Chapter 504: Ares Project

While the foundation as well as the four major continents directed their collective attention to the Resident Evil dimension, a new announcement was put up on the Blacklight Biotechnology official site.

The “Ares Project” which Blacklight Biotechnology had been preparing for three years and invested more than fifty billion U.S. dollars into was commencing soon.

The name Ares came from the name of the G.o.d of War in ancient Greek mythology. Ares was one of the twelve Olympian G.o.ds. He represented strength and war.

The “Ares Project” was also known as the “Mars Scientific Colonization Project”. The details of the project was as follows:

To dispatch humans to Mars within two years and establish Mars research outpost, subsequently establis.h.i.+ng human colonies on the surface of Mars within five years.

Why did Blacklight Biotechnology choose Mars?

Apart from the nine planets of the Solar System, there was also a vast collection of other planets. For instance, several planets...o...b..ting around Jupiter and Saturn were far larger than any other planets of the Solar System.

The Kuiper Belt surrounding the solar system was also home to several dwarf planets looming in its darkness.

However, among all these planets, only Mars had an environment closest to Earth.

Due to its proximity to the sun, the temperature of Mercury during the day reached 427°C and as low as -173°C during the night. With such harsh temperature fluctuations, it was completely ruled out as a habitable planet for mankind.

Venus was the planet that was closest to Earth except for the moon, but the environment on Venus was as h.e.l.lish as Mercury. Its atmospheric pressure was at least 90 times stronger than that of Earth and its surface temperature reached up to 470°C. There was no distinctive difference in seasons or representation of a daytime cycle either.

Meanwhile, Jupiter and Saturn were both gaseous planets. The temperature of Jupiter's Galilean moon, Europa, was also far too low to accommodate humans.

Of all the options, only Mars provided the most optimistic living conditions. Although its diameter was only half of the earth and its ma.s.s only 11 percent of the earth, its landma.s.s was equivalent to the total landma.s.s of Earth. Its surface gravity was two and a half times that of the moon and two-fifths of the earth.

The atmospheric density of Mars was only one percent of that of the earth, but it could still achieve the familiar greenhouse effect. The average temperature of Mars was about minus 55°C, but its temperature during daytime in the summer was close to identical to that of the earth.

Of all the challenging options, Mars stood out among the rest of them as the most ideal planet for colonization.

As soon as the announcement was put up, the people who were paying close attention to these developments were the first ones to notice it.

Blacklight Biotechnology was the definitive, most influential technology company of the earth that brought revolutionary changes to the world by ushering in the “Anti-aging Era” and “Bionic Prosthetic Era”. Therefore, it had ama.s.sed a cult following of hundreds of millions of followers. This was the new generation equivalent of “Apple fans”.

This was not any kind of feverish wors.h.i.+p that was going to be short-lived. Blacklight Biotechnology had cemented its reputation with one technological innovation after another.

From a generation-defining advent like the age-reversal treatment that cured the curse of old age to the Blacklight vaccine that saved billions of people in the world. After that came hundreds of cancer-targeted drugs, then the cure to Alzheimer's disease... Blacklight Biotechnology had completely taken over the biomedicine sector in the Earth Federation!

This was why plenty of scientists regularly hung around the official website of Blacklight Biotechnology. This was the communication and discussion hub for thousands of scientists and researchers. Blacklight Biotechnology also made sure to invest its resources to manage the forum in an organized manner so that the scientists had an ideal spot for their discussions. The forum of Blacklight Biotechnology had at this point become a sacred hub of scientific knowledge exchange for scientists from all over the world.

There were six sections on the homepage of Blacklight Biotechnology's official website, namely:

Bio-pharmaceutical, bionic medical, service and security, electronic technology, mineral resources, and military and aeros.p.a.ce. The six major sectors were represented by six colors which were respectively green, white, gray, yellow, black, and blue. Everything was recognizable at one glance.

At this time, there was a large flas.h.i.+ng exclamation mark icon on the military and aeros.p.a.ce sectors.

The giant exclamation mark drew the attention of countless people around the world and they immediately selected it.

A five-minute-video immediately popped up. The t.i.tle of the video jumped at the screen in the form of an enlarged, bolded text:

Ares Project – Mars Scientific Colonization Expedition Officially Commences!

The first thing that appeared on screen when the video was played was a futuristic s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p with two gigantic dual-jet engines installed on both sides of its hull. The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p sparkled and glowed with silvery rays. It seemed like a magnificent work of art framed on the display.

