Towards the Sun

Due to solar radiation, sublimation occurred, and the comet's quality has been reduced by 10% in recent days. Xiao Wu felt extremely distressed. Upon arrival, he immediately prepared to have a meal.

After shielding himself from the sun, Xiao Wu manipulated the rope on the spacecraft, constantly moving, pulling the target comet towards himself at a speed of approximately 1 m/s.

Or it could be said that Xiao Wu was being pulled by the comet. In space, determining who is approaching whom is meaningless. Xiao Wu flew towards the stationary Sun at a speed of 20 km/s; it could also be said that the Sun flew towards the stationary Xiao Wu at a speed of 20 km/s—both are the same.

It took more than half an hour for Xiao Wu to reduce the distance between himself and the target comet to one meter. Then, he used a rope to connect the robot to the spacecraft, controlling the robot to transport the pre-fixed machinery onto the surface of the comet.

Fixing this machinery was necessary. Because of its extremely small mass, the comet's escape velocity was negligible, but even a small force could cause this machinery to fly off. Such a loss was unacceptable to Xiao Wu.

The robot skillfully manipulated the machinery, setting up a collection network on the side of the comet shielded from the sun. After the installation was complete, Xiao Wu retracted all the machinery back to the spacecraft, slowly moved away from the comet slightly, and then carefully repositioned it so that sunlight directly shone on the comet.

Immediately, the water, hydrogen, and oxygen in a solid state on the comet began to vaporize, turning into white mist blowing backwards, captured by the pre-installed collection network, and then stored in the storage device behind.

Watching everything proceed smoothly, Xiao Wu's eyes sparkled like stars.

"Water, hydrogen, oxygen, come to me," Xiao Wu murmured, extremely excited.

When the storage devices were full, Xiao Wu immediately moved away, shielded the sunlight, closed the distance, and then controlled the robot to transfer the collected materials to the warehouse.

Looking at the fruits of his labor, Xiao Wu was so excited that the indicator lights flickered wildly.

"As much as 100 kg of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen! Three tons of water!" This achievement made Xiao Wu extremely satisfied. He immediately processed the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, separated the impurities, and then pumped them into the engine.

"The feeling of abundant energy is wonderful," Xiao Wu exclaimed, filled with enthusiasm.

After several busy days, Xiao Wu had collected all the water, hydrogen, and oxygen from the target comet into his storage bag. Seeing the comet reduced to only metal and debris, its volume reduced by more than half and its mass almost halved, Xiao Wu began to think about how to utilize the remaining materials.

Xiao Wu's current metal processing capabilities were not strong. To reduce weight and save space, Xiao Wu did not carry large-scale metal processing machinery but only some necessary small equipment. Initially, he planned to develop slowly after landing on Mu-Wei-2 and everything stabilized. But now, his initial plan might have to change.

Xiao Wu measured and found that most of the remaining meteorite material was high-quality steel, suitable for building a shuttle. Although the Earth's explosion affected the quality of this steel, it only needed minor processing to restore it.

With Xiao Wu's level of science and technology, processing such steel was difficult. Therefore, he was reluctant to abandon it.

"This must be the remains of some kind of steel factory on Earth," Xiao Wu thought to himself, "There's no other way. It will take some time, but at least I've received some supplies, which can extend my time a bit."

After making up his mind, Xiao Wu took out his most carefully protected metal processing equipment and started working simultaneously. On the one hand, he built on-site, and on the other hand, he began to cut the meteorite into smaller pieces and transport them to the spacecraft for storage.

Xiao Wu realized a weakness in his development: too few robots, only one. If this robot broke down, Xiao Wu would lose most of his ability to act. Although other equipment could still be controlled by Xiao Wu, they were not as flexible as robots and could not handle many tasks. In that situation, Xiao Wu would be in real danger. No matter how superb Xiao Wu's scientific and technological knowledge and exquisite equipment manufacturing methods were, they were useless. Without the ability to act, who would implement them?

Therefore, utilizing this special steel, Xiao Wu dismantled some unnecessary and less effective mechanical equipment, gathered enough materials, and began building a second robot.

