The stars, but they become the gray wind

"The coordinates have been given. The debris discovered by drone No. 04 is approximately at this location."

"Understood. I'm on my way. I want to personally confirm what that fragment is."

"Be careful, we are still not sure what that thing that just fell was." Renlong reminded Calisi at the Taylor Island Aerospace Combat Center.

"To be on the safe side, it's best to take the fragments or any other clues found at the scene back to the island's laboratory for detailed examination."

"Thank you for the reminder. I will be careful." As she spoke, Carlisle operated the aircraft to fly towards the location where UAV No. 04 found the debris.

.........

A moment later, the white anti-gravity helicopter opened its Y-shaped folding landing gear and slowly landed near a drone that was floating only a few meters above the ground.

Carrying a metal container, Kalisi opened the cockpit door, stepped on the permafrost that melted in the explosion, and felt the soft ground under her feet. Kalisi walked towards the drone without hesitation.

"Is this where the fragments were found?"

"We are more than one kilometer away from the center of the explosion, and the gamma ray and X-ray values ​​are still frighteningly high. Normal creatures would not be able to survive for even a few minutes if they stayed here." Kalisi frowned as she looked at the gamma ray value alarm in the holographic field of view. Although the gamma ray was a lethal dose for carbon-based creatures, it was not even a sunbath for Kalisi and others who had turned into nano-mechanical aggregates.

"It's right here, about 30 centimeters below the soil." Renlong's voice came through the communication.

"It looks like it's buried quite shallowly." Kalisi stretched out her hand towards the ground in front of her. A wisp of silver sand began to seep into the ground and decomposed and swallowed the surrounding soil. Within a dozen seconds, the silver-white fragment, which was only the size of a thumb nail, was exposed to the air.

"Found it..." Carlisle opened the metal container she carried with her, took out a pinch from it, carefully picked up the fingernail-sized fragment on the ground, and put it into a special isolation box in the metal container.

"Since a piece of debris has been found, it means there must be other debris around. Scan it carefully again, and it would be best if we can collect more fragments..." Carlisle gave new instructions to the drone that was inspecting the explosion site.

.........

A few hours later, with the almost complete scanning of dozens of drones dispatched by Renlong, Calisi collected at least 20 more pieces of debris, the smallest of which was only a few millimeters, and the largest was nearly half the size of a palm.

"Huh... We've searched the entire Yilin Medical Center site, and only found this much." Carlisle placed the last fragment into an isolation container and breathed a sigh of relief.

"As for what these things are, and the true identity of the thing that fell down earlier, we'll have to wait until we return to Taylor Island and carefully study these fragments before we can get any results."

"I'll have the drone continue to patrol and scan there, just in case there's anything we missed at the explosion site. Xixi, you take the debris samples back to the island first, and we'll make a long-term plan." Renlong instructed Carisi on the other end of the communication.

"I understand. I'll be back on the island soon. This incident was beyond our expectations..."

"That's right... From various angles, this time things are serious... I have a bad feeling..." Renlong's worried voice came from the communication.

"Yes... Judging from this scene... it was at least half a kilogram of antimatter explosion. The probability of this mass of antimatter appearing naturally... is infinitely close to zero..."

"And these fragments...are definitely not natural products...I think we might have encountered some kind of...alien creation..."

"Well...anyway, let's bring back those fragments first and confirm what this thing is."

"Um..." Carlisle agreed silently, opened the hatch of the aircraft, and fixed the metal container in her hand on the co-pilot seat.

As the spherical anti-gravity engines on both sides started up and ejected a blue particle stream tail flame downward, the aircraft slowly rose into the air, the Y-shaped landing gear folded backwards, and the aircraft left the ground and returned to the island on the other side of the earth at high speed.

Five hours later, in the laboratory underground on Taylor Island, Yuki looked solemnly at the dozens of silver fragments floating on the laboratory table.

"You mean... this thing is some kind of hadron material?" Aze asked Carlisle, touching the back of his head thoughtfully and looking at the fragments on the laboratory table.

"That's right... According to the instrument's analysis, this thing is a material created by manipulating the strong interaction force that constrains hadrons and using the quark confinement effect. In principle, it's quite similar to the color core material we made earlier."

"But it's not exactly the same. Specifically, the color core material we created is directly glued together by quarks. Its own positive matter properties have been completely destroyed, and even if it comes into direct contact with antimatter, it will not annihilate."

