’t have been able to head straight for Shackleton Crater.
But in Americans’ eyes, this is competition, a space race; isn’t this behavior purely harming oneself to benefit others?
In foreigners’ view, Apollo Technology is just a branch of China Aerospace; in the mouths of some bloggers claiming to be China experts, Apollo Technology is a company specially spun off by China Aerospace to increase flexibility and led by Lin Ran.
Essentially, it is still China Aerospace.
American public’s dissatisfaction with NASA has reached an extreme.
Let us shift our perspective back to the Moon; after finding the first sample, Wei Xuhang continues searching in the shadowed region.
His gaze turns to the dark shadowed region, “According to the lunar rover’s orbital data, there should be a few more high-signal points.”
He follows Li Cong’s instructions from the voice, continuing toward the next target point.
The subsequent detection is not smooth.
At the second point, LDA shows a signal, but during drilling, the drill bit gets stuck on a hard basalt, emitting a harsh screeching sound.
Wei Xuhang quickly switches to manual mode, reverses the drill bit, and clears the fragments.
“This place is full of surprises everywhere,” he thinks, while wiping the thin mist from his visor.
Then he immediately checks the drill bit, confirms it is undamaged, and switches to a new location right away.
“Li Cong, there is basalt under the PSR-B point.”
“Received!” Li Cong on the lunar rover marks it on the tablet; for points like this that seem to have water ice but turn out to be rock upon drilling, their plan is to deal with it next time with heavy equipment.
“I’m heading to the next point now; earlier on the lunar rover, I saw a good signal nearby.” After Wei Xuhang says that, he slowly moves to the new position.
This time, the sample is extracted smoothly, and spectral analysis confirms that this sample has up to 20% water ice content.
To ensure comprehensive data, Wei Xuhang probes five points in the shadowed region and collects three high-quality samples.
Each drilling requires extreme caution to avoid rocks and uneven terrain.
The entire process is surprisingly efficient.
Li Cong, on the lunar rover, is responsible for constantly switching between LDA and spectrometer, recording data from each point.
“These samples are enough for us to study well back on Earth.”
Wei Xuhang, smoothly returning to the lunar rover, looks particularly exhausted; Li Cong takes the containers from his hands and secures the last container on the lunar rover.
“Xuhang, your luck is a bit too good; not only did you find water ice, but you found three points in one go.
With the water ice at these three points, next time for surveying, it won’t be people, it will be machines!” Li Cong remarked.
Li Cong feels in his heart that anyone’s success is not without reason; the other being able to surpass Qian Fei and Zhao Jianguo to become one of the moon landing trio, luck is also part of strength.
On this mission together, Li Cong finally understands what smoothness feels like.
He has heard stories of previous Chinese astronauts, with little accidents every time.
This time coming to the Moon with Wei Xuhang, surprisingly no accidents have occurred.
Li Cong sighs inwardly that the other will probably be an astronaut until he can’t do it anymore; good luck is the greatest talent.
“Yes, finding water ice at three points this time means there is a great possibility of sufficient water resources here; in the future, we will intensify detection of the entire area and surveys of various indicators.”
To ensure it can be a base, several elements are needed; illumination, due to the geographical location, can be confirmed on Earth to be sufficient here.
So it is also necessary to ensure there is water, low probability of meteorite impacts, few new craters in the entire area, low difficulty in building communication facilities in flat areas, suitable solar wind and radiation parameters, etc.
Some of these can be measured with the equipment brought this time; things like survey vehicles will only be brought next time after confirming water ice content.
Somewhat similar, the greater the probability it can be a Moon Base, the more resources will be invested here.
Suddenly, the lunar rover’s alarm sounds, showing battery level dropping.
“Even though it’s the edge area, the sudden temperature drop still causes power consumption faster than expected,” Wei Xuhang frowned, “We need to hurry back to the sunlit area.”
They carefully drive the lunar rover, returning along the path they came.
The headlights sweep over the rugged terrain.
Back near the Lunar Module, the solar panels start recharging.
The two breathe a sigh of relief, standing by the Lunar Module, gazing at the distant shadowed region.
“Wenchang Control Center, water ice search mission completed,” Wei Xuhang reports to the mission control center via headphones, “We confirmed the existence of water ice and collected three core samples.”
Control Center responds: “Received, well done! The samples will provide key data for the future base. Prepare to return to the Lunar Module for rest; next task in five hours.”
The next task is the scientific detection mentioned earlier.
Edge of Shackleton Crater.
Sunlight hangs low on the horizon, cutting the rugged lunar surface into a canvas of light and shadow.
The Lunar Module is parked on a sunlit high ground, its silver-white shell reflecting faint light.
The distant permanently shadowed region is as dark as an abyss, with no sound in the air, only the astronauts’ breathing echoing in the headphones.
This wonderful feeling gives the astronauts, who have finally caught their breath, a strange sensation.
They have been exiled to the edge of the universe.
Although it is only 380,000 kilometers from Earth, on the scale of the universe, they haven’t even left the neighborhood gate.
But the feeling, the feeling tells them they are already in a place without humanity; it is so lonely here.
And their work is to lay the foundation for humanity’s permanent presence on the Moon.
Under the interweaving of these two feelings, the two astronauts in the Lunar Module make no sound, just quietly enjoying this moment of tranquility.
They are preparing for the final detection mission.
