192: Chapter 192 Deep Space In-Situ Resupply: Teaching the Luan Bird to "Forage"!
Alien civilization navigation timer, day 123.
4:40 PM, B2 level of Pangu Laboratory.
Su Che magnified the full Solar System star map, his index finger sliding from the Mars orbit toward Jupiter.
Between the two planets lay a dense belt of celestial debris.
The Asteroid Belt.
He pushed the technical parameters of the lunar Helium-3 extraction module and the resource distribution data of the Asteroid Belt side-by-side onto the main screen.
"In the Asteroid Belt, C-type carbonaceous asteroids account for seventy-five percent."
Su Che picked up a neutral pen from the table and listed three lines on a blank sheet of A4 paper.
"Water ice, organic matter, iron-nickel alloys; water is cracked to extract hydrogen isotopes, which are fed directly into the fusion reactor."
"What about the iron and nickel?" Zhao Mingyuan leaned over from the next station and tapped the armrest. "On-site smelting to replenish ship hull consumables—it gives off a 'Wandering Earth' vibe."
Su Che ignored him.
In his mind, that familiar mechanical voice had already sounded.
[Ding! A fatal shortcoming in the deep-space endurance of the 100,000-ton class aerospace mothership has been detected; main R&D mission triggered!]
[Mission Name: Build a Gas Station in the Solar System Desert!]
[Mission Content: No matter how powerful the heart is, it can't handle starvation! A 100,000-ton behemoth that stalls after one trip to Jupiter—what kind of interstellar warship is that?]
[Please develop a deep-space in-situ resource resupply system to achieve in-situ asteroid mining, hydrogen isotope extraction from icy celestial bodies, in-situ synthesis of fusion fuel, and deep-space material recycling, so that the Luan Niao Mothership can eat wherever it goes in the Solar System and never run out of food!]
[Mission Reward: 900,000 skill points, unlocks redemption permissions for in-situ asteroid mining technology, hydrogen isotope extraction technology for icy celestial bodies, in-situ fusion fuel synthesis technology, and deep-space material recycling technology; requires 480,000 redemption points.]
[The host's current skill point balance is sufficient; proceed with redemption?]
"Redeem."
[Ding! 480,000 skill points consumed; core technologies unlocked!]
[System Prompt: Supporting auxiliary technologies have not yet been redeemed, including: asteroid mining robotic arm blueprints, fusion fuel refining equipment blueprints, deep-space material recycling system plans, and interstellar resource survey algorithms; total redemption points: 100,000.]
"Redeem all."
[Ding! 100,000 skill points consumed.]
Four sets of technical frameworks flooded into his mind.
Su Che closed his eyes.
Compared to those previous systems, the logical structure of this technology was completely different.
Shields and stealth are defense, the fusion reactor is the heart, while the resupply system is the stomach and intestines; it must not only digest various types of "food" but also turn waste back into useful materials.
The core of the entire system consists of four layers:
The first layer, prospecting: accurately locating water-ice asteroids and hydrogen-rich celestial bodies in deep space;
The second layer, capturing: using specialized robotic arms to capture and secure asteroids;
The third layer, consuming: on-site dismantling, extraction of hydrogen isotopes, and synthesis of fusion fuel;
The fourth layer, digesting: recycling waste residue and shipboard living waste into usable materials.
Su Che opened his eyes and pushed the dismantled technical framework onto the public main screen.
"The R&D cycle is ten days."
Liu Huaqiang walked over from the east side and adjusted his glasses.
"Deep-space mining?" Liu Huaqiang stared at the sketch of the asteroid capture device on the screen.
"Not mining." Su Che stood up and walked to the main screen. "It's about teaching the luan bird to forage for itself."
He turned to face the hall.
"Academician Qian, the interstellar resource survey algorithm is assigned to you." Su Che directly delegated the tasks. "You are the most familiar with the Quantum Radar's detection data; you write the filtering logic to accurately identify the spectral characteristics of water-ice celestial bodies against the deep-space background."
