Chapter 1574 - Project Breaking Ice (2/2)
After all, it was a matter related to the future of earth civilization.
…
At the Europa colony, on the side that faced Jupiter, a storm of ice and snow whizzed in the air and covered the space vehicle and astronauts in a thick layer. Due to the frequent use of gunpowder to blast the ice sheet, water and steam columns erupted from under the ice cover along the cracks, condensed into ice crystals or fist-sized ice lumps in the air, and fell freely with gravity.
Because of the low gravity and low air pressure, this blizzard looked daunting, but the damaging effect was minimal. It was only necessary to avoid staying in the same place for a long time to prevent being buried in a snowdrift and then frozen.
Twenty kilometers from the Europa colony, a huge steel engineering structure sat on the flat ice sheet. It looked like a giant steel beast that crawled onto the surface of the planet. The six supports were each one kilometer long and extended into six different directions. Each support was firmly fixed on the surface of the ice sheet.
The movement of the tectonic plates on Europa was far more extreme than that on Earth. The region between the ice sheets was always affected by Jupiter’s tidal force, and under the action of ocean currents, they collided from all directions. Therefore, the project site had to be located on a stable ice layer, which was the center of the large tectonic plate.
Future Heavy Industries did not master the technology for observing the internal geological structure of the ice layer yet, but the Svetovid underneath the ice sheet solved this problem for them and selected this project site. Soon Future Heavy Industries demonstrated its strong industrial capabilities. The project that originally would take five years to complete reached the final phase in three years.
On the steel tower, the red signal light flickered.
The space vehicles around it seemed to have received an order as they dispersed with astronauts. In the command room not far away, the head of the project, Tan Ming, stared at the structural drawing on the holographic screen and watched the green line sink slowly.
Five hundred meters to go!
Finally, the green line steadily touched the red line, and then stopped there.
Everyone in the institute was happy and relieved when they saw the data fed back by the pressure sensor below.
The scariest thing about drilling a well on Europa’s ice sheet was the possibility of the water pressure erupting and breaking the weakened ice sheet, and causing a blowout. No matter what expensive drilling equipment was used, if the water rushed up, everything would turn into a pile of scrap iron.
Now that the most difficult part was already solved, the next step was to carry out directional blasting of the last layer of ice, and then the Svetovid, which already fused together with the ice on the bottom, would be pushed up by the water flow from underneath, just like an elevator.
“Focus! FOCUS!” Although Tan Ming reminded everyone while he stared into the screen, the corner of his mouth was still slightly curved up
He hardly slept peacefully these past few days.
After all, it was a huge investment of hundreds of billions. If a blowout happened, all the investment would be lost.
“Team One is in place! The ice pressure parameters are normal.”
“Team Two is in place…”
“Team Three…”
The different groups of personnel on the front line sent back reports and gave the green signal light. The drone in the air fed back the situation to the staff in the command room in real-time. As Tan Ming watched the steel support slowly retract, he grabbed the intercom in his hand and ordered in a serious tone.
“Blasting countdown to begin!”
After the staff on the frontline received the order from the command room, he opened the mechanical lock that blocked the blasting button with a key.
“Order received! Beginning countdown!”
“5”
“4”
“…”
“1”
“0”
“Blast!”