Chapter 1092 - : Mars Plan (1/2)

Translator: _Min_  Editor: Rainystars

The colonial chamber was like a building lying on its side. As the center of the entire colony, it was where the colonists lived, worked, socialized and entertained in an array of facilities.

Around the colonial chamber, there were also four spherical buildings made out of graphene material, connected to the colonial chamber by giant pipes. The four spherical buildings were the lifeline of the entire colony.

Mars was a planet covered by desert and volcanic ash which gives off an impression of being extremely dry.

However, the opposite was true. As early as a few years ago, the “Curiosity” rover sent back data that suggested the planet was actually rich in water resources! However, most of the water was brine and buried underground or mixed with the sand so it could not be directly consumed.

But for Celestial Trade, it was not a problem. As long as there was water, there must be a way to turn it into drinkable water. The four spherical buildings served as the water pumps that filtered the water.

The location of the colony was chosen on an ancient lake bed. There were definitely no shortages of water. The four spherical water pumps first pumped the underground brine into spherical storage tanks, filtered the water, and finally pump the water through the pipeline into the colony.

Water was the source of life. Achieving self-sufficiency in drinking water was the key to achieving self-sufficiency for the colony.

After the water, oxygen was next.

The oxygen content of Mars was extremely low. Through the billions of years, the oxygen either escaped or reacted with the iron to form iron oxide. Fortunately, there was still an atmosphere on the planet. There was no oxygen but a sufficient amount of carbon dioxide. Therefore, it would be easier to create oxygen here than on the Moon because it does not need to use energy extensive electrolysis. Since there was no helium-3 on the planet, energy generation remained quite expensive.

Oxygen could also be created with food.

The main components of the Martian atmosphere was carbon dioxide; nitrogen, oxygen and water vapor were almost negligible. For animals, it was hell, but for plants, it was paradise!

Of course, it was not to say that plants can be grown on Mars. The surface of Mars was extremely cold, and plants experienced “Photosynthetic acclimation” by being exposed to a pure carbon dioxide environment, which would ultimately hinder crop growth.

However, as long as the carbon dioxide concentration of the plantation was controlled by nitrogen, it is easy to keep the crops in the plantation with the optimal carbon dioxide concentration. With a controlled water supply and ultraviolet light, the growth rate of crops will be impeccable!

The only shortcoming is that early investment is extremely high. For the ration of 20 people, the cost of the facility exceeded 100 million Xin New dollars. On Earth, the same equivalent dollar amount is enough to create a few hundred thousand acres of fertile land.

Jiang Chen still planned to position the Mars colony as an industrial base. Once the shipbuilding yard of Future Heavy Industries moved to Mars, Celestial Trade could build a few more SS Seagull classes to transport food. It would be a waste of resources to build a farm in the desert.

Lunar city offered the advantage of low electricity costs, and it was understandable to plant some food to ease supply pressure. Without helium-3 and pure water on Mars though, food production would be extremely expensive.

Of course, Jiang Chen considered transforming Mars into a terrestrial planet before. Or not just him, someone had proposed a plan to transform Mars long ago.

The most famous of the proposals was from SpaceX Elon Musk, who has been obsessed with Mars. The man was certainly a genius as he once proposed a shocking method by launching nuclear bombs at the poles of Mars. Nuclear explosion would melt the dry ice, thicken the atmosphere, cause the greenhouse effect, melt more dry ice, and continue to thicken the atmosphere… The key to this idea was to use the nuclear bombs to start the greenhouse effect. While it did sound unrealistic, it made sense in theory; a simple and yet effective solution.

However, Jiang Chen did not take long to give up the idea.

The method was simply too slow. While it was easy to start the greenhouse effect, it was not possible to achieve the end result without the process taking thousands of years. More importantly, the uncertainty of the plan was too high. Mars was the most important part of Celestial Trade’s plan to build its “Invincible Fleet” in the future. If something unexpected happens, then there was no going back and reloading the save.

Of course, although Jiang Chen gave up the idea to change the Mars landscape in the short term, this did not mean he has completely abandoned the plan to transform Mars into a terrestrial planet.