Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
Director's Office, Aerospace Technology Research Institute.
When Hou Guang saw the proposal Lu Zhou had brought over, he paused slightly after finishing his work and asked instinctively.
"...Mining on the Moon?"
Lu Zhou nodded and answered concisely.
"Yes."
Seeing that Lu Zhou did not appear to be joking, Hou Guang picked up his glasses from the desk and put them back on. He opened the proposal to its title page and carefully read the summary.
After about two or three minutes, he casually flipped through several pages toward the back, then set it on the desk. Adjusting his glasses, he looked at Lu Zhou and said cautiously.
"I've finished reading the proposal. Broadly speaking... you want to design a device that can be deployed on the lunar surface and automatically mine shallow mineral deposits?"
Lu Zhou said, "That's right."
That's right...
At least he had changed his wording this time.
Hearing that utterly calm tone, as though they were discussing what to eat today, Hou Guang could not help but smile wryly.
"But the Moon Palace spacecraft has only just completed its first phase. Starting lunar mining now... isn't that a bit too big a step?"
Lu Zhou shook his head. "Not really. Besides, the Moon Palace spacecraft project was meant to support lunar resource development from the start, so the two do not conflict. Now that the first Queqiao spacecraft has officially entered service, I think it is time to move our steps from Lunar Orbit down to the lunar soil below."
The 2020s of the twenty-first century marked the beginning of the "Lunar Age."
Mining on the Moon might have sounded difficult to achieve if someone had said it a few years ago, but in 2021, it was no longer something impossibly difficult.