Aircraft

To this day, Li Qingsong still had only two Landing Spaceships capable of traveling between Luoshen Star and the Deep Space.

Originally, there had been only one. But later on, the components from the first Landing Spaceship that had been dismantled were no longer needed, so it was reassembled, making two in total.

To ensure he did not lose his only two spacefaring vehicles, Li Qingsong had reduced their flights as much as possible. If he could avoid using them, he did, doing everything he could to extend their service lives.

Even so, by now, they were already old and worn-out, barely able to fly.

Li Qingsong had long planned to develop his own aerospace capabilities, but limited by inadequate foundational technology and industrial capacity, he had never been able to carry it out. Now, the base's scale and technological foundation had developed enormously, and he could finally begin.

On a stretch of open ground selected in advance, large numbers of clones got to work. Before long, an Aerospace Technology Research Base had been built.

The first propulsion test began immediately afterward.

Because Luoshen Star's environment was completely different from Earth's, the aerospace technology developed on Luoshen Star was destined to differ from Earth's.

On Earth, rockets were indispensable for sending spacecraft or satellites into space.

Since rockets could not be made too large, spacecraft and satellites could not be too large either.

But here, Li Qingsong could skip the rocket stage entirely and directly build flying vehicles capable of taking off from the planet's surface into space, then returning directly from space.

At the same time, on Earth, airplanes and spacecraft were two completely different things. One could fly only within the atmosphere, while the other could fly only in space.

But on Luoshen Star, the distinction between airplanes and spacecraft could not be drawn so clearly.

The two could more or less be considered the same thing—after all, both relied on fuel combustion to produce high-pressure gas, which was expelled to generate thrust.

With greater thrust, enough to escape Luoshen Star's gravitational field, it was a spacecraft. With weaker thrust, unable to break free, it was an airplane.

Fundamentally, they were the same.

Thus, inside a massive workshop at the aerospace base, large quantities of methane and liquid oxygen were fed into an engine. After ignition, searing gas blasted from the rear, and tremendous kinetic force immediately acted upon the test stand.

This engine's technology originated from the Internal Combustion Engine technology Li Qingsong had mastered long ago. There was only one difference: in an Internal Combustion Engine, methane and liquid oxygen burned to drive pistons, while here, the high-pressure gas produced by combustion was expelled directly.

Though the way they did work differed, the combustion process was the same.

The powerful exhaust continued for several minutes. Watching the readings on the screen, Li Qingsong frowned.

The thrust was too low. It was nowhere near enough to push a spacecraft out of the planet's gravitational field. It could not even get an airplane airborne.

"We have to improve the combustion efficiency and scale."

Li Qingsong thought to himself, But if we do that, the temperature will become too high. The performance of my current heat-resistant materials probably won't hold up.

This was a rather troublesome problem.

Human civilization naturally possessed formulas for advanced heat-resistant materials, but the Deep Space's database did not contain them.

The Deep Space did have high-performance heat-resistant materials aboard, but Li Qingsong had examined them. Their technological requirements were too advanced; he could not make them himself.

I still need to find a material with lower technical requirements, something I can make now that can still meet current needs.

At that thought, a thousand clones were immediately added to the materials building of the research base.

Without any prior training or study, the thousand newly assigned clones immediately adapted to the research base's work rhythm and integrated into the existing R&D work without any difficulty.

Besides the thousand clones performing hands-on work, Li Qingsong also mobilized an additional amount of mental capacity equivalent to roughly three thousand people, dedicating it to analyzing existing experimental data and considering future attempts.

Many tasks required people, but did not actually consume much mental capacity.

Take a clone operating an excavator. How much mental capacity could controlling an excavator really consume?

Thus, a great deal of mental capacity was left idle.

Since it was idle anyway, it might as well be used to think about Materials Science problems.

And so, such a strange sight appeared throughout Li Qingsong's base:

A clone might appear to be operating an excavator, while at the same time pondering the most cutting-edge and advanced problems in Materials Science;

A clone might appear to be feeding pigs, while simultaneously thinking about Materials Science;

Even a clone driving a train might appear completely focused on controlling it, but in truth, he too was thinking about Materials Science.

And if an unexpected situation arose that required his full attention, he could immediately stop thinking about Materials Science. The corresponding share of thought might instantly shift into the mind of a construction-worker clone tying rebar a thousand kilometers away.

Through this model, Li Qingsong achieved complete utilization of the mental capacity of every controllable clone, without wasting the slightest bit.

Li Qingsong had already become quite skilled at this model. But suddenly mobilizing a thousand clones for hands-on work and an additional three thousand shares of mental capacity for thought was the first time he had done so on such a scale.

The problem was simply too important and had to be solved as quickly as possible.

Several thousand minds, each equipped with knowledge from nearly every discipline, considered the same problem at once. A breakthrough soon emerged.

After adding a certain proportion of nickel and tungsten, then applying a particular metal-treatment process, a heat-resistant metal that met Li Qingsong's requirements was finally produced and quickly installed on the test equipment.

The propulsion test began once more.

This time, the flames erupting from the rear of the engine were brighter and fiercer. Their temperature and pressure were clearly both higher.

Looking at the data on the screen, Li Qingsong nodded in satisfaction.

This time, the thrust had finally met the standard.

The greatest difficulty in building a flying vehicle was the engine. Once the engine technology had been overcome, making an iron shell was no challenge at all.

Before long, a strange flying vehicle appeared before Li Qingsong. It was hemispherical overall, with two exhaust ports mounted on its flat underside and two more at the rear.

"Ignite!"

At Li Qingsong's command, the clone responsible for operating the flying vehicle immediately pressed the corresponding button.

The next moment, searing flames erupted from the bottom of the craft, pushing the hemispherical vehicle—four meters tall and eight meters in diameter—slowly into the air until it finally reached a height of more than ten meters above the ground.