The tires crumbled over the gravel.

In the endless desert, a Mars rover is slowly moving against the wind and sand flying in the sky.

In this forbidden area of life that has been disturbed by no one for a long time, except for this AI-controlled all-terrain survey vehicle, only some microorganisms are still lingering.

Time seems to take away everything it can.

In this dead world, desolation is carved into every piece of gravel.

However, today is definitely a significant day for this dead planet.

As the roar of the engine came down the thin atmosphere, a silvery-white ring slowly descended from the sky. Four thick flames and air currents pushed an arc-shaped umbrella at the front of it, blowing away the red sand on the ground from a long distance, and even setting off a sandstorm of no small scale.

As if hearing movement from the sky, the all-terrain survey vehicle probed its head and turned the full-angle camera on the top, casting a "confused" gaze into the air.

It was this glance back that recorded the thrilling scene.

As if a comet had struck the earth's surface, the moment the ring hit the ground, the umbrella-like flame was extinguished in an instant, and in its place, billowing sand and dust rushed into the sky like a waterfall flowing backwards, opening the dim sky like a cloudy cloud.

[The information has been included...... Tag setting. 】

[Setup completed.] 】

Emotionless words flashed from the display, and the "reptile", having lost interest in the silver-white ring, continued along its original route, and its owner gave it the task of surveying the terrain and natural resources of the Martian surface.

It's been doing this for years, and it's going to do it until the machinery breaks down or the battery runs out. Unlike the AI that communicates with it, it doesn't have any curiosities other than records about other inconsequential things.

did not meet with this "colleague" who came to Mars earlier, and the colony module did not even take a break after landing, and immediately began to deploy.

About four or five meters of alloy rods drove straight into the surface, holding the colony pod firmly to the ground.

Immediately after that, the silvery-white metal shell expanded outward in four directions, like an inflated doughnut, and opened outwards a planting area that looked similar to that of an airbag.

The deployment worked very smoothly.

Just like they have practiced countless times in the desert of the Great Northwest.

Standing in the communication room of the colonial module, Liang Youcheng connected to the Xu Fu hovering in orbit through the console, and gave a brief report on the current situation.

"This is a Martian colony outpost, and we've landed successfully."

"The climate and environment here are harsher than we expected, but luckily everything is going well...... The Colony Pod has been deployed, and so far the device has been operating fairly smoothly with no troubled breakdowns. ”

"After a short break, we'll get to work right away."

After completing the work report as concisely as possible, Liang Youcheng sent this text message to the Jinling Space Launch Center and updated it to the mission log of the Xu Fu.

Next, it is a series of routine ceremonies such as walking out of the cabin, planting flags and taking pictures.

In the middle of these rituals, a four-wheeled rover resembling an off-road rover slowly drove out of the garage outside the buffer room, driven by planetary geologist Dr. Fan, and drove in a straight trajectory into a sea of sand.

His destination was at the "water source", 7.2 kilometers away from the colonial module.

There is an underground ice layer located 20 meters below the surface, located in the middle of a small basin, according to the estimated data provided by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, its reserve size is about 150 million ~ 400 million cubic meters.

Although many reservoirs on the earth can easily deplete this reserve scale, compared to the water resources on the moon, this reserve can already highlight the "vast land" of Mars.

For this colonial outpost, water is the first thing that must be secured. It means freshwater resources and oxygen, which are the most fundamental material basis for the functioning of the entire artificial ecosystem.

This is followed by renewable resources such as solar and wind energy.

While Mars' thin and turbid atmosphere makes solar and wind less readily available, it is better to be able to harvest energy locally than to use expensive nuclear power.

After all, the nuclear fusion technology applied to space stations and spacecraft is still a little different from that on the Pangu pile.

The latter is a magnetic confinement ignition device, which releases stellar energy, and every link from ignition to heat emission has been designed according to local conditions, requiring hundreds of engineers to maintain the stable operation of the device.

The former is nothing more than a pulsed fusion device based on the phenomenon of acoustic luminescence in liquid-phase metals.

Although the volume of this device is countless times smaller than a series of giants such as Pangudui and Xihedui, it is far inferior to the former in terms of energy efficiency, total power and cost per unit of electricity.

And this is one of the reasons why even if the Tsukinomiya is equipped with this kind of fusion cell, it still lays solar panels that are many times larger than the main body.

