Chapter 132: Desolate Ice Field
Minus 80-plus degrees is actually not that ‘low’ a temperature at all. Why do I say that? Just at Vinson Peak in Antarctica on Blue Star, humanity has discovered super-low-temperature climate phenomena reaching minus 117.7 degrees.
The biggest difference between this ice field and Blue Star is the extreme thinness of the atmosphere here, which leads to a climate unlike the strong winds at Blue Star’s North Pole.
This results in the glaciers here being extremely flat, with no ice peaks forming.
“Boss, there’s melting.”
A’dai checked the shuttle’s tail nozzle, which was pointing downward at the ice cubes, and was surprised to find that layers of thin puddles had formed below the nozzle due to the high temperature of the tail flame. However, because of the -80° temperature in the external environment at that moment, the puddles were rapidly refreezing.
But A’dai was quick-eyed and quick-handed, scooping up a handful of water. Although it had refrozen, it was real and present on the nano-coat in their hand.
Fan Ren also walked over and looked at it curiously. After confirming it was real, he nodded with a smile and said, “Go collect a sample. I’ll look around.”
With that, Fan Ren strolled forward casually.
On this vast ice field, the view stretched endlessly. And because of the extremely thin atmospheric density, there wasn’t even the slightest breeze here.
Not only was the visible range extremely far, but the overall flatness was also extremely high.
After Fan Ren wandered around the area, all his sense of novelty quickly faded.
It was too desolate, and too monotonous.
There was nothing at all!
Standing still on the ice field for a long time, Fan Ren remained silent. Being on this glacier, which seemed immersed in endless desolation, made him feel an inexplicable sense of discouragement.
“Boss, the sample collection is done.”
A’dai’s excited voice jolted Fan Ren out of his inexplicable state. He came back to his senses and instinctively shivered.
The influence of the environment was too great.
“Good, board the ship. We’re heading to the next location.”
Fan Ren exchanged a glance with Dan Wu, but the other’s eyes remained as indifferent as ever, as if they forever lacked any emotional color.
The spaceship quickly took off again, slowly flying toward the southern horizon.
This trip to Mars was not only to investigate whether this glacier had a water source, but also to fly along to Utopia Planitia and check if the route had conditions for constructing orbital transportation.
Mark’s Mars Project was developing too slowly. At this rate, who knew how long it would take for humanity to immigrate to Mars on a large scale.
If humanity was to build a human residential city on Utopia Planitia in the future, water would be an indispensable resource.
It wasn’t like on the Moon, where water resources could be transported at ultra-low cost via the space elevator between it and Earth.
Fan Ren had no idea of building a space elevator on Mars, nor would he in the future.
Mainly because Mars had no resources worth developing, meaning no economic benefits.
Although humanity had entered the Space Age and possessed controlled nuclear fusion technology, which to some extent gave it the ability to obtain ‘unlimited’ resources, it was currently only in the starting stage, and Xinghai’s financial resources couldn’t support his blind investments.
Moreover, the funds his Mars plan would consume next wouldn’t be insignificant.
The shortest straight-line distance from Utopia Planitia to the glacier plain was 2000 kilometers.
Building simple transportation tracks on Earth would of course be very cheap.
But this was Mars, with extremely complex climate conditions. The diurnal temperature difference could reach up to 200 degrees, and ordinary tracks would struggle to withstand the thermal expansion and contraction effects from such extreme temperature differences.
Transportation equipment was the same.
The only solution Fan Ren could think of currently was to use tri-titanium alloy to build tracks for transporting water resources.
This time, the spaceship didn’t fly fast. It observed along the way while using onboard equipment to record potentially useful routes for future ground track construction.
During this process, A’dai said nothing and focused on operating the onboard electronic equipment.
The clever one had already realized that the sudden Mars trip might be related to the experiment he had proposed.
Fan Ren glanced at them and smiled without saying a word.
The geomorphic gap between Mars’s Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere was extremely significant.
There was a magical phenomenon: most meteorite impacts had final impact points in the Southern Hemisphere.
And at the same time, due to the low gravity, Mars surface also had the highest peak in the solar system detected by humanity so far.
Olympus Mons, with a height exceeding the astonishing 22 kilometers.
What concept is that?
22 kilometers up on Blue Star is roughly the middle to upper stratosphere, while most long-range airplanes cruise at only 12,000 meters.
But at this height, in Mars’s Southern Hemisphere, there’s even a possibility of hitting a mountain.
It must be known that Blue Star’s highest peak is only over 8,800 meters.
Fortunately, whether it was Mark’s Mars Project or Fan Ren’s subsequent ‘upgraded Mars Project,’ neither would shift humanity’s survival activities to the Southern Hemisphere.
For now, Utopia Planitia remained the best area for human group living activities.
And as Fan Ren had guessed, along this flight path, the overall flatter geomorphology of the Northern Hemisphere showed no excessively high hillsides.
The only drawback was that the plain itself was a huge basin, with elevation as low as minus 4,000 meters.
This posed some inconveniences for orbital transportation due to the elevation differences.
But fortunately, ever since he had developed the nuclear fusion reactor, the energy problem was no longer something current humanity needed to consider.
Electromagnetic levitation orbital transportation—that was Fan Ren’s solution.
Ahead of the spaceship, a huge downslope geomorphology soon appeared. A’dai stared at the monitoring panel, knowing they had reached the edge of Utopia Planitia.
Fan Ren maneuvered the spaceship to begin flying at a negative angle.
The next landing point was at Spitz’s Mars Project base.
“Land, damn it, put down that rock in your hand right now!”
“Captain, I…”
“Damn it, can’t you drain the water from your brain before coming out on missions with us? Don’t you know that most glowing rocks like this contain radioactive elements!”
Here, Land, wearing a thick pressure suit, reacted upon hearing this and scaredly threw the round gemstone emitting red light far away from his hand.
“Thanks, Boss.”
Neto irritably turned his head away, not accepting his apology.
It had been nearly 2 years since coming to Mars, and this was the first time he truly felt what it was like to be both dad and mom.
Not only did the team members under him vary greatly in quality, but they often liked to go against him.
Take this damn Land, for example. He might call him Boss on his lips, but he was the biggest destabilizing factor in the team.
He had a relationship with Terri in space without precautions, leading to her pregnancy, and in the end, bizarrely gave birth to the baby.
As captain, he knew this would cost the company an extra expense of billions.
And these unexpected factors would ultimately be tied to his bonus.
“Boss, look, what is that!”
Land’s extremely irritating voice once again echoed through everyone’s microphones.
Everyone instinctively looked in the direction he was pointing.
Not far from the base, a streamlined spaceship was stationary, hovering above a flat patch of ground.