It was the designated s.p.a.cecraft of the Ares Project. The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that would send humans to Mars, it was the Ares.

The picture of Ares only appeared for several frames before it was cut out. The video continued with the slow, somber tone of a man speaking.

“Human beings have existed for millions of years since their first appearance on Earth. We have dreamt of great visions for millenniums.

“In ancient times, when humans gazed upon starry sky, they always imagined what the stars and moons were made of. Were they astral embodiments? Were there other lands out there? What kind of tales were there in the places above...

“We conjured stories and fables such as the story of The G.o.ddess Chang's flight to the moon and The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. We've written myths and stories of s.p.a.ce travel...”

A profound montage of different folklores and mythologies started to play on-screen following the tempo of the narrator's narration...

“Mankind first embarked on their venture into the stars in the sixteenth century. It first started with simple observations using inventions such as telescopes. It was not until the 1960s that humans landed on the moon for the first time...”

Suddenly, a man dressed in a medieval robe appeared on the display. Under the moonlight, he polished the lens of a telescope using his robe and suddenly paused mid-motion. He then slowly raised his head and pointed the telescope at the moon outside the window. He had an expression that seemed like he was mesmerized by what he saw through the lens...

A deep and heavy accordion sound played through the speakers after that. It was a somber, grave tune that represented a significant starting point in history.

“Every time mankind takes another step forward in s.p.a.ce discovery, it's marked as another significant milestone in the history of s.p.a.ce travel...”

The video flashed and showed the scene of the first human rocket launch, then the first landing on the moon. The black and white pictures intertwined into one another and despite the poor resolution of these pictures due to the era in which they were produced, it was clear that history was being made at these points in time.

“But there has never been such a day as now when mankind has come this close to other extraterrestrial planets...”

The narrator suddenly altered his tone. The background tunes of the grand piano suddenly picked up momentum as well. Like a pebble dropped into a still pool, the ripples were starting to form and spread across.

The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that appeared during the first segment of the video appeared on screen again. It was coated in a paint of bright silver and a string of texts detailing its statistics appeared on the screen.

“Ares. Length: 52.3 meters. Width: 21.1 meters. Height 15.5 meters. Weight: 780 tons. Fitted with four engines and powered by two nuclear engines.

“The s.p.a.cecraft is divided into three floors including the bridge, medical bay, laboratory, and six living rooms. It can carry 16 pa.s.sengers.

“The s.p.a.cecraft can also carry about 200 tons of cargo and about 20 tons of fuel...”

The video started to show a clip of the Ares taking off. Columns of radiant blue lights burst out of the large reactor engines mounted along both sides of the s.p.a.cecraft.

Propelled by this tremendous force, the s.p.a.cecraft started to rise and accelerate gradually...

This clip was a digital render but it was extremely realistic to a point where one would easily confuse it with the real thing unless they were informed beforehand.

“We're entering a new era. Where you and I stand now is the footnote of one era. This moment that we're witnessing is the new exclamation point that will usher the new era. From today, mankind will officially enter the era of cosmic immigration...”

The trombone blared aggressively, mixed with the rowdy cheer of an excited crowd, the volume of the male narrator was slowly rising as well!

“From today, the status of mankind will officially leap from being what was once 'native planet dwellers' to 'interstellar travelers'!

“From today onward, the earth that we call home will no longer only be home, but be known as the origin of human civilization!

“From today on, we'll enter a new chapter of the book of mankind. Join us as Blacklight Biotechnology brings all of us into the new age and rewrites history as we know it!”

The background music picked up in momentum and volume, bringing the video to an exclamation point as it approached the end. After that, the music slowly died down and soon faded out.

In the end, the only music that lingered was a low, dragged-out hum that seemed to drain away all other sounds in the world.

The end of the video was marked with a giant black sentence stamped on top of a white display – registration for being a colonist of Project Ares begins on 1 July 2028!

Within an hour of the release of this video, the traffic of Blacklight Biotechnology's site skyrocketed from around a hundred thousand to tens of millions of times per hour. Even the website's server crashed momentarily due to the sheer amount of traffic that overloaded it!

The same video was also reposted across tons of major websites and media outlets, immediately spreading the news to the world.

[The new age of mankind? Blacklight Biotechnology has launched an extraterrestrial colonization program. Earth will no longer be the only home for mankind] – The Wall Street Journal.

[The only company in the Earth Federation that has what it takes to legitimize s.p.a.ce colonization. Blacklight Biotechnology has sped out the development of technology by another fifty years] – BBC News.

