If before this, people still had some hesitations and doubts about whether to pay such a heavy price and spend so many resources to try, then now there is nothing left.
Trying our best to improve our strength at all costs is what human civilization must do. On the road to survival of civilization, we cannot relax at all and must seize every opportunity.
Survival turns out to be really not an easy thing.
After reaching complete internal consensus, Zhao Changxing's order was issued again. This time, more technical workers, engineers, scientists, and corresponding logistics personnel were hired to provide social services to the above-mentioned people. A total of about one million people were recruited.
wake.
At this moment, the number of awake people in the entire Yuanhang spacecraft has almost reached two million. And this has exceeded the carrying limit of the three "rollers" with gravity inside the Yuanhang spacecraft.
Moreover, the consumption of various maintenance materials far exceeded expectations.
This is also one of the costs.
With the full cooperation of people, a large number of precious resources were transported out of the warehouse, and then, under the busyness of engineers and workers, they were turned into parts one by one, and then assembled into one machine after another.
A piece of scientific equipment.
——This is of course accomplished with the assistance of numerous robots and automated equipment. What Zhao Changxing has always insisted on is that tasks that can be completed by robots and automated equipment will never be done manually. Only in this way can we do our best to
Improve efficiency more.
The upgrade of the original neutrino telescope inside and the construction of the four new neutrino telescopes located in different parts of the Yuanhang spacecraft took a total of more than a year. So the Yuanhang spacecraft stopped
In this war relic, accompanied by "mines" that may or may not be in space, they sailed a distance of more than 10 billion kilometers in a direction slightly deviating from the star Lakai 9352.
At this moment, after a long installation and debugging process, the detection of muons can finally begin.
Located behind a thick radiation protection layer, in a pure black environment that is almost uninterrupted by any kind of radiation, there is a "big tank" filled with hundreds of thousands of tons of ultrapure water.
This large tank is in an extremely stable state. Because of this, the ultrapure water inside it has almost no flow. They are as quiet as a solid piece.
At this moment, a particle quietly penetrated the thick radiation protection layer and reached the ultrapure water. In the process of penetrating the pure water, it coincidentally interacted with a water molecule.
The smaller particles collided.
This is indeed a coincidence, and it is a coincidence with a very low probability. Because at the same time, there are more than a million particles passing through these pure water. But among them, only it is related to the particles that make up these ultrapure water.
A collision occurred.
This collision produced other subatomic particles, including some photons.
Once the photons are generated, they begin to travel at the speed of light in the medium, and are then observed by numerous extremely sensitive photomultiplier tubes installed around the large jar.
These signals constitute an event and are then displayed on the computer screen.
"Professor Zhuang, we have observed the 1522nd event."
At this moment, Zhuang Yunwei's mood was slightly depressed.
A total of five neutrino telescopes did observe a large number of muon impact events during the period after they were put into operation. However, all of these events were finally confirmed to come from the Yuanxian spacecraft.
Although people have shielded the neutrino telescopes as much as possible in the direction of the Yuanhang spacecraft, they really cannot withstand the excessive penetrability of particles like muons.
On the earth, in the rock formation environment hundreds of meters below, it is still impossible to completely isolate muons from penetrating, let alone in space.
"Continue to analyze."
Zhuang Yunwei gave the order casually and did not take this incident too seriously. But soon, with the exclamation of his researcher, Zhuang Yunwei's heart suddenly lifted.
"Direction, 36°22′19", the particles in this incident did not come from the Yuanxian spacecraft!"
"Let me see!"
Zhuang Yunwei almost threw himself on the computer screen. After seeing clearly the data displayed on the screen, he couldn't help but reveal a look of joy on his face.
The entire human civilization has invested so many resources, put down so many bets, and shouldered the expectations of so many people for this project. As the general person in charge of the project, how could Zhuang Yunwei not be under pressure?
God knows how he survived this period of time!
Now, has it finally come to fruition?
"Continue to analyze, continue to analyze..."
He murmured an order, turned around and picked up the phone.
He must report to Zhao Changxing immediately.
