Chapter 137: Huomu Space Hub
Space Hub Headquarters.
Although Xinghai is still a private enterprise in Great Xia today, its importance to Great Xia is far beyond what ordinary enterprises can compare to.
Although there is no explicit announcement of Fan Ren’s current position, it is evident from his ability to freely enter and exit the offices of various chiefs that Xinghai’s status is extraordinary.
Even so, there have been many criticisms about the company general manager being a foreigner.
Fan Ren still has not replaced Jin Qiaoying from her position as General Manager of Xinghai.
It can be said that at present, Jin Qiaoying’s authority within Xinghai is much higher than Fan Ren’s.
The ownership of the Space Hub is in Xinghai’s hands, and the space elevators traveling to and from the ground are the same.
The benefits generated from this are too enormous.
Countless high-tech enterprises are eager to catch this wave of space development fever, but the first step they face is to obtain approval from Xinghai to qualify for using the space elevators to transport cargo.
It has nothing to do with money!
It is currently only related to what the development of the Space Hub requires.
After finishing her busy work, Jin Qiaoying arrived at the company laboratory and Fan Ren’s office accompanied by Dan Qin.
She still wanted to persuade Fan Ren about the massive plan they had previously discussed.
Once the Mars Project starts, more than 90% of the entire Space Hub and the tri-titanium alloy produced by the Lunar Base will be occupied by that grand plan.
Great Xia’s overall industrial development now has an increasingly urgent demand for tri-titanium alloy.
Currently, Great Xia’s entire industrial system relies on this new material and is undergoing a new round of purely technological industrial upgrade.
Once the Utopia Project is launched, the progress of these industrial reforms will directly enter a stagnant state, affecting countless enterprises.
The result will be that Xinghai’s development will also enter a long-term stagnation phase, which she, as Executive General Manager of Xinghai, cannot accept.
At the office door, Jin Qiaoying gently knocked, and after hearing “come in,” she pushed the door and entered.
“General Manager Jin, you came at the perfect time.”
Fan Ren shouted in surprise, but immediately noticed that Jin Qiaoying’s expression was a bit off.
“General Manager Fan, I hope you can seriously consider my opinion. I know you are worried about the future artificial intelligence development, but…”
“Listen to me, I know your concerns. Don’t worry, I have an arrangement. The development here won’t be greatly affected. Come over.”
Fan Ren beckoned, very satisfied with Jin Qiaoying’s extremely responsible attitude toward Xinghai.
Otherwise, taking a high salary and being a puppet on strings would be quite easy.
But she did not.
He had only mentioned the Mars Project to her briefly before, and since the plan was not explained in detail, it caused her misunderstanding.
Hearing this, Jin Qiaoying walked forward with puzzlement.
In her view, Spitz Company, United States General Office, and Great Xia all already had related actions regarding this.
This must be the prelude to vigorously developing the Mars Project next. Once started, the tri-titanium alloy produced on the Moon will tilt toward Mars, and there are no benefits there.
“Look at this.”
Fan Ren pointed at the tablet display screen with a smile.
“What is this?”
On the tablet display screen, an image of a simple-styled spaceship quietly floated against a space background.
At the front of the spaceship, there were huge retractable mechanical arms at both ends, and a super-large closed door in the center.
The tail had a single nuclear fusion engine nozzle responsible for providing power.
With a hint of fatigue in his eyes, Fan Ren said: “This is something I came up with together with the designers from the Ministry of Industry. It’s a small mining spaceship capable of landing and taking off on ultra-low gravity asteroids, with open-air mining capabilities.”
Jin Qiaoying’s fair face still showed a puzzled expression; she didn’t understand what significance this had.
“The similarity between Mars and Blue Star is that both have their own satellites. But these satellites also have huge differences. Phobos is 13.5 km long, 10.8 km wide, and 9.5 km high, with gravity 1/1600 of Blue Star’s, which can basically be ignored.
But at the same time, because it, like the Moon, has no atmosphere, there are ordinary crystal stones on it. Exaggeratedly speaking, the main component of this satellite is an enormous ordinary crystal ore.
Now do you understand?”
Under his explanation, Jin Qiaoying finally understood, but then became puzzled again.
“But the distance between Earth and Mars is 200 million kilometers; isn’t transportation too inconvenient?”
Hearing this, Fan Ren shook his head, looked out the window, pointed at the two massive space factories in the distance, and said firmly:
“We’ll build the factories on the geostationary orbit between Mars and Jupiter!
Although the Lunar Base has a space elevator, its transportation capacity is still limited. This is why our current tri-titanium alloy output has been stagnant.
Now we have passed the initial development stage; it’s the space age, and our vision needs to be more long-term.
