The stars, but they become the gray wind

"If that were all, the consumption of lithium resources wouldn't be unacceptable... However... between the 80s and 90s, the same time that deuterium-tritium controlled nuclear fusion was achieved, this world's Earth experienced a sudden explosion of advancements in battery energy storage technology. This led to the premature popularization of relatively inexpensive electric vehicles. This created a sharp conflict between the electric vehicle industry's demand for lithium and the demand for lithium from deuterium-tritium controlled nuclear fusion. Because the electric vehicle industry occupied and consumed a large amount of lithium resources, human civilization on this Earth was forced to explore fusion technology, which requires even less lithium than deuterium-tritium reactions."

"That is the deuterium-helium-three controlled nuclear fusion that we see now as the mainstream."

"There's something strange about this world's moon. Helium-3 has experienced some unusual enrichment in the lunar soil. This shouldn't happen naturally. This unnatural accumulation has led to the formation of large, mining-worthy gas fields in certain areas of the moon, allowing humans on this world to obtain lunar helium-3 at a very low cost."

"Furthermore, certain physical parameters in this universe make deuterium-helium-triple fusion somewhat easier than it is here. In the 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union, both in the midst of the space race, discovered large, exploitable helium-triple gas fields on the moon. This allowed the commercialization of controlled deuterium-helium-triple fusion to be achieved in the 1990s. Of course, this also led to some unintended consequences."

"Is this why? The human civilization in this world is clearly at a lower level of electronic technology than the world we're familiar with, but the scale of civilization is larger than ours?"

"At the beginning of the 21st century, the scale of civilization had already reached 0.75, with the vast majority of this being contributed by the large deuterium-helium triple nuclear fusion reactors on Earth and the Moon."

"By the way... the humans of this world already have an outpost on Mars with nearly a thousand people."

"They achieved a manned Mars landing in 1995, and in the late 90s, they built several large transport ships for Earth-Mars orbital transfers, powered by deuterium-helium fusion reactors and variable-specific-impulse magnetoplasmonic propulsion. These ships, called the Unity-class, achieved a speed increment of 44.7 kilometers per second during their first Earth-Mars transfer, successfully achieving a record of three months from Earth orbit to Mars, within the Earth-Mars transfer window."

"Of course... that's assuming they only have fuel for a one-way trip. They have comprehensive fuel manufacturing and storage facilities on the Martian surface and in Martian orbit. Spacecraft making Earth-Mars orbital transfers don't need to worry about fuel for the return trip. Instead, after arriving at Mars, they can directly use the fuel storage facilities on the space station in orbit around Mars to refuel before returning to Earth."

"As for the one on our ship, he was one of the Soviet cosmonauts who participated in the first Mars landing competition. Apparently, they were trying to drag an asteroid into Martian orbit for mining. However, a tiny submicron crack in one of the anchors caused the entire mission to fail."

"But meeting us is a blessing in disguise in a sense."

"Right... what should we do next? Continue to observe?"

"Well... let's continue to observe, but... it seems we caused a small accident when we came here earlier?"

"What accident?"

"Well... the massive mass of our spacecraft is causing one of the Trojan asteroids to gradually deviate from its original position and begin to leave Jupiter's Lagrange point, where the Trojans are located. According to this asteroid's current orbit, Jupiter's gravity will gradually pull it towards the inner solar system. If all goes well, humans on Earth will be able to observe it in a few months."

"It's just an asteroid passing through the inner solar system. It shouldn't attract much attention, right?"

"No... the key is the composition of this asteroid. According to my scans, this 1.1-kilometer-diameter asteroid contains over 20 tons of iridium, platinum, and gold."

"Its value is enough for all of humanity to spend a huge amount of money to tow it to the vicinity of Earth or Mars and mine it, but..."

"You're not planning to?"

"I want to... see if the humans in this world have the courage and spirit of exploration to continue their journey into the solar system?"

