Chapter 767

Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

director's office.

Lu Zhou, who was sitting at the desk, was also meticulously reviewing the documents on the desk.

Since becoming the chief designer of the Lunar Orbit Construction Committee, his work has suddenly become busy.

The funding for the lunar construction projects of the entire Huaguo country has to go through this pen in his hand.

In short, the elder who serves as the chairman of the committee is responsible for checking the total amount of funding, and deciding how much funding can be obtained for the entire lunar orbit construction plan based on the scientific, economic, and cultural values ​​of the lunar orbit project.

As for Lu Zhou, who is the chief designer, he is responsible for deciding where these funds will be spent, or in other words, which research and development projects will be used.

If the entire outer space exploration program is compared to a small ship sailing on the sea, then his position is the helmsman. If he had a problem here, the whole ship would have to go wrong with him.

Therefore, even if he is not interested in these trivial things, he can only sit here patiently, tirelessly read each document from the beginning to the end, identify those reliable projects or plans, and sign himself on them name.

Just as Lu Zhou was contemplating a report on the technical feasibility demonstration of lunar mining engineering equipment, there was a knock on the door.

Stopping the pen in his hand, Lu Zhou looked towards the door, cleared his throat and said.

"Please come in."

The door opened, and a young female assistant in business attire came in from outside holding a stack of thick documents.

"Professor, here are the documents sent from Huanong University and the Bureau of Aeronautics. The International Development and Liaison Office asked me to send them to you."

Lu Zhou nodded and said.

"I see, you can put it on the table first."

"Okay," the female assistant nodded, walked to the desk and took out the file from the folder, placed it in a corner of the desk, and asked softly, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Just pour me a cup of coffee and come here."

"Okay, Professor."

The young female assistant nodded, turned around and walked to the water dispenser, made a cup of instant mocha for Lu Zhou and brought it over, then left the office lightly.

While drinking coffee, Lu Zhou briefly flipped through the two documents sent from the International Liaison Office.

Generally speaking, there is good news in both documents, especially the document sent by the space agency, which highly praised the outstanding contribution made by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study in the lunar orbit construction project.

The successful orbiting of the core module of the Moon Palace not only established Huaguo's first-mover advantage in the development of lunar resources, but also won Huaguo a huge international reputation.

At the same time, in this document, there are also the concept drawings of the first phase of the space station project sent by Hangke Group, as well as the completion schedule of the remaining components.

According to these materials, Lu Zhou will discuss the launch schedule of other space station components such as the node module, energy module, experiment module, and working module through the meeting of the Lunar Orbit Construction Committee.

On the other side, not only the good news came from the Moon Palace, but also the good news from the Gurbantunggut Desert, not to be outdone.

As early as a month ago, when Lu Zhou was still studying how to send the Moon Palace to the lunar orbit, the "Tinder Project" completed the construction of the first phase of the project, and under the leadership of Professor Hu Yang, started the biosphere the operation of a.

So far, biosphere a has been successfully operated for one month. During this month, the volunteers enclosed in the artificial biosphere have successfully achieved their expected goals. Through limited water resources input and a small amount of waste discharge, they have initially realized life. Material circulation.

"Closed-loop life support technology" is one of the most important front-end technologies for colonizing the moon and even Mars, and it is also an important part of the entire lunar orbit construction plan.

At present, in this field, the United States, which once led the "Biosphere 2" experiment, has gone relatively far, and the Ares life support unit that has been launched to Mars is an application of this technology.

If Huaguo intends to build colonies on the moon or even more distant planets, unlocking this branch of the technology tree is essential.

After reading Professor Hu's report to the end, a gratified expression appeared on Lu Zhou's face.

If everything goes well, maybe next year, Huaguo will be able to send its colonists to the surface of the moon.

Just then, the knock on the door sounded again.

After pointing to the document in his hand, Lu Zhou looked in the direction of the door.

"Please come in."

Pushing open the door of the office, Hou Guang, the director of the Institute of Aerospace Science and Technology, walked in quickly with a serious face. Before Lu Zhou could ask what happened, he got straight to the point.

"A good news and a bad news, which one do you want to hear first?"

Seeing the serious expression on Hou Guang's face, Lu Zhou froze for a moment, then said with a smile.

"When did you learn how to be tricky?" After a pause, he said casually, "Then... let's start with the good news first."

Hou Guang: "The good news is that the planting unit we deployed on the moon has successfully harvested the first batch of potatoes!"

Hearing this sentence, a look of surprise gradually appeared on Lu Zhou's face.

"Already harvested? Is it so fast?"

Although he has never planted land or engaged in research in this area, he has heard that it usually takes three months for potatoes to mature from sowing.

Now it has only been less than two months from the successful start of the planting unit to the harvest. I have to say that this speed is really amazing.

Noticing Lu Zhou's surprise, Hou Guang smiled and explained: "It's okay, we originally used improved potato seeds, and the constant temperature system of the planting unit kept it at the optimum growth temperature. The time of the month is not too exaggerated."

Potatoes cultivated through space planting units are undoubtedly several times more expensive than those on Earth.

But even so, the cost of growing food on the moon is far cheaper than growing it on the earth when the launch cost per kilogram exceeds tens of thousands of dollars.

And even regardless of the economic cost, being able to achieve self-sufficiency in living materials on the moon, this kind of psychological satisfaction cannot be exchanged for money alone...

"This is indeed good news." After a pause, Lu Zhou smiled and continued to ask, "What about the bad news?"

"The bad news is that we received news this morning..." After hesitating for a moment, Hou Guang took a deep breath and said, "The BFR rocket launched by Space-X last month has landed on Mars at 13:00 Beijing time today. surface."

Already landed? !

His expression gradually became serious, and Lu Zhou, who sat upright on the office chair, immediately continued to ask: "How is the landing?"

Hou Guang looked at him solemnly, and said.

"It is said that...they succeeded."

The leave slip is revoked, and I feel that I can no longer be in Xianyu!