Whether it’s the development of the Space Hub, or the various types of production factories that will be built in the future, even space dock construction plants, we can’t possibly build just one or two factories.
We must set our mining sights on ultra-low gravity satellites and the Asteroid Belt across the entire Solar System.
Use our low-cost mining ships for space mining operations, refine and process nearby. Finally, use Giant Elephant Class cargo ships to transport the processed tri-titanium alloy to designated locations.
This is our future development direction.”
Jin Qiaoying stood stunned in place. She had only come to persuade Fan Ren to temporarily delay the implementation of the Mars Project to give the Space Hub some development time.
Now it seems the plan has changed again?
She didn’t know since when, after Fan Ren proposed projects, he no longer discussed with her whether there was enough money in the company accounts.
This was because, relative to Xinghai’s current scale and projects, whether there was more or less money was no longer important.
What they needed to consider was whether productivity was sufficient and how to allocate it reasonably.
It is no exaggeration to say that everything Xinghai is doing in space construction is silently supported behind the scenes by Great Xia’s entire Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Economy and Trade, and even the military headquarters.
This is also why when Fan Ren proposed the suggestion at that time, the military headquarters subsequently withdrew the military management zone set on the Pacific Ocean to cooperate with Mark’s next actions.
Jin Qiaoying felt a shiver all over, and her mind instinctively began thinking about the plan Fan Ren envisioned, the various resources needed, and its feasibility.
Fan Ren stood quietly to the side, giving her enough time to think.
After a long while, Jin Qiaoying murmured: “So in the next period, we will mass-produce this kind of mining spaceship?”
“Yes, during the previous meeting, I discussed it with several chiefs. To support our plan, the tri-titanium alloy for the next period will prioritize this aspect, continuing until the factories there officially start operations.”
Fan Ren thought of the support from Li Jiandong, Zhang Jing, and Elder Ye at that time, feeling deeply moved.
When Jin Qiaoying left Fan Ren’s office, her expression was very strange.
Good news: the Mars Project is not starting immediately.
Bad news: the development of the Space Hub still has to enter a stagnation period.
Fan Ren spoke easily, but the geostationary orbit between Mars and Jupiter is 500 million kilometers from Blue Star. Even at Peregrine Falcon’s speed, a round trip takes about 20 days.
This is still the speed run by Peregrine Falcon, built to deep space high-speed standards. If changed to a massive spaceship like Giant Elephant Class, the process would take at least 35-40 days.
Jin Qiaoying stood at Fan Ren’s office door pondering for a while, then inexplicably smiled.
Forget it; he seems to always be right.
Inside the office, Fan Ren stood up and walked to the window. The distant space dock construction plant had landed and officially started operations.
Around it, two tri-titanium alloy processing factories were responsible for cutting and processing various tri-titanium alloy needed for construction.
Looking at the busy Space Hub, he shook his head after a long while.
This speed is far from enough.
Currently, the Moon’s space elevator can transport up to 500 million tons of ordinary crystal stone per year at maximum speed.
After refining these ordinary crystal stones, about 100 million tons of tri-titanium alloy can be produced.
And just one Giant Elephant Class construction requires 100,000 tons of tri-titanium alloy.
In other words, the ordinary crystal stone produced by the Lunar Base in one year, after refining, can only manufacture 1,000 Giant Elephant Class heavy cargo ships.
This output is far from enough for the large-scale development of space industry in the future.
To know, a residential base accommodating 1 million people, calculated at 50 square meters per person, requires a total area of 50 square kilometers.
Of course, Mars City construction cannot all use tri-titanium alloy, but according to calculations by Fan Ren and the designers, the proportion of tri-titanium alloy used in future Mars City will still be as high as 20%.
If relying entirely on the Lunar Base for raw ore, it would take until the year of the monkey and the horse.
This is also why Fan Ren, on the basis of the Mars Project, shifted the target to Phobos, Deimos, and the Jupiter Ring.
In the foreseeable future, after the ore on these two satellites is collected clean, behind them is the enormous Jupiter Ring, where a large amount of ordinary crystal stone is predictably present.
And these ordinary crystal stones in space, after mining, can be directly transported by Giant Elephant Class parked in zero-gravity environments to fixed-location space refineries.
This will directly and completely satisfy the tri-titanium alloy needed for the Mars Project.
Even in the future, after Mars City construction is completed, the tri-titanium alloy produced by this refinery can also be directly processed for other required projects.
Moon mining is not a long-term solution.
There are many construction projects, which will inevitably be extremely complex, but Fan Ren is very confident.
Behind him is not only Xinghai, but also Great Xia silently supporting him.
He is confident that he can make the second step of Great Xia and Xinghai into space steady and lay a good foundation for the future.