Academician Qian Zhenhua walked over from the server rack area and rolled up his sleeves.
"I have the spectral characteristics library on hand, but it needs to be adapted to the main god ai's deep-space detection sub-module."
"Connect directly; I'll grant you the permissions."
"Academician Sun." Su Che turned his gaze to the U-shaped array area.
Academician Sun Qiwen was refilling his enamel mug and stopped when he heard the call.
"In-situ synthesis of fusion fuel."
Su Che circled the third layer of the framework on the main screen.
"Synthesize the hydrogen isotopes extracted from icy celestial bodies directly on the ship into standard fuel rods that the fusion reactor can use. You just finished the energy conversion for the advanced fusion reactor, so you know the fuel-end adaptation parameters best."
Academician Sun Qiwen screwed the lid on his thermos, carried his mug over, and scanned the parameters.
"The synthesis temperature and pressure window is very narrow." He tapped the table with the bottom of his mug. "We need a specialized miniature accelerator for deuterium-tritium purification. This exists on Earth, but to shrink it down to a size that can fit into the mothership's cargo hold, we need to redraw the blueprints."
"Academician Zhang Weide." Su Che called out to the back row.
Academician Zhang Weide stood up from his folding chair and walked over with his hands in his work pants pockets.
"You take on the structural strength of the asteroid capture device and the mining robotic arm." Su Che pulled up the robotic arm blueprints. "Calculate the load-bearing torque at the base of the robotic arm when anchoring a rocky celestial body with a diameter of several dozen meters in a zero-gravity environment."
Academician Zhang Weide pulled the engineering calculator from his chest pocket and shook it.
"The anchoring torque is directly linked to the asteroid's angular velocity of rotation; we must first determine the upper limit mass of the mining target."
"Within 5,000 tons." Su Che provided the boundary conditions.
Academician Zhang Weide pressed a few keys and shoved the calculator back into his pocket.
"I'll have the first draft tomorrow."
"Zhao Mingyuan."
Zhao Mingyuan was pouring the last few sunflower seed shells into his mouth and gave a vague response when he heard his name.
"You write the control logic for the deep-space material recycling system; I'll give you eight percent of the main god ai's computing power pool."
Zhao Mingyuan slapped the seed shells into the trash can.
"Waste recovery plus recycling—isn't this just space-version garbage sorting?"
"The concept is similar, but the precision is eight orders of magnitude different."
"Fine." Zhao Mingyuan pulled the keyboard over.
The division of labor was completed within three minutes.
The B2 level was once again filled with the sound of typing.
... Alien civilization navigation timer, day 124.
10:00 AM.
Su Che completed the underlying algorithmic framework for the in-situ asteroid mining technology at the main console.
The core difficulty wasn't how to dig, but how to stop.
A carbonaceous asteroid with a diameter of 30 meters and a mass of 2,000 tons was moving through deep space at a speed of over ten kilometers per second.
To approach it, the luan bird had to first match its speed, then use the Anti-gravity field for buffer anchoring, and finally extend the robotic arm to perform operations.
During the entire process, the relative speed between the mothership and the asteroid had to be controlled to within 0.1 meters per second.
"main god ai, build a six-degree-of-freedom dynamic simulation model for asteroid capture."
Su Che typed the command.
Computing power usage was pushed to thirty-five percent.
The simulation model finished rendering within five seconds.
On the main screen, a black-gray irregular rocky celestial body was slowly rotating, and a scaled-down model of the luan bird was approaching from the side.
The Anti-gravity field spread out in a cone shape, enveloping the asteroid's axis of rotation, gradually suppressing its angular velocity.
The robotic arm extended from the belly of the mothership, its six articulated arms unfolding to a working radius of 24 meters, with the drilling head at the end aimed at the rock surface.
The simulation ran 120 sets of operating conditions.
The 87th set encountered a problem.