"At least antimatter in the general sense, such as antimatter hydrogen or antimatter iron at the macroscopic level, cannot destroy the color core materials we have created."

"The super-sized hadronic material created using color force has no corresponding macroscopic antimatter, so under most conditions, this material is immune to the destruction of antimatter."

"If you want to use antimatter to destroy this color-core material, you must have the corresponding super-large antihadron, or the corresponding antiquark or antigluon at a more microscopic level, to undergo an annihilation reaction with this material."

"But I've carefully examined these fragments. Compared to our material, which was formed by arranging quarks and then printing them as a whole, the methods used to make them appear quite crude. The flavors of the quarks that make up them haven't been adjusted like ours. This means that the material that makes up these fragments will react with antimatter at the macroscopic level."

"And I think this is the key to this matter. According to the image of the object that crashed into the atmosphere that we observed before, its exterior is most likely made of this type of material. Based on the shape and structure of the fragments you found, Xixi, I used a computer to re-simulate the condition of the object's shell when it was intact." Ren Long snapped his fingers as he spoke, and a rather slender cylindrical object was displayed by holographic projection.

"This... looks... like... a spacecraft?"

"Based on simulations, the object's long axis is approximately 30 meters. Analysis of the impact site suggests the explosion was most likely caused by antimatter. This suspected spacecraft was likely exploded from within by approximately 0.5 kilograms of antimatter."

"Even though the hadronic material used to make its outer shell was quite crude, it couldn't be damaged by a mere 300 kilometers per second impact. The violent impact caused the magnetic confinement field of the antimatter container inside to fail, causing the antimatter inside to come into contact with the outer shell and cause a flotation reaction, causing the entire spacecraft to explode from the inside."

"According to my speculation, this spacecraft is likely to use the gamma-ray jets produced by the annihilation of matter and antimatter as a means of propulsion. Considering its size and structure, it is unlikely to be a manned spacecraft..."

"That is to say, according to another source... it is more likely to be an unmanned spacecraft, or a probe..." Renlong paused and continued.

"This is the crux of the problem. If it is a probe, then who made it and where did it come from? And why did it appear in the solar system? And why did it crash into Tunguska, Siberia?" Renlong asked a series of questions in a serious tone.

"This... Considering that there is no intelligent life in the solar system except the Earth, this thing is most likely not from other celestial bodies in the solar system... In other words... hiss... outside the solar system?" At this point, Calisi took a breath.

"Is there any way to analyze its navigation trajectory?" asked Yuki on the side.

"Possibly. Judging by the power of this thing, the gamma-ray jets it creates in space should persist for a long time. If we conduct a comprehensive scan of the solar system, we might be able to find some clues."

"But... there's a problem... we haven't yet established a comprehensive space observation and early warning network."

"Our early warning network is limited to a 1200-kilometer radius around Taylor Island, as well as a 3000-kilometer radius around the Banshee and Alicorn, which are still patrolling Europe and the Atlantic. Due to the lack of comprehensive observation facilities for the entire Earth and solar system, we are currently unable to conduct a comprehensive scan of the solar system."

"Under these circumstances, searching for traces of possible gamma-ray jets in the vast space of the solar system is like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"So...is there a lack of infrastructure across the entire solar system?" Kaleesi sighed.

"That's right. We've been focusing on matters within the atmosphere and on the ground for the past few years, and haven't done much to build space infrastructure. As a result, we were caught off guard by the Tunguska explosion."

"The solution to preventing similar incidents is simple... We must quickly build a comprehensive space observation and early warning network and supporting space industrial facilities."

"I understand... The mass accelerator can operate at full capacity at any time, ensuring that at least 100,000 tons of material enters orbit every day." Yuki called up the real-time image of the mass accelerator and answered everyone.

"No, a mass accelerator alone is far from enough. The construction of the skyhook and space elevator must be put on the agenda immediately."

Kaleesi added.

"I also agree with Xixi's idea. We must build a complete space industrial system as soon as possible. No matter whether it is the skyhook, orbital elevator or mass accelerator-related infrastructure, none of them can be missing." Aze also said in agreement.

"Given the current serious situation and the possible existence of other civilizations and intelligent life behind the probe, we must treat this matter with the utmost caution."

"Regardless of the origin of this probe, or the existence of the life or civilization that created it, what we must do remains unchanged. Only by having sufficient hard power can we guarantee our own safety."

