Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 266 The Europa Plan

After the two nodes on Mars were explored, Europa became the last stronghold.

Zuo Cheng placed the decoding report of the Martian cube on the table, then opened the second document. Three pages. The first page was a diagram of the solar system, marked with a line—from Earth to Mars, and then from Mars, propelled to Jupiter. The second page was a cross-section of Europa's ice sheet. A twenty-kilometer-thick ice shell, beneath which lay a liquid ocean. The third page contained a set of numbers.

700 million kilometers. Twenty kilometers of ice. Thirty-three minutes of one-way communication delay.

He pushed the three pages of paper to the middle of the conference room.

"Mars is the warm-up," he said. "Europa is the real exam."

Seven people sat in the conference room. Chen Hao jotted down a few lines in his notebook, then looked up. Shen Yiming placed his hands on the table, crossed. Yu Ying stared at the ice cross-section diagram without speaking. Fang Ze was calculating the radiation resistance of the chip.

Seven hundred million kilometers. The one-way signal delay between Earth and Jupiter exceeds thirty minutes. During those thirty minutes, the probe must make all the decisions on its own—identifying the ice structure, avoiding subglacial cracks, and determining the location of the nodal signals. People on Earth can only see the scene from thirty-three minutes ago, like someone standing on the shore watching a ship that has been sailing for a long time.

Twenty kilometers of ice. The thickness of Europa's ice crust is equivalent to the distance from the ground to the stratosphere. The probe needs to carry an ice-melting drill bit to melt the ice using the residual heat from nuclear thermal propulsion, slowly descending through the ice at a rate of a few hundred meters per day. The entire process will take three to four months. During those four months, the probe will be completely out of contact—the ice will block all radio signals. By the time it resurfaces with a signal, it will either have penetrated the ice or become part of it.

"A lone wolf," Shen Yiming said.

Everyone looked at him.

"This is the name I gave this AI." Shen Yiming turned the draft on his notebook over. He had hand-drawn an architecture diagram of an autonomous decision-making system with a pen. The input layer receives four types of data: ice density, temperature gradient, radiation intensity, and node signal location. The middle layer is an adaptive inference engine that has never been built before—capable of independently determining the safety of the ice structure, identifying the distribution of cracks beneath the ice, and locating node signals in noisy environments without human intervention. The output layer has only three commands: continue descending, pause analysis, or return immediately.

"A thirty-minute delay means," Shen Yiming said, "that the probe must possess completely autonomous decision-making capabilities. It's not simply executing instructions; it's understanding the world on its own."

Zuo Cheng stared at the hand-drawn architecture diagram for a long time.

"How long will it take to finish?"

"The first prototype was obtained in three months. Six months of ice simulation testing. Twelve months of arrow-mounted testing."

"I'll give you nine months," Zuo Cheng said.

Shen Yiming hesitated for a moment. "Nine months is enough. But that only allows for a 97% accuracy rate."

"Why is it ninety-seven?"

"Because the remaining three percent isn't in the model," Shen Yiming said calmly. "It refers to situations that the simulated environment itself cannot predict. They're not in any database, not in any model; they can only be determined by the real world the probe encounters beneath the ice."

Zuo Cheng didn't press further. He turned to Fang Ze. "The chip."

Fang Ze had already drawn up a set of data on paper. "The intensity of Jupiter's radiation belts is enough to kill an unprotected human within days. The threat to electronic equipment is equally deadly. All the core chips of the Europa probe need to be radiation-hardened from scratch. The radiation-hardened version of NX-40 can cover 80% of the requirements. The remaining 20% ​​requires redesign and repackaging."

"how long."

"Six months. In sync with Shen Yiming."

Zuo Cheng wrote a line in his notebook and then turned to the next page. "The Sky."

Chen Hao had been waiting for this question. "When the Lone Ranger launches, we will simultaneously deploy a Jupiter extension node in the Celestial constellation. The relay satellite will remain in orbit around Jupiter, becoming the farthest communication relay in the solar system. If the Jupiter relay is successful, the Celestial constellation can start from Earth, pass through Mars, and connect to Jupiter. Three planets, one data link."

"The first interplanetary communication network in humankind," Yu Ying said softly.

Chen Hao nodded. "A thirty-minute delay. But the data itself is continuous."

Han Lu took out two documents from her briefcase. One was from NASA—complete Europa data from the Galileo probe, including ice thickness distribution maps, surface temperature maps, and coordinates of suspected subglacial water column eruptions, all free of charge. The other was from the European Space Agency—a detailed model of Jupiter's radiation belts, explaining that Jupiter's magnetic field is 20,000 times stronger than Earth's, and that high-energy particles form deadly radiation belts requiring a completely new design for protection, also free of charge.

NASA added a sentence to their email: "What you are doing deserves to be remembered." ESA also added: "This isn't just 402 Europe, it's Europe for all mankind."

The meeting room fell silent.

Yu Ying stood up and walked to the whiteboard. She picked up a marker and drew a line between the Mars and Europa schemes.

"Mars is 402's solo sprint." She wrote two sets of numbers on that line. Two-month launch window, seven-month journey. One launch, one rocket. "Europa is humanity's marathon." She wrote another set of numbers on the other side. Three-year journey, four months drilling ice, fully autonomous AI. Jupiter relay. Interplanetary communication network. "Mars proved we can fly. Europa will prove we can walk alone on a road without streetlights."

She put down the marker.

"Seven months later, we greet our Martian predecessors. Three and a half years later, we go to Jupiter. We knock on doors. We hear what they have to say."

Zuo Cheng stared at the two sets of numbers on the whiteboard. The two-month countdown window for Mars had been etched onto the electronic screen in the company lobby from the very beginning. Now, that countdown was almost at zero. The countdown for Europa hadn't even started yet. But from the moment Yu Ying wrote down those numbers, it had already begun counting down in everyone's hearts.

On the night the detector design was finalized, Shen Yiming went to see Zuo Cheng. He brought a laptop and placed it on Zuo Cheng's desk.

"The autonomous decision-making model for lone wolves has completed its first full-scenario simulation."

Zuo Cheng looked at the results on the screen. Three thousand seven hundred simulated contingencies: ice fracturing, radiation bursts, sudden temperature changes, sensor malfunctions, signal loss. Three thousand six hundred and seventy-five scenarios were correct. Twenty-five were incorrect. The accuracy rate was ninety-nine point three percent.

0.7.

"Yes," Shen Yiming said. "The remaining 0.7% isn't in any database or model. It refers to situations that the simulated environment itself cannot predict. The detector can only encounter them under the ice."

Zuo Cheng paused for a moment.

"Build the Lone Ranger," he said. "Nine months. Synchronize the chip and AI. Then let it run on its own. Let it knock on that door for us."

Shen Yiming closed his laptop and stood up. He paused as he walked to the door.

"That 0.7," he said, "is that the real exploration?"

Zuo Cheng didn't answer. But he knew the answer.