Earth Invasion

Chapter 272 Planetary Mining (continued)

A long time later, an Assyrian who was once trafficked by slave traders to the asteroid belt to do coolies said in his memory.

"People always use hell to describe a harsh, dangerous, and dark environment. But I want to say, if hell and the mines of the asteroid belt were put in front of me again, then I would choose hell without hesitation. .”

Dongfang Hao's aircraft disguised as a stone flew towards the asteroid XE[-]X at high speed.These very fast, large rocks are very common in the asteroid belt, and sometimes collide violently with other slow and huge asteroids.Therefore, all asteroid mines will pay more attention to this kind of celestial body until it is confirmed that it will not hit itself.

In order to realistically simulate this kind of snitch-like stone, the camouflaged aircraft needs to roll regularly.An asteroid with an off-centre center of mass would roll in its orbit just as normal as a planet rotating on its own axis.If this big rock does not roll over, then nine out of ten will be destroyed first by these very vigilant pirates.

In terms of vigilance and aggressiveness, the gangsters and miners in the asteroid belt are much higher than the gang of hunters on the Assyrian planet who only attack the backward Assyrians.At the same time, this also means that these people are much more difficult to deal with.

The various passive detection equipment of ordinary unmanned camouflage aircraft is not very sensitive, and due to the lack of sufficient computing power and the limitation of the amount of information carried by neutrino communication, many times this aircraft appears dull and slow.

But today is different. Dongfang Hao took a data cable from the central processing unit of the aircraft, modified it a little, and inserted it into his cervical spine.

"It seems that my aircraft has been discovered." Muttering to himself, Dongfang Hao has already discovered from the passive radar warning receiver that the other party's VHF radar waves have begun to concentrate on his side.This is not to say that I have been exposed, but a preventive observation.After all, it is flying at a speed of tens of kilometers per second, and judging from the big rock that I have disguised, it has a mass of tens of tons. If it directly hits the operation support cabin fixed on the outer wall, then It's going to kill me.Even if it hit the surface of the planet, this powerful kinetic energy might cause the inner working surface to collapse.

Dongfang Hao roughly calculated the radius of the opponent's radar warning circle from the radar wave that had already started to increase its power.If the target planet is the center, it is about 1 kilometers, which is just outside the normal power range of a frigate-level heavy particle cannon.This is also in line with the armed information about this private mine that was obtained from the Red Dragon Queen at the beginning.

Continuing to fly forward, Dongfang Hao discovered the middle and long-distance neutrino aiming beam and the light spot of the laser rangefinder through the receiving device on the camouflaged aircraft.Through Liuli, he inquired about his own coordinates and the opponent's position. Dongfang Hao found that the absolute defense circle of the opponent is about 7000 kilometers. hit.Judging from the opponent's execution program, if your aircraft is not disguised as a meteorite, it has already been bombarded by the opponent's hard X-ray free electron laser or the charged particle beam of the charged particle cannon, and there may also be electromagnetic reconnection. The physical shell of the cannon.If the opponent is aggressive enough, then the jet stream of the heavy particle cannon is also possible.

In addition to judging whether the target is the asteroid you are looking for, the camouflaged spacecraft has another very important purpose, which is to observe the energy source of the asteroid.

Generally speaking, the solar radiation energy in the asteroid belt is already very low. Although the conversion efficiency of the current non-physical ion solar cell sail is very high, it is only suitable for general daily applications.For weapon systems, the power of solar panels is somewhat insufficient.Therefore, many large enough asteroid mines will adopt two power supply methods.The first is to use enough brackets to deploy a large number of solar panels to cope with the average production of industrial electricity, and the other is to mount ordinary fission reactors or subcritical reactors.More likely, of course, is the use of a fusion furnace.There are two ways to arrange this kind of plug-in energy. The first is to use an industrial support ship to hang on the surface of the planet, and the other is to drill a hole in the asteroid and put it directly into the center of the asteroid.

Holes are generally suitable for giant asteroids with a diameter of more than ten kilometers, because the transportation and installation of the integrated three-layer concentric fusion furnace has a relatively large operating space, and a large enough tunnel needs to be opened. The volume of an asteroid with a diameter of more than ten kilometers Large, high quality, solid structure, less sensitive to mass changes caused by opening holes, so this installation method is suitable, and this installation method is very suitable for converting asteroids into industrial ships.This was the method used by SCO when it refitted the Crow Girl Star into the Whirling Star Broken Star Mining Ship.

But for the target asteroid that Dongfang Hao and the others are looking for, this method is not suitable. The XE[-]X asteroid is an obvious long strip, and the opening of the asteroid with this structure from the short axis will cause a great change in the internal stress of the asteroid.And if you don't want the shell, this installation method is too time-consuming and laborious.Ordinary mining companies will not do this kind of thing.Therefore, judging from the usual judgment, this kind of asteroid mine generally uses external industrial support ships.