"What we need to do next is to fully promote the construction of space industry infrastructure on this planet."

"By the way, regarding this... I have a suggestion." Carlisle raised her hand and said.

"Before the space elevator is built, we will have a transition period, and during this transition period we will use the skyhook for a while, so I think this thing may come in handy!"

As Carlisle said this, she showed the design of something in front of everyone.

"Is this... Ark White Bird?"

"That's right. A super-SSTO spacecraft with a long axis of over 500 meters and a single payload of over 10,000 tons. It will serve as the main means of transporting cargo to the lower end of the ditch during the transition phase."

"Plus, the Ark White Bird itself has the ability to carry tens of thousands of tons of payload directly to an orbit at an altitude of 100,000 kilometers. It can help build the counterweight for the space elevator terminal and can also travel back and forth from the atmosphere at will. I believe it will be our best choice for the next period of time."

"I see... We'll need a mass accelerator to launch it, and one is clearly not enough. Given the scale of our upcoming infrastructure development, we'll need at least dozens of them to continuously and intensively travel back and forth between the atmosphere and geostationary orbit every day, carrying at least tens of thousands of tons of payload each time."

"Don't worry, its carrying capacity and reliability will definitely satisfy us. I will immediately arrange to manufacture it in the underground factory in the center of the island." Calisi skillfully issued a new priority manufacturing project to the factory in the underground cavity through the online thinking network.

At the same time, the automated factory located in the underground cavity quickly began a series of production and manufacturing after receiving the instructions.

The instruction has been received and the highest priority production project has been confirmed.

There are twelve [Ark White Birds] and one thousand [Valkyrie Space Shuttles].

The regular production list has been expanded, and the production instructions for space elevator facility-related accessories, space station modules, and zero-gravity dock facility accessories have been confirmed.

The underground factory, which had been silent for a long time, began to operate again at almost full capacity. A large amount of nanomaterials began to construct the main skeleton of the first Ark White Bird like 3D printing. After the skeleton was printed, the programmed active nanomaterials quickly filled in the empty space between the skeletons and began to improve all the details; circuits, pipelines, engines, reactors, warehouses, all details both externally and internally were being improved at an astonishing speed. In just a few hours, the first Ark White Bird rolled off the production line and was transported to the surface to be launched by a mass accelerator.

On the other side of the production line, dozens of Valkyries also came off the production line at the same time and were transported to the surface by a huge freight elevator.

The roaring underground factories began to invest all their production capacity into the march towards the starry sky above. Next, the world will usher in a large-scale space industrialization process initiated by only a few "people".

(The first volume is about to end, there are probably a few chapters left, please subscribe and vote for me!)

Chapter 107: Space Industrialization Construction! (5000 words)

Due to the huge explosion caused by the sudden fall of the probe and the harsh facts behind it, several people were forced to urgently accelerate the process of space industrialization. The sky hook, space elevator, and a series of more complete deep space monitoring and orbital defense systems were quickly put into operation.

As the first step in a series of plans, 12 Ark Birds were quickly sent to the catapult track of the mass accelerator after their construction was completed and sent into high altitude by electromagnetic catapult.

"What... happened?" Charlotte had obviously noticed that the atmosphere on the island had become inexplicably tense in recent days. Since she and her companions came to live on the island, the mass accelerator electromagnetic catapult device, which had only been activated a few times in the past few years, was now operating at an abnormally high launch density. One after another, pure white, slender lifting body structure aircraft that Charlotte had never seen before were catapulted into the air by the mass accelerator. According to Charlotte's visual observation, the long axes of the white lifting body aircraft sent into the air were at least 500 meters long. After several years of study, Charlotte could already roughly identify the basic aerodynamic principles of most of the advanced aircraft on Taylor Island with relative accuracy. She had seen introductions and related papers on lifting body structures in the electronic database on Taylor Island, but such a huge lifting body structure aircraft was the first time that Charlotte, who had lived on the island for six years, had seen.

"Have you noticed? It seems like the atmosphere on the island has changed recently." Dorothy came over and asked Charlotte and Angie, who were leaning against each other and gazing at the distance at the mass accelerator that was constantly running and launching one aircraft after another into the sky.

"Well... those four have seemed to be in a hurry lately. I can sense that their emotions and the atmosphere on the island have become inexplicably tense." Angel replied to Dorothy.

