Chapter 183: Mining Plan
Space Hub, Xinghai Materials Laboratory.
Fan Ren slept for nearly 8 hours and woke up refreshed, his fatigue from the past few days completely gone.
This time he wasn’t in a hurry, leisurely finished washing up, and then ate a dinner sent by Xinghai Logistics, before lighting a post-meal cigarette and enjoying a moment of comfort.
“Boss, the bottom of the lunar crust is full of this kind of ore, and the quantity is extremely large.”
Fan Ren leaned back in the chair, listening to A’dai’s report without asking further, knowing there was more.
“After testing, this metal, without any forging or processing, already has strength dozens of times greater than tri-titanium alloy, and it is superior to tri-titanium alloy in heat resistance, radiation resistance, and other aspects. Preliminary guess is that it is a special metal ore caused by the lunar crust movement under high pressure environment, plus some deposition factors.”
Fan Ren nodded and replied with a smile: “That’s the reason, and precisely because of the extreme depth, we have never discovered this metal before.”
At this point, he paused, then sighed: “This is all very coincidental. Although our technology now has greatly improved compared to the past, without the help of dense bombs, mining this ore would still be very difficult.”
“Yes, Boss, now with dense ore, the Conqueror can handle the collection and transportation of liquid metallic hydrogen, and in terms of mining, we have almost no cost.”
“Exactly, you arrange this aspect.”
After Fan Ren finished speaking, he fell silent, pondering in his mind about the next mining matters.
The Moon’s gravity is still a bit too high at present, and moreover, heavy industry has now been transferred to the Jupiter-Mars Hub, so obviously mining silver-like super metal on the Moon is no longer appropriate.
Fortunately, it now appears that not only Europa is a treasure satellite, but even Ganymede and Callisto also have endless silver-like super metal available for humanity to mine.
Io is not very suitable, as volcanic eruptions there are too frequent. Humanity currently has no way to conduct permanent operations there.
But this is more than enough.
It must be known that Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system, with a diameter of 5262 kilometers, and Callisto is also very large, with a diameter slightly less than Ganymede but reaching 4820 kilometers.
Whereas the Moon, also a satellite, has a diameter of only 3476 kilometers.
Fan Ren pondered in his mind for a long time and came to a decision.
“A’dai, temporarily stop tri-titanium alloy mining at Guanghan Palace Base, and at the same time conduct deep blasting operations 100 kilometers outside Guanghan Palace, blast out a small-scale mining pit, transfer all mining personnel from Guanghan Palace there, and conduct silver-like super metal mining operations.
At the same time, build a large-scale silver-like super metal smelting factory at the Jupiter-Mars Hub, appropriately close to Jupiter, and plan future metal processing plants around it.
Double the energy mining output on Europa; next, we may greatly increase the energy demand for nuclear fusion.
In addition, send two professional exploration teams to conduct feasibility reports on silver-like super metal mining, space elevator construction, and base site selection on Ganymede and Callisto.
And you plan all the logistics preparations at the same time, help me see what needs to be added.”
Fan Ren instructed all the matters he had considered in one breath, then subconsciously asked.
A’dai’s Super Brain quickly analyzed Fan Ren’s general purpose and instantly summarized and organized the instructed matters.
“Boss, according to the information, Callisto is a terrestrial-like satellite with gravity only 10% of Blue Star’s, and it has abundant water resources, and although the atmosphere is thin, it has a high proportion of oxygen.
Therefore, I suggest establishing a permanent large-scale logistics base on Callisto, where we can set up factories for aquaculture, planting, and other ground supply production to provide logistics for the Jupiter-Mars Hub.
Of course, this does not affect our continued silver-like super metal mining operations there.
Moreover, due to the low gravity, after simply increasing the number of nuclear fusion engines on our Giant Elephant Class, it has the capability for planetary takeoff and landing.
This way, there will be no need to build space elevators that take too long to construct and have limited transportation capacity; spaceships can directly replace transportation.
This can also specifically solve the current long-distance logistics transportation problem between Blue Star and the Jupiter-Mars Hub.”
Fan Ren listened and nodded repeatedly; he hadn’t thought of this point.
“Anything else?”
Upon hearing this, A’dai instantly asked: “Boss, what do you think about the Moon?”
What do I think?
Fan Ren was momentarily stumped by the question.
“It’s like this: the current Moon, due to gravity and other reasons, is no longer suitable for large-scale development. Compared to it, the Jovian satellites are more suitable for large-scale resource collection.
I suggest that after completing the initial mining work, we focus our efforts on the Jovian satellites, which are more suitable. As for the Moon, we can temporarily close Guanghan Palace Base and transfer the active forces to the Jovian Hub.”
Fan Ren nodded; A’dai was right, the Moon’s position is becoming increasingly awkward now.
With Mars’ development and the increasing mining output at the Jupiter Ring, even Europa can serve as an energy base.
In comparison, the Moon’s tri-titanium alloy output is negligible.
Indeed, we can follow A’dai’s suggestion and, after completing the initial silver-like super metal collection work, transfer the active forces to Callisto.
There’s another benefit: the personnel stationed at Guanghan Palace have more experience in satellite base development.
“Good, make a comprehensive planning report. By the way, the early silver-like super metal mining work on the Moon must be fast; I need it urgently. Help me contact Sister Jin and Chief Li; I’m going to see them now.”
After Fan Ren finished speaking, he put on his coat and strode purposefully toward the port.
Great Xia Capital, Imperial Palace.
A’dai’s series of summary plan reports had already reached Li Jiandong and Jin Qiaoying, each reviewing them.
Fan Ren wasn’t in a hurry; A’dai’s plan was more detailed than his verbal instructions, with a lot of text, and very brain-intensive, requiring careful reading.
After a long time, Li Jiandong put down the documents and materials, rubbed the corner of his eye, and then gave a wry smile of self-mockery: “I’m really getting old; this amount of material would take me just a few minutes to skim and grasp the general idea when I was young.”
Fan Ren quickly said nonchalantly: “You are still going strong in old age; don’t think of stepping down, or else our Xinghai anti-aging therapy’s reputation will suffer.”
Hearing this, Li Jian smiled and pointed at Fan Ren, shaking his head.
On this side, Jin Qiaoying also put down the document in her hand; there was no change on her face, and her words were very direct: “I have no objections. What about you, Old Li?”
Looking at the two, Li Jiandong thought for a moment and then asked: “This silver-like super metal is confirmed to be the main material for future spaceship manufacturing, right?”
Hearing this, Fan Ren nodded very affirmatively: “In the foreseeable future, sources of other metal materials may still exist, but they will likely be extremely rare. As you know, our current mining operations in the Earth’s crust bottom are mainly made so easy because of dense bombs.
But further down is the mantle layer, where there may be even rarer metals, but obviously we currently lack the capability to mine them.
In the mantle, there is a large amount of oxygen element, and large-yield explosions are highly likely to trigger violent internal planetary reactions, which we currently cannot bear the catastrophic consequences of.
Li Jiandong nodded and then said: “In that case, 60% of our industrial system will have to migrate to the Jupiter-Mars Hub? And I feel that as time progresses, this proportion will rise to over 90% in the future.”
“Chief Li, it’s the space age now. I plan to suggest to Commander Liu to establish a Space Force Branch at the Jupiter-Mars Hub.”
Hearing this, Li Jiandong instinctively looked at Jin Qiaoying, but unfortunately, her beautiful eyes were fixed on Fan Ren.
He smiled helplessly; it really was the same pairing as in Xinghai, working without fatigue.
“Alright, I’ll cooperate with you.”
