Start with a blacksmith shop.

Chapter 364 Landing

It wasn't just Li Zhenhua watching the live broadcast; people throughout Kyushu who cared about this matter were also glued to their television sets.

If there's anything similar that can make the entire nation of Kyushu care so much about one thing, it would be the military parade. Even people who don't watch it on TV will take out their phones to follow it on their mobile devices.

Meanwhile, Li Zhenhua, on the grassland, was watching intently. He had received an invitation from the Kyushu Space Agency to visit the command center, but he did not go and continued his travel plans.

It wasn't that he didn't care about the performance of the astronauts and the spaceplane he built, but rather that he didn't want to go from life to work again, and also that he believed that exploring Mars was not very meaningful.

Even if he understands Mars better, what good will it do? Mars is currently unsuitable for human habitation. Expanding Kyushu's living space is less useful than his current research on desert control.

One involves transforming the Earth itself, while the other involves painstakingly transforming distant Mars. Comparing the two, transforming the desert is more feasible.

Although that's what he thinks, it doesn't mean he doesn't care about these wanderers. That's why he's stopped on the grassland now, keeping an eye on how things are going.

At that moment, the voice of the on-site commander came through the television again!

"Mars exploration team, I now order everyone to obey the command center's instructions and conduct a landing and return mission this afternoon at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center!"

With this order issued, the countdown to the return of the individuals in space officially began.

After receiving the order, Snow Owl and the others did not disconnect from the ground, but continued to broadcast live. However, they all got busy afterward.

All the preparations needed for the return are proceeding according to the established procedures, and Li Zhenhua is watching the events unfold in the sky from his television.

Outside of Kyushu, the organizations most concerned about their movements are space-related institutions such as Nasa, and of course, the president, Kesma, who can't stop himself from making any moves.

He himself owns a space company, and the company's biggest goal is to send people to Mars, terraform Mars, and colonize Mars. But now, Kyushu has already achieved their ultimate goal.

Although Kyushu has not yet undertaken any Mars terraforming or Mars colonization, its manned Mars exploration teams have already returned, which is a significant difference.

It was as if they had suddenly lost their goal, and it could be said that they were dealt a heavy blow by Kyushu's actions.

Meanwhile, in space, Snow Owl and the others were carrying out their tasks in an orderly manner. Although it was just a simple mission—returning to Earth from space—they were carrying it out diligently.

Finally, after all preparations were completed, the spaceplane parked next to the Tiangong space station started moving again.

As soon as the spaceplane began its operation, its movements were detected by both ground-based monitoring stations and various monitoring satellites in space.

Li Zhenhua, watching the live television broadcast, thought to himself as he saw the spaceplane make its movements, "It's finally about to begin! The moment to witness history is almost here!"

The spaceplane's operation to and from Earth is no different from its previous journeys. The only difference is that before, it only flew out of Earth and operated around Earth, with the furthest it had ever reached was the Moon. Now, however, it is returning from Mars.

The spaceplane descended slowly and steadily, its particle energy shield, fully activated, emitting a faint red glow as it slowly traversed Earth's thick atmosphere.

Deploying the particle energy shield at this time is also a form of self-protection. What if some foolish country launches a missile at them on their way back? Although this situation is unlikely to occur, it is still better to be cautious.

The spaceplane flew through the Earth's atmosphere, reached the Jiuquan base, adjusted its flight attitude, and began its descent to the ground.

The landing process proceeded without incident, and the team landed safely and smoothly at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. This event was broadcast live, announcing to the world that the Kyushu exploration team sent to Mars had returned safely.

Li Zhenhua, who was watching the live broadcast on the grassland, was delighted when he saw the spaceplane enter the atmosphere and slowly land on the landing platform of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. He then turned off the television.

He didn't need to pay attention to what happened next; all he cared about was that the spaceplane could return safely, so he turned off the TV.

As for what the exploration team brought back from Mars, strictly speaking, what does it have to do with him? He's figured that out now, so he might as well use that time to complete the tasks Little Chestnut assigned him!

Meanwhile, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, after more than six months of drifting in the sky, the spaceplane, covered in cosmic dust, landed on a special parking platform.

Just as the spaceplane came to a stop, various staff members arrived at the side of the aircraft in their specialized vehicles, waiting for Snowy Owl and the others to disembark.

The spaceplane stopped for a few minutes. Then, with the sound of machinery running, the hatch was opened from the inside, and the astronauts, dressed in full Wu Gang spacesuits, stepped off the spaceplane.

As the astronauts stepped off the plane, a unique feeling arose in their hearts as they set foot on Earth once again.

In front of everyone, the snowy owl took off the space helmet he was wearing. The moment he took off the helmet, he felt the familiar breeze of Earth again. Looking up at the blue sky and white clouds, he felt that Earth was still so beautiful.

"It's great, I'm finally back!"

After he finished his thoughts, the staff around him immediately swarmed around all the astronauts, and then the Snowy Owl and his entourage were completely at the mercy of the staff.

As long as the subsequent procedures are still following the usual process, they are wearing spacesuits and are placed in special chairs, and then carried away to a medical institution to check their physical health.

After they left, the once open-air aircraft landing platform was now surrounded by a large number of people who had erected fully enclosed structures around it.

