Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Attempt at Mining

Chen Ming’s consciousness can control the spaceship’s operation.

Naturally, he can also control the equipment inside the spaceship.

Under Chen Ming’s mental command, the asteroid scanning probe quickly located all mineral-containing asteroids on its equipment screen.

Although the quantity is not substantial, it’s enough for Chen Ming to become familiar with the spaceship equipment.

Under normal circumstances, this part of the spaceship’s system will plan routes to collect minerals based on preset material priorities and different mineral contents in asteroids.

However, Chen Ming is just experimenting for now, so he manually locked onto an asteroid about half the height of a human.

Scanning reveals that its interior contains a large amount of iron and some scattered ancillary minerals.

Among them are materials used to repair the landing module.

Chen Ming controls the spaceship to approach the asteroid and activates the asteroid traction device.

Having pre-locked the target, he soon towed and secured the asteroid to the spacecraft’s work cabin-facing direction.

Type II mining laser begins its work, with orange-yellow laser beams from the cabin side rapidly shattering it.

The traction device accurately collects the high-quality minerals scattered flying out through pipes connecting the spaceship’s interior and exterior, feeding them into the ship’s smelting furnace.

Before the work cabin heats up due to smelting, Chen Ming wisely put on a partially charged protective suit.

He stayed in the work cabin, watching the ship’s smelting furnace gradually separate metals with different melting points, casting them into ingots.

Until the smelting ended, slag and waste discharge from the spaceship’s interior.

Chen Ming immediately approached to tally the haul from this mining operation.

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

The quantity of aluminum, which Chen Ming hoped for most, was extremely low.

However, the furnace at the end spat out about half a gram of gold, making up for it in a way.

No matter its intrinsic value, gold’s properties make it indispensable in many electronic devices, meaning it’s among the materials Chen Ming needs for future spaceship maintenance.

Though the most desired and high-value yields were lacking, this was just an asteroid Chen Ming picked randomly that looked pleasing to the eye.

Even a random asteroid contains such a rich variety of minerals, it’s no wonder the company went through such efforts to build a Space Station in this remote place.

Yet, seeing the company abandon the Space Station like this adds to the mystery behind it.

Chen Ming did not dwell on issues unlikely to be solved just by thinking alone.

Instead, he piled the smelting results onto a small cart and moved them to the storage cabin.

He also planned to check the warehouse to understand what exactly he owns now.

But before he started, Chen Ming suddenly had an idea and opened the storage cabin’s panel.

[Storage Cabin]

[Space: 5*5*5]

[Warehouse items: Metal minerals (iron, zinc, copper, etc.) totaling 135.15 kilograms, fuel (fusion fuel) totaling 492 kilograms]

[Refrigeration items: Food (packaged survival food) totaling 102.5 kilograms, miscellaneous items (Insect Race Thorn Insect corpse, Insect Race Thorn Insect egg corpse) totaling 72.6 kilograms.]

”Uh...”

Though not surprising to Chen Ming, everything in the warehouse was written very detailed on the panel.

But looking at those two miscellaneous items among the refrigeration items, Chen Ming suddenly didn’t know what to say, not expecting these to be counted as objects on his spaceship.

After thinking it over, Chen Ming still decided to ignore them for now, as they might be useful in the future.

Chen Ming continued to look at other parts of the panel.

Items like metal minerals and food categories in the warehouse can be clicked open to see even more detailed information on the variety of goods within each category.

Allowing Chen Ming to clearly know what’s in the storage cabin.

After thoroughly reviewing it, Chen Ming gained a clear understanding of his spaceship’s inventory and shut the panel down.

Considering that the scarce variety and the empty-looking warehouse always bring a bit of heartache.

Perhaps the crew of Iron Ore No. once sold the mined goods directly to the Space Station or the company for universal currency, facilitating rapid conduct of the next mining operation.

Leaving only a small portion of materials that might be needed for spaceship maintenance.

This time, Chen Ming couldn’t go find fault with the previous crew who might have died in some corner of the Space Station thirty years ago.

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

Moreover, with this mining spaceship, starting fresh is not difficult for Chen Ming.

Three months’ time might not be enough to reach the Pirate Space Station, but it’s more than sufficient for Chen Ming to mine minerals in space and repair the spaceship to land on the planet.

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

The first mining experiment took less than an hour, and with more than a dozen hours left until the planet completes one rotation, they can’t be wasted.

The spaceship’s mining operations can be fully automated; he only needs to set the program for the desired types of minerals, and the spaceship can handle automated navigation, capture, collection, and smelting.

Everything is seamless except it can’t automatically send the smelted minerals into the storage cabin.

Though mineral asteroids near the Space Station aren’t numerous, Iron Ore No. won’t be able to mine them all in one day.

Chen Ming doesn’t need to worry about his spaceship flying too far out and losing track of the Space Station while resting.

The real flaw of this system is that during mining operations, the overall fuel consumption of the spaceship is slightly higher.

Yet these necessary consumptions are within Chen Ming’s endurance.

Chen Ming set the priority for aluminum, gold, and other urgently needed metal materials for spaceship maintenance as the highest on the asteroid scanning probe.

Chen Ming pondered if there’s anything urgent that needs his attention.

His recent actions aimed to familiarize himself with the spaceship as a whole.

The spaceship has six cabins: the captain’s cabin, engine cabin, working cabin, cultivation cabin, living cabin, and storage cabin.

He already checked the engine cabin when fueling, with nothing particularly notable needing attention.

Besides a layer of dust, the living cabin is pretty tidy overall, a little cleaning would make it livable.

After long periods of working in space, few choose to sleep on the spaceship upon returning to the Mining Space Station.

Thus, previous crew tidied the living cabin at the end of a mining mission, leaving a new set of living supplies for the next departure while opting for accommodation in the Space Station.

Then they never returned.

The left items benefited Chen Ming.

At this point, Chen Ming didn’t care if these supplies had expired for thirty years; after all, there’s nothing in the Space Station that hasn’t expired for thirty years, as long as they are functional.

By now, Chen Ming basically had a complete understanding of the spaceship.

Yet not even four hours had passed since Chen Ming woke from the cryogenic chamber.

Though a bit mentally exhausted from recently repairing two machine guns, Chen Ming felt no sleepiness.

After some thought, Chen Ming now has two choices.

One is using current materials onboard to repair parts of the spaceship’s external armor.

The spaceship’s armor is aluminum-steel composite; although aluminum comes first in name, steel actually constitutes the bulk.

Aluminum consumed relative to armor repair needs won’t affect the subsequent repair of the landing module.

The other choice is for Chen Ming to take a look at what’s inside his two personal terminals now.