Space Dock

The machinery on the surface of Callisto continued to hum, construction sites were still bustling, and the pace of the great construction continued steadily.

The Orbital Mass Accelerator continuously launched materials towards the dark sky.

Here, the night sky is forever dark, and the day sky is forever dark.

Located in a space permeated with Interstellar Dust, even the starlight of the past has difficulty reaching it.

A satellite in orbit captured this image.

The light on Callisto, this last haven, is like the last candle of civilization, flickering in the boundless darkness.

Apart from that, looking around blankly, all is darkness.

Interstellar Dust blocks most of the sounds from the universe—electromagnetic waves—so that humans on Callisto seem to be in an isolated environment.

Quiet to the point of silence, dark to the point of loneliness.

If the last humans are to rest here, then they will also depart quietly, like an insignificant ant that died in a dark corner.

To avoid becoming such ants, humans are working day and night.

Large quantities of steel, non-ferrous metals, and rare metals are processed into semi-finished products on the ground, then packaged and launched on the Electromagnetic Catapult towards Callisto's synchronous orbit. Among the countless items launched into space, in addition to various semi-finished building materials, are modular equipment blocks.

It has been more than two years since the Great Cylinder Spaceship construction plan was proposed, but now there is not a single shadow of the spaceship to be seen in Callisto's orbit.

It's not that humans aren't working hard, but that they haven't really entered the spaceship construction phase yet, because such a large spaceship cannot be built inside a planet. Therefore, in the two years since the plan was proposed, all the materials sent to synchronous orbit have been used to build the Space Dock.

Yes, the Space Dock.

The technology to build a Space Dock had already matured before the disaster. In fact, many large transport ships in the past were manufactured from Space Docks.

Now humans are just building another Space Dock, not for the first time, so they are quite experienced.

However, unlike in the past, this dock is larger because the Great Cylinder Spaceship it will build is larger than all previous human ships.

But because it is for one-time use, this Space Dock is much simpler than previous docks. Many things do not need to consider long-term service life, so this Space Dock is the largest dock ever, but the construction speed is very fast.

As a result, it is very different from what people imagine a Space Dock to look like.

When it comes to Space Docks, people often think of a space structure like a fortress, or two structures like ribs joined together.

Most conventional Space Docks are like this. The Space Dock in Earth's synchronous orbit used to look like two ribs joined together, but that Space Dock used the Tiangong Space Station as its industrial core.

But now, there is no industrial core at all, so the first step in building this dock from scratch is to build an industrial core.

In the past, countless building modules produced according to design drawings were sent into space day and night, and then pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle in synchronous orbit.

They are assembled in space into Living Modules, Mechanical Arms, Machine Shop, Remote Synchronized Construction Robots, Small Transport Ships, and so on.

These things make up the Space Dock core.

Although it is called the Space Dock core, it is essentially a large space station, except that a normal space station has more complete functions, while the dock core focuses on industrial construction, but both are large space structures.

After more than two years of hard work, the appearance of the Space Dock is finally revealed to people.

It consists of a core about the size of the Tiangong Space Station, plus L-Shaped Rails and Work Corridors extending up, down, left, and right from the core.

It looks like a chip with long legs growing out of it.

The rails and Work Corridors extending from both ends of the dock core are the longest, totaling more than 1,800 meters in length.

In the subsequent shipbuilding project, the structures sent up from the ground will first be reprocessed in the various workshops of the dock core, and then transported to the Work Platforms at the end through the rails.

Then, the first step in spaceship construction will be carried out there—laying the Keel.

The engineers then go from the Work Corridor to the Work Platform to work.

Because it is a Great Cylinder Spaceship that is being built, laying the Keel here has become assembling an Electromagnetic Central Axis Bearing.

With the help of laser positioning, this finished central axis bearing with a diameter of more than 200 meters will complete the assembly of its core components here. After that, the Space Dock will start from this central axis and gradually build the planned Great Cylinder Spaceship.

Because it is a relatively simple Space Dock completed in a hurry, it cannot build the spaceship from beginning to end in one place like a complete dock.

After completing a part of a spaceship, this half-finished Space Dock will, with the help of thrusters, slowly change its position around the central axis of the spaceship to the area that has not yet been started.

It can be said that it is a mobile Space Dock.

Once it revolves around the central axis, the spaceship will be built.

To start spaceship construction as soon as possible, the designers came up with this Space Dock design proposal.

Although it was a rush job, it was very much in line with the situation currently facing humanity—a shortage of people.

Frankly, if they really wanted to build a complete dock, humans might not have enough people to fill all the jobs at the Space Dock.

As it stands, the staff and engineers at this half-finished Space Dock already number more than eight thousand, which is almost one-tenth of the entire base's human population.

In two and a half years, humanity went from nothing to building a Space Dock in Callisto's synchronous orbit.

The power of technology gave everyone hope, but Yue Yuan, including those who knew the reserves of nuclear fission minerals, were still worried.

Today, Yue Yuan, who had just finished reviewing the Space Dock construction report, ran to the alien spaceship wreckage again. It wasn't because he had discovered any major secrets, but because five minutes ago, the Excavation Team had reported that they had found traces of what appeared to be alien remains.

It seemed they were discovered while excavating and clearing the alien spaceship's cockpit.

If this had happened before the disaster, it would have been a major event that would have caused a sensation among humans, but now... it's just a minor episode.

Yue Yuan went to see it, really just out of curiosity about alien life. Anyway, he wouldn't be able to analyze the remains, so he was just there to watch the fun.

The door from the alien spaceship's cockpit to the ship's hull space had already been opened. The cockpit, which had originally been filled with soil, had been cleared out. When Yue Yuan arrived, he even saw something that looked like a seat.

Why did he say 'looked like'? Because the thing looked like a wine glass, not a seat.