Otherworld Girl Development Guide

MaTu glanced at her roommates in the dormitory. One roommate was working, another was fast asleep in the dormitory, and the remaining two roommates were wearing headphones and looking at their tablets.

Upon seeing Ma Tu return, his roommate couldn't help but take off his headphones and greet him.

"Old Ma, you're back. I remember you were supposed to go down to the ground to rest in a month, right?"

"yes..."

Old Ma nodded and glanced at the electronic calendar in the room, which marked his days off.

After going down, they have a 40-day vacation to adjust their mindset. When the vacation is over, professionals will conduct a psychological assessment and a physical examination. Only after confirming that everything is normal can they board the white bird and return to the Tiangong space to work.

"I'm going to take a shower first..."

After greeting his roommates, Ma She entered the bathroom in the four-person room, closed the door, hung his clothes on the clothes rack, turned on the faucet, and hot water sprayed out from the shower head above. The hot water is the cooling water for the various modules of the space station, which can not only cool down the space but also serve as domestic water.

The sensation of water flowing over his body made Ma Tu squint his eyes. Taking a bath in space...tsk tsk, I wonder if the Americans take baths on their space stations.

After taking a shower, Ma Tu changed into her pajamas and sat down in front of her computer, starting to think about the theme for this video. After all, being constantly urged by fans to update was putting a lot of pressure on her... right?

Turning my head to look at the double-pane window of the room, I could see Earth through the window. However, because the living area was rotating, we could only see humanity's home planet when we turned to the side of Earth.

In the Heavenly Palace, apart from the fact that the activity area is not as vast as on Earth, there is nothing that one would find difficult to adapt to, provided that one has undergone professional training.

"For this episode, let's just do 'My Years as a Space Engineer'..."

Chapter 12 Guanghan No. 1

In low Earth orbit, a somewhat strange-looking white bird spacecraft is slowly approaching the Tiangong space station, with indicator lights flashing continuously on its body.

What makes it strange is that the White Bird has oddly fitted propulsion backpacks on its wings, and also has designed shape-conserving external backpacks on its fuselage... It looks like the Blue Bird's external backpacks have been enlarged and attached to the White Bird.

"Heavenly Palace... I am White Bird, entering orbit... Over."

"Optical sensors have detected you. Please slow down... Over."

"White Bird received... Over."

The attitude nozzles on the White Bird's body slowly ejected working gas to adjust the body's speed. At the same time, attitude nozzles on other parts of the body also worked in coordination to adjust the White Bird's attitude to be parallel to the space station.

"Slow down... veered one degree, adjust..."

The crew members watched the indicators on the instruments. When the White Bird was completely parallel to the Tiangong space station, its speed slowed down further, eventually reaching a state of relative stillness with the Tiangong space station.

Immediately, a gangway slowly extended from the side of the space station's main axis and docked with the hatch of the White Bird.

After docking was completed, the crew of the White Bird passed through the airtight compartment and entered the interior of the Heavenly Palace via the gangway.

Inside the Tiangong control room, the head of Tiangong received a special guest from Earth: an old academician who had spent his entire life studying the moon.

"Academician Wang, you've arrived."

The person in charge of Tiangong said kindly to the academician in front of him.

"Haha...yes, I never thought I'd be able to visit our own space station in my lifetime..." As he said this, Academician Wang looked at the Tiangong control room and felt like he had entered a science fiction movie.

“Academician Wang, you didn’t need to come up here in person…” The person in charge looked at the precious academician in front of him. The old academician was very old. If it weren’t for the fact that the White Bird’s takeoff method was different from that of the conventional space shuttle, CNSC would not have dared to send the old academician into space.

"Look at what you're saying. You're young and don't understand. Back then, we were so envious of the International Space Station. Now the situation is reversed..." At this point, Academician Wang smiled like a child who had received candy: "...If I don't go and see it while my old bones can still move, do you expect me to wait until I can't walk anymore?"

Seeing the old academician's firm attitude, the person in charge had to put aside the idea of ​​keeping the old academician in Tiangong.

"Alright, then everything will proceed as planned. After a 24-hour rest and resupply, Shiratori will head to the moon to select a site for the future Guanghan."

Guanghan Palace is a palace located on the moon in ancient mythology.

The Moon Palace is also known as the Toad Palace. Later generations named the house where Chang'e lived after she flew to the moon the Guanghan Palace.