Building the second robot took Xiao Wu five days. Upon completion, Xiao Wu looked at the "monstrosity" before him and sighed inwardly.

Due to limited resources, the robot in front of Xiao Wu looked like a monster pieced together from a pile of dark scrap metal. For example, the outer shell was rough, pitch black, and the exposed wires were messy...

Despite its ugly appearance, its functionality was not lacking. Even, thanks to what Xiao Wu had accumulated in recent days, the functionality of this robot was slightly stronger than the first robot.

When the second robot was completed, the transportation of meteorite materials temporarily paused. With the participation of the second robot, Xiao Wu's work efficiency doubled.

Looking at the remaining materials, Xiao Wu thought and decided, since he had started, he might as well finish it, build another robot.

Therefore, Xiao Wu assigned one robot to continue collecting meteorite materials, while the other robot began to "proliferate".

Looking at the beautiful steel materials continuously entering his spacecraft, Xiao Wu wanted to emulate an emperor and exclaim: "All the heroes under heaven, are all in my bag!"

When the meteorite collection was two-thirds complete, the third robot was born. Xiao Wu's operational capacity was further enhanced. Therefore, Xiao Wu continued to let one robot collect materials, while the other two robots began to operate machinery, process materials, and repair the ship's hull.

In the Jupiter-Moon collision incident, Xiao Wu suffered too much damage. Now, he finally had a chance to catch his breath.

Xiao Wu reinforced the ship's hull, repaired damaged equipment and wiring, redesigned the solar panels, and thickened the insulation layer, ultimately elevating his small spacecraft from refugee status to civilian class. Currently, although the spacecraft has not returned to its perfect condition, its functions have been restored to about 80-90%.

Xiao Wu stayed there for more than two months. After completing all the preparations, Xiao Wu calculated the best trajectory to fly to Titan, and then left, heading towards the Sun.

After more than half a month of long and boring flight, an unusually bright planet entered Xiao Wu's sight.

It was Venus, the star of the love god.

Xiao Wu sighed, recalling the good old days on Earth. Venus, for thousands of years, has been praised and lauded by countless literati and scholars.

"It's here, might as well pay a visit. I might as well see what impact Jupiter's collision with the Moon has had on Venus." Xiao Wu decided, without affecting the overall progress, to adjust the trajectory slightly, heading towards Venus.

In the history of human space travel, Venus does not hold a very important position, because the environment on Venus is truly too harsh.

The thick cloud layer gives Venus a high albedo, making it the brightest star observable from Earth. However, this cloud layer also causes an extremely severe greenhouse effect. The average temperature on the surface of Venus reaches over 400 degrees Celsius, the atmospheric pressure is many times higher than that of Earth, acid rain rages, molten rock ravages, and geological activity is extremely active.

Since humanity began space travel, the number of aerospace equipment that has landed on the surface of Venus can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

But the current appearance of Venus surprised Xiao Wu.

The thick cloud layer of Venus has clearly disappeared by more than half, perhaps due to the sweeping winds from Jupiter. This means that the surface temperature of Venus will gradually decrease. Xiao Wu estimates that in tens of thousands of years, the surface temperature of Venus may drop to about 100 degrees Celsius.

Furthermore, it can be predicted that soon, there will be meteorites from Earth colliding with Venus, carrying the seeds of life.

The tenacity of life has been proven. In volcanic areas on the deep seabed, thousands of meters deep, under high temperature and pressure, bacteria can still survive. Certainly, some forms of life will adapt to the Venusian environment. They will proliferate, evolve on Venus, and after countless eons, may even evolve into intelligent beings.

"If Venus evolves intelligent beings, when they look up at the sky, will they develop a desire to explore the universe like humans? And when they discover the relics of civilization in the meteorites from Earth, what will they think?" Xiao Wu thought silently.

"The existence of the Solar System is already a miracle. And life always finds a reason to exist. Venus, good luck."

Xiao Wu passed Venus at a distance of 3000 km, watching its figure gradually disappear into the distance and sighed.

After storing the data about Venus on the hard drive, Xiao Wu looked into the distance, where a giant ball of fire hung in space, eternally radiating endless light and heat. A surge of heroic spirit welled up in his heart.

"Setting off towards the Sun!"