Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 983: Survival Issues
"Luckily I was wearing a helmet and a neck guard..." Ke Lan touched his head. With his current physical strength, even if he didn't have a concussion, his cervical spine would probably suffer some pain after such a collision.
In this memory world, fatal injuries are not scary. Instead, injuries that will make Ke Lan truly feel the pain that the fool has endured but will not kill him are more "lethal".
Compared to physical pain, mental torture is even worse.
"Are you not hurt?" Lu Dan also came over and pulled Ke Lan up.
"No." Then, with the faint light of the emergency light above his head, Ke Lan glanced at the thin wire in the team doctor's hand and muttered, "I didn't expect you to have such a skill."
"Just some little tricks to make a living, not worth mentioning." The team doctor put away the wire, turned and walked to the screen, trying to restart the shuttle's control system, but she tried several times, but the machine still did not respond.
"I tried it, but it didn't work. Maybe there was a problem with the power supply system during landing... Now the only place with electricity in the entire shuttle should be the hibernation cabin. It uses independent power supply equipment and is also equipped with emergency batteries." said Lu Dan.
"We've detected the shuttle landing, and the others should have been awakened." The bespectacled loli added, "Let's wait until everyone is gathered before we go out."
Not long after, a group of advance team members who were also wearing protective clothing walked into the control room. There were a total of twenty-five people who had set out from the Ark on this shuttle. During the nineteen-year journey, eight people died due to various reasons such as illness and operational accidents. Including the five of Ke Lan, there were still seventeen surviving advance team members left.
Through brief communication, those who had just awakened quickly understood the situation. After failing to repair the shuttle, everyone immediately made a decision - to divide the personnel into two groups, one group to explore the situation around the landing point and collect some usable resources; the other group would stay where they were, disassemble the shuttle, gather all useful materials, and build a temporary camp on the spot.
Although this was the first time that humans set foot on Alpha, drones had already collected - the temperature difference between day and night on Alpha was extremely large. If the camp could not be built in time, the low temperatures of dozens of degrees below zero in the wilderness at night would be absolutely fatal to humans.
The protective clothing worn by the team members can indeed regulate temperature, isolate radiation and other toxic and harmful substances, but the problem is that protective clothing consumes electricity. Once the power is exhausted, the protective clothing is a complete burden - without a powered exoskeleton, it is simply a fantasy to rely on the wearer's own strength to drive this clothing weighing hundreds of kilograms.
Before setting off, the experts on the Ark had decided on three energy replenishment plans: one was solar power generation, one was geothermal power generation, and the last was kinetic power generation. But under the current circumstances, the first two plans were basically useless: the entire Alpha star was covered by thick radiation clouds, and the sunlight that could penetrate the clouds and reach the ground was very thin. The efficiency of solar power generation was probably only 10% to 20% of what was expected, and it was simply unable to meet the daily needs of the advance team.
As for geothermal power generation, unless the landing site is in a crater or some place with frequent geological activities, if you want to use geothermal energy, the advance team must first dig a geothermal well of unknown depth on the ground... and areas like craters or other areas that can obtain shallow geothermal energy cannot guarantee safety, so it is not a suitable location for camping.
The most reliable, but also the most unstable, is the third option: kinetic power generation.
There are many types of kinetic energy power generation. Wind and water power are one type, and human power is another type. There are no rivers near the landing site, and no available water power. The human energy conversion ratio is too low, so it is not considered. The only thing left is wind power generation. Fortunately, the temperature difference between day and night in the open wilderness is large, and the flow of cold and hot air is frequent, so the feasibility of wind power generation is still very large.
"We brought six sets of kinetic energy generators, but we only have two sets of foldable windmills because they are too big." Lu Dan, a mechanic, said to everyone, "But the shell of the shuttle can be made into a simple windmill. We also have equipment such as laser cutting machines, so the processing difficulty will not be too great. The electricity provided by six windmills should be enough for the daily consumption of the camp."
"But the biggest problem is food." A square-faced man said, "After 19 years, there is very little food left on the shuttle. Now that everyone is awake, the remaining food can only last for two months at most... And this is without considering that exploration will greatly increase the body's calorie demand... If we make a pessimistic estimate, the remaining food may only be enough for one month."
This square-faced man was the captain of another rotating team. The original commander of the advance team died of a hidden illness in the sixth year of the journey. Based on the advice of the Ark, the remaining four rotating captains formed a command team to jointly manage the advance team.
"We are already on Alpha, so of course we have to rely on this planet to solve the problem of food. There is an old Chinese saying, 'live by the mountain, eat from the mountain; live by the water, eat from the water'... If this planet can't even support the seventeen of us, how can it meet the Ark's colonial needs?" Lu Dan continued.
"That's easy for you to say." The speaker was a blonde white woman with short hair like a man. She was also one of the four rotating team leaders. "In a month, even if the land here is suitable for farming, it will not be enough time to harvest enough crops to fill our stomachs... Then there is only one way for us to get food, hunting like primitive people... But I'm sure you all know about the indigenous creatures on this planet. They are far more dangerous and aggressive than the beasts on Earth. Moreover, if hunting attracts revenge from the indigenous creatures, how long do you think our temporary camp can hold out under the siege of the beasts?"
"Perhaps we can go find some native crops of Alpha Planet as food." Lu Dan curled his lips, "You are wrong about one thing. In addition to hunting, primitive people also obtained food by gathering."
"If I remember correctly, the place where we landed is the desert area marked as area B17, right? In this area, as far as I can remember, the drone has never found any edible crops." The blonde frowned, "Also, the terrain here is flat, with no strategic locations to rely on. Camps built on flat ground can be spotted from a long distance... My suggestion is that we use this month to find a place with abundant resources that is easy to defend and difficult to attack to set up camp, rather than setting up camp right here."
"We just decided to set up camp here. In our current state, we are simply unable to travel long distances." The square-faced man shook his head and said, "Besides, we are still not sure whether there are any survivors of the Alpha civilization left on this planet. If we mistakenly enter their territory, have you ever thought about what will happen?"
