The waiting time became extremely long. Until Ye Han and others finished work and returned to the living cabin, the satellite had not yet jumped out of the crater. It was not until dinner time that the communication equipment received the satellite signal and made a long "beep" sound.
Gao Kai almost immediately rushed to the communication desk: "The temporary base calls the command center. Please answer when you receive it!"
More than a second later, a slightly distorted voice appeared: "The command center received it, please speak to the base!"
"Command center, the base is mining water ice, the heavy water content is 6..." Gao Kai briefly reported the situation, and finally asked for instructions on what to do next.
Huo Qiang happened to be at the command center. After hearing the news, he switched lines and communicated with the lunar base in person: "Base, how many samples did you collect?"
Gao Kai immediately asked with his eyes, and Ye Han replied with his mouth: "Twelve copies."
"Twelve copies!" Gao Kai quickly replied.
"How many sampling points?"
Gao Kai couldn't help but hesitate: "One, one." The three groups of ice harvesters did not go to heavy water at all. Of course, they picked up ice at one location.
"How can one point be enough?" Huo Qiang questioned, "At the very least, we need to find a few points to determine the specific reserves and then report it?"
"Yes, I was negligent. Arrange sampling immediately!"
"Don't miss this moment. It's too late today. We'll make arrangements tomorrow, but don't affect your normal work." Huo Qiang urged.
"yes!"
After the communication ended, Gao Kai sighed: "Ye Han, did you hear everything?"
Ye Han nodded: "I heard it."
"You can make your own arrangements on what to do, I just want the results."
"Okay." Ye Han nodded.
The time was almost up, so Gao Kai didn't waste any more words and took his people out of the living cabin to take over.
Ye Han called Duan Zhiyang and Xu Hua to find the aerial map of the crater. He first drew the location of the temporary base, and then marked the location of today's water collection. He stared at the map and pondered for a while: "Let's use the location of today's ice collection.
The position is the origin, take a sample every twenty meters... no, every ten meters, record the sampling location in detail, and then study the next step after getting the results."
"I think it works!" Duan Zhiyang.
"That's it!" Xu Hua.
After a day's work, Ye Han finally returned to the narrow nest. While the satellite was still in the sky, he took out his mobile phone and turned on the video function. He put it on the table and looked at his face, but he didn't know what to order.
After hesitating for a long time, he deleted the video he had just recorded and started recording again: "Xiaoting, I am fine now, but I miss you very much..."
Bai Xiaoting felt uncontrollably distressed when she saw the video. Although Ye Han didn't say it, she could see that Ye Han was very tired, not physically, but mentally.
After breakfast the next day, the three groups found yesterday's ice collection point. Ye Han walked ten meters east and started to collect ice. Not only did he take samples on the surface, but he also took samples at a depth of one meter and two meters. Each ice sample was taken
Good markup avoids confusion.
Next, the three men were divided into three groups. Ye Han was responsible for fetching ice and loading the truck, Duan Zhiyang was responsible for transporting, loading and unloading the truck, and Xu Hua was responsible for ice melt detection and unloading the truck. The three people cooperated with each other to investigate the heavy water content as quickly as possible.
Although taking three copies at a time can make the data more accurate, the workload when taking ice also increases several times. Despite Ye Han's best efforts, the degree is still not satisfactory, and the excess ice has to be temporarily thrown aside, but these ice
It won't be wasted, just bring it back to the base after a while.
After working for a whole day, they only completed eleven sampling points, and only two-thirds of the ice samples were tested. In order not to slow down the progress of the investigation, the three of them continued working after dinner, and it was not until midnight that all the ice samples were tested.
Sample.
There was too much melted water, and the water storage tank in the treatment cabin had a limited capacity. The electrolytic cell worked non-stop for a day, not only filling all the oxygen storage containers, but also creating more than 20 blocks of oxygen ice.
When we returned to the dormitory, everyone was very tired, but the hard work of the day was worth it. Although the data of only eleven sampling points were measured, the test results showed that the surface layer of the glacier lake was as deep as one meter or two meters deep.
There is no difference in content among ice samples.
After obtaining the comparative data, Ye Han decided to modify the investigation plan and only collect surface ice samples for testing, which could greatly speed up the investigation progress.
For a crater with a diameter of more than 30 kilometers, there are points every ten meters. There are more than 3,000 sampling points in a straight line from east to west. How many ice samples will be collected to survey the entire lake area?
He didn't calculate it carefully and couldn't do it. Anyway, there was no way he could stop it.
Thinking of this, Ye Hanjin's mouth was full of bitterness. Ten meters is too close. Even if one ice sample is collected from one hundred meters, the workload is staggering. Although the closer the sampling distance is, the more accurate the investigation results will be, but if it is separated by a few
What’s the point of getting survey data after months or even years?
The longer it takes, the more passive it becomes.
Ye Han gritted his teeth secretly. If that didn't work, he would just pick a point a thousand meters away and wait until he got the analysis results.
Having made up her mind, Ye Han finally fell asleep.
The investigation entered the third day. The experience of the first two days made Ye Han smart. Only take a little of each ice sample, which is enough to analyze the ingredients. In this way, it only takes a few minutes to melt an ice sample and only a few minutes to analyze a water sample.
In two or three minutes, it only takes seven or eight minutes in total from the time the ice sample begins to melt to the analysis results.
On the fifth day of the investigation, Ye Han had just cut through the ice surface while taking samples, when a burst of white mist suddenly burst out of the cracks in the ice. He was so shocked that he jumped away and stared at the mist spurting out in confusion.
The mist rushed into the sky more than ten meters high, and soon fell like snowflakes, accumulating a thin layer near the ice cracks.
What is going on?
Ye Han was confused. He hesitated for a moment, then went over and continued cutting. He quickly took out a half-meter-square ice sample. He unexpectedly discovered that there was only a layer of dust on the surface of the ice layer, and the ice layer below was special.
It is transparent and the quality of water ice is amazingly high.
Curiously observing the ice body carefully, under the light of the headlight, he suddenly discovered that there was a melon-sized hole under the ice crack. Those snowflake-like things must have sprayed out from here!
Not only that, there were other large cavities under the ice. Ye Han was curious and simply continued to cut downwards. After a while, he cut out a piece of ice containing a cavity.
The result surprised him. The cavity of the ice cube actually contained half of the flowing colorless liquid!
This discovery was simply unbelievable. He had only heard of something called water bubbles in chalcedony, which had natural water-containing cavities inside. The situation of this piece of ice was similar. The problem was that this was the surface of the moon at more than 200 degrees below zero. In such a situation
The only things that can keep flowing at extremely low temperatures seem to be liquid gases.