"Given this asteroid's current orbit, it will pass near Mars. If humans on this world were to tow it to Mars for mining, it would likely promote the larger-scale development of Mars as an extraterrestrial colony, becoming the next springboard to the deep solar system after the Moon. This would also facilitate the further development of humanity on Earth into a multiplanetary civilization, or even a multistellar civilization. However... towing an asteroid into Mars' orbit for mining would require a long-term approach."

"Mining asteroids in Martian orbit would directly benefit the short-term, but only if a Martian colony were established. Transporting these high-value minerals back to Earth would take considerable time and cost, and Earth would also have to establish more comprehensive space mineral processing, storage, and reception facilities. While this would further increase the initial cost of asteroid mining, the long-term benefits would be the comprehensive improvement of the scale and system of human space industrialization. A hundred years from now, humanity would be able to more easily reach the depths of the solar system."

"But... you and I both know... humans aren't noble creatures willing to focus on the long term. On the contrary, most humans can only see the short-term benefits in front of them."

"If we drag this asteroid into Earth's orbit, we can indeed achieve greater benefits at a lower cost in the short term, but this will cause investment in the construction of a Mars base to shrink significantly. Without a sufficiently large-scale space industrial infrastructure, humanity will be limited to activities within the Earth-Moon system for the next hundred years."

"Short-term gains can indeed temporarily satisfy the needs of most people on Earth, but long-term gains are what allow humanity to truly and rapidly develop into an interstellar civilization. I want to see... what choice will the humans of this world make between short-term gains and long-term development paths?"

"If... they can let go of their short-sighted nature of only seeing their own immediate interests, then... we're willing to give them another push on this basis."

"A chance for a smoother journey towards a star system species and a little help."

"Besides, we came to this solar system for this very purpose. Let's find a suitable asteroid to launch a von Neumann self-replicator... If the humans of this world make a more righteous long-term choice, we wouldn't mind giving them a push, giving them the opportunity to directly journey to other star systems in the future."

Kelly Baldwin is feeling very depressed now. She is sitting alone in her favorite astronaut bar drinking. She is the head and director of NASA's extraterrestrial microbiology exploration project. She and other colleagues in her team have worked on this project for more than eight years. They have developed a four-legged robot that can explore underground caves on Mars or other celestial bodies in the solar system. Through artificial intelligence technology, the robot they developed can automatically identify traces of extraterrestrial microorganisms or bacteria that may exist in underground cave environments. If evidence of the existence of life such as microorganisms can be found on other planets, it will undoubtedly be a huge discovery for science, but all this came to an abrupt end this morning.

This morning, Eli, the new director of NASA, suddenly came to his laboratory to inspect his work project. He and his colleagues happily showed him the robots developed by the team and a series of technological achievements they had achieved. The director first praised Kelly's team members, and then suddenly changed the subject and said that the space agency's funds are a bit tight and it has to cut or postpone some projects, such as Kelly's alien underground cave exploration robot project. This is why Kelly Baldwin was sitting in the bar drinking alone. The results of her and her colleagues' hard work for eight years were completely wiped out because of a word from the director of the space agency. Thinking that the robot technology she and her colleagues had worked hard to develop might only lie in the warehouse and rot, Kelly Baldwin was furious and recalled the annoying conversation with the director of the space agency this morning.

.........

A few hours ago in the morning

"Are these red spots where it detected methane gas?"

"Yes, the methane is likely produced by bacteria or microorganisms, which indicates that there is a high probability of life near these methane gases. The northern region of Mars is full of such lava tubes..."

"Is it like this environment you simulated in the lab?"

"Yes, Korolev Crater is one of the most likely places in the entire solar system to harbor extraterrestrial microorganisms. Honestly, the robots we developed have done an excellent job miniaturizing optical detection equipment. This robot, codenamed 'Dot Dot,' successfully used its artificial intelligence recognition program to locate six of the eight microbial communities set up in a laboratory simulated test environment. We hid them in this test tunnel that simulates a Martian lava tube."

"This is amazing. Your results are remarkable. Your work is remarkable."

“This is the result of the joint efforts of all team members.”

"By the way, can we talk... alone?"

"of course."

The director of the space agency took Kelly aside and suddenly changed the subject.

