Chapter 143 It Doesn't Matter
After a quick self-examination, Zhou Cheng made a report.
"Reporting to Earth Base, I have successfully landed at the designated location. The spacecraft is in good condition, and I am in good condition myself."
After pressing the send button, the signal was uploaded by the spacecraft to the Mercury satellites, and then sent by the satellite to the Earth, which is more than 100 million kilometers away.
After a delay of more than six minutes, the signal finally reached the antenna array on Earth and finally arrived at the Earth base.
Zhou Cheng's calm voice, seemingly devoid of any emotional fluctuations, rang out in the hall.
At this moment, countless documents and papers were thrown into the air by the old people. Countless people stood up, even jumped up, cheering and clapping excitedly. The rolling waves of sound instantly filled the entire hall.
It's been such a long and difficult voyage, but we finally did it.
According to the original plan, we finally sent Zhou Cheng to Mercury.
Looking at the excited crowd, the decision makers who came to watch the ceremony also smiled.
But they also knew that successfully landing on Mercury was just the beginning of the entire plan.
There is still a lot to do in the future.
After reporting to Earth, Zhou Cheng put on his space suit and came to the hatch.
After passing through the isolation cabin, Zhou Cheng finally set foot on the surface of Mercury.
There is no sunlight here, so it is very dim, but not completely dark.
Although Mercury lacks an atmosphere, it also has diffuse reflections. The sunlight reflected from other parts of the planet keeps the temperature around -20 degrees Celsius, and the brightness is similar to that of dusk on Earth, barely enough to see things.
Zhou Cheng raised his head and looked at the sky.
The vast sky was dotted with stars. Zhou Cheng searched for a moment and found the second brightest star in the sky.
If you look closely, you can see that it is faintly blue.
That's the Earth.
My compatriots, my relatives, my lovers, my friends, live on that little star.
I came from there, I traveled hundreds of millions of kilometers and finally fell here from a height of hundreds of kilometers.
I know that after this fall, there will be no rising again. I have come down and there is no going back.
I can never return to the sky, I can never return to the sea of stars, and there is no way I can return to the earth.
But...it doesn't matter.
I have no regrets.
After looking at the bottom of the abysmal crater, the desolate and silent land around it, and the vast starry sky, Zhou Cheng, wearing a spacesuit, finally shifted his attention to the Hope spacecraft.
Feeling the gravity of Mercury, which is only 0.38 times that of the Earth, Zhou Cheng, as light as a swallow, circled the spacecraft several times and carefully checked the condition of the spacecraft's hull.
The conclusion was that everything was fine. Even the hatch that was lost in the explosion, which I later repaired with iron plates removed from other places, was intact.
It was a very successful landing.
But Zhou Cheng knew that this was just the beginning.
After confirming that the spacecraft was in good condition, Zhou Cheng returned to the cabin and began to check the cargo carried on this voyage.
They are a small particle collider. At this moment, they have been disassembled into boxes with a mass of about 50 to 100 kilograms and neatly stacked in the warehouse.
After carefully inspecting the shock-absorbing and buffering components and carefully checking their appearance to confirm that there was no damage at all, Zhou Cheng breathed a sigh of relief.
If they break down, this interstellar voyage will lose all its meaning.
On this day, Zhou Cheng did not go to work, but took a good rest for the day.
After living in a gravity-free space for three years, Zhou Cheng suddenly felt comfortable again because of gravity, which was only 0.38 times that of the Earth. He slept better than ever before that night.
Wake up feeling refreshed.
Looking at the communicator, he saw a message from Liu Yu.
"I've seen the technical analysis from the people at Earth Base, and they said your technical operation is simply perfect.
Ah Cheng, you are so awesome! Come, give me a kiss, muahmu——"
Zhou Cheng smiled faintly, and couldn't help but recall Liu Yu's pretty face in his mind, and the scene of her excitedly hugging him and kissing his cheek emerged in his mind.
"Ayu, I miss you so much."
Shaking his head and throwing this distracting thought out of his mind, Zhou Cheng put on his space suit again.
It's time to get to work.
He took out a folding ladder, placed it on top of the tall Hope spacecraft, and used tools to remove the spacecraft's solar panels bit by bit.
Each solar panel weighs about 10 kg. Every time Zhou Cheng removes one, he puts it on the ground.
This process continued for several days before the dismantling work was completed.
Afterwards, Zhou Cheng packed them up, 10 pieces in a stack, with a mass of 100KG, but on Mercury, the weight was only 38KG.
Zhou Cheng carried them lightly on his back and crawled out of the crater along the path he had explored before.
38kg isn't light, but at this point, not only is the weight of the solar panels reduced due to Mercury's low gravity, but Zhou Cheng's own weight is also reduced.
This allows him to carry a greater weight.
After walking about a thousand meters and crossing the last gentle slope, Zhou Cheng finally saw the sun.
It is hidden below the horizon, with only a maximum of one twentieth of it visible.
The dazzling light shone from this only bit of sunlight, causing the surrounding surface temperature to directly rise by more than 100 degrees Celsius.
If it weren't for the space suit, Zhou Cheng probably wouldn't survive even 10 seconds here.
Zhou Cheng knew that for a long time to come, the sun would maintain this posture relatively stably, without any changes, neither getting bigger nor getting smaller.
It will be able to provide stable energy to the solar panels, converting it into electricity. Part of it will support the operation of various equipment on the spacecraft, and the other part will be used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, which will be stored in this form.
In the future, when the sun sets and there is no solar energy, we can burn hydrogen and oxygen to drive the generator and continue to obtain electricity supply.
In the end, Zhou Cheng removed all the "wings" of the Hope spacecraft and laid them out in the sun.
So the Hope spacecraft became a bare cylinder.
After that, Zhou Cheng searched the inside of the crater again and finally found a cave.
This is probably a cave formed during Mercury's cooling process. It has an area of several hundred square meters and is isolated from the outside world by thick rocks, which can block external radiation.
Zhou Cheng took out the tools and began to clean the inside of the cave.
This took Zhou Cheng more than half a month. When the cleaning was completed, the interior of the cave was finally much smoother.
At this time, Zhou Cheng took out the particle collider components.
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