After a more detailed analysis of the data generated by this impact event, people roughly determined the direction in which the particle came, and confirmed the upper limit of the furthest distance through the energy level of the particle.
The half-life of muons is only 2.2 microseconds. Based on this time, during their lifetime, even if their speed is the speed of light, they can only travel an average distance of about 300 meters.
But muons usually have extremely high energy, and their speed is very close to the speed of light. In them, the relativistic effect is extremely obvious. In this case, they can travel far beyond 300 meters.
The higher their energy, the faster their speed, the more obvious the relativistic effect, and the farther the distance they are transmitted. Then, as long as the energy level of the particle can be measured and its energy determined, the upper and lower limits of the distance will be
It's certain.
Now, as long as you conduct a detailed search for an area within a certain direction and distance, you can actually find it.
A combat spacecraft was ordered to set off and headed to a place about 476,000 kilometers away from the Yuanhang spacecraft.
The range that requires manual detailed search is about 6 kilometers in diameter and the total volume is about 113 cubic kilometers.
It doesn't take much manpower and equipment to search such a small place.
Sure enough, about an hour later, a picture was transmitted to the command room.
Zhao Changxing saw a piece of "wreck" that was about 2 meters long and more than a meter wide, generally showing an L shape.
This is not a gravity bomb.
"It doesn't matter. This at least proves that we are heading in the right direction. Keep searching. As long as there is a gravity bomb, we will always find it."
Just as Zhao Changxing expected, this day is not too far away. After seven more incidents and the wreckage was finally found, for the eighth time, the soldiers performing the search mission were about 3.26 million kilometers away from the Yuanhang spacecraft.
, sent back a picture of something very similar in appearance to the previous gravity bomb.
"This is a gravity bomb, you can't go wrong!"
At this moment, everyone in the control room was in high spirits.
"Order, spacecraft No. 56 stop where it is and don't get closer to the target!"
Gravity bombs are extremely dangerous and extremely unstable. Although it is almost certain that they have lost the ability to "actively search for targets and actively approach targets", according to experience, a certain collision can still detonate them.
To capture this kind of thing, special equipment is required. Moreover, it may not be successful the first time and may require many attempts and experiments.
This time, the people sent out to capture it was a small unmanned spacecraft. The specific facility used to capture it was a special box.
The interior of this box is filled with soft, specially made filling. This filling can greatly extend the release time of the gravity exerted on the contents.
People try to capture it this way without detonating it.
Under people's slightly nervous gaze, the unmanned spacecraft stretched out its long mechanical arm, opened the large box that was almost five meters in length, and then slowly covered it.
The moment the inner filling came into contact with it, everyone's hearts jumped.
It seems that in the next second, the video screen will disappear and turn into pure black - that means that the facility has been destroyed, that is, the gravity bomb has been detonated.
But this didn't happen. Until the big box was finally closed and the gravity bomb was completely wrapped in soft stuffing, nothing abnormal happened.
"good!"
Warm applause erupted in the control room.
After that, it was captured into the cabin of the unmanned spacecraft and fixed. After that, the unmanned spacecraft began to accelerate extremely slowly compared to its performance.
It is only 3 millimeters per square second, which is only a little faster than the acceleration of the Yuanhang spacecraft with a mass of more than 100 billion tons.
"Are the ships to store these gravity bombs ready?"
Zhao Changxing looked at a civilized leader.
"Ready. The space shuttle ship numbered J3 has completed internal modifications and has been moved to a location 100,000 kilometers away from the Yuanhang spacecraft."
It is obvious that something so dangerous and uncontrollable to a certain extent cannot be stored in the Voyage spacecraft.
Zhao Changxing didn't want to wake up one day and find that the entire spacecraft had been crushed into an iron ball.
The plan that people have formulated is to store all these gravity bombs in a special space shuttle, and then connect it to the Yuanhang spacecraft through a rope, and let the Yuanhang spacecraft pull it forward.
The kind of material used to make space elevator cables is up to the task.
In this way, even if unfortunately, those gravity bombs explode, they will not have any impact on the Yuanhang spacecraft itself.