Chapter 107: Miracle Project
United States, General Office, Meeting Room.
After Mo Han’s private jet arrived at the White House, he took a private car directly to this meeting room where the heads of several major United States departments had gathered.
There were no pleasantries; this time he had come to the United States for a non-public visit.
As early as on the plane, Mo Han had seriously considered the purpose of this trip and the possibilities for subsequent implementation.
At this time in the meeting room, because he had previously communicated with Wells, the Joint Chiefs of Staff commander Auro, Nasa director Roy, and Secretary of State Mark were all present.
In the past, given the United States’ status as the global Overlord, it wouldn’t have been so easy for him to meet any one of them alone.
But now the situation was completely different. After hearing his telephone call, Wells was like a drowning person grasping at straws and unhesitatingly agreed to meet, and at Mo Han’s request, invited all the big shots present.
Mo Han looked around, frowned slightly, and said, “President, may I ask why President Mark is not here?”
“He’s just a businessman who rose by relying on our Nasa technology. What qualification does he have to attend a meeting of this level?”
The speaker was the Nasa director, whose tone showed extreme disdain for Mark.
What he said had some truth, but it wasn’t entirely correct. In the early development of Mark’s Spitz Company, it did receive technical support from Nasa.
But after that, Mark led the team to complete the research and development of rocket recovery technology. After reducing the cost of rocket launches, Spitz Company achieved its current success.
Upon hearing this, Mo Han glanced at the Nasa director and shook his head inwardly.
“Speak up. You’ve gathered so many of us, and you, the Australia president, came privately. If there’s no important matter, don’t waste time.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff commander Auro also snorted coldly.
In his eyes, although Australia had a vast land area and rich natural resources like minerals, its technology and economic strength were relatively backward. In the past, he hadn’t even been interested in giving them a second glance.
Mo Han didn’t mind. He glanced at the taciturn Wells, who had lost his former flair, and felt contempt.
That reporter was right; this president who only knew how to make money was the sinner.
“Do you still remember what Great Xia was like four years ago?”
Mo Han spoke softly, and no one responded.
He smiled indifferently and continued, “Four years ago, Great Xia couldn’t even produce a five-nanometer lithography machine smoothly. Their market share in the global high-end chip market was zero!”
“Enough. State the purpose of your visit today.”
Wells stared at him coldly. Although her approval rating had now dropped to rock bottom, she was still the genuine United States president.
She still had some presence.
Mo Han curled his lips and stopped stimulating these guys who were immersed in past glory and couldn’t extricate themselves.
He turned his gaze to the Nasa director, a playful expression on his face.
“Your space station is about to retire, right? Why not let it serve one more time in the process?”
Seeing everyone’s puzzled gazes on him, Mo Han sneered and put forward his idea.
Three months later, the construction of the space elevator had entered the completion testing phase.
During this time, Fan Ren hadn’t been idle either. He led a group of scientists who had once worked on Great Xia Aerospace Department’s lunar projects, busy all day with the expansion design of Guanghan Palace Base.
The designed expanded Guanghan Palace would cover an area of 10,000 square meters, with the public living area occupying 3,000 square meters, including residential, entertainment and leisure, large canteen, medical, and other sites.
In the previous recruitment, Fan Ren hadn’t forgotten to hire a batch of chefs with multiple cooking skills.
The scientists on Immortal Palace Space Station had successfully cultivated vegetables and fruits that could grow in space. Plus, with the space elevator for transporting supplies in the future, meat ingredients could also be shipped from Earth to the lunar base at extremely low cost.
Allowing workers and resident astronauts 300,000 kilometers away to eat a hot, fresh meal every day seemed quite important to him.
There was also the engineering equipment maintenance area, where specialized maintenance technicians with relevant skills would reside long-term at the lunar base.
In Fan Ren’s vision, the future lunar base would become a small human living city with a continuously growing population.
The main task would be lunar mining.
Of course, in terms of salary, Xinghai was as generous as always. One year’s income working on the Moon was equivalent to ten times that of the same job on Earth.
The construction of the space elevator had basically consumed 95% of the current total ordinary crystal stone ore collected from the Moon.
Therefore, the promotion of nuclear fusion was currently only allocated to projects with special needs.
Fan Ren stood under the towering space elevator reaching into the clouds, looking up, unable to see the end.
36,000 kilometers!
It was no exaggeration to say that this was the greatest building in human history for a single project.
Completing this great project in half a year, setting aside the funds invested, on this planet, only Great Xia’s workers had the capability.
The elevator adopted a dual-track model with separate tracks for ascent and descent.
The transportation power used electromagnetic motors to drive the platforms up and down. Under the electricity provided by several nuclear fusion reactors, completing the 36,000-kilometer transport distance took only two days.
It was imaginable that without tri-titanium alloy as the outer support framework paired with carbon nanotube electromagnetic rails, ordinary materials like aluminum alloy simply couldn’t maintain structural stability at a transport speed of up to 780 kilometers per hour.
Precisely because of this, even though the building materials were provided by Xinghai’s own lunar mining base, the construction cost was as high as 500 billion.
Next, a large work platform, launch vehicle docking point, and logistics warehouse would be built at the top.
Just these projects alone, without the space elevator, would require another huge investment.
As he was gazing up at this “miracle,” the telephone in his pocket rang.
“Boss, bad news.”
After answering the call, this form of address was used only by A’dai, but at this moment, A’dai’s tone was extremely urgent.
“What’s wrong? Don’t panic, explain clearly.”
Upon hearing this, A’dai steadied their mind, their gaze falling on the supercomputer display screen at the Aerospace Base.
At this time, a warning message was flashing a red exclamation mark frantically.
“Boss, the supercomputer has issued a warning. The Nasa scrapped space station has recently lost its orbit maintenance fuel and is starting to fall toward Earth.
This process was originally supposed to decompose into several pieces due to the high temperature from friction with the atmosphere during re-entry into the atmosphere and scatter.
Fan Ren, not understanding, asked puzzledly, “And then? What does this have to do with us?”
“Boss, damn Nasa, they set the wrong fall path. The supercomputer warns that the main cabin of this scrapped space station will hit our space elevator in 5 hours at 20 Mach speed, 200 kilometers up from the ground.”
“Is it confirmed? Is the calculation result accurate?”
“Confirmed, confirmed! After the result came out, I had the Aerospace City’s outer space satellites monitor it. Boss, think of something quickly.”
“Okay, keep in contact anytime on your end.”
Fan Ren hung up directly.
With a ‘buzz’, a violent sonic boom erupted on the space elevator track in front of him that was undergoing testing.
It seemed that directly accelerating at a certain height would produce a huge sonic boom; this issue needed to be addressed.
Otherwise, people in this area wouldn’t be able to live normally.
While dialing Liu Shengzhan’s phone, he casually thought about the defects of the space elevator.
Slept in late, hurry to make up today’s amount.
