Chapter 8: Mining Attempt

Chen Ming's consciousness can control the operation of the spacecraft.

Naturally, it can also control the equipment inside the spacecraft.

Under the control of Chen Ming's consciousness, the asteroid scanning detector quickly located all the asteroids containing minerals on its own device screen.

Although the number is not large, it is enough for Chen Ming to familiarize himself with the spacecraft equipment.

Under normal circumstances, this part of the spacecraft system will plan its own route to collect minerals according to the material priority set in advance and the different mineral content inside the asteroid.

However, Chen Ming is just doing experiments now, so he manually locked an asteroid half the size of a person.

The scan found that it contained a large amount of iron and some scattered associated minerals.

Among them are materials for repairing the landing module.

Chen Ming controlled the spacecraft to approach the asteroid and turned on the asteroid traction device.

After locking the target in advance, the asteroid was quickly towed and fixed in the direction of the spacecraft's working cabin.

The type II mining laser started working, and the orange-yellow laser shot out from the side of the cabin quickly shattered it.

The traction equipment accurately collected the high-quality ore that was crushed and flew out through the pipes connecting the inside and outside of the spacecraft and sent it to the ship's smelting furnace.

Before the working cabin became hot due to smelting, Chen Ming had the foresight to change into a partially charged protective suit.

Staying in the working cabin, watching the ship's smelting furnace gradually separate metal materials with different melting points and cast them into ingots.

Until the smelting was over, the slag and waste were discharged from the interior of the spacecraft.

Chen Ming came forward and counted the harvest of this mining work at the first time.

36.5 kg of iron, 2 kg of zinc, 1.63 kg of copper, 0.9 kg of lead and 0.3 kg of aluminum.

The amount of aluminum that Chen Ming hoped to have the most was very small.

However, the furnace spit out about half a gram of gold for Chen Ming at the end, which was considered a compensation.

Even if we don't consider the value of gold itself, its properties alone determine that it is indispensable in many electronic devices, which means that it is one of the materials Chen Ming needs to repair the spacecraft in the future.

Although there are not many desirable and high-value gains, this is just an asteroid that Chen Ming found casually and liked.

Any asteroid has such a rich variety of minerals, no wonder the company has to spend so much effort to build a space station in such a ghost place.

Just like this, the problem behind the company's abandonment of the space station is even bigger.

Chen Ming did not dwell on this problem that he would definitely not be able to think of by just thinking.

Instead, he piled the smelting results on a cart and put it in the storage cabin.

By the way, he planned to count the warehouse and figure out how much he had now.

However, Chen Ming suddenly had an idea before starting and opened the panel of the storage cabin.

[Storage Chamber]

[Space: 5*5*5]

[Storage Room Items: Metal Minerals (Iron, Zinc, Copper, etc.) Total 135.15 kg, Fuel (Fusion Fuel) Total 492 kg]

[Refrigerator Room Items: Food (Packaged Survival Food) Total 102.5 kg, Miscellaneous (Thorn Zerg Broadstrider Corpses, Thorn Zerg Broadstrider Egg Corpses) Total 72.6 kg,]

"Uh..."

As expected by Chen Ming, everything in the warehouse was written on the panel in great detail.

But Chen Ming looked at the two miscellaneous items in the refrigerator room and suddenly didn't know what to say. He didn't expect that this was also counted as one of the items on his spacecraft.

After thinking about it, Chen Ming decided to ignore them for now. They might be useful in the future.

Chen Ming continued to look at other places on the panel.

For example, the large categories of metal minerals and food in the storage area can be clicked to view the different materials contained in each category in more detail.

It allows Chen Ming to clearly know what is in the storage cabin.

Chen Ming looked through it carefully, and after having a clear understanding of the material situation of his spaceship, he turned off the panel.

After all, this kind of thing is rare, and it always makes people feel sad to see an empty warehouse.

It may be that the crew of the Iron Ore sold the things they mined directly to the space station, that is, the company, and exchanged them for universal currency to facilitate the next mining activity quickly.

Only a small part of the materials that may be used to repair the spacecraft was left.

Chen Ming couldn't go to the trouble of the former crew members who might have died in a corner of the space station for thirty years.

At least they left some materials for Chen Ming to repair weapons.

And with this mining spaceship, it is not difficult for Chen Ming to start digging from scratch.

Three months may not be enough to go to the pirate space station, but it is more than enough for Chen Ming to mine in space and repair the spaceship and land on the planet.

After completing the mining process thoroughly, Chen Ming returned to the work cabin again.

The first mining test took less than an hour, and the ten hours before the planet rotates once cannot be wasted.

The mining work of the spacecraft can be fully automated. You only need to set the type of minerals you need in the program, and the spacecraft can automatically navigate, capture, collect, and smelt.

Everything is fine except that the smelted minerals cannot be automatically sent to the storage compartment.

Although there are not many asteroids with minerals near the space station, it is not possible for the Iron Ore to collect them all in one day.

When Chen Ming is resting, he does not need to worry about the spacecraft flying too far away and not finding the space station.

The real disadvantage of this system is that the overall fuel consumption of the spacecraft will be higher during mining.

But Chen Ming can afford these necessary consumption.

After setting the priority of aluminum, gold and other metal materials that are urgently needed to repair the spacecraft on the asteroid scanning detector as the highest.

Chen Ming thought about what else he needed to do urgently.

He just wanted to get familiar with the overall spacecraft.

The spacecraft has a total of six cabins, the captain's cabin, the engine cabin, the work cabin, the planting cabin, the living cabin and the storage cabin.

I had already seen the engine cabin when I put the fuel before, and there was nothing special to pay attention to.

Except for a layer of dust in the living cabin, it was actually very clean as a whole, and it could be lived in after a little cleaning.

After all, few people want to sleep on the spacecraft after returning to the mining space station after working in space for a long time.

So at the end of a mining operation, the former crew packed up the living cabin, left a new set of daily necessities for the next trip, and chose to find a place to live in the space station.

Then they never came back.

The things left behind were cheap for Chen Ming.

At this time, Chen Ming didn't care whether these daily necessities would expire in thirty years. After all, there was nothing in the entire space station that would not expire in thirty years, as long as they could be used.

At this point, Chen Ming basically had a complete understanding of the spacecraft.

But it was less than four hours since Chen Ming woke up from the freezer.

Although he was a little tired mentally because he had just repaired two machine guns, Chen Ming was not sleepy at all.

After thinking about it, Chen Ming now has two choices.

One is to use the existing materials on the spacecraft to repair part of the spacecraft's external armor.

The spacecraft's armor is aluminum-steel composite armor. Although the name is aluminum first, steel still accounts for the majority.

Compared with the steel material needed to repair the armor, the aluminum consumed now will not affect the subsequent repair of the landing module.

Another option is that Chen Ming can take a look at what is in the two personal terminals on hand.