Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 570 Our goal is the sea of ​​stars!

When Nanmen Space's small-scale automated lunar base was revealed, it instantly attracted a large amount of attention from people all over the world.

Numerous news media outlets, seemingly on steroids, launched various reports, while even more journalists attempted to uncover more inside information.

Various analyses, discussions, and even conspiracy theories suddenly emerged.

On Twitter, a so-called expert who focuses on aliens and UFO phenomena confidently asserted that Nanmen Aerospace must have discovered aliens on the moon. Otherwise, Nanmen Aerospace could not have spent such a huge amount of money to conduct such a large-scale exploration of the moon and establish a lunar base in just one year. There must be an ulterior motive behind this, and that ulterior motive is that Nanmen Aerospace discovered aliens!
As for why we mention space telescopes, since other countries' probes orbiting the moon have not found any traces of extraterrestrial life, especially not any obvious anomalies near the Southgate lunar base, we will leave that aside.

Many people will only choose to believe what they want to believe... insisting that Nanmen Aerospace has discovered traces of aliens.

Even now, many people still think the American moon landing was a hoax... The traces left by the Americans on the moon after several landings are very obvious.

Traces can be found on spacecraft from a large number of countries, especially lunar probes, and various photos can be found and confirmed through public channels.

Even our Chang'e project has very clearly detected traces left by the American lunar landing activities.

But still, nobody believed it!

To insist that the American moon landing was a hoax.

In fact, human activities on the moon and even Mars are basically impossible to hide from modern human space exploration technology... Even the traces of the American lander launched to Mars can be clearly photographed by our Tianwen probe, let alone the traces on the moon, which is even closer.

To some extent, human activities in space, and even on the moon and Mars, are actually public knowledge... A lot of countries' space agencies could easily find them if they put in the effort.

Launching a probe with a high-definition camera on it is not a difficult task!
This is also why space agencies from various countries, after noticing something unusual about Nanmen Space's lunar exploration activities, immediately mobilized space telescopes and lunar orbiting satellites or even satellites on Earth to conduct observations, and quickly located Nanmen Space's lunar base.

It can't be hidden...

Finding out the truth is one thing, but figuring out how Nanmen Aerospace did it and why they did it is another matter entirely.

Don't assume that lunar landing is easy just because Nanmen Aerospace has launched a large number of probes to the moon and even built a small unmanned automated base on the lunar surface.

In reality, for most countries, it's far too difficult!

Excluding Nanmen Space, before this, countries around the world had launched more than 100 probes of various types to the moon, mainly the United States and the former Soviet Union, which each launched more than 60 probes, accounting for the absolute number of lunar explorations.

Subsequently, we also conducted some, and a series of countries such as India, Japan, and Europe also conducted a small number of lunar probes.

However, the success rate is still relatively low. To date, only the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China have successfully landed lunar probes. Other countries have not yet achieved lunar landings; they only have lunar satellite-like space probes.

Even in the 21st century, successfully landing on the moon, even with an unmanned probe, is not an easy task.

However, on the other hand, for a major power, especially for Nanmen Space, which has top-notch aerospace technology, landing an unmanned probe on the moon is not a particularly difficult task... The biggest challenge for Nanmen Space is not to achieve a lunar landing, but to achieve such a low-cost, high-efficiency, and large-scale lunar landing.

After all, Nanmen Aerospace is involved in large-scale lunar base construction, so controlling costs is a very critical issue.

Therefore, Nanmen Space's lunar landing model is significantly different from that of other space agencies.

Nanmen Space's lunar exploration activities, from the earliest lunar orbiter to the current small unmanned base, have actually only taken about three years in total.

But the progress was indeed very rapid and extremely efficient!

While other countries, especially their space agencies, are still conducting various research projects, they are exploring how to carry out exploration activities more safely and successfully.

Without hesitation, Nanmen Aerospace launched more than ten rockets, sending up a large number of various probes.

And in a very short time, together with Zhiyun Satellite, they established a lunar satellite network on the moon...

While other countries still have only one or two probes, Nanmen Space Launch and Zhiyun Satellite's lunar satellite network already has more than ten satellites in operation.

