I live in the Martian wilderness!

On the other side of the screen, Commander-in-Chief Ma Guoliang also stood up straight and returned the salute with the same serious expression.

"Old Zhang, don't be so polite. The ultimate goal of the 'Xihe' project is precisely for moments like today."

Zhang Jianguo lowered his hand, his voice unwavering: "Commander Ma, we need your support now, we need a massive amount of fuel to bring our heroes home from Mars!"

Commander-in-Chief Ma Guoliang nodded emphatically, his tone filled with an unwavering commitment:

"Commander Zhang, please rest assured. Guanghan Palace will enter the highest level of combat readiness in 10 minutes, and the propellant factory will operate 24 hours a day without interruption."

"As soon as Colonel Qin's spaceship arrives, we'll fill it up with fuel!"

As Commander-in-Chief Ma Guoliang delivered his resounding promise, the conference room erupted in another burst of barely suppressed cheers.

The despair and sorrow that had been suppressed for several days were completely washed away at this moment by this exciting and earth-shattering news from the moon!

But Zhang Zixuan, the chief engineer of the transportation system, was not immersed in joy.

His brain, like a supercomputer, was already frantically calculating how this earth-shattering variable would bring about a revolutionary change to the entire "Spark Project".

"Commander-in-Chief!"

Amid the applause, Zhang Zixuan suddenly stood up, his voice even trembling with excitement.

"The success of Project Xihe means the moon has unlimited fuel! This... this solves more than just our immediate rescue problem!"

He strode to the main screen and used his highest privileges to retrieve the inventory list of Qin Manying's Long March 9 heavy spacecraft, which included all the "redundant designs".

"Comrades, we may have forgotten something." Zhang Zixuan's eyes gleamed with an almost fanatical light.

"The original purpose of Project Fireseed was never survival, but to establish humanity's first permanent extraterrestrial base on Mars!"

"Colonel Qin's ship is the main force of 'Project Fireseed'! It's not just a simple transport ship; it's a mobile city's foundation!"

"As originally planned, in order to save every precious gram of weight taking off from Earth, we reluctantly cut more than 30% of the non-essential payloads on the list."

"We were even prepared to discard some non-core structures after arriving on Mars. But now..."

"Now, we can fill up its fuel tank on the moon! This means we can bring back all the dreams we cut!"

"First, energy upgrade! We originally prepared a separate 'Medium Carbon-III' nuclear power module for the ground base of Project Fire!"

"But in order to reduce weight, we ultimately only brought the core components."

"What is this? A new reactor?" Zhang Jianguo immediately asked.

"Yes, Commander-in-Chief. But it's not one of those Stirling generators."

Zhang Zixuan explained, his eyes sparkling with confidence in the new technology: "It represents the 'megawatt-class space nuclear reactor' technology that will not be fully mature until after 2035."

"But its theory and prototype were successfully verified on the ground by a team from Xi'an Jiaotong University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences as early as 2025."

That is "supercritical carbon dioxide cycle power generation".

"Back then, we used it to recover waste heat from thermal power plants. Now, we've miniaturized it and equipped it with a 'nuclear fission heart'!"

He brought up a compact device model on the screen, about the size of a gas water heater.

"At its core are several 'nuclear fission heating rods' encapsulated with highly enriched uranium. When needed, these heating rods are activated through a neutron reflector, generating enormous amounts of heat."

"Then we'll use this heat to heat high-pressure Martian carbon dioxide, driving a 'supercritical carbon dioxide' micro-turbine to generate electricity!"

"This system's thermoelectric conversion efficiency exceeds 50%, twice that of Tissot's main power supply!"

"Once assembled and activated, this small 'nuclear range extender' can provide up to 50 kilowatts of stable additional power to the Mars base!"

A collective gasp filled the conference room.

With 50 kilowatts, plus Tissot's own 8.5 kilowatts, the total power is close to 60 kilowatts.

This means that Mars will have a truly small nuclear power plant, enough to support an initial base with complete agricultural and industrial areas.

Zhang Zixuan's finger continued to slide across the list, arriving at the second item, which was also the one most concerning to people's hearts.

"Secondly, agricultural upgrading! We brought five tons of genetically edited sterile nutrient soil... Xiao Qin, you can replenish it."

Qin Nuannuan immediately stood up and added more precisely, "Please allow me to correct you, it's not just nutrient soil, it's a 'portable soil ecosystem'!"

Her voice was clear and powerful, instantly attracting everyone's attention.

"Mars soil, even after all the toxins have been washed away, is essentially just a pile of dead mineral powder. It lacks any microorganisms that can help plants absorb nutrients."

"The five tons of parent soil we brought were inoculated with the newly screened 'PG-7' highly efficient complex microbial community from the Nanjing Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It's like..."

Qin Nuannuan paused, then used a metaphor that everyone could understand: "It's like a bag of living yeast!"

"The Spark Team doesn't need to cover the entire farm with it. They just need to sprinkle these five tons of yeast into a hundred or even a thousand tons of treated Martian soil, then add water and heat it up."

"These microorganisms from Earth will be like activated super soldiers, multiplying and spreading wildly on that brand new land."

Finally, the inorganic minerals that plants cannot absorb are broken down and transformed into nutrients that can be absorbed by the roots.

"So we're not just moving soil, we're transforming Martian soil!"

She looked at Zhang Jianguo and gave her final conclusion, her voice filled with boundless hope for the future:

"Theoretically, with sufficient energy and water resources, a portion of the lava pipes could be transformed into 'Martian farmland' indistinguishable from arable land on Earth within two years!"

These words made the eyes of all the biologists present light up.

"More importantly, this is it." Zhang Zixuan pointed to another inconspicuous piece of equipment, "'Taihang-II' small atmospheric capture and liquefaction unit."

"Gu Yu's current Shennong Project, although it can achieve an ecological closed loop, has an unavoidable bottleneck - nitrogen source."

Zhang Zixuan explained, "The amount of nitrogen he can produce each day through the cycle of excrement is extremely limited."

"That little bit of fertilizer can only sustain a 10-square-meter spirulina pond at most. His agricultural scale will soon reach its limit, barely enough to feed himself."

"And this Taihang-II is essentially an unlimited fertilizer plant!"

"Its technological prototype comes from the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and represents a breakthrough in the field of 'highly efficient catalytic ammonia synthesis'."

"It can efficiently capture and separate nitrogen (N₂) directly from the thin Martian atmosphere, just like sifting sand."

"Then, using the hydrogen produced by water electrolysis, nitrogen is converted into ammonia (NH₃) through a miniature 'Haber process ammonia synthesis' reactor."

"This is the most essential nitrogen fertilizer that all life on Earth cannot live without!"

"With it, the Mars team can expand their farmland at will, increasing spirulina production tenfold, a hundredfold!"