Ultimate Efficiency

The first problem Li Qingsong faced was the transport of supplies and cargo.

If he had sufficient technology, Li Qingsong naturally would have preferred to build a Space Elevator, sparing himself all the trouble of spaceship transport and allowing vast quantities of supplies to be sent directly into space.

Unfortunately, his technology had not yet developed to that level. At this stage, he could still only rely on spaceships.

Existing spaceships could transport only two tons of supplies per trip, making them far too inefficient. But developing New Spaceships was not something that could be done overnight.

Since that was the case, he could only increase their numbers.

Thus, Li Qingsong's first decision was to immediately expand the productive capacity of the spaceship industrial chain and build more spaceships in the shortest possible time.

At the same time, building more spaceships and frequently operating them was itself a process of uncovering hidden problems and flaws, and finding ways to upgrade and optimize them.

At that moment, all several dozen of Li Qingsong's precision machinery plants switched production and began manufacturing spaceship components.

On a vacant plot of land, after simple leveling and reinforcement, a frame-structured Spaceship Assembly Line was completed in just one month, replacing the original small-scale production line.

Amid the constant roar of Heavy-Load Trains and Flying Sky Type-1 spaceships, enormous quantities of components surged toward the site like a tide.

The more than ten thousand clones working there, aided by automation technology pushed to the highest possible efficiency, seemed to have turned into robots themselves, not daring to relax for even a moment.

There were even dozens of clones waiting behind them at all times.

Normally, they remained quietly there without consuming Li Qingsong's precious consciousness-link slots. But whenever a clone at a workstation needed to leave, even if only to take a piss, another clone would immediately take over without interruption, ensuring that the assembly line was not delayed by even a single second.

Under these circumstances, with over a hundred precision machinery plants, several high-reliability Chip Factories, and numerous factories producing Connectors, plastic film, screens, rubber, detectors, controllers, and other items all operating at full capacity, this new Spaceship Assembly Line rapidly saw its output soar to four spaceships per day.

Four spaceships a day might not sound like much, but these were massive mechanical devices integrating the most advanced technology Li Qingsong currently possessed in every field. Their complexity and precision were simply incomparable to a train or a factory.

One enormous spaceship after another rolled off the assembly line, each weighing more than thirty tons and over fifty tons when fully fueled, then was swiftly put into transport service without wasting a moment.

At the Launch Site, spaceships were taking off or landing almost every moment.

Because takeoffs and landings were so frequent, even the ground at the launch pad had been scorched into partial vitrification.

And this was merely one of the dozen or so existing Launch Sites.

Under these circumstances, box after box of Space Laboratory construction materials were transported into space, orbiting Luoshen Star at roughly 900 meters per second.

While fully expanding the number of spaceships, Li Qingsong was also working on another matter.

More spaceships naturally meant more fuel consumed.

Existing fuel reserves were insufficient. Methane and oxygen production capacity had to be increased to more than a hundred times its current level!

A single spaceship consumed around fifteen tons of fuel on each trip. Three trips a day meant forty-five tons. With roughly 220 existing spaceships, that came to around ten thousand tons of fuel per day.

And as the number of spaceships increased, this figure would rapidly soar.

It would not be surprising for tens of thousands of tons of fuel to be consumed each day on average in the future.

Especially since, with the construction of the Space Laboratory, the electricity usage and energy consumption of all the other factories had also increased sharply in tandem.

To generate enough electricity, there had to be enough fuel.

According to Li Qingsong's calculations, during the previous stage, his cluster of bases had consumed an average of around one hundred thousand tons of tholin and methane, as well as thirty thousand tons of oxygen, per day.

But now, after factoring in the fuel required by the spaceships, the number had suddenly doubled, reaching two hundred thousand tons of tholin and methane, along with more than sixty thousand tons of oxygen, per day!

As a result, the clones working at the Oxygen Ore mine, Tholin Mine, and Methane Mine also became frantically busy.

Huge numbers of machines and clones joined the mining effort. Heavy-Load Trains thundered along the tracks day and night without stopping. To make up for inadequate transport capacity, even Flying Sky Type-1 spaceships joined the task of temporarily hauling supplies in an emergency.

With more spaceships, chip consumption also increased drastically.

Aside from the Main Control Computer, other parts of a spaceship also required chips.

A single sensor or controller required chips.

One spaceship alone required tens of thousands of chips!

At four spaceships a day, that was more than two hundred thousand chips daily, or over seventy million chips a year!

What was more, the Space Laboratory he intended to build would itself require a huge number of chips.

Li Qingsong estimated that at least a hundred million would be needed.

Thus, the Chip Factories also became frantically busy.

Moreover, in order to transfer more manpower into production, there were far fewer people working in planting, livestock breeding, and the Aquatic Product Base. Yet food and biological resource production could not be reduced.

So those places also became busy.

At the same time, building the Space Laboratory itself meant an enormous number of production and research tasks. Thus, more factories, along with the research clones at the research centers, also became frantically busy.

For a time, because of this one Space Laboratory, every base Li Qingsong possessed—whether Mining Bases or industrial bases, research bases or Grain Bases—all of them became busy.

Li Qingsong pushed his 700,000 consciousness-link slots to almost their absolute limit.

Every second, large numbers of clones jogged to their beds. The instant they collapsed onto them, their consciousness links disconnected. At the same time, clones in other beds instantly opened their eyes, practically sprang to their feet, wolfed down breakfast in a few bites, and rushed out of the dormitories.

Open-top buses stood outside the dormitory entrances at every moment. Large numbers of clones jumped off them, while each newly emptied open-top bus would be filled with boarding clones within a minute.

Then the buses roared away as if flying, carrying load after load of clones to factories, bases, buildings, and research institutes...

In space, several thousand clones wearing Spacesuits carried out spacewalk missions, assembling components one by one.

On the ground, spaceships took off and landed, transporting box after box of construction materials into space.

Everything was in perfect order. Though everyone was busy to the utmost and efficiency had been pushed to the extreme, there was not the slightest chaos, much less any coordination failures.