Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"Since you've made up your mind, then so be it. However, my whole family will definitely be going home; I'm not an orphan."

Haven't you contacted your family?

"No, the connection was cut off right at the beginning, it seems to have been cut from the outside."

"Aren't you angry?"

"What's there to be angry about? They have their duties and tasks, and I have mine. Besides, it's just a delayed report that I'm safe, nothing serious."

"You have complete trust in your ruling body?" Normally, one would only ask this to someone they know and trust, not a complete stranger in a mask.

"Well, after all, our governing bodies and a significant portion of the grassroots decision-making bodies aren't human, so they'll follow the rules." Like most ordinary civilians in the Star Alliance, Old Xia has a high level of trust in the various levels of government agencies and departments.

"Alright, loading is complete, time to retreat. Just leave these racks here, they're useless, not worth wasting time on." These are landing buffer supports. They're not entirely useless, but compared to the contents of the other cargo containers, they're not worth the risk of prolonged stay.

Where is your robot?

"Let them stay here, what else can we do? But I've dismantled the manufacturing equipment, and without replenishment, they'll eventually be exhausted." Even though a considerable number were produced to fight off the demons, it was still a drop in the ocean compared to the total number of demons, only buying everyone a little time to evacuate and load the trucks.

The convoy roared through the desolate city, drove through streets frozen in ice and snow, leaving the corpses of this pre-civilization behind, and emerged from the dark tunnels, where the majestic figure of the polar behemoth lay ahead.

"The convoy is back, lower the hatch!" The bow hatch was lowered, and the convoy rushed onto the deck without slowing down. Before it even came to a complete stop, the hatch began to retract.

"Reverse, retreat, retreat! Retreat at full speed! Do not engage any demons along the way, take the shortest route back!" The demons in the entire dead city rioted. The polar behemoth's crew on duty knew the importance of the situation and decisively reversed, turned, and accelerated back the way they came with the engine at full speed.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Infant Still in the Cradle

Chapter 67

On the return journey, there were almost no major mishaps, or rather, it was impossible for any major mishaps to occur. Almost everyone could see the black, smoke-like horde of demons spreading out from behind the landship, but their speed was actually slower than the landship in winter, so they couldn't catch up.

The crystalline forest, resembling a tree, crashed into the steel bow and was subsequently crushed into dust by the tracks. The two large naval guns at the stern continuously fired sacred fire shells at the demon horde, hindering their movement and further slowing their pursuit.

This polar expedition was a great success. Not only did they obtain supplies dropped by the Covenant, but they also acquired electronic production equipment from the Early Civilians. This equipment should be useful for repairing the Ark, since replacing the entire control chip and structure of such a large Ark would be a nightmare, requiring almost complete dismantling and reconstruction.

Terra doesn't have nearly a century to initiate the project, nor does it have the industrial capacity for it, so rebuilding it is obviously impossible. The Covenant-dropped equipment can only produce large shuttles, which are only at the level of orbital airliners. Only one standard warp drive has been deployed.

As for how to improve this equipment, how to rewrite the control system, and how to perfect the Ark circuit and design drawings, Lao Xia has already outsourced these complex tasks to the Long Island Commercial Laboratory Group. They are responsible for completing these complicated tasks, producing a preliminary plan, and then conducting trial production, receiving feedback, and making modifications based on the feedback.

"Theoretically, I could even have them write out a whole set of unmanned industrial processes, and then just gather the work units, with engineers managing and directing remotely. However, that would mean the communication channels would be occupied for a long time, and the cost would be very high. It's the kind of thing that... well, you'd have to pay extra, and not just one extra fee."

"Let's forget about that then, we have limited funds." The doctor was also having a headache. Although he knew that Old Xia certainly had enough money to pay, he himself also had financial needs, so it was impossible to ask the other party to take out all his assets to help the poor.

In fact, if Lao Xia hadn't planned to take the mined Originium, as well as various mineral and technical samples, with him to sell for money, he wouldn't have been so willing to spend the money. However, since he was going to sell the goods, it was easy for him to accept investing in improving the truck.