"Really... I don't know what happened. I ran into Ms. Carlisle and Ms. Renlong that morning. We were chatting, but looking at their expressions, it seemed like something suddenly happened and they left in a hurry. Maybe it was something urgent?"

"Since you are so curious, why not use the most direct method and just ask them?" Angel suggested to Dorothy.

"But I always feel that if it's something really important to them personally, they might not tell us the truth."

"Why don't we just try this first and find out?" Anjie stood up, patted her skirt, and planned to go directly to the four people to get the answer.

"Hey...Angel! Wait a minute...Aren't you too impatient?" Dorothy covered her forehead helplessly and caught up with her most trusted comrade-in-arms.

At the same time, in the Taylor Island Aerospace Combat Center, Renlong was monitoring an Ark White Bird that had been launched into space and was rapidly rising to an altitude carrying tens of thousands of tons of payload and was about to leave the atmosphere.

The long and narrow pure white body crossed the 100-kilometer Karman line and officially entered the low-orbit area with thin atmosphere. The two sets of large combined cycle engines installed at the tail closed their own air intakes and switched to the extra-atmospheric rocket propulsion mode. As the liquid hydrogen working fluid heated by the nuclear reactor ejected a long tail stream from the engine nozzle, which showed a diffusion trend in a vacuum environment, the orbital altitude of the white bird continued to rise, and finally reached the synchronous orbit at an altitude of 36000 kilometers. After arriving at the geosynchronous orbit, the cargo hold on the back of the white bird opened like a clam shell, revealing the early space station component payload stored inside. Under the action of the RCS nozzle carried by the component itself, the space station weighing thousands of tons The module was slowly moved out of the White Bird's cargo hold. Then, the space station module began to automatically unfold according to the program. The four main structural arms continued to extend outward along the cylindrical cabin section as the axis. Then a series of additional space station modules were ejected from the White Bird's cargo hold and flew to the ends of the four main structural arms to complete the connection. The interconnected components were almost all fitted at the molecular level, and finally a spoke-shaped structure space station with a diameter of more than one thousand meters was formed outside the White Bird. Despite the existence of artificial gravity technology, the use of centrifugal force to simulate gravity is still a relatively cheaper and more energy-saving solution. At the current stage, this is obviously a very cost-effective choice for the four-person team.

"The space station module has been deployed and the installation of the small anti-gravity propulsion device used to maintain orbital altitude has begun."

As Renlong's order was issued, dozens of drones carrying printing guns flew out from the cargo hold of the White Bird, sharing various installation nodes of the space station and creating miniature anti-gravity thrusters at key positions to maintain the orbital altitude of the space station. Although the thrust of these thrusters was quite low, it was more than enough to fine-tune the orbital altitude of the space station.

"Installation of the station's cold fusion reactor power module... The solar panels and magnetic skin power generation system have been deployed... Installation of the station's heat sink has begun..."

As the drone carrying the nanomaterial printing gun printed one detailed component after another on the space station, all the initial basic work of this ring-shaped space station with a diameter of more than one thousand meters has been completed.

A large number of muons were injected into the chamber of the cold fusion reactor and ignited by the cyclotron to output energy through low-temperature fusion reactions. The surface composed of the magnetic energy skin and the attached solar panels began to collect sunlight and perform photoelectric conversion, transmitting a steady stream of electricity to various systems in the space station. The integrated tin droplet radiator also began to heat up red, releasing the waste heat generated by the operation of the space station into the vacuum in the form of radiation.

"The energy system is operating well, the cooling module is functioning normally... the life support system is activated... the status is normal... the centrifugal wheel starts to rotate." Renlong ordered the space station in orbit to start the centrifugal wheel and generate Coriolis force during the rotation to simulate the earth's gravity at the 1g level.

Due to the huge size of this space station and the centrifugal wheel radius of more than 500 meters, its rotation speed is far less than one circle in 30 seconds. In this space station, even for normal humans, the impact of Coriolis force on the human body is almost negligible.

Although the interior is equipped with an atmosphere and life-support system that can be breathed by carbon-based organisms like humans, considering that practicality is the top priority, the interior decoration of this space station is very simple and unpretentious, and the silver-gray ceiling and walls exude an atmosphere of pragmatism.

After seeing that the cameras and televisions carried by the Ark White Bird had basically completed the initial structure of the entire space station, Renlong issued a series of orders for the drones to begin building the basic framework of the zero-gravity environment dock.

