Chapter 1505 - The Expanding Territory

“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?”

During the inspection of microbial residues, Hou Tao unexpectedly discovered that there were tiny microbial residues on the soles of his shoes.

“What is this…”

However, just when he wanted to further study what this microbial was, he found that the bacteria on the soles of the feet has lost their activity through the microbiological tester.

…

On the second day after the colonial cabin was operational, Celestial Trade released the video of landing on Himalia on its official website.

Although the netizens were all familiar with Celestial Trade’s dark technology, no matter how many times they watched it, they still found it similar to watching a sci-fi movie, and they never get tired of watching.

The probes dropped down first captured the entire process of the colonial unit’s landing. When the netizens around the world saw the silver-white unit landing on the surface of Himalia, they shared the same amazement

“Celestial Trade has begun to colonize Himalia?”

“Where is Himalia? My sense of direction is not very good. In short, it is farther than Mars?”

“Of course.”

“My God, I just want to know how many years they need before they leave the solar system.”

“I bet 50 years.”

“50 years is too long! I bet on 20 years.”

Then the video played the rover driving out of the colony, and a scientific researcher wearing a spacesuit jumped out of the vehicle to complete a series of sampling tasks. It was the first time Celestial Trade made a video of research activities at such close range available on its official site.

It was not only netizens and astronomy enthusiasts all over the world who followed this video, some professional organizations such as ESA, NASA, and Russian Aerospace Agency also closely followed this video.

Especially the excluded ESA.

There were very few countries in Europe that joined the Earth Defense Alliance, and this feeling of being excluded made many people feel a deep sense of uneasiness. Especially those aerospace workers who fought on the front line. They were well aware of the negative impact this will have on the development of European aerospace technology, and they also knew that Europe was gradually disconnecting with the rest of the world…

However, the decision of the few people could not be influenced by scientific researchers.

“Celestial Trade has begun to colonize Himalia? Didn’t they just land on Mars not long ago? Hell, can they digest such a big project?”

“I don’t know about that… but I heard that Celestial Trade’s colonization plan also invited other members of the Earth Defense Alliance to join.”

“What?!”

“I have asked the European Commission more than once to seriously consider the necessity of joining the Earth Defense Alliance, whether it is to cope with the crisis together or from the perspective of development… But I haven’t received any response yet.”

“DAMN IT, what are those idiots thinking.”

“Only God knows!”