Chapter 342 - 334: Return_1

Freeman found it hard to believe that Professor Robert would make such a mistake. He immediately grabbed a chair, sat down, and re-analyzed the data provided by the Pentagon.

The Pentagon’s main detection method is via satellite, complemented by some radiation analysis collected by X37B, although the information that can be deduced is very limited.

But Freeman still examined it closely, Anthony poured each of them a cup of coffee, and then patiently waited.

An hour later, Freeman put down his pen, took off his glasses, and rubbed his sore eyes.

"Yes, that’s right. Based on the position of the heat source, it must be one end of the NX-17; if it were a closed Brayton cycle, it should be placed in the center. So, there are two possibilities now," he said.

Anthony asked, "What two possibilities?"

"First, XAP installed either a massive heat dissipation structure or ballast in the remaining space, or perhaps both. That launch was a single-stage to orbit test, and 22 tons is the upper limit for such a test. That makes sense.

The second possibility..."

Freeman sat up straight with his fingers interlaced.

"The remaining two-thirds of the space and mass were equipped with other devices, a kind of apparatus with an energy consumption of over 200 kilowatts, an extremely energy-intensive device; and it necessarily requires nuclear power to maintain high power regardless of the presence of sunlight. That’s it."

Anthony said, "So you’re suggesting... this could likely be a secret weapons test?"

Freeman shook his head vigorously. "You AAF guys have been under too much pressure lately, seeing problems in everything. Not everything is a conspiracy. Stop always hyping up conspiracy theories."

"Besides, NX-17 is large and in a low orbit. If it doesn’t use fuel to maintain its orbit, there would be a significant orbital decay within about a year. This shows that it’s indeed not some vital secret weapons test vehicle. Otherwise, it’d be suspicious."

Anthony said, "I understand. Anyway, thank you, Doctor. I think the Air Force has another project group that can apply for funding."

Freeman detected the decidedly more relaxed tone in the latter part of Anthony’s words and he himself breathed a sigh of relief.

He didn’t want to unwittingly become an evil scientist who hyped up conspiracy theories. Moreover, his involvement in nuclear propulsion research was for space exploration, not for chaos on Earth; he was a vegetarian and a pacifist!

...

On the southeastern outer side of the Krum Impact Crater, where the Dawn 2 "Full Moon" lander was located.

To protect the painstakingly gathered samples from being lost, the two Explorer II robots slowed their pace every step of the way. Fortunately, the samples they carried were large pieces of Moon rock and ice, which were relatively easy to grip.

Online, a call to action had topped the trending searches:

"Strongly suggest providing packing bags for the probe"

This topic stemmed from a photo sent back by Explorer 6, which showed it awkwardly holding a block of ice on its back with its front and rear legs.

So, someone suggested on a platform that the Explorers be equipped with bags to carry samples, even speculating about the creation of such bags using materials like metal foil and woven nets.

When the "Full Moon" lander’s camera captured both large spiders with samples gathered around the lander, the popularity of the topic soared.

People also rapidly created memes with the caption:

"Your poor relatives from the Moon countryside are bringing local specialties to visit you."

And to be fair, it did seem like that was the case.

The "Full Moon" would only stay for two to three days; it was a visitor to the Moon. These robots, however, would obviously stay on the Moon until they broke down. It made perfect sense for them to bring a little "local speciality" to the visitor!

However, the climax of the live broadcast from the Moon’s surface was the footage taken by the camera inside the ascent vehicle. After the ground team sent the command to unlock the hatch, Yutu-3 placed its Moon rock sample down, climbed the ladder meant for humans to the hatch, and then used its two front legs to hook onto the handle and open the door of the ascent vehicle.

Imagine the scene inside the ascender where the hatch is opened by a semi-erect, octapodal robot. In a current trendy term, it would be "cyberpunk."

The Yutu-3, which crawled into the ascender designed for up to three people, did not take up much space, but the high-definition feed of the octapodal robot would still make one think some alien creature had snuck inside.

