Galactic Tech Empire

Chapter 371 Exploration Work
12 month 15 day.

The western world is still in a mess, while Dongtang and the entire East Asian region are eating melons.

As for the planetary defense plan, it is still in the confidential stage, and preparations are underway.

On the other hand, the East Island Space Agency is also preparing for the space mining test work on the WX asteroid.

However, Dongtang was also very interested in space mining, so he sent a group of expeditions to discuss with the Dongdao Space Bureau how to open the WX asteroid.

Since the name of the WX asteroid was named by NASA, the Space Development Committee used it directly in an emergency before, but of course it has to be changed to its own name now.

Soon the Space Development Committee officially named the WX asteroid "Iron-Nickel Mineral Asteroid, No. 2019.12.3, No. 001", referred to as Iron Star 1.

Kaohsiung Aerospace City ground control center, Dongdao Space Bureau has readjusted the ground control center, readjusted to: the first control room (Blue Star satellite), the second control room (new Kaohsiung space station), the third control room (mass Projector), Control Room [-] (Spaceship), and Control Room [-] (Space Mining), just established.

Inside the fifth control room at this time.

Zeng Baojiang, Li Minghao, the person in charge of the control room, Huang Guohao, the person in charge of the space mining project, and Zhang Wei, the leader of the Dongtang expedition team, were discussing the development plan of Iron Star 1.

"At present, the orbit of Iron Star 1 is about 51280 to 51300 kilometers away from the ground of Blue Star, and the time to circle Blue Star is 33 hours." Li Minghao said, pointing to the holographic star map.

黄国豪点开铁星1号的全息模拟模型：“之前我们在给铁星1号改轨的时候，让它损失了大约800～900万吨质量，目前它的质量是4.8347亿吨左右。”

"I don't think this asteroid is exactly an iron-nickel asteroid." Zhang Wei touched his chin to express his point of view.

Huang Guohao nodded: "I see the same thing. After all, based on the density of the iron-nickel asteroid, the volume of this asteroid is at most about 4.2 to 4.4 million tons."

"You think there are heavy elements on this asteroid." Zeng Baojiang obviously had guessed about this issue a long time ago.

After all, under the same volume, heavy elements must have a greater mass than iron-nickel minerals.

"As the base chief said, we can preliminarily determine that Iron Star 1 contains heavy elements." Huang Guohao said.

A staff member from the remote control department of the fifth control room ran over and whispered next to Li Minghao: "It is reported that the Xuanwu-class spacecraft 008 has arrived at Iron Star 1."

"Exchange numbers 002 and 004 back." Li Minghao ordered.

"Ok."

In the lonely and remote outer space, 51295 kilometers away from Blue Star, the Iron Star 1 asteroid is slowly flying in orbit.

之前一直和铁星1号小行星伴飞的三艘玄武级，只剩下002号和004号飞船，006号飞船在12月14日已经返回蓝星。

As for the flight to Xuanwu-class No. 008 this time, it is a spacecraft that has just rolled off the production line.

The 008 spacecraft slowly docked beside the Iron Star 1 asteroid, and then slowly landed on the surface of the Iron Star 1 asteroid.

Click! The 008 spacecraft opened the side hatch, and five space operation robots climbed out of it, and then selected five locations to start punching and sampling.

Half an hour later, five space operations machines collected 1 samples on the Iron Star 15 asteroid.

And Xuanwu-class 002 and 004 are already on their way back to Blue Star. At this time, there is only one Xuanwu-class spacecraft 1 next to the Iron Star 008 asteroid.

The 15 samples collected by the space operation robot were sent into the Xuanwu-class 008 spacecraft, which carried a set of rapid element detection equipment.

The element rapid detection equipment inside the spacecraft is detecting the composition of these samples, while the space operation robot continues to carry out their scheduled tasks, installing an engine on the Iron Star 1 asteroid.

The reason why the engine is installed is mainly to prevent the Iron Star 1 asteroid from suddenly changing its orbit during mining operations.

However, this time the spacecraft carried one engine. On December 12, the Xuanwu-class spacecraft 18 will bring two more engines. Generally, three engines can maintain the orbit of Iron Star 006 without serious changes.

Inside the fifth control room of the ground control center.

The test results of Xuanwu-class 008 were finally sent back to Blue Star.

After Li Minghao sorted out the test report, he immediately sent it to Zeng Baojiang, Huang Guohao, and Zhang Wei. They read it carefully for a while.

"As expected, in addition to iron and nickel, the content of gold, platinum, and lead is also very high." Huang Guohao said excitedly.

"It is estimated that this asteroid is a piece of planetary debris." Zhang Wei is very familiar with the situation of this asteroid.

"According to the test results of 15 samples, the lead reserves are about 3500-3800 million tons, while the gold reserves are 800-900 million tons, and the platinum reserves are 600-700 million tons." Jump.

"If such terrifying reserves of gold and platinum are invested in the Blue Star market, the world's gold and platinum markets may collapse immediately." Zeng Baojiang smiled wryly.

Huang Guohao also smiled bitterly: "Gold and platinum can only be taken back and used as industrial raw materials, but the content of tungsten and manganese in them is also good. Among them, the reserves of tungsten are about 160 to 180 million tons, and the reserves of manganese are about 200 million tons."

"How do we operate mining now?" Zhang Wei asked.

"We plan to refine it on the spot and transport it back to the ground of Blue Star for further processing." Huang Guohao explained.

"Smelting in space? This needs to be redesigned. After all, smelting in space is different from smelting on the ground." Zhang Wei reminded.

In space smelting, it is generally vacuum smelting, cold smelting, using zero gravity to perfect shape, 3D printing perfect metal products, no welding is required in key places, and the interface is directly cut and flattened and fused together (can be used for high-precision metal products or jewelry inlays, and can also be used for industrial production of integrated metal casings).

In addition, solar power stations can be used to provide energy for electric smelting furnaces.

However, the reason why smelting in space is different from smelting on the ground is mainly due to the problem of gravity and heat dissipation. Perhaps most people understand the problem of gravity.

However, the problem of heat dissipation in space smelting is definitely another huge problem, because heat dissipation in vacuum is very difficult. In a vacuum environment without a medium, heat dissipation is very difficult, and radiation can only be used to dissipate heat.

For example, the thermos bottle we generally use uses the principle of vacuum not conducting heat, and creates a layer of vacuum in the body of the thermos bottle to achieve the effect of heat insulation.

There are three ways of heat transfer, conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction and convection must have a medium, while radiation transfers heat through electromagnetic waves (light), so in a vacuum environment, only radiation can be used to transfer heat.

This is also the main way for stars to transfer energy to the outside, and plasmas such as stellar solar wind can be classified under the category of thermal convection.

In other words, smelting in outer space naturally faces the problem of vacuum heat insulation. If this problem is not solved, the smelting furnace may have problems due to excessive heat accumulation.

Some other issues also have to be considered.

"We also have related research on these issues. Now that the technology is relatively mature, we can improve the problematic areas while testing on Iron Star 1." Huang Guohao said.

"Everything is difficult at the beginning. Anyway, this is experimental, and we can improve it while experimenting." Zeng Baojiang also nodded and said.

The four discussed and improved the effects of space mining and space smelting for a whole morning.

　Sorry for oversleeping (ω｀)
　　
　
(End of this chapter)