I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

December 17, 19:00.

One thousand meters above the moon's south pole, one of the three landers of the Chang'e-5 mission constantly adjusts its engine nozzle and rapidly lowers its altitude.

Inside are two large spiders bought by the space agency. Their landing site is the Qom impact crater, 430 kilometers away from the landing site of the Chang'e-4 mission, still in the Aitken Basin.

After the space agency received the Explorer 2 basic platform provided by Xinyuan, it added a considerable amount of scientific research equipment. The functions of the two Yutu 3s are different and can assist each other in their operations.

In order to distinguish them, they were named Yutu 3A and Yutu 3B. These two robots, which weigh nearly half a ton and have strong self-sustainability, are extremely loved by the space agency and are extremely precious.

Xinyuan's two landers landed at the predetermined location four hours ago. They circled several times for safety and used the "Layer" resource exploration satellite to assist in positioning, and then began the landing procedure.

As usual, the landing process is broadcast live. Although the space agency has done a lot for the lunar landing mission, the 5.8-ton lander is still a bit nervous, and there is a lot of equipment on the lander!

The operator confirmed that the landing procedure was correct many times, the landing attitude of the lander was quite stable, and everything seemed normal.

As the altitude gradually dropped from 1,000 meters to 500 meters and 300 meters, the 20KN variable thrust hydrogen and oxygen engine carried by the lander began to gradually increase its power. Eagle-eyed staff could even see the moon dust blown up from the lunar surface.

Wait, something seems wrong.

Why do I seem to see a little dark reflection?

But before he could confirm carefully, the lander had already descended to a distance of about 10 meters. The powerful tail flame blew away the lunar dust on the lunar surface, revealing some unusual objects below.

The lander's landing program still didn't realize any problems. The sensor told it that everything was normal and the fuel was 15% richer. So it pushed the throttle valve to 50% for the last time for about 1 second, and then the lander could land safely. .

Someone has already stood up in the command center, but the operator can't do anything. The minimum signal delay for the engine to respond is about five seconds, which is too late.

Ordinary people who watched the live broadcast on TV and the Internet did not understand what was wrong, but in front of the computer of an ESA employee who was watching the broadcast, a participant in the asteroid detector project stood up with a "swish".

"Water! Ice!"

In the Qom Crater, the last meter of the lander's drop was maintained for more than a second under the influence of the engine's 1-ton thrust, and the exposed ice layer directly below it also underwent high-temperature ablation, melting and evaporation. The camera at the bottom of the lander Submerged in a ball of boiling water vapor.

The live broadcast also showed the accident a few seconds later. Now everyone knew that an accident had occurred, but the boiling water vapor immediately turned into ice crystals due to the low temperature of the vacuum after escaping, and the 20KN variable thrust engine had also been shut down. .

The support leg of the lander hit the ice and slid out a little distance, because the pit created by the tail flame was slightly tilted, but it did not affect its use. The landing procedure was good, and it sent a standby signal to the relay "Queqiao" satellite. , which is forwarded to Earth.

But what they didn't know was that the serious atmosphere in the Chang'e-5 ground control center had turned restless.

…

"What? Ice? The Chinese discovered the ice!"

Claire hung up the phone and turned on her phone. The trending message on Twitter had become "Yutu-3A has found ice in the moon."

Time goes back to three hours ago.

The person present at the Chang'e-5 ground command center was Shen Zuozhou, who had just completed space training and returned to the ground a few days ago. He had two guesses in his mind at that time:

Either the lander landed on a piece of land covered only by a thin layer of lunar soil, which is the exposed part of the legendary lunar south pole ice; or there was a fragment of an ice meteorite falling on the moon, which happened to be bumped into.

If it is the former, then this can be used as a construction site for a lunar base.

So he immediately issued an order to release the two Yutu-3 robots A and B to conduct random drilling within a 1-kilometer radius. The fixed-point sampling equipment of the lander can drill down to 5 meters. They started working now.

The fixed-point analysis of the lander will take some time, and the results will not be available until the live broadcast is over, but this is no longer relevant.

Because when Yutu 3B jumped out of the lander and moved in the opposite direction to Yutu 3A, the eight fallen legs passed through the lunar soil less than 10 centimeters thick. Due to the low friction of the ice layer, they did not slide normally and traveled AI Crazy warning, but fortunately, the eight flexible spider legs stabilized the posture and continued to move forward.

There was a total distance of 100 meters, and almost every step could touch the ice. Finally, Jade Rabbit No. 3B stopped on a high ground, and pulled down hard with its two front feet. This time, it dug out a shallow pit of nearly 30 centimeters, and there was still a hole underneath. Cloudy ice.

Half an hour after the lander landed, the original procedures of photographing each other and raising flags between the two landers were not carried out. Instead, they frantically dug holes everywhere under the command of Shen Zuozhou.

The two Yutu-3s each advanced more than 100 meters and found ice less than 40cm below the lunar surface in 5 of 6 random locations.

The lander's drilling has also reached its limit, and the entire 5-meter depth is covered in ice.

Shen Zuozhou immediately made an estimate in his mind. Even if it is a circular area of ​​more than 100 meters that has been discovered, if there is a 5-meter ice layer, it is almost 200,000 tons of ice!

From 200,000 tons of ice, 20,000 tons of hydrogen and 180,000 tons of oxygen can be produced using electrolysis!

The lunar surface base is available!

At this time, most people watching the live broadcast just felt strange that the scheduled program had jumped so far without even completing two jade rabbits, and the command center felt a bit messy until the live broadcast ended.

However, there were quite a few people in the industry who watched the live broadcast. An employee of the European Space Agency was the first to announce the news, believing that the Koom impact crater may have been caused by the impact of an ice meteorite, or because the meteorite impact exposed a small part of the lunar ice. part.

In either case, the Qom impact crater is about 4.3 kilometers in diameter and is expected to contain at least 8.7 million tons of ice, enough to meet the fuel and living needs of a large lunar base.

This mostly speculative article combined with the anomalies in the space agency's live broadcast immediately caused a huge sensation in the spacecraft. Although there have been various indirect evidences over the years that there is a large ice layer on the lunar surface, there has never been a conclusive discovery.

However, the Chang'e-5 mission actually discovered such a large ice layer. Doesn't this mean that a lunar base is about to become a reality?

Ice can directly produce oxygen and hydrogen. There are so many inorganic substances in the lunar soil. It is not impossible to produce methane and ammonia. It can completely support a base!

While the outside world began to ferment, the Aviation Development Commission finally released the news three hours later:

"The Chang'e-5 1 lander is suspected of discovering ice crystals in the Kumu Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin of the Moon. Chinese scientists are organizing more analysis activities."