CHAPTER 453: CHAPTER 451 LANDING ON THE GROUND

Whether it’s a small airship or an Airbag Ark, the materials used are all new lightweight materials developed by Chen Xin’s research base.

This brand-new lightweight material, called "Cloud Steel" by Chen Xin, may sound cliché, but it perfectly reflects the characteristics of the material—lightweight and tough.

After Chen Xin’s research base officially began operations, he helped the physics laboratory modify the graphene preparation equipment and improve the production process, greatly increasing the production speed of graphene while reducing costs significantly. This allowed the lightweight material he needed to be successfully developed.

Afterward, production lines were naturally established for mass production, enabling the whole process from design to service of the Airbag Ark to be completed within just four months.

Besides being used for the manufacturing of Airbag Ark and small airships, this lightweight material has also started to be used in the aviation manufacturing field. Once the Taunting Wind Fighter was finalized, some parts of the aircraft were made using this material to reduce the plane’s weight.

Other aircraft have also started adopting components made from Cloud Steel. Although the scale of application is not large, it marks a beginning.

In the past half year, aside from tasks like genetic modification of the wolf species, lightweight material development, Airbag Ark manufacturing, and Taunting Wind Fighter improvement, Chen Xin’s research base has also achieved fruitful results in the ecological field.

Based on the achievements of Chen Xin’s research base, the country has reestablished a large number of greenhouse cultivation bases in the Lianghu region, and the first batch of grains and vegetables has already been produced.

The main crops among these grains and vegetables include rice, soybeans, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. After being processed artificially, they are made into synthetic food blocks, somewhat similar to compressed biscuits but more nutritious and more filling.

A small block of approximately 250g is enough to meet the nutritional needs of an adult for an entire day. Since the food block is compressed, drinking plenty of water afterward can provide a feeling of fullness, preventing hunger for a long time.

With seasoning by Chen Xin, who’s a mid-level chef, the texture and taste of this thing are actually quite good. It is considered a decent type of food that not only humans can eat but animals as well.

It’s precisely because of this technology that Chen Xin and his team can afford to feed the large genetically modified wolfdogs. Otherwise, these large animals have an astonishing food intake, and even if they could eat a vegetarian diet, they wouldn’t be easy to afford to raise.

This time, the Ark has delved into the disaster zone for relief efforts, and among the supplies it carries is a large amount of this synthetic food ration to distribute food to disaster victims immediately.

In addition to that, the Ark carries emergency disaster relief tents, heating equipment, medical supplies, and other essential items urgently needed by the disaster area.

According to Chen Xin’s original concept, the Airbag Ark was intended to be designed as an airborne shelter, fully equipped to settle the disaster victims after rescuing them from the disaster area and then fly them to a secure place before unloading them.

However, considering the practical situation and the Ark’s carrying capacity, Chen Xin abandoned the idea of an airborne shelter and instead designed the Airbag Ark as a transport ship.

It’s not that an airborne shelter doesn’t work, but it’s unnecessary.

Take this Southwest disaster relief as an example. The Airbag Ark’s flight speed is 240km/h, which isn’t exactly slow. However, the Ark’s takeoff and landing are cumbersome, and the transfer efficiency of small airships is relatively low.

Although the Ark can carry 1,200 people at once, with a maximum capacity of 1,500, transporting people from the disaster area to the safe zone for resettlement takes about a day for a round trip.

Even if it’s nearby resettlement, at the Ark’s speed, the eight Arks participating in the disaster relief can only rescue tens of thousands of people in a day.

If only one city were affected, doing so would be attainable. But this time, the entire Southwest Region is affected!

Though most areas are not severely affected and don’t require resettlement or transfer, the core area of the disaster zone still has at least tens of thousands of people needing rescue.

So relying on the Ark for transferring affected populations emphasizes efficiency and speed. Most people may only stay on the ship for a few hours, so there’s indeed no need to design the Ark as a long-term living shelter. It’s better to free up space to accommodate more people.

Thus, the current Airbag Ark indeed deviates from Chen Xin’s original concept, turning into a large transport ship rather than an airborne shelter.

But in doing so, more transport capacity is saved, allowing for more materials or disaster victims to be carried.

As for the small airships, they’re just shuttle boats between the ground and the Ark.

They can moor on the Ark, powered by two electric propeller engines, and are powered by an Isotope Thermoelectric Battery, capable of carrying thirty people or about 2 tons of supplies.

Now all four airships on the Chenlong are loading supplies and rescue personnel, though the one with Chen Xin and his team also has five search and rescue dogs.

After spending some time descending to the ground, two crew members of the airship first landed on the ground via a dropped rope, secured the airship’s anchoring hooks and mooring ropes thrown down, and could then pull the airship little by little to the ground.

After all, this thing relies on airbags for lift, unlike hot air balloons that can entirely rely on themselves to descend to the ground; it still needs some assistance during landing.

Once the bottom of the airship touched the ground, Chen Xin and the others got off the airship.

The rescue personnel swiftly unloaded the supplies from the airship, while the search and rescue dogs were led down to start preparing for search and rescue operations.

Meanwhile, the airship itself had to return to the Ark to continue transporting supplies down.

Chen Xin didn’t care that the airship, after unloading its supplies, took off again behind him. The sight of a crevice over ten meters wide before him had already deeply shocked him.

While in the sky just now, he had noticed the cracks in the ground. But it wasn’t until he landed that he could clearly see the original snow, over ten meters deep, had entirely cracked open due to earthquake damage, forming a giant crevice that revealed the ground beneath.

In the city, some originally buried buildings had their surface snow shaken loose due to the earthquake, revealing them again but also collapsing due to the quake.

The entire city still echoed with sounds of houses collapsing or snow falling, and even the crevice in front of Chen Xin and his team had ice and snow debris occasionally falling to the crevice’s bottom, making a huge noise.

"Academician, please stay in a safe place; the ground here is quite unstable. Please, be careful!" A staff member beside Chen Xin pulled him back a bit, preventing him from getting too close to the crevice.

Chen Xin finally came to his senses and told the staff member, "I understand. I’ll be careful. Let’s focus on the rescue efforts first!"