Chapter 49: Extreme Efficiency
The first challenge Tom faced was the transportation of materials and goods.
If he had sufficient technology, Tom would naturally hope to build a Space Elevator, which would save him from the various troubles of spacecraft transportation and allow him to conveniently transport massive amounts of materials directly into space.
Unfortunately, his technology had not yet developed to such a high level; at this stage, he could only rely on spacecraft.
The existing spacecraft could only transport two tons of materials at a time, which was too inefficient. But developing new spacecraft was not something that could be done overnight.
Since that was the case, he could only increase the quantity.
Thus, Tom’s first decision was to immediately expand the productivity of the spacecraft industry chain, to build more spacecraft in the shortest possible time.
At the same time, building more spacecraft and frequently using these many spacecraft was itself a process of finding hidden dangers, identifying defects, and seeking upgrade and optimization solutions.
At this moment, all dozens of precision machining factories owned by Tom were converted to production, dedicated to the task of manufacturing spacecraft components.
In an open space, after simple leveling and reinforcement, and adopting a framework structure, a spacecraft assembly production line was completed in just one month, replacing the original small-scale production line.
Thus, amidst the continuous roar of heavy-duty trains and Feal-1 Series spacecraft, a large number of components surged here like a tide.
The more than ten thousand Clones working here, assisted by the most efficient automation technology possible, themselves seemed to have transformed into robots, not daring to relax for a moment.
Behind them, dozens of Clones were even constantly on standby.
Normally, they would quietly stay there, not consuming Tom’s precious consciousness connection quota. But once a Clone at a workstation needed to leave, even if it was just to relieve himself, a Clone would immediately step in, seamlessly taking over his work, ensuring that the production line was not delayed for even a second.
Under these circumstances, this new spacecraft assembly production line, with a total of hundreds of precision machining factories, several high-reliability chip factories, and numerous factories for connectors, plastic films, screens, rubber, detectors, controllers, etc., operating at full capacity simultaneously, saw its production capacity surge to four spacecraft per day in a short period.
Don’t think that four spacecraft a day seems small, but one must know that this is a large mechanical device that integrates Tom’s most advanced technologies in various aspects at the current stage. Its complexity and precision are simply incomparable to a train or a factory.
On the assembly line, one massive spacecraft after another, weighing over 30 tons and reaching over 50 tons when fully fueled, were continuously produced and quickly put into transportation operations, without a moment’s delay.
In the launch site, spacecraft were taking off or landing almost every moment.
Due to the excessively frequent takeoffs and landings, the ground of the landing field was even vitrified in some areas.
And this was only one of the existing dozen or so launch sites.
Under these circumstances, one after another box-packed space laboratory construction materials were transported into space, orbiting Loshen Star at a speed of approximately 900 meters per second.
While fully expanding the number of spacecraft, Tom was also doing another thing simultaneously.
With more spacecraft, naturally, more fuel would be consumed.
The existing fuel reserves were insufficient; the production capacity of methane and oxygen had to be increased to more than a hundred times the current level!
One spacecraft consumed about 15 tons of fuel per trip. Three trips a day would be 45 tons. With about 220 existing spacecraft, that meant about ten thousand tons of fuel per day.
Moreover, as the number of spacecraft increased, this figure would rapidly skyrocket.
In the future, it would not be surprising to consume tens of thousands of tons of fuel per day on average.
Especially, with the construction of the space laboratory, the power consumption and energy consumption of all other factories simultaneously increased significantly.
To generate enough electricity, there must be a sufficient fuel supply.
According to Tom’s statistics, in the previous stage, his base cluster consumed about one hundred thousand tons of tolin and methane, and thirty thousand tons of oxygen per day on average.
But now, including the fuel required for spacecraft, this figure suddenly doubled, reaching two hundred thousand tons of tolin, methane, and over sixty thousand tons of oxygen per day!
Thus, the Clones working in the oxygen ore, thorin ore, and methane mines also became busy.
Large batches of machinery and Clones joined the mining teams, and heavy-duty trains roared on the lines all day long, without stopping. Even to make up for the insufficient transport capacity, even Feal-1 Series spacecraft joined the temporary emergency material transport tasks.
With more spacecraft, the consumption of chips also increased significantly.
In addition to the main control computer, other parts of the spacecraft also used chips.
A single sensor, a single controller, all required chips.
One spacecraft required tens of thousands of chips!
Producing four spacecraft daily meant over two hundred thousand chips, and over seventy million chips a year!
What’s more, the space laboratory he was building itself also required a large number of chips.
According to Tom’s estimation, at least hundreds of millions were needed.
Thus, the chip factories also became busy.
And, in order to reallocate more personnel to production, the number of personnel in the planting, breeding, and aquaculture bases decreased significantly. But at the same time, the production of food and biological resources could not be reduced.
So, those areas also became busy.
At the same time, the construction of this space laboratory itself meant a large number of production tasks and research tasks. Thus, more factories, as well as the research Clones in the research centers, also became busy.
For a time, because of this space laboratory, all bases owned by Tom, whether mining bases or industrial bases, whether research bases or food bases, all, completely plunged into busyness.
Tom utilized his 700,000 consciousness connection quotas to their utmost.
Every minute and every second, large numbers of Clones scurried to their beds, and the moment they collapsed onto the bed, the consciousness connection was severed. At the same time, a Clone on another bed instantly opened his eyes, almost leaping up, quickly finished his breakfast, and rushed out of the dormitory.
Open-top buses were parked at the dormitory entrance at all times, with large numbers of Clones jumping off them, and every open-top bus that had just emptied would be filled with Clones jumping on within a minute.
Then the buses roared away, like flying, delivering loads of Clones to factories, bases, buildings, research institutes...
In space, thousands of Clones in spacesuits were performing spacewalks, assembling components one by one.
On the ground, spacecraft took off and landed, transporting boxes of construction materials into space.
Everything was orderly, though extremely busy and highly efficient, there was no chaos at all, nor any coordination errors.