Time flies by in a hurry, and I never care about people's calls. In the blink of an eye, year after year passed by without leaving any trace. In the blink of an eye, the empire has reached its 107th year.
Ten years passed by in a blur. In the past ten years, the most exciting thing has been the ultra-long-distance communication technology, which has finally made breakthrough progress. Input a signal from one end, and the other end can receive the signal within an hour; the longest communication distance, that is, the theoretical distance is 100 light years, and the current communication distance is 40 light years - within 40 light years, the communication time is only one hour That's enough. That is, the energy consumption is quite high. It takes a billion cubic meters of lead physical battery to complete the signal connection - one call requires 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity! And each signal can only transmit ten seconds and no more than one megabyte of information.
Today, electricity is still the most common energy technology; as for other energy forms such as magnetic energy, it is still only used in small quantities in cutting-edge fields. Because compared with electric power technology, these energy technologies are elusive and cannot be stored.
However, the public has not changed in ten years. The scientific and technological development of human society here in the solar system has reached a temporary peak. With the public sale of the Gentian-1 100,000-ton engine, space technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, whether it is the empire or the republic. In ten years, interstellar travel between Venus, Earth, and Mars has become commonplace. Dozens of interstellar travel companies, large and small, have provided humans with cheap interstellar travel services: 5 yuan per 10,000 kilometers! The service fee for each space trip is 1,000 yuan. If calculated based on the current orbits of the Earth and Venus, the shortest distance is 25 million kilometers; even including food, drinks and other expenses such as travel, 30,000 yuan can cover a round trip! ——This is the idea of a certain passenger! Waiter: The planet also needs to move. The shortest distance is 25 million kilometers, but the actual flight distance of the spacecraft is 38 million kilometers; and the return distance is as high as 58 million kilometers. At this point, the waiter looked helpless: We can't stop the planet from moving!
Customer: I don’t believe in advertising anymore…
Waiter: It’s not an advertising error, we’ve made it clear. At this time, the distance between Venus and the Earth is the shortest; however, the spacecraft has to catch up with the moving Earth during flight and the moving Venus when returning, so the actual distance must be much greater. Besides, your price calculation is based on your calculation method inside the planet, not based on interstellar standards. Of course there is a deviation.
With the development of science and technology, star travel has become commonplace, and such things keep happening. Many people still haven't changed their thinking - it's because technology is developing too fast, too fast! People have not yet had time to adapt to the relationship between the relatively static ground and the ever-moving space. Many calculation units are still calculating according to the laws of the ground. Because today is the day of calculation. The time when the Whale constellation signal returns - the specific time cannot be accurately estimated. After all, the starry sky is constantly moving, and there are too many mysteries in the starry sky. 12 light years away. It is normal for signal transmission to be delayed by dozens of days. The more humans study the starry sky, the more they feel the mystery of the starry sky. For example, under high-power telescopes, the stars in the starry sky do not exist continuously. Some stars will disappear out of thin air for a period of time and reappear after a period of time. This is because there is a black hole isolation effect in the starry sky: it may be that a certain planet is related to The middle of the earth. There happens to be a black hole. Then we won't be able to see this star; or some non-luminous nebulae in the starry sky, etc. In fact, the mass of luminous objects in the universe has been measured and calculated by modern science. Only 2~3% of the mass of matter in the entire universe! And the light that human eyes can see is only 4% of all light waves! so. The task of studying the universe is really a long way to go!
At the beginning of this year, the War spacecraft built by the Empire was finally completed. This spaceship was built by a joint effort of more than a dozen large groups in the empire to conduct an expedition to Glize, a planet with life 20 light-years away. For this goal, the empire's group companies have also gone crazy over the years! Under the supervision of the empire, it used super high conditions to "attract" 1,000 masters of the Golden Core stage and several ordinary practitioners of the Void Core stage. At the same time, it was also cultivating some practitioners. In addition, 30,000 military war mechas were purchased from the empire at a price of 300 million yuan to 20 million yuan per mecha. These mechas range from ten meters in size to 100-meter monster mechas. There are also 200,000 fighter jets of various types!
In addition, the empire was commissioned to train 500,000 real soldiers suitable for space warfare and 10,000 non-commissioned officers of all sizes.
For their own dreams, these group companies have thrown away 80% of the wealth they have accumulated over the past century! It can no longer be described as crazy. And in order to save costs, the spacecraft was built using the technology of the Imperial Hope spacecraft - mature technology!
When the empire builds spaceships, it is not just a matter of copying them, but they have to be built and researched at the same time, so it costs a lot of money and takes a long time! But this is not the case for these businessmen. They directly adopt mature second-generation spacecraft technology, so they do not need to invest a lot of money in research or spend a lot of time in public relations - they can simply copy it.
