Hundreds of thousands of kilometers, in lunar orbit.
Not far from the Moon Palace Space Station, a hexagonal silver-plated device was dropped from the Magpie Bridge, which landed on the surface of the Moon.
A few months ago, the Jinling Institute for Advanced Research collaborated with a number of research institutes within the United Nations to carry out research and development in regards to automatic lunar mining equipment.
The project had already made some progress. This 300 million yuan device called “Pioneer” was one of the research results of this project. It was mainly responsible for the preliminary mining of rich titanium ores.
If the device was successfully deployed and worked normally, the Lunar Orbit Committee would consider deploying an automated ore melting device on the moon surface, and this would be used to process the titanium ore into titanium ingots or even titanium alloys. The titanium would then be used for the second phase of the Moon Palace project, which was to establish a research facility on the Moon.
The silver hexagonal device slowly dropped toward the Moon.
The closer it got toward the Moon, the more nervous the Moon Palace and Magpie Bridge staff members were.
“Countdown to impact… 5,4,3,2,1… Landing is successful!
“Opening mounting bracket!”
The moment the silver-white prism made contact with the lunar surface, a circle of gray moon dust swelled from underneath the equipment.
The device anchoring feet nailed into the moon rocks.
The two Moon Palace staff who were staring at their screens were relieved. They high-fived each other and celebrated for a second, before immediately returning to their mission.
“This is Moon Palace, the automatic mining equipment prototype has successfully landed on the Moon. Requesting further instructions.”
“This is the ground command center, congratulations on completing your mission. Please confirm the status of the automatic mining equipment. If everything is normal, begin the test in ten minutes.”
“Roger that.”
The Moon Palace staff member skillfully confirmed the status of the equipment. They then immediately turned on the device.
A signal light on the automatic mining device flickered. It was almost like a giant monster was awakened.
The bottom alloy plate slowly opened, and a huge drill was nailed into the lunar soil.
The drill began to spin, and the titanium-containing moonstone was quickly broken into numerous fragments. The moonstone was sucked in by an ore-processing pipe and ejected from the side of the device.
Once the smelting device was deployed, the material discharge port on the side of the automated mining device would be connected to the smelting device through special pipelines. The materials would then be transported into the smelting furnace. This was a fully automated mining production process.
But for now, the titanium-containing moonstone just sat there in a pile. Since the device was operating normally, there was no reason to keep it on.
“The machine is working normally.”
“Turn it off then.”
“Roger that.”
The drill bit slowly came to a pause and retracted itself into the mining machine. The discharge port no longer ejected any moonstone.
Due to the Moon’s low gravitational environment, there was still flying moon dust everywhere.
Johnson was watching this through a porthole on the Moon Palace. He looked at the dusty Moon surface and opened his mouth.
“Jesus… What are the Chinese people doing to the Moon?”
No one answered him.
Julia was just as confused as him.
She only saw the Chinese throw something from the spacecraft, and the impact almost looked like a missile hitting the Moon.
“Are they… testing weapons on the Moon?”
Johnson went silent for a while. When the dust finally settled, he had a clear view of what was going on.
“Hopefully not…”
In theory, the United Nations signed a treaty for the peaceful development of outer space resources. Experts from all over the world were on this space station. Not to mention that there were countless astronomical observatories pointed toward the Moon.
The Chinese must be going crazy if they were actually testing weapons on the Moon.
Johnson believed that the Chinese were merely building something on the Moon, similar to the plant growth unit they deployed some time ago.
Julia looked at her captain and asked, “Speaking of which… When can we go home?”
Johnson shook his head and said, “I don’t know.”
“Where is Travis? How come I haven’t seen him lately?”
Johnson went silent for a while. He then said, “He might be in some trouble.”
“I heard that… He seemed to be infected with a Mars virus. Maybe we are…” Julia said as her face turned white.
Even though Johnson was worried himself, he tried to comfort his teammate.
“Don’t worry, all of the world’s top biological experts are here. Travis, you, and I are all going to be safe.”
Johnson didn’t believe what he was saying at all.
When he first arrived at the Moon Palace, he was allowed a brief communication with NASA.
Fortunately, the Chinese didn’t prevent him from knowing the truth. The NASA director told him the whole story.
Simply put, they were the hosts for a type of extremely resistant Mars bacteria. This bacteria could impact Earth’s ecosystem. Therefore, they were temporarily isolated in the space station. After a while, they would be transferred to a lunar research facility.
Would they survive? What if the bacteria were invincible? These were questions Johnson didn’t want to think about.
Perhaps the best solution was for them to sacrifice themselves. Johnson even sensed that Director Carson was hinting at a sacrifice during their conversation.
However, one person was only given one life. No matter how heroic the sacrifice was, Johnson couldn’t just give up his life that easily.
Suddenly, the living module hatch opened.
The Chinese researcher who had previously examined them was accompanied by two astronauts. They floated into the living module and stood in front of them.
Johnson was nervous, and he tried to calm himself down.
“What happened? Is there any research progress?”
Johnson didn’t have any hope. After all, the international experts had only arrived at the Moon Palace for a couple of days. It was impossible for them to find a solution in such a short time frame.
However, Zhao Shuxuan’s words surprised him.
“A little bit.”
Zhao Shuxuan looked at Johnson’s surprised face and said in a serious manner, “In order to verify our hypothesis, we need you to cooperate with us for some experiments.”
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