Chapter 131: Probably Not Cotton
Mars, one of the eight major planets in the Solar System, and also one of the Earth-like planets.
Among the many planets detected by humanity, currently only Mars possesses a certain human survival environment.
Its diameter is about half that of Blue Star, and its surface gravity is 38% of Blue Star’s.
The only regret is that the atmosphere here is extremely thin, containing 95% carbon dioxide.
Humanity cannot breathe freely here at all.
Actually, according to the current common view in the scientific community, even if Mars has the above habitable conditions, it still belongs to an “extremely harsh” environment.
But this does not hinder Mark’s massive funds investment in the “Mars Project” to compete with Xinghai, proceeding smoothly.
In deep space, a streamlined, small-bodied flying boat swiftly streaked by.
Fan Ren gazed at the gradually enlarging orange-yellow planet before him, his mood becoming somewhat inexplicably touched.
This was, of course, his first time personally piloting a spaceship here.
However, this scene didn’t last long before the entire spaceship, under autopilot control, began to turn around.
A’dai regretfully glanced at the scenery outside, knowing that the spaceship was decelerating.
Otherwise, at this current speed flying straight past, Mars’ gravity wouldn’t be able to hold onto the shuttle.
An hour later, the shuttle turned the spaceship’s nose around again.
What came into their view was a huge orange-yellow planet. Near its North Pole, a massive white area could be observed with the naked eye.
In everyone’s previous guesses, this was a special landform formed by a huge solid glacier.
This is also one of the reasons why the “Mars Project” set the base point in Utopia Planitia, closer to the North Pole.
In Mark’s vision, this would be one of the sources of water for humanity in Mars City in the future.
However, due to overly backward aerospace technology, Spitz Company has not yet conducted large-scale exploration of Mars areas.
Their current main tasks are still base expansion and ensuring the normal survival of the advance personnel in these aspects.
But now, Fan Ren decided to come help them speed things up.
Fan Ren took over manual piloting, slightly adjusted the control joystick, and aimed the nose at that white glacier area.
He then pushed the thrust lever.
The shuttle immediately dove headfirst toward the massive planet below.
“Boss, slow down.”
A’dai was a bit worried. Although this shuttle’s performance was the most top-tier spaceship in all humanity, strictly speaking, this was also its first flight to Mars.
Fan Ren didn’t care. He had long experienced Mars’ flight conditions with the flying boat he designed himself, and he had a clear understanding of the atmospheric parameters and gravity environment here.
Not to mention that the spaceship he was piloting now had even stronger performance than that previous flying boat.
The shuttle quickly entered Mars’ atmosphere.
Unlike the dusky atmosphere above Utopia Planitia before.
Perhaps due to the extreme low temperature at the pole, the atmosphere here was even thinner.
Fan Ren could even clearly feel that piloting the spaceship here was much easier.
“External temperature -80 degrees, atmospheric density low.”
Dan Wu had followed him for so long that he had acquired a certain level of aerospace knowledge, and now he calmly reported.
For some reason, he had great confidence in General Manager Fan.
Fan Ren nodded and continued operating the spaceship’s descent.
Soon, a massive white landform landscape on the ground below could be clearly seen through the window.
“It can’t possibly be granite, right.”
He joked, reaching out to activate the onboard scanner.
This was the latest radar from Great Xia, capable of determining surface thickness through terrain-reflected radar waves.
Since he was here, he had to land for a specific inspection; otherwise, it wouldn’t fit his style.
Soon, the radar scan results came out.
The result was surprising.
This landform below, although it couldn’t yet be confirmed as a glacier, showed very solid and extremely flat surface according to the scan results.
“Landing should be no problem.”
Fan Ren murmured, without hesitation, selected a spot, and controlled the spaceship to enter the landing procedure.
In the cockpit, besides Fan Ren and Dan Wu, A’dai instantly reached for the handle above his head.
What big guts!
“Don’t worry, radar shows it’s very flat below, and the thickness is fully sufficient. Unless it’s cotton down there, we’re very safe.”
He saw A’dai’s action and made a joke. But obviously, the effect wasn’t good.
A’dai was still tightly gripping the handle and refused to let go.
Fan Ren smiled and shook his head, not minding it. His left hand had been resting on the thrust lever the whole time. Unless the spaceship had completely steadied, he could instantly stabilize its posture using the immense thrust from the two nuclear fusion engines.
’10 meters. 2 meters. Contacting ground, landed.’
As the mechanical voice in the cockpit ended its emotionless report, feeling the spaceship steadily maintaining its posture, A’dai’s suspended heart finally settled completely.
“Boss, that was too thrilling.”
His face was a bit dazed. They had landed on Mars just like that? He still hadn’t quite reacted.
Fan Ren smiled, unfastened his seatbelt, stepped forward to pat his shoulder, then headed toward the cabin door.
The drawback of the nano-coat became apparent at this moment. To go out and walk around, he had to strap on an oxygen tank, or else he wouldn’t be able to breathe.
A’dai, coming back to his senses, also started getting excited. To be fair, though it felt a bit dangerous, at least now they truly had a chance to come to Mars.
Moreover, their location was the Arctic Glacier point on Mars that humanity hadn’t even reached with probes.
After the group prepared a bit, they arrived at the cabin door.
Fan Ren once again patiently checked the external environment outside the cabin.
Temperature: -87 degrees, atmosphere extremely thin.
“Safe!”
As if pumping himself up, after saying these two words, a nano-coat instantly appeared on his body, enveloping him from head to toe in the blink of an eye.
Fan Ren reached back to secure the oxygen mask over his face, observed A’dai and Dan Wu to see they hadn’t missed anything, and only then slowly pressed the cabin door open button.
“Body surface temperature 36 degrees, safe!”
Fan Ren didn’t feel much on his body, but he had already seen the cabin temperature readings plummeting.
Before their eyes, an endless white plain suddenly appeared.
At the plain’s edge, the pitch-black night sky merged seamlessly with it, forming a starkly minimalist black-and-white canvas.
Fan Ren’s mood surged with excitement as he gripped the handrail and stepped out.
With the nanorobots’ feet stepping on the white surface, feeling no sensation, he couldn’t help but laugh.
But this didn’t hinder him from knowing that the land beneath his feet was formed by an enormous glacier.
The two behind him followed out one after another, landing on this terrain humanity had never set foot on, all immersed in the immense canvas.
