Chapter 114: The Lackluster First Landing
In space, just taking the 300,000 kilometers between Earth and Moon as an example, traditional communication methods already have a delay of up to 3 seconds.
Not to mention the average 5-minute delay between Earth and Mars.
Under this communication delay, the army’s all actions will appear extremely sluggish.
It could even cause major losses such as missing fighter jet opportunities due to this reason.
After filling this gap, Great Xia’s Space Force will have no major weaknesses left to be targeted.
Fan Ren turned his gaze to Li Jiandong.
“Chief Li, based on these two technologies, the Ministry of Industry should start designing related spaceships that can navigate in space ahead of time. Xinghai will provide the Ministry of Industry with relevant technical support for free.”
He hadn’t mentioned the Space Dock Construction Plant in his mind yet, since that couldn’t be completed in a short time.
This required completing all current space projects first, then continuing to build the Space Modular Factory to process and produce tri-titanium alloy from the refinery.
Only after achieving this goal could his Space Dock Construction Plant be established.
Otherwise, it would still rely on the Space Elevator to transport materials, which would be too inefficient.
Li Jiandong nodded and took a pen to record what Fan Ren had just said.
At this point, Fan Ren’s meaning was already very clear.
Although Xinghai was his private company, on major issues of principle, it would always stand with Great Xia.
Everyone looked at him with expressions of awe for the younger generation.
At the Aerospace Base, the testing of the Space Elevator had come to an end, with thousands of Great Xia workers from all walks of life gathered around. After this, they would continue constructing the large hub platform at the top of the elevator.
This was also a not insignificant project, but because the Space Elevator served as the transportation premise, the cost was actually not high.
After leaving Kyoto, Fan Ren plunged directly into the Nuclear Fusion Engine laboratory.
Not only did Great Xia Military Headquarters’ Space Force need new spaceships to complete future space patrol missions, but Xinghai also needed a large number of various types of space ships for transporting ore, personnel, equipment, and so on.
The 80-ton payload of the Xingyun series spaceships had become very low as the usage of tri-titanium alloy increased day by day.
Large space transport ships must be put into use as soon as possible.
Only then could they quickly escape the awkward situation of South Australia’s increasing ore export prices.
The press conference hosted by Jin Qiaoying and Chief Zhao Bo’s media meet-and-greet were released one after the other.
Especially after announcing the series of measures by Great Xia Military Headquarters.
This directly caused the global situation, which had just calmed a bit, to become turbulent again.
In terms of trade, just as Fan Ren thought, after the technology license price increased by 200%, a bunch of foreign high-tech enterprises in related industries immediately complained bitterly.
As the related news was revealed, the news that the United States tried to destroy Great Xia’s Space Elevator using an abandoned space station also spread worldwide.
Although these enterprises were angry at Xinghai’s arbitrary increase in license prices, this time they truly had no reason to refute.
It was simply too outrageous.
Over these past few months, Kuke’s president of Fruit kept flying to Xinghai Headquarters to meet with Jin Qiaoying, and the only result he got was one.
Cancel tariff restrictions on all Xinghai commodities.
Otherwise, everything is off the table.
For this, Xinghai was even willing to face joint boycotts from various high-tech enterprises and persisted with this stance.
But this joint boycott appeared very fragile under the suppression by Great Xia’s various similar commodities.
Still that sentence: the market is right there; if you take a step back, Great Xia’s related enterprises swallow a bite.
Among all enterprises under the White Alliance forces, now only Spitz Company was the exception.
In the office, Mark had been browsing related news this period, sighing at Wells’ stupidity while also feeling fortunate for his earlier strong insistence on signing a series of high-level cooperation agreements.
Yes, this wave of turmoil had nothing to do with his Spitz Company.
He had even called Fan Ren and received a very affirmative answer: under the premise of meeting demand, Xinghai’s Space Elevator project would also open services to their Spitz Company.
Mark knew this wasn’t out of Fan Ren’s kindness.
It was because that guy saw how he had pioneered the way to Mars for him, that he opened a series of cooperations to their Spitz Company.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Spitz Company’s stock price had surged another huge chunk in this wave of turmoil.
In the Aerospace Command Hall outside, a group of engineers was busily working tensely.
The five spaceships that went to Mars ahead of time had already arrived in Mars Synchronous Orbit for a week.
During this period, those astronauts had smoothly completed the space station construction and data mapping of the Mars landing site and other preliminary work.
According to the plan, today was the day to land on Mars.
What a pity!
Because of the 5-minute communication delay between Earth and Mars, the communication channel was extremely precious, so there would be no live broadcast footage today.
Only a group of reporters at the Command Hall site were live broadcasting while looking at data display screens that ordinary people couldn’t understand.
Mark knew this kind of live broadcast was ineffective.
“This is Mars, we have safely landed on the Martian surface, oh my god, it’s so desolate here.”
The astronauts’ brief sentence traveled across 200 million kilometers of space and arrived at the Command Hall.
Mark heard it in his ears and wished he could fire that astronaut on the spot from his company.
Unfortunately, the communication channel was extremely precious, and their ground command center couldn’t issue any effective commands.
Everything could only proceed according to the predetermined plan.
He came to the hall, picked up the communication microphone, pondered for a moment, and pressed the recording button.
“This is Blue Star Spitz Command Center. Congratulations on completing this landing mission, congratulations, now you are the first pioneers in human history to set foot on Mars. On behalf of all humanity, I thank you for your brave actions! Please continue with our base construction work according to the plan.”
Mark released the communication button, thinking to himself that this speech of his should be recorded in textbooks in the future.
The Command Hall then erupted in warm applause.
But he wasn’t particularly excited; the 10-minute communication time difference for a round trip made this scene feel exceptionally cold.
Although today was indeed a great moment worth recording in human aerospace history.
But he knew that on the other side of Blue Star, Xinghai’s Space Elevator had officially been put into operation, paired with the Nuclear Fusion Reactor generator set, making the cost of sending materials into space approach zero!
He also knew that in the next phase, Great Xia Ministry of Industry would be responsible for building the Moon’s Space Elevator, with an extremely short construction period.
Once completed, Great Xia’s overall aerospace level would completely pull ahead of the United States.
Their ongoing ‘Mars Project’ looked, in Mark’s eyes, like child’s play compared to the other side.
Just as he was lost in thought, the telephone rang.
