Star Rider

Alcon's Journal #9 -- Setting Sail

DSF@0a2c30bf380b592954b287b790734ff0

After several days of cooperative training with Mars and nutrient replenishment, we set off for the asteroid belt. It takes about six months from the Ark 11 space habitat to the inner part of the asteroid belt. During these six months, we repeated drills according to the requirements of the enhanced training, including spacecraft operation, adjustment of sleep schedule, search, exploration, and rescue. We repeated these non-stop to ensure that when we arrived at the asteroid belt, these drills had become conditioned reflexes, and every exploration pilot could immediately engage in exploration work.

Maybe because I always regarded Mars as a machine, I didn't mind adjusting its humanoid and humor indices to a relatively higher level. As a result, sometimes when I was drinking coffee, Mars would suddenly ask me a question like, "Alcon, let me ask you a question. What would you do if the cosmic ray reading is 80-20-1 at this time?" If I ignored or deliberately gave a wrong answer, Mars would correct me, "Representative alpha particle reading is rapidly increasing, which is abnormal reading. You should immediately check the source of radiation and confirm whether the spacecraft is contaminated with heavy metal radiation and isolate it." It was like an experienced astronaut teaching a new student.

The six months passed, and I arrived at the inner edge of the asteroid belt. Along the way, Mars continued to optimize and adjust its settings according to my lifestyle and work habits, and our cooperation had become very tacit. During the upcoming eight months of asteroid belt exploration, Mars and I will scan and analyze the spectra of small celestial bodies along the way, and mark and record them or decide to log and mark sovereignty based on the results.

After stopping the centrifugal gravity, I looked at the asteroid belt. The starry sky outside seemed to have no change except for a few stars that seemed to move faster. Mars reminded me, "Although there are at least about two million small asteroids above one kilometer in size, the distribution is still too sparse on the vast scale of the solar system. What you see moving faster are small celestial bodies closer to us. I have already displayed the small celestial bodies that we are ready to explore in your terminal."

I looked through the several small asteroids that Mars had marked as entering my exploration route, and Mars added, "Currently, there are mostly S-type silicate component small asteroids in the inner ring. In the middle of the asteroid belt, there are more metal M-type small asteroids. Currently, M-type is more valuable to us, accounting for about 10% of this kind of celestial body. The main C-type carbonaceous small asteroids are closer to Jupiter." After a while, Mars added, "I will complete most of the automatic exploration work. If necessary, I need to borrow your body to land and make a mark on it."

During our long voyage, my communication with my mother never ceased. We would still send messages regularly, though it would take several minutes for them to be relayed through the Beacon system. After we discovered the first M-type asteroid with potential for development, Mars and I landed on it to collect samples and mark it for future reference. It was my first time setting foot on a celestial body beyond our own, and as I followed Mars' guidance and looked towards our home planet, I could only see a faint blue celestial body. At a distance of several hundred million kilometers, time and space seemed to merge into one. Even light seemed to leap between two vastly different worlds. I realized then how far away from my mother I had journeyed.

Over the next eight months, we repeated our explorations tirelessly. In total, Mars marked two small asteroids as having valuable resources, mainly iron and nickel. These were essential materials for building space habitats. Mars also told me that experiments were being conducted on building materials based on silicates and carbon, which could render many ordinary asteroids useful as well. However, for the time being, metals remained the best material for constructing space buildings due to their natural flexibility and malleability. Once a potential asteroid was identified, the information was sent back to our home planet, and the tug spacecraft would intercept and redirect the asteroid to a suitable location between Earth and Mars' orbit for future resource collection or redirect it to an orbit near the planned space city for material collection and forging. If it was suitable, the asteroid would be excavated and converted to useful resources.