Only these cannot be mined. If you want to successfully mine the heavy metals and precious metals in the asteroid, solving the energy problem is only the first step.The second step is to scan the structure of the asteroid to calculate and judge the structural stress and the firmness of the structure.If very fragile structural gaps are found, first use heavy particle cannons and electromagnetic reconnection cannons from industrial ships or warships to bombard these fragile places, so that larger asteroids can be split into several parts, and then mined separately.If there are only weak places, then industrial ships need to be used to reinforce the outer surface of the planet.Because when mining in it, the asteroid suddenly cracked, so it was a lot of fun.

After the structural scan, high-frequency shock waves must be produced on the surface of the asteroid to eliminate internal stress. This is generally done by using a directional secondary charge, that is, a small-scale nuclear explosion. Things with a mass of hundreds of millions of tons cannot be used with a hammer. to knock.Artificial stress relief can only be achieved by means of explosions.

After all this is done, the mining company can connect the industrial support ship to the asteroid and start the excavation work.

And the excavation route is also particular. There is a structure similar to that on the asteroid and the earth, that is, the mineral deposits are also divided into zones. If you drill holes directly, the output will be very unstable and you will get a lot of useless carbonic acid. salts and silicates.This requires that the excavation route needs to be planned in advance.Many asteroids with hundreds of millions of tons are not a single deposit, and each element has its own distribution zone, so it is necessary to start multiple working faces at the same time to mine separately.Only in this way will a lot of hands and feet be saved when beneficiating minerals.

Therefore, NATO and the space circle, which are doing such troublesome work day after day, are full of envy, jealousy and hatred when faced with the simple, crude and unreasonable mining methods of the Gyro Star Broken Star mining ship.

In the era when NATO was not yet divided, under the stimulation of the myth-class star destroyer and the gyratory industrial ship, they also proposed the ambitious plan of the Hades-class star destroyer and the archon-class industrial ship, but they were limited by the scale of the industry. , has been stuck on the drawings, and then NATO's world split, so that these two kinds of Titans that can compete with the mythical level and the gyratory level in terms of data have all become spectacle, and only some sighs and talk on the Internet are left. .Now the catastrophe level of NATO and the eclipse level of the space circle are just for masturbation.

Therefore, asteroid mining is a very troublesome industry that tests the level of industrial technology.Not everyone can do this kind of kilometer-level asteroid mining. Among other things, the initial investment alone can make some small companies with insufficient funds retreat.Whether it is the surface reinforcement of asteroids or the removal of stress by explosions and shocks, these small companies with dozens of people are overwhelmed.Most of those small companies with only a few dozen people and one ship can only shuttle between a few star families, chasing those asteroids with a diameter of tens of meters to hundreds of meters.At the same time, I hope that my luck is good enough to catch up with a piece of ice rich in metal elements, and at worst it is a large piece of ice, and then sell it to those fleets and mines that need to replenish water.If it was a big rock full of silicate, these small companies would be frustrated for a while and lose a lot of money.

Moreover, in this place where there is no reason or law at all, even if you find an asteroid rich in precious metals, whether you will live or not is a problem.I don't know how many people have been turned into cosmic dust because of these years.Therefore, many small space mining companies will join some mining alliances and become vassals of some large consortiums. When they discover good asteroids, they will directly sell these coordinates and information to large companies, and then earn some meager income.Or no longer drive an industrial ship, but a high-powered tugboat, find an asteroid and tow it away, just be a porter in space.

Therefore, when the SCO Star Destroyer completes a star fragmentation operation, so many people will grab the remaining fragments.This is not only because of intelligence issues, but also because in front of the SCO Star Destroyer, these people living in space can push and collide with each other, but they don't dare to open fire directly.Many people who enter the industry for the first time will basically stay in the Huashen star clan, and then wait for the broken star to mine, and then earn their first pot of gold.

Therefore, from any perspective, the small company that Mei Manyue originally worked for called "Fruit Paradise" was super stupid and bold.Whether it's a manager or an employee.

After a period of flight, Dongfang Hao's disguised aircraft finally encountered the asteroid.The spectral camera hidden under the camouflaged rock began to continuously capture images, and with the help of Liuli, it carried out spectral comparison analysis.And Dongfang Hao also began to use the imaging equipment on the spacecraft to observe the surface of the asteroid.At the same time, the ultra-short wave receiving device of the aircraft also received the electromagnetic waves for communicating with each other. With the help of Dongfang Hao's electronic brain, he quickly analyzed the communication frequency and encryption level of the other party.

Maybe they stayed in this airspace for too long. Although the short-wave communication of these people has been encrypted, it is the usual asymmetric encryption key, and there is no encryption method using quantum channels.

The corners of Dongfang Hao's mouth twitched, these people really had enough arrogance in their hearts.

However, he couldn't laugh the next moment, because after he deciphered the other party's encryption key, he heard such a conversation.

"Arthur! Why are you going!"

"That meteorite, I'm going to catch it, the speed of this thing should not be small, if it's a big piece of heavy metal, I'll send it!"

In Dongfanghao's infrared imaging system, a cylindrical industrial boat is waving four robotic arms and flying towards its camouflaged aircraft.

　Ticket, ticket...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)