"Kelly, I don't think I need to tell you how big an impact that asteroid accident had, right?"

"I've been ordered to use all resources to save the asteroid mining project, so unfortunately this means we have to postpone or cancel several scientific research projects."

"Wait... postpone? What do you mean..."

"Maybe it's just temporary. Listen! I know your scientific research project is important, but right now the focus of the space agency is to get the asteroid mining project back on track. If we don't quickly generate enough revenue in a short period of time, we'll soon run out of money to support research like yours."

"Yes, the most taboo thing about scientific research projects is lack of money?"

"Yes."

.........

Kelly felt inexplicably annoyed when she thought about how the director of the space agency had smiled and canceled the project that she and a large group of team members had worked hard on for eight years in the morning. This new bastard director was originally an executive of a large private enterprise. When he took office as the director of the space agency, he had no knowledge or understanding of the space field. He didn't understand that the space field required long-term and large-scale investment. The first thing he did after taking office was to cut nearly 20% of the space agency's research funding for the Lingyuan Lin VII project. After the catastrophic asteroid accident, her own research project was obviously also unfortunately affected. Thinking of this, Kelly raised her glass again and took a sip to relieve her depressed mood.

At the Happy Valley base on Mars, technician Miles Dell once again took the disgusting pre-prepared meal that had made him almost vomit in the past few months from the window, and threw the lunch box containing the pre-prepared meal on the dining table where he worked most often.

Across the table, his roommate was holding a piece of synthetic meat steak from a pre-made meal box with a fork, looking at it in front of his eyes.

"Does this thing look like a meat pie to you?"

"Obviously not..." Milesdale came forward and observed the synthetic meat patty, which tasted terrible and looked terrible, with a look of disgust on his face.

"Although I think you can get used to it, but I really can't get used to this thing." Sam, who was also sitting at a table, said nearby.

"Do you remember, during my training before I came here, they said there were chefs on Mars?"

"Yes, but it's upstairs. However, your meal card can only be used on your floor. They say this is to prevent overcrowding in one cafeteria, but I tell you, I think they just don't want to share all the delicious food."

"This is our reality. The elites from various countries, including astronauts, scientists, and pilots, are all in the same group."

"But we ordinary technical workers living downstairs are, after all, just here to help. I think you've all experienced this deeply during these past few months on Mars. Our treatment is completely different from theirs. We eat worse, live worse, and during this time, we can't even contact our families back on Earth. The Mars base's relay communication satellite is malfunctioning, limiting bandwidth. The main communication bandwidth has been allocated to those living upstairs. The ordinary technical workers downstairs haven't received any emails from their friends and family on Earth in weeks."

"Today I went to repair the seal on the ventilation pipe in the room above me. The guy didn't even look at me the whole time, as if I didn't exist."

"Look... Think about the Ranger asteroid tug accident. Everyone focused on Kuznetsov's sacrifice, wearing spacesuit chest patches with his initials."

"Do you know who's been forgotten?"

"Tom Parker. Another person who died in that accident was Tom Parker, and no one remembers him at all, just because he was an ordinary, insignificant person working on the Mars base."

"You know him?"

"Of course he knows me. The bed you are sleeping on now is the one he used before."

"He and I came here at the same time. He had family in Little Rock on Earth. I was on the Ranger at the time and saw him sacrificed with my own eyes."

"Well… sounds like at least he died a heroic death."

"No...that's not the case. He went there to keep his future bonuses and salary. He just wanted his family on Earth, his wife and daughter to live a better life...but now he is gone." Sam said this with a very sad expression.

.........

In the bar, Kelly Baldwin met someone she didn't expect, Aleida, the former flight director who was also a member of the NASA project, and one of her saviors who proposed solutions on Earth when she encountered difficulties on Mars.

She happily pulled her over for a drink, and the two of them talked about their dissatisfaction with the new director.

"That bastard Eli, sorry to inform me this morning, is going to postpone my robotics research project indefinitely, but you and I both know very well that he just wants to cancel the project."