The land-based ship successfully returned to its starting point. The heavy artillery group deployed along the border line opened fire at full speed without hesitation as soon as the ship crossed the firing range. A sea of ​​fire descended from the sky, causing the demons' pursuit to halt for a moment.

As more small and heavy landships, along with artillery clusters, joined the firing, the demons eventually gave up the pursuit and had to slowly disperse. More accurately, those who persisted in the pursuit were blown to pieces, and the remaining demons were driven by instinct to spread out.

The next step is to unload the cargo, sort out the materials and equipment, send the less important and less valuable items to the museum, send the more valuable items to the restoration center, and send Lao Xia's items back to Kazdel for unpacking and reassembly.

Two months later, near the Kazdel Space Center, swarms of drones hovered on a scaffold over a hundred meters high, and the iron-gray structure visibly rose little by little.

This is the furnace structure of the Stellar Furnace. Although the furnace core is not large, the entire furnace body is quite huge. Most of the area is actually cooling pipes and power pipes, as well as storage tanks for storing finished ultra-high temperature alloy fluids.

The term "stellar furnace" is a general term for an extremely hot furnace whose core temperature can reach the temperature of the inner layer of a star. However, when it is actually used, it refers to the entire set of equipment, including separating minerals that have been completely transformed into metallic plasma into single ion clusters, and then using a gravitational forging furnace to restore these single ion clusters to 100% pure elemental matter that cannot exist in nature by supplementing electrons.

Moreover, such elemental substances cannot exist stably. As soon as the gravitational confinement field is removed, they will instantly permeate with the surrounding matter and become less pure. It is in this way that these elemental substances can accurately permeate other metallic elements.

If I had to put it in a way, in the metallurgical industry it would be like using a tunneling microscope to piece together a perfect alloy bit by bit from more than a hundred different metal single atoms, even crystal structures that would be impossible to form under normal and conventional processes.

At the microscopic level, the crystal lattice structure of these alloys is extremely regular, rather than exhibiting a structure with some misalignment. To give an analogy, if you place it under a mirror of a strongly interacting material and magnify it to the extreme, you can only see a neat square lattice with no defects or misalignments.

In actual production, after the final molding is completed, the metal ingots that come out are mirror-like and do not even need polishing. This is the standard Covenant alloy outer armor material. Because the vortex shield cannot block laser weapons, or rather, the deflection rate is too low, it will still take several hits.

This dense mirror material can reflect a large amount of laser energy, and the dense structure also greatly weakens the effects of neutron beams and gamma lasers, making it quite effective at defending against kinetic energy—however, all of the above refers to the weapons that the Terrans can manufacture.

Against an opponent of similar strength, this level of superalloy armor is roughly equivalent to the defensive capability of a thick cardboard box. It can barely guarantee that you won't be instantly killed by a single shot, and you really can't expect much more protection.

"This furnace isn't really picky about ore grade. When the ore goes in, it turns into plasma clusters, then separates into metallic plasma clusters, then strips electrons to become metallic ion clusters, then reduces it to metallic atomic clusters, and then, under the transient gravitational forging force equivalent to a supernova explosion, it becomes an ultra-pure metallic element. After that, there are a whole bunch of processes like ion penetration synthesis, which I don't quite understand." Old Xia, wearing a safety helmet, explained to Master Nian about this super-giant furnace, which was less than 35% complete.

"However, for the sake of production efficiency, it is best to use high-purity concentrate sand. Otherwise, the high-temperature discharge port could really be used as a plasma cannon."

That means that more than 90% of the mass is waste that needs to be discharged. Although it has undergone preliminary cooling, tens of thousands of tons of plasma are still being ejected from the nozzles on the top of the furnace. In fact, even ordinary planetary defense cannons may not have this kind of firepower. Only Earth engines can win because of their absolute size advantage.

The premise is that the simplified discharge port made of Terra materials can withstand this level of output. Optimistically speaking, if inferior ore is used, everyone can probably see this thing erupt like a volcano, with the discharge port gradually becoming red-hot and softening, turning into molten metal and rolling down, until the entire equipment completely explodes.

"After all, it's a small furnace; you can't expect it to have a large processing capacity. For the sake of output and efficiency, it's best to..."