Yutu-3 easily grabbed the cylindrical storage tank and carefully inserted its front legs into the specialized docking port, its six hind legs gingerly retreating towards the hatch, once again shocking audiences worldwide.

One-sixth Earth’s gravity made the normally cumbersome heavy machinery appear remarkably agile. Coupled with the fluid image from the satellite’s high bandwidth, the Yutu-3 seemed to come to life.

Next, outside the lander, the cameras captured Yutu-3 and Explorer 6 opening their storage tanks to stuff in their respective collected samples before beginning their final task: digging soil.

Explorer II was not designed to collect bulk samples, so ground control prepared a shovel that could be fitted onto Explorer’s forelegs for the Dawn 2 mission.

While Explorer 6 held down the lying storage tank, Yutu-3 started shoveling moon soil into it.

Researchers from JPL and MIT’s AI lab were also tuning into the live feed.

Boris Rockwell’s mouth hung open as he stroked his chin and swiveled his chair to face the similarly silent crowd.

"Mechanical arms, the more the merrier, right? A good mechanical arm is just so useful," he said.

"But the joint life is too short," someone objected:

"The joints of Explorer II have a lifespan of at most one year. Their Explorer I satellite has already shown a significant slowdown in activity. Our design is a Mars rover— there we have dust storms and sand with high metal content, the joint wear is rapid.

Earth’s rubber sleeves wouldn’t work either. Friction from the low temperatures and fine dust would wear them out quickly. We cannot just manufacture consumables."

Boris: "This means we need better sealing technologies. Also, who says spacecraft can’t be consumables?

In the past, we launched one probe every ten years, but ADC has launched a dozen probes in the past two years alone. Even if they’re only functional for a year, the effect is much stronger than one that lasts for over a decade.

Also, Thomas, is that all MIT can give us, a wriggling maggot?"

Thomas: "That’s a snake robot!"

Boris: "I don’t want maggots or snakes. JPL spent all of the 150 million US Dollars from NACA on you guys, but look at this thing— it’s not even one percent as good as Explorer!"

Boris casually picked up a laser pen, flipped the switch, and the pile of mechanical junk in the corner suddenly began to wriggle. A snake robot approximately 1.5 meters long twisted dramatically on the smooth floor before eerily moving towards the spot of light.

This was MIT’s research achievement, envisioned as a subsurface exploration robot capable of autonomous deep geological missions, with extended standby and strong obstacle-crossing capabilities. In fact, the technical complexity was even slightly higher than that of Explorer II.

But no one would watch a snake boring holes; taxpayers wouldn’t foot the bill for such a bizarre contraption.

Boris: "You should be more practical. Google is doing much better than you guys; their humanoid robots can even pour coffee now! Put that on the Moon, and at least it can pick up a shovel and dig some soil for us to bring back."

In the meantime, the two large spiders had already cooperatively completed the filling process. The storage tank now contained about 50 to 70 kilograms of samples, its outer surface covered with moon dust due to static cling, something beyond the spiders’ cleaning abilities. However, it wasn’t a big problem; it would be placed in a pre-opened metallic mesh bag inside the ascender to avoid scattering moon dust all over the return cabin.

Explorer 6 took over the role of returning the storage tank, lifting it like an ant carrying a grain of rice and spending half an hour to place it correctly before exiting without a backwards glance, pushing the exterior hatch shut.

Before completely leaving the lander, each of the two large spiders lifted a foreleg to wave goodbye, then they slowly made their way to a distance of about 100 meters.

minutes later, the ascender took advantage of Dawn 2 spacecraft’s flyby docking window, starting its engines to leave the lander and ascend for a rendezvous and docking.

This process was also fully automatic and took just forty minutes to successfully dock. It passed the long-awaited storage tank, bagged and all, through the docking port to the command module, and then gently departed.

There was nothing of value left inside the ascender; it would use the last of its fuel to decelerate, eventually crashing onto the lunar surface to become a pile of debris after several dozen hours.

The command module, which had already overstayed by more than ten days, would be propelled by the service module to embark on its three-day return journey, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere with moon soil and a mannequin, bringing back the space agency’s very first set of samples.