At present, the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study is studying how to build a simplified version of the first-generation magnetic restraint ignition device on the moon to supply energy to the IMCRC collider and other "high-power experimental equipment" in the lunar research station.

After all, after all these years of development, the energy gap on the moon is still not small, and it is still a little difficult to rely entirely on solar panels and storage stations.

As for the "Mars Research Station", which does not even deserve its name......

Don't think about this kind of energy supply facilities at the level of hanging.

The rover stopped in the center of the basin, and Fan Tong, who got off the car, put down the mobile borehole that was pulled behind the rover, skillfully operated the slab in his hand, first measured the stratigraphic data with seismic waves, and then sampled multiple sets of core samples of the rock formations at a depth of 10 and 20 meters in the three areas.

"Core sampling complete."

After a series of current tones, Captain Liang's voice quickly came from the communication channel.

"How's it going?"

"It's unbelievable...... I'm referring to the disbelief in the positive sense," Leaning against the mobile drilling equipment that had been put away behind the rover, Fan Tong looked at the tablet in his hand, his face full of strange expressions, "The data provided by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study is unimaginably accurate, and people can't help but wonder if they have secretly made a trip to Mars...... How did they collect such accurate data? ”

Liang Youcheng is not very clear about the inside story, but he is not particularly interested in these minutiae, as the world's top research institution, the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study naturally has their own methods.

What's more, they also have Academician Lu.

Anything unthinkable, put on that man, will seem reasonable.

"Maybe the Yankees were collected from the wreckage of the New Virginia, it seems like a long time ago...... Anyway, since the information is accurate, we don't have to worry about fresh water resources in the past three years. ”

More than 100 million cubic meters of fresh water reserves.

Not to mention three years, even if their population has increased tenfold, it will not be used up in three hundred years.

Originally, the colony module was eco-friendly, and the demand for external resource input was very long, and if the situation was optimistic, they could even achieve a complete internal circulation of water resources, but the energy consumption would be relatively higher.

"Anything else?"

"Hmm...... There's one more thing I have to report back to you. ”

With a hint of excitement in his tone, Fan Tong continued.

"When I was doing seismic wave detection, I found a ...... in the vicinity A bit of an exaggerated seismic crack. ”

"Earthquake cracks?" Liang Youcheng frowned, "Are you sure...... Is it an earthquake crack? ”

"I'm sure of it! There is absolutely no mistake that such fault formations could only have been created by natural seismic activity. Because of its relatively low terrain, it was lucky not to be buried by the wind and sand! Surprisingly, however, based on what I have learned in the literature, the geological activity of Mars, a geological formation commonly found in areas of active plate movement, should have ceased billions of years ago...... Very unusual. Can I go down and have a look? ”

Planetary geology is his specialty.

The excitement and excitement in his heart at this moment can no longer be described in words.

Although it is only a small fracture, its discovery has the potential to rewrite human civilization's perception of Mars! What could be more exciting than being an academic?

Compared with Dr. Fan's excitement, Liang Youcheng is much calmer.

Out of prudence, after a moment of thought, he finally rejected the risky proposal.

"You come back first, your mission for today is over, it's better not to make a fuss."

Fan Tong: "I promise you, there will be absolutely no danger!" It's only about 10 meters deep, so I can climb up without a safety rope...... Of course, I would tie it around my waist well. ”

"Come back now, this is an order," Liang Youcheng said in a tone that could not be refused, "Take a picture of your findings and record them in today's work log, and I will let Ming Wenzhe follow you tomorrow." ”

There was silence for a long time, and finally a soft sigh came from the communication channel.

"Okay...... You're right. ”

Glancing at the fracture behind him with some reluctance, Fan Tong shook his head with some pity, threw the tool back on the rover, and re-entered the cockpit.

Looking at the positioning signal that began to return on the screen, Liang Youcheng, who was standing in the communication room, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Identifying freshwater resources is the last task of the day.

Everything had been going well since the landing, and he didn't want to make some extraneous things.

But having said that, his heart is also full of curiosity about the "earthquake crack" that should not have appeared.

He had already made up his mind, and when Dr. Fan returned, he would report the situation to the ground command center, and the researchers on Earth would decide whether to investigate it further......

Lamp pen