Every night, as the bright moon rises into the sky, its clear light bathes the earth, inspiring countless thoughts and reveries.

Twenty-four hours later, the spacecraft from the rabbit will head to the moon to select a site for this legendary palace.

You, the US, are just planting a flag; now we, the rabbits, are going to build a wonder on the moon!

Guanghan is a lunar base specifically designed for mining Helium-3 in the Rabbit's grand plan, so its location is extremely important.

Academician Wang nodded, then drifted towards the rest area. As a beloved academician, he had been given the largest room prepared for him, because the elderly must rest well.

After entering the Tiangong space station, Academician Wang was very curious about everything there. After training in the weightless environment, he knew how to adjust his posture.

After passing through the gate and entering the living area, Academician Wang landed on his feet due to centrifugal force. Looking at the space engineers wearing red vests with the CNSC logo printed on their left chests coming and going in the living area, he fell silent.

"Teacher?" the assistant asked softly.

"It's alright. As people get older, they inevitably reminisce about their youth. I really hope the Premier can see Tiangong too..."

"Teacher, not only Tiangong, but we will soon be able to go to the moon in place of the Prime Minister."

"Yes! Let's prepare well, and no one is allowed to mess up!"

After speaking, Academician Wang, guided by the PAD, entered the large room prepared for him.

After swiping the access control system and entering the room, this room of more than 40 square meters was already considered a presidential suite in the Heavenly Palace.

Although the Heavenly Palace is very large, the space is not very spacious.

After entering the room, the old academician sat down in a chair and looked through the porthole at the agricultural area that was constantly rotating, more than 50 meters away from the living area.

The door opened again with a swipe, and a pretty and dignified waitress walked into the room carrying fruit and placed it on the table.

"Academician Wang, these are fruits grown hydroponically on our space station. Have a taste!"

"Space fruit, huh? I have to try some..."

Academician Wang picked up a piece of fruit and took a bite. The taste was slightly different from that on Earth. However, it was already good enough to be able to eat fruit in space. To pick so many was obviously asking for too much.

"How are the yields in our agricultural area right now?" Academician Wang asked curiously.

"The yield of hydroponically grown crops is quite good, which has met the minimum requirements of the space station. However, currently only a few types of crops can be grown by farmers."

"Haha... This is space, it's quite impressive that you can do this much. When I was young, I couldn't even afford vegetables."

"Now, every one of our rabbits can afford to eat vegetables."

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the staff member bowed slightly and left the room.

Academician Wang opened his laptop and began looking at lunar data. He spent almost all his time working, except when he was sleeping or eating.

Guanghan, as a helium-3 mining base, can be described as a large-scale outer space colonization base, and it is also the project with the highest infrastructure requirements for China to date.

The entire base requires the cooperation of the entire system, not just CNSC, but also the cooperation of various state-owned enterprises in China, in order to build a base with permanent personnel at an average distance of about 380,000 kilometers from the Earth.

It was extremely difficult, really very difficult. Fortunately, Tiangong served as a transit point for goods, which greatly reduced the difficulty of construction. Even so, the goods still had to be transported to the moon bit by bit, like ants carrying grains of rice.

We have discussed whether to source materials locally on the moon to solve part of the building material problem, but that would be equivalent to establishing an industrial system on the moon, which is not Earth and would be too difficult.

The final decision was to first establish the Guanghan No. 1 base, using it as an "industrial mother machine" to build a basic industrial system over the next century.

The Tao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three... Guanghan No. 2 and No. 3 are only a matter of time.

After all, building spaceships in space is much more convenient than on Earth.

Chapter 13 Marius Hills

As usual, the sun rises and the sunlight shines on the Tiangong space station. The solar sails surrounding the living area convert the light energy into electrical energy and store it in the space station's superconducting batteries.

Although nuclear fusion provides energy, there's never too much electricity. If we can squeeze more from the sun, we'll do it, and it can also serve as backup power for the space station.

However, today is a little different from usual. Today, Rabbit will make its first manned lunar landing, and it will be a manned lunar landing using the White Bird, which can be described as a one-step process.

The day after the white bird arrived at Guanghan, the crew and researchers, having rested, prepared to leave Tiangong and head to the moon.

After the supplies were replenished, the captain of the White Bird pilot picked up the communicator and said in a deep voice:

"Control Tower... Control Tower... This is Shiratori, requesting departure..."