“Small-scale…?” Nian pointed to the frame, which was 75 meters in diameter and 138 meters high. This did not even include the processing and manufacturing workshops and other supporting equipment that would be built around it in the future, such as an independent large-scale fusion power station and substation facilities. With this furnace body volume, you call this small-scale?

"It is indeed small-scale. The furnace looks large, but that doesn't mean it's not small. The furnace is so large because we can't produce more specialized and high-quality heat-resistant materials here. We can only alleviate this problem to some extent by increasing the size of the furnace body and walls. Moreover, most of the equipment consists of supporting pipes and various control devices. The actual furnace itself is not very large."

Old Xia sighed, "If it were to operate independently, a daily output of 70 to 100 tons would be considered small-scale, wouldn't it?"

"Uh, that's true..."

At its highest output, it only produces 3000 tons per month and less than 5 tons per year. This output is so low that it would be considered outdated and "optimized" out of production capacity if it were on Earth. Of course, it can't be calculated that way, because it is actually a "special steel" production equipment, not equipment for producing ordinary crude steel and common steel.

In fact, for optimal production efficiency, reaching over 95% of the designed capacity, it is best to feed it metal raw materials that have undergone other metallurgical treatments, namely crude steel, rather than feeding it ore directly.

Compared to the slow-progressing Stellar Furnace Group, the Extreme Ion Metallurgy Group and the Ultra-High Power Electron Beam Furnace, which can be manufactured using standard blueprints and Terra materials, are much faster to build, especially since they are equipped with a more professional nano-honeycomb manufacturing system than the original architect Xia used.

The most common sight at the space center now is a large swarm of drones flying over the ground or sky, hovering in a dense mass over a certain area. Then, a large number of transport vehicles and land transport ships begin unloading cargo. It seems like in the blink of an eye, a colossal structural framework appears on the ground.

The iron-gray structure grows upwards from the bottom like a plant, along with a large number of pipes, cables, and equipment mounting brackets. Although there is a complete set of Star Alliance equipment, due to the extensive scale of the project, most of the facilities are only about 40% complete. Not to mention trial production, it will take at least 2 to 3 months to be fully completed.

Compared to the slow progress here, the progress at the space center is much faster. The projects that Lao Xia outsourced are being completed one after another. For the contractors, designing the internal circuits, pipes and control groups for a rocket that is so old that it can be directly copied from textbooks is simply free money.

So, in what should theoretically be the most technologically advanced office area in Kazdel, you can see a bunch of creatures who could be called "experts" looking utterly pathetic as they scrape code from the Covenant forums.

This idea was started by Lao Xia. After discovering that outsourcing was not cost-effective, he found a forum for like-minded people to exchange ideas and started posting questions about how to use quantum chips to create flight control logic for ancient rockets and spacecraft.

Despite receiving a lot of ridicule, people said that using quantum chips to build old-fashioned rockets is not retro at all, and that they should just use silicon electronic chips instead!

However, we also obtained a lot of code written by experts out of pity for newbies. What followed was a very shabby process of copying and pasting code, which greatly lowered the prestige of the aerospace industry.

Do what you know, ask what you don't know, outsource if you can't find the answer, build what you can build, download standard blueprints for nanoprinting if you can't build it, and continue outsourcing if you can't find open-source resources. Under this cheating-like process, a brand-new rocket soon appeared in the warehouse.

"Although we used a lot, a lot, a great deal of external assistance, at least this thing is much better than what we had before, and the self-production rate is not low either." Ling Ke was not ashamed at all.

Even disregarding the fact that the technology was outsourced and a significant portion of the processes were completed using external equipment, from the perspective of the manufacturer and production unit alone, it is indeed reasonable to say that the self-production rate exceeds 50%.

The outer shell, frame, Originium Radar, and Neural Link control system are all manufactured in Terra's factories. Among them, Originium Radar and Neural Link are Terra's proprietary intellectual property. Well, if you really want to talk about it, you could also consider the frame as proprietary intellectual property.

The rest...