This directly reduces the cost of the spacecraft by up to 40%, and the construction time is directly compressed to within ten years!
However, not all new technologies have not been adopted. Some low-cost new technologies are still needed; especially the energy protection layer technology of the Yokai Group. Ten years of research and development have initially achieved good results, and can already achieve defense against sniper rifles. Bullet effect.
In addition, the war weapons in the spacecraft cannot be reduced, which is also a huge expense. Many use new technologies, and some of the attack weapons are terrifying.
The finally built spacecraft is 180 kilometers in length, 55 kilometers in diameter, and has a solar sail diameter of 300 kilometers. It uses 10 million Gentian II engines and 10 million Dragon Wings 1 engines, with a maximum acceleration capability of 5 meters/second^ 2. The maximum deceleration is 4.3 meters/second^2 - mainly due to the effect of the solar sail.
Now the War spacecraft is ready for departure. As soon as we receive the signal from the Whale Constellation, we will make arrangements to set off immediately.
In addition, after ten years of continuous discussion, exploration, technical research, etc., the Earth side has further determined its determination to go to Barnard's Star; in addition, the Guangming spacecraft has been improved a lot, and even added two 10-kilometer-long spacecraft. Vice cabin. The auxiliary cabin stores electrolyzed hydrogen and oxygen, which is a cheap, environmentally friendly, and efficient way of energy storage and combustion. It is also a very traditional and very mature spacecraft propulsion technology. After adding the auxiliary cabin, the power of the Guangming spacecraft actually exceeded the power of the War!
Of course, power cannot be regarded as the only criterion for spacecraft. Survivability, armed forces, internal environment construction, etc. are all big issues! The Empire's spaceships are the kind that can survive in the universe for hundreds of years - at least in theory. Once the nuclear energy inside is exhausted, solar sails can be used to capture solar energy. Let the ecology in the spacecraft barely maintain.
But similarly, Earth's Light spacecraft is also waiting for information from the Whale constellation. The information situation of an alien star system is helpful for humans to objectively judge and evaluate alien star systems. To be honest, based on observations, people are surprised to find that the solar system is so rich! There are countless celestial bodies around that provide resources for humans! And relatively. Some star systems have only one solitary star. There are a few more pieces! Such a star system is not even worth transforming—the basic rocks are not enough.
But there's one more big thing coming this year: rigorous exploration and calculations. The empire is actually preparing to build 6 life planets in the asteroid belt!
It turns out that the asteroid belt is very empty. The distance between Mars and Jupiter is 550 million kilometers, which is almost 3.7 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Even the width of the former asteroid belt was as high as 220 million kilometers and was divided into two layers.
Therefore, after rigorous calculations, the empire. Six planets can be arranged within the asteroid belt! These six planets are combined in pairs, serving as satellites of each other and circling each other; the distance between each pair of planets can be controlled at a distance of 420,000 kilometers.
Of course, in view of the poor natural lighting characteristics of the asteroid belt, the Empire plans to learn from the transformation technology of Mars and build a large number of reflectors in the orbit of Venus to provide sufficient lighting for these planets. Anyway, the construction technology of these reflectors is too simple-compared to those reflectors that can be used to push the spacecraft forward, they are as simple as building blocks.
However, this plan has not yet been implemented, and it will have to wait until the Empire's Warship and the Republic's Lightship leave. After all, building a planet out of thin air is not only a challenge to the empire's technology, but also affects the gravitational balance of the solar system. If the spacecraft were to move forward, the consequences could be catastrophic. Even if this impact is theoretically negligible!
Therefore, the Empire will only proceed to build such a planet after the ship has completely departed.
Everything is waiting for the signal to return from 12 light years away!
Starting from the 107th year of the Imperial Calendar, that is, from the end of 2162 AD, people began to wait eagerly - waiting for information about the first batch of heroes of mankind.
Although, people are full of confidence!
Although, people are full of pride!
Although the earth's technology is advanced!
But... everything cannot escape an "in case"!
Citizens of the empire who have relatives on the expedition even refresh the empire's official website every day.
The finger is really broken... F5 is broken...
The entire human society seems to be stuck, waiting for the signal from the warrior to come back! Living up to expectations, amidst everyone's expectations, the first wave of signals came out! That is, a clear image of the Whale constellation taken by a spacecraft, and even a space probe launched by the civilization here!
A space probe from an alien civilization? This has made many people worried... It seems that this alien civilization is not incapable of resistance at all!
From this moment on, signals continue to return...