"This way he can show his superiors how he has cut costs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and his achievements since taking office."

"What a bastard."

"Yes, this bastard even wants to bribe me with a promotion. I might have to accept it because it's a wise move to avoid being bullied by some guys with ulterior motives in the future."

The two of them drank one glass of wine after another in dissatisfaction with the current director of the space agency and the space agency's system. One of them had his project cut by the space agency, and the other resigned from the space agency in anger for various reasons.

"For the past eight years, I have devoted all my youth and time to this project. To do this, I had to leave my child to be taken care of by my mother-in-law, while my father hid on Mars and refused to come back."

"Just when our project was about to be completed and officially launched, this jerk director shut it down completely due to funding issues. The entire project was ruined."

"Cheers to screw up!" The two men raised their glasses and shouted in despair. At that moment, Kelly noticed the crystal clear wine in her glass. She turned the glass and looked at the wine in it.

"Did you see that?"

"what?"

"Liquids...the perfect medium for life."

Erlin Bar Wu Lin Liujiu "Is that the tequila in your hand?"

"No...it's water, liquid..."

"In gases, the elements are too far apart to touch each other, and in solids they are too close together to form structures that can support life."

"Only liquids, like water, are perfect. I might have found traces of alien life where there are no signs of life. Life uses every cellular fiber to fight against the natural environment, adapt to it, and evolve."

"I know it sounds cliché, but it does give me hope that we might find extraterrestrial microorganisms on other celestial bodies." Kelly then raised her glass and drank it all.

"Do you know what we should do?"

"We should take the trash and toilet paper to Eli's asshole's house!"

"Count me in!" The two of them smiled bitterly and clinked their glasses.

Chapter 177: The dilemma of aerospace with no rewards?

Several egg-shaped transport capsules were ejected from the Fantasy Light under the influence of the artificial gravitational acceleration field, and finally plunged into the Jupiter Trojan asteroid with a diameter of 300 kilometers that provided cover for the spacecraft, leaving only a few small holes on the non-sunny side of the asteroid where the spacecraft was hiding.

"What was just launched at that asteroid?" Parker, standing by the porthole, tried to use a telescope to confirm what the Ultima Thule had just launched at the asteroid.

"The distance is too far, I can't see clearly, but it seems to be a few egg-shaped objects?" Kuznetsov stood by the porthole with a telescope, trying to find traces of the landing of the strange spacecraft that had just been launched to the asteroid on the surface.

"Wait a minute, I seem to see a very obvious cloud of dust. It should be the traces raised by those things that hit the surface of the asteroid just now. If I am not mistaken about their flight trajectory just now... I found it. Wait, is this... a hole?" Kuznetsov looked up from the observation eyepiece of the telescope with a puzzled look.

"Did you find it? Let me see!" Parker moved forward and, through the Kuznetsov telescope that was already aimed at the target, he also saw the several fairly smooth and regular holes drilled on the surface of the asteroid.

"It really is a hole... But what are they doing? Analyzing the internal composition of the little star?"

"I don't know, but... I could go ask, but I'm not sure if He would be willing to tell us the truth. After all, I haven't seen Him on the ship for a long time."

Yilin Yiqi Siwu Sijiu............

"Strange... The helium-3 reserves and local enrichment levels on this world's moon... are a bit too high, right? Can this really be formed by natural celestial geological tectonic movements?" Renlong scanned the lunar rock and soil samples brought back from the moon by the Corrector's Shell in detail. These rock and soil samples were collected from a high-priced helium-3 gas field area on the moon owned by Helios Corporation.

These ilmenite rock and soil samples contained only trace amounts of helium-3, which was not surprising to Renlong. What surprised and puzzled him most was the deep geological scanning data of the so-called helium-3 gas field area obtained by the Corrector's Shell.

