Chapter 682 - 663: Pillar of Heaven

"What is this, destroying evidence and hiding a corpse, the Moon’s first murder and burial case?"

Fu Xiangjie’s nose beneath his mask took another deep breath of air, finished his snark, and continued to forcefully push his shovel forward, dumping the mixture of black and white debris-laden Moon Soil into the small trolley beside him.

Next to him was Li Wei, the astronaut who could very well be considered one of the most experienced in the country, and at that moment, he fully demonstrated his meticulous work ethic, searching for any possible remnants.

Deng Lei and Liu Ming were still tidying up in the Black Rabbit Space Station, preparing to welcome the members of Skylight 4. The self-ignition and explosion had occurred over a dozen hours after they had left.

According to the plan, two astronauts were to go to the space station first to dock and refuel Chapter 9, while two astronauts stayed behind.

At that time, 14 and several other humanoid robots were outside the habitation module charging, preparing to return to the underground caverns for further exploration and early construction work, while the two astronauts who had remained were inside the cabin organizing exploration data.

Looking through the playback of the camera footage, 14 was connected to the general power outlet outside the habitation module. The module’s electricity was supplied by a stable power system composed of solar panels and a nuclear battery array, and the module’s external power outlets were generally used to charge large equipment and lunar rovers.

14’s already tattered spacesuit was instantly ripped open by the exploding lithium battery, but the fire-resistant fabric did not continue to burn. Instead, the robot went from standing upright to collapsing into a heap, with its internal metal skeleton and other components melting inside the spacesuit, burned by the lithium batteries. Only when the extremely high temperature of the molten material touched the spacesuit did it slowly begin to burn through.

By the time the two astronauts received the power system warning and suited up to go outside and investigate, all that was left of 14 was a pile of charred remnants draped in tattered cloth, with only the head being relatively intact. The limbs had already been burned beyond recognition due to their own batteries.

Most of the habitation module’s power supply was shut down, and after inspection, no major issues were found. The vacuum of space had obstructed the propagation of heat, and the charging cable had automatically disconnected when the fire started, preventing further damage.

Since the scene had to be cleaned up quickly, the astronauts were ordered to clean up the scene and collect the debris as soon as possible, to be sealed and sent back to Earth when possible. As for the other robots of the same design, they were to hibernate in the caverns until the cause was investigated.

So "cleaning up the scene"—this heavy-lifting task was once again handed over to human astronauts. In fact, over the past few months, every time they went outside, they were accompanied by robots. Aside from technical work, all they had to do was give commands to the robots, which was both safe and convenient.

"Colonel Fu Xiangjie, I am very sorry to have you personally complete this laborious task."

"No, 14, you’ve done very well, your next body will be even stronger."

"Thank you, I am looking forward to the new body."

Yes, even though 14 had burned up, it hadn’t died.

"14" was an early model of the Warrior Two series of robots. Although it was equipped with a natively manufactured ternary chip that could provide high intelligence services without a network connection, networking not only facilitated convenience but also further enhanced its thinking capabilities.

When 14 realized it couldn’t salvage the situation with the fire, it decisively uploaded itself to the habitation module’s central computer. With the operation from the ground control, it "lived" again shortly after. The conclusion of the lithium battery control system malfunction was also its own analysis.

For the time being, it resigned itself to living inside the habitation module’s computer, waiting for a brand new robot to be sent from Earth in the future. Once its consciousness was transferred into it, it could move freely again.

The astronauts did not need to mourn a lost companion, as digital life was much more resilient than humans.

Li Wei, "We really should send more Explorers up here. If we don’t consider accompaniment of humans and versatility, the capabilities of multi-legged robots are far superior, and they don’t have as many limitations on exposure. The only downside is they wear down a bit faster."

Fu Xiangjie, "They’re coming, they’re coming. This time, Dawn Two sent over six Explorer II models and four moon motorcycles. We’ll even get to ride the robots."

...

"Pillar of Heaven, what do you see!"

"I see a basket containing a blue block and a red block, which are triangular and cylindrical in shape, respectively."

"Very well, now I want you to categorize it!"

Boris tried to enunciate more clearly, then intently watched the humanoid robot "Pillar of Heaven" standing in front of the table.

"Pillar of Heaven" slowly lifted its mechanical arms and naturally placed two blocks into the shelves beside it according to their shapes, matching the bottom outlines.

Seeing this smooth set of actions completed, Boris sighed with relief and then introduced to Deputy Director Jim from NACA:

"This is the humanoid robot we’ve developed; it’s equipped with MIT’s latest artificial intelligence. It has powerful self-judgment capabilities and flexible control, enough to carry out missions."

Jim looked "Pillar of Heaven" up and down. It had to be said that its appearance was quite impressive, with its exterior reflecting the color of the metal in a smooth finish, not unlike something from a sci-fi movie.

"1.2 billion US dollars, and besides that damned snake, this is it?"

"Uh... Of course not. In fact, we’ve broken through many key technologies and have also assisted in developing the ’Exoskeleton Space Suit’, which will soon be available to astronauts."

Jim said, "Have the ’Pillar of Heaven’ move around a bit. Give it an order to bring over the mop at the door."

Boris promptly complied, and through a voice command, "Pillar of Heaven" almost without hesitation, swung its arms and walked over rapidly with a pose close to a half-squat. Then it grabbed the mop with both hands, lifted it, and walked back quickly and steadily.

In fact, this was one of "Pillar of Heaven’s" specialties. MIT’s lab had previously bought Boston Dynamics outright and developed it on an existing foundation, so there were basically no issues with its external posture.

If the space and ground were suitable, "Pillar of Heaven" could even perform a backflip.

NACA launched this project initially to benchmark against "Explorer", but MIT’s artificial intelligence lab ultimately chose to go the route of humanoid robots. Now it seems the results are decent enough.

Jim nodded in approval of their achievements over the past two years, but obviously, he still had considerable doubts about putting this thing into practical use.

After all, the Explorer series could carry a few hundred kilograms of moon rock and sprint on rough terrain. If "Pillar of Heaven" were sent up instead, it probably wouldn’t be as cost-effective as sending an astronaut.

He offered some encouragement, anyway, seeing the robot’s progress was just a side task; the real purpose of his visit was to check on JPL’s Mars exploration mission.

NACA is not XAP. New Yuan, when building detectors, generally considers versatility and produces five or six detectors of the same platform and a large number of spare parts at once. These can be modified for use in different environments like Earth, the Moon, or Mars; anyway, they don’t lack the capacity for transport. JPL doesn’t have this privilege.

Because of the Mars incident, two additional Martian detectors had to be produced at an accelerated pace, with JPL actually working overtime to assemble the satellites.

And the two satellites being rushed weren’t ordinary survey satellites but were fitted with various high-end equipment like spy satellites, making them quite complicated to assemble.

Boris could only grimace and grudgingly assure:

"Give us another 15 days. We at least need to complete the overall testing, otherwise, what’s sent up will be nothing but a heap of junk."

Jim patted his shoulder:

"I’ll give you 20 days. Everything must be sent to Cape Canaveral by May 10th, after which we’ll launch immediately within five days. We can’t afford any more delays.

I hope you understand that our competitors have already placed six giant rockets on the launch pad."