The engine was a picture that Lao Xia found online. It was manufactured by printing the honeycomb in one go. It was the first version of the fusion ion pulse thruster. It sounds similar to the current heavy plasma thruster, but it is actually a completely different thing. It can be considered a "retro rocket" with a rough idea, but it doesn't look very old.

This type of thruster uses electricity generated by fusion reaction to accelerate plasma and provide thrust. During the launch phase, it uses pre-made chemical propellant to generate plasma, and during the orbital operation phase, it switches to nuclear-powered ion electric propulsion mode, which can greatly reduce the propellant requirement and provide acceleration over long distances.

When the Coalition first explored the moon, they used this type of rocket engine to launch lunar spacecraft. Because it was reusable and the chemical propellant was only used during the launch phase, it was also cheaper than traditional rocket fuel and was once a common product in the era of human space exploration.

However, because it is too advanced and not retro enough, retro rocket enthusiasts have a hierarchy of contempt for this kind of thing—those who use liquid propulsion look down on those who use solid propulsion, those who use solid propulsion look down on those who use nuclear propulsion, those who use nuclear propulsion look down on those who use electric propulsion, and all of the above look down on the one that Lao Xia used this time.

The control system and internal wiring and piping are all designed by outsourced drawings. Terran only needs to assemble them according to the drawings. About 70% of these pipelines and internal equipment are actually produced by Terran itself.

A significant portion of the other parts were also outsourced and assembled by Terran. To put it simply, it's like labeling the Ninghai as domestically made; you could say it was indeed built in a domestic shipyard, but…

In short, the rocket was indeed built. It looked a bit chubby, somewhat like an upright orca, and even had very lifelike white round spots on both sides, which were the parachute compartments used for the return capsule to land.

After discussions between the space agency and the scientific department, especially the Agor technicians, the rocket was named the "Skati 1 launch vehicle".

Meanwhile, Zao Lu and her colleagues began the astronaut selection process. Due to technological upgrades, Zao Lu was also able to be selected, but the selection process remained extremely difficult.

Although it has considerable payload redundancy, it can launch something weighing nearly 200 tons at a time, and its internal space can fit five astronauts, which is about the size of a small bedroom.

However, the launch overload was not reduced at all, and they still needed to calmly operate various devices under these conditions. They had to learn the control devices and related operating logic designed by the Star Alliance outsourcing company from scratch.

Furthermore, they also need to learn how to live in a zero-gravity environment. Lao Xia used the warp drive, which was not yet needed, as a microgravity field generator so that they could learn various necessary abilities in a zero-gravity environment on the ground.

Astronauts' learning involves more than just technical skills; it also means that they need to learn the most basic things, like eating, drinking, and using the toilet, just like babies.

In a sense, once a civilization or a life form breaks free from the gravitational pull of a planet, it means they have truly stepped out of the nursery, and they do indeed need to learn how to live in a completely new world, just like infants.

Eating, drinking, using the toilet, passing gas, and even breathing and sleeping all require learning and adaptation, a very complicated process, especially for women. Just learning how to manage menstruation in a weightless environment took them almost a week.

While learning to drink water, one of them almost choked to death. Fortunately, the medical team was nearby on standby and managed to save her by shutting down the machine and performing emergency resuscitation. However, this unfortunate girl completely lost her chance to become an astronaut.

Learning to eat was relatively easy for a noblewoman like Zao Lu. As long as she got used to taking one bite at a time, keeping her mouth closed, chewing slowly, and swallowing the food before taking the next bite, she could pass the test safely.

However, this felt awkward for Sarkaz girls who were used to wolfing down their food quickly. But these habits were manageable; the real problem was going to the toilet.

If it were a space station, then Lao Xia could install a negative pressure toilet, or even better, a rotating gravity chamber, so that they could not only use the toilet but also take a shower. However, there is no way to do this for the rocket cabin, so they have to learn the miserable life of using the toilet and taking a shower in zero gravity.

After finally learning basic life skills like an infant, the next step is to learn how to move in this environment. This means progressing from being able to eat and use the toilet by yourself to being able to crawl. In reality, it can only be called crawling. You move in a weightless environment by using handles and movements that resemble swimming.