[Movie or real life? Blacklight Biotechnology's “Ares Project” draws comparison to popular cult cla.s.sics like “Alien” and “Prometheus Project”. How far away are humans to s.p.a.ce colonization? ]- Tencent News.

[Will Blacklight Biotechnology become the single most influential body in the history of mankind?] – Sina Express.

[s.p.a.ce travel, to infinity and beyond! We've waited decades for this, Buzz Lightyear's claims are no longer a pipedream!] – YouTube News.

The people were once again in a frenzy!

As early as two years ago, Blacklight Biotechnology had developed rocket technology and successfully sent a manned s.p.a.cecraft to the moon. This also marked them as the third faction to send humans to the moon over the last century, trailing after Northern America and the North Sea Continent. Blacklight was the first private enterprise to send humans to the moon.

As a token of respect and support, the Earth Federation pa.s.sed the application of Blacklight Biotechnology and allowed Blacklight to become the first company in the world to have s.p.a.ce colonization qualifications.

However, Chen Chen was not content only with this. Over the next two years, Blacklight Biotechnology regularly flew rockets into s.p.a.ce and to the moon where they would establish the first interplanetary research station on the moon for their crew of scientists. It was also open to scientists from all continents in the world to allow for further s.p.a.ce research conducted outside of Earth.

By this point, there were nearly fifty researchers stationed on the moon all year round. Blacklight Biotechnology had designated s.p.a.cecraft with charted routes to the interplanetary research station to transport supplies for the researchers bi-annually.

The reason why Blacklight Biotechnology could regularly transport between s.p.a.ce and the earth was not merely due to their significant budget nor was it due to borrowed technology from s.p.a.ceX. It was due to the development of their “inertial confinement fusion reactor” technology.

It was a nuclear reactor that could convert fuel into energy only with the use of lasers. After the reactor was miniaturized, it was rendered into an engine with nuclear power thrust.

At one point, Chen Chen used the inertial confinement fusion reactor to charge the USB drive. However, the power generation of this was inferior to the later developed super tokamak reactor.

However, due to the incredibly intricate design process of the super tokamak reactor, Chen Chen decided to let out this technology to the four major continents. With the collaborative efforts of Blacklight Biotechnology and the major continents, they were able to achieve a breakthrough in this stem of technology and successfully put it into commercialized use.

Meanwhile, the inertial confinement fusion reactor remained the optimal choice for replacing thrust engines for s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. It allowed for s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps to travel to other planets that were once considered unreachable at an extremely efficient fuel usage.

Just as Chen Chen had once declared – the day the inertial confinement fusion reactor was fully developed was the day that mankind's interstellar travel could commence properly.

Since the day Chen Chen made that declaration, Blacklight Biotechnology had secretly invested insurmountable amounts of time, effort, and research force into developing the inertial confinement fusion reactor. In the end, the engines for the Ares s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p finally came to fruition.

The inertial confinement fusion engine was essentially a reduced version of the inertial confinement fusion reactor. Superconducting material was used to design a spherical sh.e.l.l where another tiny sphere formed with a mixture of deuterium and tritium was injected into the reaction chamber 2 million joules were ignited with a concentration of 192 electron beams onto a deuterium-tritium pellet with a measured diameter of less than few tenths of a millimeter. Each laser was activated at a regular interval of an average of three-billionths of a second. This triggered extreme high temperature and pressure that subsequently triggered a significant nuclear fusion reaction. This process generated enough thrust for the s.p.a.cecraft to operate.

Based on data obtained from the experiment of the Ares s.p.a.cecraft engine, the velocity generated could reach up to 7 percent the speed of light in vacuum conditions. With a total weight load of 500 tons, it could reach a maximum speed of 38.6 million meters per second, which was close to matt speed.

The engine would detonate what was two hundred and fifty 0.001 gram nuclear per second and maintain this continuously...

Since such innovation was too abrupt, Blacklight Biotechnology held off on disclosing the existence of the inertial confinement fusion engine to the outside world. He only claimed that the Ares used nuclear engine technology and was preparing to lead mankind's first landing on Mars to establish a scientific research station. This led to a hurricane of public reception.

Blacklight Biotechnology continued to remain a silent stance when countless people on the Internet raised questions regarding this mentioned “nuclear engine technology”.

If Blacklight Biotechnology chose to maintain its silent disposition, not a single person in the world could force them to reveal their secrets...