"This is outside the tower, departure permitted... We wish you all the best."

"Thank you, we will plant the flag on the moon."

The magnetic lock securing the White Bird was released, and then the attitude nozzles ejected working propellant, allowing the White Bird to slowly leave its berth on the space station, its bow pointing towards the moon.

In the cockpit of the White Bird, the crew conducted a final check of the White Bird's instruments before takeoff. After confirming that everything was normal, the captain turned on the intercom and said:

"Everyone, please be aware, we are about to depart. Crew, please fasten your seatbelts. Two minutes to go..."

As the captain, his mission was to safely deliver them to the moon, so during the White Bird flight, the captain had the highest authority.

Inside the cabin, the assistant helped Academician Wang fasten his seatbelt before returning to his own seat and fastening it himself... Sensors on the seatbelts relayed the crew's status to the captain.

After confirming that everyone had fastened their seatbelts, the captain activated the White Bird's fusion engine and injected a special propellant into it. The nuclear fusion engine slowly ejected the propellant, and the White Bird's speed increased slightly.

Considering the elderly academicians and physically weak researchers in the cabin, the White Bird accelerated very slowly, gradually increasing its propulsion speed.

Behind the white bird, the Tiangong space station is gradually moving away, but the space station's optical sensors are still keeping a close eye on the white bird, ready to immediately carry out a space rescue should an emergency occur.

The person in charge of the Tiangong space station sighed as he watched the white bird fly away. When will the inductive gravity field driver be able to be installed? That way, the round trip between the Earth and the Moon will no longer require a propellant engine, and can be done simply by relying on gravity.

However, it is said that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has a wonderful idea: to use the gravity of the Earth and the Moon to create a "highway".

As the White Bird gradually moved away and entered a steady acceleration phase, the indicator lights inside the White Bird's cabin changed from red to yellow, indicating that the personnel inside could carry out limited activities.

Academician Wang picked up his laptop and continued to examine his destination: the underground caves of the Marius Hills on the moon.

Lunar resources can be considered a type of space resource. There are only a few good locations, and whoever grabs them first gets to keep them... So here's the question: what would happen if the lunar base that China and the US surveyed and selected was located in the same impact crater?

Of course, whoever strikes first gets it; the competition for space resources is also based on a first-come, first-served principle, but this time the rabbit is going to get there first!

The US can only watch helplessly. Even though the US is shouting "return to the moon," it didn't expect China to be faster and start seizing territory. This makes the US anxious. Space resources are much more abundant than on Earth. Once China takes the lead, the US will be in a real predicament.

Guanghan-1 was China's first lunar base. However, establishing a base on the moon was extremely difficult, especially on the surface. The harsh environment of the moon, without an atmosphere, would expose buildings directly to solar winds and other cosmic rays.

Anyone who has studied materials science knows that polymer materials are very vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation, not to mention other cosmic rays, and are also constantly threatened by various micro or small meteorites... In addition, the day and night temperatures on the lunar surface can reach more than 300 degrees Celsius, which is also a great test for building materials.

Although the rabbits currently have the materials to build a base, the cost of building a base entirely with new materials is simply too high. In the end, the rabbits came up with a clever trick, just like the humans in "The Wandering Earth," which is to dig tunnels underground.

More than 40 billion years ago, the core of the moon had not cooled down. At that time, volcanic activity on the moon was very active, and hot magma flowed everywhere. During the flow, the outer layer of magma would cool down first and solidify into a hard shell, while the magma inside would continue to flow. Sometimes, the magma inside would run out, leaving only the hard shell, thus forming an underground cave. Such underground caves are called "lava caves".

Each lava cave is like a vacuole beneath the Earth's crust, varying in size, and the lava cave that Rabbit is heading to this time is the one he is most interested in on the moon.

The Marius Hills, an underground cavern, was first discovered by JAXA's Luna lander in 2009. With the ongoing lunar exploration program, we now know its basic characteristics: it is a giant underground cavern approximately 50 kilometers long and 100 meters wide.

This underground cave is large enough for the rabbit to build a comprehensive lunar base underground. The cave walls are made of igneous rock, so these "lava caves" are usually quite sturdy and well-sealed.

In particular, caves allow human facilities to avoid direct exposure to the lunar surface, can withstand a certain degree of meteorite impact, and the temperature difference inside the cave is far less than that on the lunar surface.