In this world, the helium-3 on the moon is not widely distributed in the lunar soil and ilmenite on the lunar surface in extremely low concentrations. Instead, it is quite strange that it forms enriched areas like natural gas fields on Earth, about tens to hundreds of meters underground from the lunar surface. The rocks and soil in these enriched areas are generally composed of extremely high-density and very small-pore minerals, just like a natural sealed gas cylinder, which firmly locks the high-purity helium-3 in the underground closed lava tube. If you want to obtain the high-pressure gas state of helium-3 in these underground high-pressure and high-density closed lava tubes, you only need to use a drill to drill from the upper lunar surface and make a small hole in this layer of natural gas cylinder. Then you can extract a steady stream of high-pressure helium-3 gas from the underground closed lava tube through the small hole made by the drill in the natural gas cylinder. This is also what makes Renlong feel something is wrong.

"It should be difficult for helium-3 to become this high-concentration, high-pressure gas in its natural state, right?"

"This world's Earth has also proposed a number of theoretical models that suggest that the Moon's geological movements over a long period of time have led to the enrichment of helium-3 in the lunar surface soil and rocks under special conditions. However, this theoretical model has obviously not yet been proven to be sufficiently robust. However, this inconsistency has no impact on the large-scale mining and utilization of helium-3 on the Moon by the people of this world."

"Is it reasonable? Since they discovered the large-scale enrichment area on the moon, they naturally assumed that this was a phenomenon caused by the evolution of a natural environment that they had not yet recognized and had not yet found a reasonable explanation?"

"Although it's not impossible for helium-3 to be enriched under natural conditions, the probability of that happening is so low that it's almost impossible. Furthermore, there's absolutely no way the enriched helium-3 could reach such a high purity."

"So... it's man-made?"

"This possibility cannot be ruled out."

"What surprised me even more was the deuterium-helium fusion technology of the humans in this world. Although the temperature and pressure requirements for the deuterium-helium fusion reaction are slightly lower than those in our universe due to slight differences in some basic physical parameters in this universe, their technology in terms of the extreme high temperatures and pressures that the reactors can achieve, as well as superconducting materials, is indeed quite advanced."

"After all, a Type 0.75 civilization relying on fossil fuels is not the same as a Type 0.75 civilization that has mastered deuterium-tritium and deuterium-helium fusion technology. Although the scale of the two is the same, the difference in technological level is quite significant."

"While researching this world's Earth's past, I discovered even more interesting things. For example, John Lennon dodged the bullet that would have killed him. The first person to land on the moon wasn't Armstrong, but Soviet astronaut Alexei. The Soviet Union didn't choose to invade Afghanistan, and the Vietnam War ended three years early. Korolev didn't die of illness in 1966, but instead successfully led the Soviet Union's moon landing program. The US and the Soviet Union established long-term bases on the moon in the 70s. This world's history is quite different from what we know..."

"This... doesn't seem to be just a matter of a slightly different issue anymore, right? This is completely heading in a different direction, right?"

"You're right. This world's space race lasted until the late 1990s before it eased. And the reason for this easing wasn't because one side had an absolute advantage, but because both sides reaped considerable rewards and benefits from mining and utilizing the lunar helium-3 that didn't seem to be naturally occurring, and..."

"The space race, which lasted nearly half a century, has become increasingly strained on both sides."

"So... it was only after the turn of the century, due to the practical pressures of excessive investment, that both sides were forced into cooperation?"

"Rather, it's the technological innovations brought about by the space race that are causing both societies to be increasingly impacted by this new round of technological revolution, exposing all sorts of social contradictions. They're being forced to ease external pressure in order to free up time and resources to address their own increasingly unstable production relations in this new round of technological revolution. Just look at these news items I've collected and you'll understand."

"Oh... the moon's cheap helium-3 resources and fusion energy have caused the collapse of many fossil fuel industries, leaving a large number of workers and technicians unemployed?"

"Massive unemployment triggers frequent social instability factors, including terrorism?"

"Is the annual expenditure of the US and Soviet space sectors too high as a percentage of their national GDP?"

"Interesting... It seems the new technological revolution brought about by the Space Race has instead completely exposed various intractable flaws in the social systems of both sides."

"And... does it give some idealists hope that the world will abandon old concepts such as religion, national ideology, and so on, and move towards the unified concept of the human species?"