The Biosphere

The term biosphere is no stranger to the scientists present here.

The earth is a huge biosphere, ranging from 10,000 meters above sea level to 11,000 meters deep in the ocean, all of which belong to the category of biosphere. The earth's biosphere is mainly composed of three parts: living matter, biogenetic matter and biologically inert matter. Among them, living matter can be divided into three categories, namely producers, consumers and decomposers.

Producers, that is, green plants , convert carbon dioxide into organic matter through photosynthesis and release oxygen, while producers and consumers breathe in oxygen to convert organic matter into carbon dioxide. This is the carbon cycle.

The earth's biosphere has a large volume, high biodiversity, complex nutritional structure, and strong self-regulation ability, so the concentration of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the earth's atmosphere has always maintained a balanced state.

It sounds very simple, just keep the amount of carbon and oxygen in balance. But in the complex and huge system connection, every ray of breeze may be indispensable to life. Human beings have done many experiments with artificial ecological circles as the object, but without exception, all of them ended in failure!

In the 1990s, the United States once built an artificial closed ecosystem called "Biosphere 2", in which eight researchers conducted experiments for 21 months.

They conduct ecological and environmental research in a closed state, help humans understand how the earth works, and study conditions that simulate the earth's ecological environment.

However, after 21 months, the experiment failed because the atmospheric composition ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in Biosphere 2 could not reach equilibrium on its own, most animals and plants could not grow or reproduce normally, and their extinction rate was faster than expected . However, cockroaches and ants are full of offspring. What's worse, its oxygen content has dropped from 21% to 14%. If humans live in it, it may cause life-threatening.

Scientists thought they had found the reason for the failure. Then, Biosphere 2 ushered in the second batch of residents, but after only half a month, the experiment failed again because of excessive accumulation of laughing gas.

Since then, people have known that the earth is still the only home of mankind.

The existence of the moon base depends on the continuous supply of the earth, and it cannot survive alone.

" Now , we must build a real ecosystem!" Dr. Roman shouted, "maybe it can be simpler, just reach carbon balance."

He frowned. With the existing technology of human beings, can a completely balanced biosphere really be established? Moreover, once this experiment starts, it must succeed, and if it fails, the entire race will perish.

"No, no, Roman, you think too much, it's too complicated!" A female scientist stood up and said loudly, "We don't have that much time to think about this right now."

"As for the carbon dioxide issue you mentioned, we can use the methane and carbonate on the moon to produce carbon dioxide. The top priority is to solve this food crisis, not anything else!"

"Oxygen and water, don't think about it for now. We still have stocks."

A group of scientists quarreled like this, and they began to calculate the feasibility of various schemes, wanting to get the best result.

While listening, Jack sorted out relevant thoughts. Slowly, his heart began to heat up, hope, there is still hope!

After all, it is 50,000 people carefully selected from the earth. Among them are the best scientists, the most skilled technicians, and the most experienced engineers... The productivity of the moon base seems to be comparable to that of a small country.

The mineral resources here are also much richer than imagined. The location of the moon base was chosen here not only because there are alien spacecraft here, but more importantly, there are nearly 220 million tons of ice deep in the ground!

Don't think that there is no water on the moon, they are just hidden deep in the crust in the form of ice. 220 million tons of ice is not much compared to the water resources on the earth, but it can already be regarded as a rich treasure.

Human survival is inseparable from water, but water cannot be compressed, and transportation is very troublesome. It is almost impossible to transport a number as large as hundreds of millions of tons from the earth. You must know that the carrying capacity of the Victory is only 500 tons! Therefore, these ice mines have become the best resources.

Due to the ice mines underground, there is no shortage of water resources for the time being. Although nearly half of the ice has been mined these years, there is still at least 100 million tons of storage! Use sparingly, enough for human beings to use for decades. Even if it is used up, humans can still use the mineral rocks underground to decompose crystal water, but it is more troublesome.

As for oxygen, some of it is transported by the earth, and some of it is obtained by photosynthesis of plants, but most of the oxygen is obtained by electrolysis of minerals. For example, oxygen can be obtained by electrolysis of metal oxides or electrolysis of water.

The amount of oxygen needed by the entire base is about 15,000 tons a year, which is not a high figure. It only needs to electrolyze 17,000 tons of water. So the oxygen problem is also solved.

As for carbon dioxide, it can be decomposed into carbonates, or it can be obtained by burning methane. There is abundant solid methane in the polar regions of the moon, and it is found near the base. However, the carbonates near the surface are very scarce, so they can only be excavated deep underground. The amount of work is huge. If methane is burned, some new problems combustion of methane requires an oxidant, which is oxygen!

However, producing oxygen requires a lot of energy, so it is necessary to increase energy output... Solar energy alone is not enough. The easiest way is to increase the development of uranium resources and build nuclear power plants!

In the end, the stall got bigger and bigger, and more and more aspects were involved. It felt that everything was not enough, and everything needed to be rebuilt. Jack was already a little confused.

After all, he is not an orthodox scientist. He just wrote down some numbers and considered whether it is feasible. As for other details, they can only be considered by these scientists.

"You guys are overdrafting the future!" Roman roared, putting his hands behind his head and rubbing his hair deeply. Food production is the main consideration now, while the idea of ​​building an ecosystem has been shelved for the time being.

"Our water resources are also limited..." He wanted to say something, but was stopped by someone, his adopted daughter Yuriko.

Yuriko said softly, "Father, we always have to overcome the difficulties in front of us before we can think about further things, don't we?"

"Yeah, alas...you are right, a complete ecosystem cannot be completed overnight." Roman said with a wry smile.

At this time, Jack suddenly had a flash of inspiration and thought of an odd second idea. He jumped up from his seat and said, "Everyone, everyone! Listen to me, why don't we move to an alien spaceship?"

"In the past, the alien spacecraft was not vigorously developed because the government wanted to keep the secret of the spacecraft and Perfection. Now, this secret is known to everyone, why should it be abandoned?"

"Whether it is security or other considerations, it is a very good choice!"

Everyone suddenly fell silent, whispering to each other, discussing the feasibility of this plan in low voices.

"I agree!" A male voice came from behind, it was the chief physicist Felix, "If everyone moves into the alien spaceship, we can plant all the vacant places on the surface as plants, which will save money. lot of time!"