Chapter 1505 - The Expanding Territory (1/2)

“We made it!”

“Now what you see on the outside is Himalia, which is more than 700 million kilometers away from Earth… it may become 800 million or more after some time but who cares.”

“There is an atmosphere here, but it is not dense, and it is made up mostly of nitrogen. The colonial unit is functioning well, the energy reserves are full, and the oxygen supply is okay. The next step is to send an all-terrain rover to investigate the terrain and resource distribution of Himalia… Hou Tao, how much more time do you need?!”

The man roared into the radio, and soon there was a response from the other side.

“Checking the hydraulic stabilization system… I’ll be done soon. Give me five minutes.”

“This lucky guy!” The astronaut cussed under his breath, then turned his head around and focused back on the camera, “Based on the rules, we drew straws to decide who will be the first to step on Himalia. Although it’s not as significant as the first person stepping on the Moon and Mars, it’s not a small honor either. I will change the camera to the rover after this, and Hou Tao will continue to record…”

After the astronaut finished the last sentence, he tapped a few buttons on the touchpad and ended the video recording.

Based on the colonial propaganda strategy of Celestial Trade, all colonial activities would be recorded into videos and sent to Celestial City Space Command Center for backup, edited by professionals and published on the official website, and made available to the rest of the society to play, download, and comment.

In order to ensure the quality of the recording, a retired reporter, or an experienced professional in film-related industries was on each colonial ship. Although there were still many differences between this survey ship and the colonial ship, as the landing here was only regarded as a colonial outpost. But after all, it was the first time they landed in Himalia and thus it was significant. The survey ship also brought a reporter from Xin Broadcasting Corporation with three years of experience.

The screen quickly switched to the all-terrain rover.

The 25-year-old astronaut put on his helmet, gestured excitedly in front of the camera with a peace sign, and then pressed the red button on the control interface.

It was his first colonial mission and he trained at the astronaut training center on Ange Island. He had been preparing for this day for more than a year, so he was thrilled at this moment.

Followed by the sound of air leaking, the door of the buffer compartment slowly opened, and the rover accelerated to this unknown land.

The whole planet was very dark, as the light from the Sun was already weak. Instead, Jupiter looked brighter. The places illuminated by the vehicle lights were gray-white or gray-black soil, and the other places were just darkness.

Soon, he arrived at the first inspection site – a lake not far from the colony’s outpost, which was the landing site of the second probe.

This lake was not big, at least compared to the big lake at the south pole of Himalia. The probe floated in the middle of the lake, which made recovery quite difficult, so the colonists decided to ignore it for the time being.

After the astronaut named Hou Tao parked the all-terrain rover not far from the lake, he jumped out of the vehicle and walked carefully to the lake. Unlike Mars, the gravity here was very low, and he had to be cable restrained on the vehicle to prevent the situation where he could not get down if he jumped with too much force.

Hydrocarbons were in a gas form on Earth, but they appeared as a liquid on the freezing, bitter surface of Himalia.

The liquid mixture of methane-ethane was less viscous than water, and if someone stroked their hand across the lake of Himalia, they would not feel the same resistance as water.

All in all, it was a wonderful and unique experience, but it was best not to keep his hand in it for too long. Even if the spacesuit designed by Celestial Trade used very advanced thermal insulation materials, the heat loss caused by the cryogenic fluid would still cause a lot of load on the spacesuit’s constant temperature system.

Hou Tao squatted down by the lake, took out the sampler from the toolbox, quickly collected about 200ml of the liquid in the lake, and then stuffed it into the sample storage box of the vehicle. These liquids would be brought back to the colonization unit for analysis to determine the hydrocarbon composition and content ratio in the lake.

Immediately afterward, he collected about twenty soil samples and planted flags with numbers on the ground. These soil samples were very helpful for understanding the geological environment and resource distribution of Himalia, and it would be their task in the next while.

The head of the outpost received the video data from the rover, edited some information, then sent the data back to Earth. After Hou Tao finished all the tasks, he rode the rover back to the buffer compartment of the outpost. As the cabin was emptied and refilled with air, he jumped off the car and walked into the disinfection room.

“The radiation residue is normal.”

“The number of microbial attached…Huh?”