The engineering nanomaterial spraying drone that stayed in space with the White Bird began to build the orbital dock frame along the main axis of the space station after receiving the order. At the same time, the other 12 White Birds were also performing the same work in the synchronous orbit around the earth.

On the other side, hundreds of Valkyrie SSTO space shuttles equipped with automatic driving modules are going up and down in the low-Earth orbit around the earth. Satellites are dropped one after another from the opened rear cargo hold of Valkyrie into different orbits. Humanity originally had the ability to launch spacecraft into space. The orbital satellite communication, positioning, scanning and observation network that took more than half a century to build has now been built in less than a week.

"The initial orbital satellite communications and deep space monitoring network are complete. Now we have the ability to 'see'. Since we already have telescopes to confirm the target's location and direction of travel, the next step is to develop bullets to destroy the target in advance..."

"As for a low-Earth orbit defense platform... I think SOLG is a good choice..."

"What's the reason?" asked Carlisle, who had been silently doing her work.

"Because of the existence of Stonehenge, we don't lack ground-based anti-orbital capabilities. What we lack now is basic planetary defense capabilities in low-Earth orbit. Building more than 36 SOLGs in synchronous orbit can basically achieve all-round, no-blind-angle protection and orbital interception capabilities..."

"Of course, as a kinetic weapon, SOLG inevitably has its own drawbacks, so we also need other orbital defense weapons with faster reaction times and cheaper strike methods."

"The top priority targets are the L1 to L5 Lagrange points. By deploying GW-class X-ray band free electron lasers with a range of light-seconds at these five gravitational equilibrium points around the Earth, the shooting range of the laser weapon platform will be able to cover most areas and angles near the entire Earth." Renlong explained very considerately.

"Wait a minute... an X-ray free electron laser with a light-second range and an output of over 900GW? How long would the accelerator for this thing need to be?"

"Overall, it's not very large. With our technology, we can keep the accelerator's length to less than 100 meters. Of course, it can be even smaller. If it weren't for the relatively easier manufacturing and reflective material requirements for X-ray free electron lasers, I would prefer a gamma-ray free electron laser weapon."

"But I remember... if we want to reflect gamma-ray free electron lasers, wouldn't the material needed for the reflector be a nearly absolutely smooth neutron degenerate material?"

"With our current technology, it is entirely feasible to create seed degenerate state materials as mirrors for gamma-ray free electron lasers."

"Of course, if you want, you can use nuclear pumping to produce gamma-ray lasers. As for reflective materials, that's not a problem for us."

"Forget it... Using a nuclear explosion as a method to obtain gamma-ray lasers... This thing... seems a bit too much no matter how I think about it."

"However, compared to some natural gamma-ray sources in the universe, even nuclear pumping, which uses nuclear explosions to produce gamma rays, seems extremely mild. Think about it carefully, what are those naturally occurring gamma-ray sources in the universe?"

"When pulsars and neutron stars merge, when supernovae explode, when black holes merge, or when massive stars collapse into black holes..."

"But I've heard some interesting ideas about this..."

"Oh, what idea?"

"The question is whether a sufficiently advanced civilization could exploit these naturally occurring gamma-ray burst sources in the universe as some way to harvest energy or use them as weapons."

"For example, the possibility of artificially creating a supernova to obtain a large-scale gamma-ray burst."

"That's a possibility. Think about it. The propulsion system of the probe we discovered is likely based on the gamma-ray jets produced by the annihilation of matter and antimatter."

"That's a gamma-ray jet with an exhaust velocity close to the speed of light. Assuming this unmanned spacecraft has indeed traveled a long time and distance in space as we think, then it's theoretically very likely capable of near-light speed travel. A spacecraft using gamma-ray jets for propulsion could theoretically accelerate to 0.7 times the speed of light or even higher, as long as it increases the speed. Furthermore, I've deduced the details of its propulsion system based on the debris."

"We've come to a conclusion... This spacecraft is very likely capable of maintaining an exhaust velocity close to the speed of light while also maintaining an acceleration of over 2g. In other words, it's entirely possible for this thing to travel through space at speeds close to relativistic speeds."

"Hiss... a torch thruster... and one with ridiculously high stats in every aspect?"

"Previously, the torch thrusters we knew about could usually achieve a specific impulse of 20,000 seconds while maintaining an acceleration of 0.01g, which was already very good. In comparison, the performance of the torch thrusters we had previously envisioned was obviously too conservative."