For people who are used to standing on solid ground, it's hard to imagine how difficult this is, because if you exert too much force, you'll fly out of the microgravity field like an arrow and plunge headfirst into the sand around the training ground.

If you don't apply enough force, you won't float to the intended position. Instead, you slow down and stop halfway due to air resistance, just like a drowning person struggling for a long time before finally managing to move to the nearest handle by stirring up the air with their limbs.

As for farting while moving, the scene is even more of a nightmare. Zao Lu witnessed a Sarkaz girl being launched from her seat like a rocket before she even had time to fasten her seatbelt, and then crashing headfirst into the cabin ceiling.

Then, it was bounced back by the reaction force, spun in mid-air, and slammed onto the bottom deck. It bounced back and forth like a bouncy ball several times before it finally grabbed the straps on the bulkhead to hold itself in place, feeling dizzy and disoriented.

As for bumps and knocks during movement, that's unavoidable. Fortunately, the girls in Terra are all very strong. And at this point, Zao Lu also realized why she was eliminated at the beginning. Now, with the opportunity to participate in training due to technological advancements, she discovered that some things are really inconvenient when they're too big.

Spacecraft cabins are small and cramped. If you accidentally brush against or bump into something while turning around, you'll either spin out or it will fly out. You have to be careful with every step, holding onto something secure, and judging the space and your own position. It's really quite troublesome.

At this time, the Sarkaz girls with tails displayed their racial superiority. Their long, slender tails acted like seatbelts to secure themselves, or, when thrown into the air, they would quickly grab onto something nearby to keep themselves from spinning like tops.

Meanwhile, several Felin cats and foxes like Lily of the Valley developed a way of moving that left the ignorant Earthlings like Blitzkrieg speechless and shocked the spacefarers for a whole year—they used their tails as propellers. Since there was air inside the cabin, using their tails as propellers could indeed make them move.

The only problem was that people would also spin in the opposite direction, which was quite comical at times. This meant that during astronaut training, the training cabin was always surrounded by people because it was really... very funny.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: A Small Step for an Individual

Chapter Sixty-Eight

At the Kazdel launch site, the flatbed lander slowly moves along its pre-set track, carrying the rocket upright on the transport platform. It is gradually moved to the launch pad, the connector is disconnected, and the flatbed sinks into its designated slot. Simultaneously, two sets of clamps on the launch pad secure the rocket from both sides. Only then do the workers begin to dismantle the large metal cables securing the rocket and conduct pre-launch checks.

"Prepare to add working fluid fuel..." The tractor pulled over the giant pipe, which was nearly one meter in diameter, and connected it to the filling port. Then, a gurgling sound was heard.

This pulse engine uses a fusion reaction to ionize the working propellant into plasma, which is then accelerated and ejected backward to obtain thrust. It is a combination of nuclear and electric propulsion. It is not as brutal as nuclear propulsion, nor as woefully inadequate as electric propulsion. If you are not showing off on a retro rocket forum, it is even a bit of an overkill for an early launch vehicle engine.

This engine is actually used for the spacecraft that regularly travels between Earth and the Moon and the Earth-Mars scientific research spacecraft. When fully loaded with propellant, it can accelerate the spacecraft to a speed of nearly 170 kilometers per second, which is the limit speed. The average speed is about 80 to 90 kilometers per second. A round trip to Earth-Moon orbit takes only two and a half hours, and a one-way trip takes a little over an hour.

Of course, there's no need to fill the spacecraft with propellant when launching from the ground into space, as that would create a lot of dead weight. The payload would drop backwards due to gravity. Fueling is simpler than with liquid rockets. The propellant itself does not burn or explode, and it is almost non-corrosive, so there's no need to worry about leaks or premature ignition and explosion.

Next, the buffer pool below will be filled with water. Without water, this launch site would be a disposable facility. The tail flame is much more powerful than that of a liquid rocket; it could really burn everything below into glass.

"Is the core module tank of the space station ready?"

"Final adjustments and tests are underway." In another factory building, three 40-ton core modules of the space station are undergoing final checks and adjustments. These are the components that need to be installed for this space mission.