Chapter 15 - Atlantis lands

"Atlantis, activate!"

Atlantis was originally a medium-sized cargo ship, the same one that had taken Oliver and the others to escape from Earth. It was not well suited for such short trips, so the scientists made minor modifications to it, adjusting a series of engine parameters as well as landing settings.

With Oliver's command, the Atlantis, loaded with people and supplies, immediately scampered off.

The 1,000-kilometer journey was not long, but the ship could not fall vertically downward in free fall, but in a spiral manner hovering downward.

At this time on the entire Noah, 50,000 pairs of eyes were staring at the image of the ship with almost unblinking eyes, everyone was secretly praying, praying, hoping that everything would act normally.

"First power zone about to shut down, landing equipment to be turned on in thirty seconds, countdown begins ..."

"Reverse jet rocket on ... ship deceleration in progress, landing ready, clearance 100 percent ..."

"Landing buffer activated!"

On the television set, the entire landing process could be seen, and Oliver's heart was slightly nervous. However, this landing technology is simpler than the moon landing, so it should not be particularly difficult for humans.

A loud "coaxing" sound was heard, accompanied by a violent trembling screen, and 500 people landed successfully!

Batches of material also began to be transported down, engineers immediately set up small bases, reporters began to report the situation on the scene.

"Hello, everyone, I'm Gianna. We have successfully landed, and behind me is the Mars mini-base that will be built soon. From now on, I will bring you a wonderful journey to Mars ..." a female reporter took the microphone and live-streamed up to the camera.

Hearing this news, a small cheer erupted from the crowd of Noah.

The Atlantis has a capacity of five hundred tons, 500 passengers about 30 tons, the remaining four hundred tons are all mechanical equipment as well as living supplies. It probably had to make several round trips to get everything ready to go down.

Scientists also began to get busy, as the overall leader of this mission, Dr. Roman immediately began to deploy the task, he divided all the scientists into four groups, respectively, to four directions of geological exploration, each group of about 20 people.

And the rest of the people were responsible for establishing small bases.

"I think the probability of intelligent life appearing on Mars is very small, and Martians should not exist ..." In front of the TV, Dr. Roman squatted down and picked up a red wind-sand rock, "Look, we've explored several times and found no signs of surface biological activity."

"However, the possibility of the existence of microorganisms under the ground cannot be ruled out ... bacteria from different planets, which are completely foreign to our human immune system, could be deadly like existence. So we have to do a good job of strict biosecurity."

Then he said to the four groups of members underneath, "The goal of your current expedition is to obtain first-hand information about Mars, including atmospheric composition, traces of life, geological composition, and also to find a flat enough place for the entire Noah to land."

After leaving the Noah, a strange sense of unease arose in the hearts of these five hundred people, as if the sun went out in their hearts, that warm feeling, from the bottom of their hearts, disappeared.

But this sense of unease was deliberately ignored, after all, they are not here to travel, but to scientific investigation.

This mission was supposed to be a kind of test mission with danger, the first human mission to land on an alien planet, and what dangers were involved, no one knew.

Or air leaks, or extreme temperature differences, or base construction can not be built, or the existence of alien life that humans have not found ... this mission was supposed to be more dangerous, so many people simply ignore this unease.

Huge excavators began to work, digging out a large amount of gravel, people have to spend two days to dig a basement of about 1000 square meters here, and then build a small base in the basement.

The Atlantis ship can also be used as a temporary base, and this ship can temporarily house some of the population.

After another return trip of Atlantis, two small nuclear power reactors were also brought down, and under the debugging of engineers, the nuclear power units began to operate normally, each with a power of about 5000mw {500,000 kilowatts}.

As long as there is electricity, people can make oxygen, make water, make almost anything ... After all, three months in the cosmic voyage, humans are still very well prepared.

In a small Mars rover, Dr. Roman is concentrating on a test tube test, filled with Martian soil. He found that there was indeed no sign of any life activity, and no proteins were detected, which sent him a sigh of relief.

Protein detection can be done with bicuculline reagent, which is very convenient. However, the color of the test tube in Roman's hand did not change in any way, indicating that there was no protein inside, and there was no life ...

Indeed, Mars is too cold, nothing liquid water. Especially in the Arctic, more than 100 degrees below zero is the room temperature. Cosmic radiation and can directly shine on the ground, in this case, life is very difficult to survive.

Immediately after, Roman began to test the atmospheric composition.

"Atmospheric composition, 95.32% carbon dioxide, 2.7% nitrogen, 1.6% argon, 0.13% oxygen, 0.08% carbon monoxide, 210 ppm water vapor, 100 ppm nitric oxide, 15 ppm hydrogen molecules, 2.5 ppm neon, 850 ppb heavy water... ...the same as the previous test results."

Knowing this result, Roman did not know whether to be happy or unhappy ... such results, large creatures certainly will not have, unless they do not need to breathe. So far, the Earth is still known, the only planet with life.

"I tested the ten-meter layer of soil I just dug up, and I didn't see any bacteria either."

Another scientist seemed a little disappointed and a little relieved as he said in a very sophisticated manner, "Of course, viruses require a higher magnification microscope and need to be assayed back in the main lab on Noah. However, there is no protein, there should be no life ..."

He also shook his head. According to the existing knowledge, microorganisms are very tenacious, if a planet has microorganisms ... at least there will be traces, right?

Now since there is no trace at all, it can only mean that the microorganisms most likely do not exist ...

"Well, no matter what, before there is no complete confirmation that Mars does not contain life, it is not allowed to relax the biochemical control." Roman said seriously, after learning that there is no life on Mars, he had an indescribable heavy feeling ...

Is the planet alone? Is life scarce? Is intelligence rare, or is it universal? Why has mankind observed so few traces of intelligent life? Apart from the inexplicable alien spacecraft Noah, mankind has observed almost no traces of alien life, why is this so?

People do not know anything about the universe, people can only blindly guess the whole universe, do not know, all do not know ...

Roman was not sure whether he hoped that there was life on Mars or no life at all ...