Chapter 68: Ignite
At this moment, Tom was eager to go to Earth to see what exactly had happened there.
How could there be no industrial landmarks? How could there be none? So many years of development, so many people, such advanced technology... and it just disappeared?
Without leaving a single trace?
Unfortunately, Tom couldn’t go at this moment.
Not only could he not go himself, but he couldn’t even launch a probe.
Don’t be fooled by the fact that Tom had built a massive space base and possessed a fleet of hundreds of warships, seemingly indicating extremely advanced technology.
In essence, these were all for show.
The appearance of these things was entirely due to a crucial prerequisite.
Loshen Star’s low gravity and lack of an atmosphere.
The advantages of these two conditions were too immense in the early stages of civilization’s development, directly allowing Tom to possess so many space constructs, even when his Human Civilization was not comparable to that of the National Era.
It seemed like a simple matter of launching a probe, but first, it involved a route planning problem.
Without a deep understanding of the various planets in the Solar System, without knowing their detailed orbits, masses, and changes in gravity fields, how could one plan a route?
If a route couldn’t even be planned, let alone using their gravity for acceleration and deceleration, or considering all kinds of complex factors for the final route calculation.
Launching a probe wasn’t just about raw power, throwing it directly.
Secondly, another issue needed to be considered.
With such a vast distance, even up to 15 billion kilometers, how could communication be maintained?
Even if communication could be maintained, how would the probe be positioned? Even if it could be positioned, how would its orbit be precisely adjusted to ensure it changed orbit when it should and accelerated when it should?
This series of problems involved extremely profound mathematical calculations, space observation, and fundamental principles, making it extremely complex.
But at this moment, no problem could hinder Tom’s determination.
He couldn’t bother with too many other things.
In an instant, hundreds of thousands of Clones were mobilized, combining his past knowledge reserves with the knowledge acquired through interrogation and reverse engineering from the Bluetook Civilization captives during this period, Tom threw himself into the task of developing the Earth probe.
The first breakthrough was in the Deep Space communication system.
Tom planned to deploy three large space antennas around Loshen Star and three around God-Enemy Star, using them to maintain contact with the upcoming long-distance probe.
Secondly, Tom began to mobilize personnel for the manufacturing of the second, third, and up to the tenth space optical telescope.
To gain a deeper understanding of the detailed data of the eight major planets in the Solar System, optical telescopes were indispensable.
Third, was the manufacturing of the probe itself. It not only needed to have extremely high reliability—after all, once it entered Deep Space, he would no longer be able to access it—but also extremely high precision and sensitivity.
The fuel the probe could carry was limited and had to be used meticulously. Wasting even a little might prevent it from reaching its destination.
At the same time, it had to be used when needed, and the timing and quantity could not be off by even a bit, otherwise, it might fly to a different location.
Fourth, was the launch vehicle for this probe.
The previous method of using a spaceship to accelerate it to a certain extent and then throwing it out would no longer work here.
The fuel a spaceship could carry was limited, and the acceleration it could provide was also limited.
Helplessly, Tom had to pick up rocket technology again, just like Human Civilization developed aerospace technology, and not the single-stage rockets like the interstellar missile at this moment, but multi-stage rockets.
Only multi-stage rockets could accelerate it to a sufficient speed, allowing it to reach Earth in the shortest possible time.
Otherwise, if it took several decades or a hundred years to arrive, it would lose its meaning.
While maintaining normal base operations and manufacturing, hundreds of thousands of Clones worked day and night, exhausting themselves.
Slowly, ten optical telescopes arrived around Loshen Star and began continuous observation of the Inner Solar System, precisely measuring the mass and density of every larger celestial body.
Breakthroughs in Deep Space communication technology were achieved one after another, and finally, several super-giant antennas, each with a diameter of 100 meters and an area of approximately 8000 square meters, were assembled in space.
They formed a plane, perpendicular to the ecliptic plane.
Three giant antennas, centered on Loshen Star and forming an isosceles triangle, became an array, achieving the effect of a 4000-kilometer diameter aperture antenna with the cooperation of the ground communication base.
At God-Enemy Star, Tom made the same arrangement, also deploying three giant antennas to form an array.
In the precision machining workshop, hundreds of Clones, assisted by equipment, meticulously and attentively manufactured each component of the probe, with an attitude even more detailed and serious than when soldering transistors on circuit boards in the past.
In the space factory, a super-giant three-stage rocket, 230 meters long and 20 meters in diameter, was slowly assembled.
And not just one, but five were built simultaneously.
They had undergone multiple rounds of ground base test runs, but Tom still didn’t have much confidence in the overall design.
Even Earth humans had never built such a large rocket.
So Tom decided to conduct a test.
A total of about forty thousand tons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen were injected into the giant rocket. With an ignition command, an incomparably intense flame spewed from the rocket’s tail, propelling the giant rocket, with a total mass of over sixty thousand tons, to accelerate and slowly break free from Loshen Star’s gravity.
But it didn’t last long; it exploded with a bang before flying much further.
Tens of thousands of tons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen turned it into an unprecedented giant bomb, illuminating Loshen Star’s dim ground like a sun.
But it didn’t matter; Tom still had four more.
Quickly searching for debris, analyzing data, finding fault points, conducting subsequent modifications and optimizations...
The second rocket still failed. The cause of the failure was the failure of the second stage ignition.
The third also failed, due to hydrogen embrittlement leading to fuel leakage.
None of the rockets succeeded up to the fifth. Tom was not discouraged; based on previous experience, he built five more giant rockets.
After three more failures, the fourth attempt finally succeeded. Tom’s technical accumulation gradually matured.
This fifth rocket would undertake the launch mission of that tiny probe.
It was carefully placed on top of the rocket.
At the same time, Deep Space communication networks, orbital calculations, tracking, positioning, and all other aspects were also ready.
Ignition!