It didn't take long at all for the spaceplane, which was parked in the open, to be sealed off. After the spaceplane was properly protected, the staff at the base were finally able to enter the aircraft and remove all the storage equipment.

These contain all the data the exploration team collected on Mars, which is their greatest gain from this trip.

After being removed, the storage devices were immediately loaded onto the Double-Edge helicopter, which was parked nearby and ready for takeoff. The helicopter then took off.

The helicopter's final destination was the Kyushu Space Administration in Beiping. The data transported on board would be received by the Administration, then opened using special methods, and all necessary security measures would be taken.

After the data was received by the General Administration, the Mars exploration mission came to an end, and as time goes by, the hype surrounding this event will eventually die down.

Snow Owl and the others were taken to a fully equipped medical pod where many of Kyushu's top doctors would conduct the most rigorous medical examinations on them. Only after confirming that they were healthy would they be allowed to reappear in public.

The exploration team's work is now completely finished, but for the Kyushu Space Agency and related departments, the journey of this Mars exploration has only just begun.

Because they possess firsthand data on Mars, they will conduct comprehensive analysis and research on this data to see how the Mars described in the data differs from their previous understanding of Mars.

It can be said that all the work has only just begun. In the coming period, the Kyushu Space Agency will be extremely busy. In addition, some relevant experts from Kyushu will be invited by the Kyushu Space Agency to participate in research projects on Mars at some unknown time.

After the spaceplane successfully landed, the entire country of Kyushu was in an uproar. Not only were mainstream media outlets giving rigorous reports, but tabloids and independent media were also releasing all sorts of news, some true and some false, about the event.

Today a tabloid says an exploration team has discovered signs of life on Mars, tomorrow some self-media outlet will say the team has made contact with extraterrestrial civilizations—all sorts of rumors are flying around.

The most marketable of these reports was from the BBC, which claimed that the Mars landing in Kyushu was a complete hoax.

The current situation is similar to how people still doubt the US moon landing, believing it was all fake, all a smokescreen, and some even speculate that it was a way to drag the US into a new space race.

The Kyushu Space Agency didn't care about such comments at all, or rather, they were happy to see them, because only when the waters were murky and there wasn't much external interference could they continue with the real project.

As for the idea of ​​bringing the US into a new space race, the leaders of Kyushu said that they were right; Kyushu does indeed want to start a new space race.

Amidst this mix of true and false information, other countries might genuinely believe that the Mars exploration program is real, thereby encouraging them to increase their investment in the aerospace field.

Increased investment in the aerospace field means they will cut budgets in other areas, which in turn will shift their focus to other areas in Kyushu that are being targeted.

Scientists from Kyushu are constantly moving towards Beiping (Beijing) to study the Martian data they bring back.

The commotion caused by the return of the Mars exploration team did not deter Li Zhenhua's travel plans at all. He was still on his journey around the nine provinces. In the past period, he and his family of three had started from Xinjiang, traveled to Longyou and Mengzi, and were about to enter Heilongjiang Province.

During his trip, Li Zhenhua didn't just focus on having fun; he kept in mind the task his daughter had entrusted to him: researching technologies to transform desert land into suitable vegetable-growing areas.

He simulated the desert environment in his virtual laboratory with 100% realism. With this place, it became much easier to study how to manage the desert.

His research differed from others, who were studying how to change the sand in the desert. Instead, he experimented with the effects of various plants on desert stabilization, and in a situation where water was not scarce.

It is common knowledge that there is not much water in the desert, but Li Zhenhua has not paid any attention to the water issue. If others knew about his research, they would definitely have an unusual debate with him about water resources in the desert.

As for why he didn't take the problem of desert water scarcity into account, it's because he had already solved the problem of desert water scarcity, and he had thought of more than one way to solve it.

In his initial understanding of deserts, he believed that deserts had oases. Why were there oases? Because oases had water and were not short of water.

Working backwards, if there's enough water, then it's possible to turn a desert entirely into an oasis. And if it becomes an oasis, then the desert has been successfully controlled, right?

Under this mindset, his first priority was to ensure sufficient water in the desert, believing that once water was available, everything would fall into place.

How can the problem of water scarcity in the desert be solved? Li Zhenhua pondered this question deeply, and the idea was to use pipelines to transport water from areas with sufficient water to the desert.

This idea is obviously unrealistic. The desert is not just lacking water. Not to mention how long the pipeline would need to be or where the water would be diverted from, the sheer size of the pipeline itself is not an easy problem to solve.

If it were to be built, it wouldn't be something a single scientist could handle; it would require the government's involvement, and there would be too many variables involved. Therefore, he abandoned the idea of ​​building the water canal network.

So how can we prevent the desert from running out of water? This was the question Li Zhenhua ultimately posed.

If it could rain in the desert, all those problems would be solved. So how could he make the desert experience large-scale rainfall? That was the focus of his subsequent research.

Making the desert rain on a large scale is a technology in the field of weather control. So far, there are not many research results on this technology, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is a blank.

Of course, artificial rainmaking and artificial precipitation also fall under this category of technology, but in reality, these two technologies are just the most basic and not particularly difficult.

Now he wants to study not just this simple technology, but to delve deeper into it.

(End of this chapter)