Through these satellites, Nanmen Space obtained a wealth of detailed and complete data on the moon, and even created an ultra-high-precision 3D map of the lunar surface.

At the same time, a preliminary lunar positioning system and communication system were established.

With this satellite positioning and communication system, the next steps were much simpler for Nanmen Aerospace. They first sent several probes to the moon for lunar exploration.

They launched the Sirius unmanned space station and the Queqiao lunar spacecraft... and incidentally, they also deployed a batch of automated unmanned equipment to the moon, establishing a small unmanned base.

Finally, relying on this small unmanned base, more detailed explorations were carried out on the lunar surface... The exploration objectives were also quite numerous, such as searching for various minerals... not just searching for helium-3.

Or perhaps it's to find iron ore and other minerals, in order to prepare for the future construction of a lunar base by refining various raw materials locally.

After all, it's impossible to transport everything from Earth... that would be too much of an undertaking and too costly.

Nanmen Space's lunar base plan aims to mine and refine local minerals on the moon using automated, unmanned equipment, and obtain basic materials and components, especially building materials for the base, through 3D printing or other means.

High-tech automated equipment can be transported from Earth, but you can't transport building materials from Earth too!

Of course, all of this is ultimately for the purpose of finding and mining helium-3!
The search for and mining of helium-3 is the core objective of Southgate Space's entire lunar base program... one might even say its sole objective.

As for conventional lunar exploration, it doesn't mean much to a commercial space company like Southgate Space!

Helium-3 is the core driving force that prompted Nanmen Aerospace to invest heavily in collaborating with Zhiyun Satellite, Hailan Automotive, and other companies to build a lunar base.

However, this objective cannot be made public... because announcing the search for and mining of helium-3 would be tantamount to admitting that their controlled nuclear fusion technology has achieved a major breakthrough and is about to enter the commercial application stage.

This news must not be made public!

The controlled nuclear fusion research of Xinghai Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Fairy Mountain Holdings, is currently top secret, and the outside world is not even aware of the existence of this company.

The impact of controlled nuclear fusion is enormous, not only causing a huge shock to the outside world, but also to the inside world... It could potentially lead to some economic turmoil!
Therefore, relevant information should be kept confidential, and various industrial transformation plans should be made in advance while maintaining confidentiality.

Just like the MMK34 room-temperature superconducting material and the YLC-51 superconducting quantum computer developed by Zhiyun Group, these two technological breakthroughs are still top secret.

There are absolutely no related papers or companies that can be found publicly... all related applications are kept highly confidential.

Although the superconducting quantum computing center and the MMK34 superconducting material production plant invested and built by Zhiyun Group are private enterprises, security is not entirely the responsibility of Zhiyun Group itself... security agencies are also highly involved.

The technical personnel involved in these two projects have all undergone rigorous security audits... These audits were not even led by Zhiyun Group, but by a security agency.

After undergoing security audits and signing confidentiality agreements, some employees who have direct access to core secrets, such as those who possess the core technical expertise in the preparation process of MMK34 materials, may even need to 'disappear' for extended periods, completely cutting off contact with the outside world.

Only under special circumstances and in special locations can one have occasional contact with family members.

Its level of secrecy is extremely high!

Xinghai Energy Technology's controlled nuclear fusion project is also a similar classified project.

How should we put it? Before we actually achieve controlled nuclear fusion, we can talk about it however we want, and we can even invite foreign scientists to participate.

Since there's nothing to hide... there's no need to keep it a secret. Open communication might even lead to a better solution.

But when you actually have this thing, you naturally have to keep it hidden and then use this technological advantage to gain a competitive edge in many industries.

Because it involves the secrecy of controlled nuclear fusion technology, the true purpose of the lunar base also needs to be kept secret... It is impossible to disclose to the public that the purpose of the lunar base is to mine helium-3 in the future.

Of course, when discussing Nanmen Space's lunar base, many people inevitably mention the abundant helium-3 resources on the moon and explore the feasibility of mining helium-3 on the moon.

However, this kind of discussion is limited to the surface level... Even those who think this way believe that it is China preparing for the future.

By making early arrangements for the nuclear fusion industry, we can obtain helium-3 resources once controlled nuclear fusion is achieved.

As for when controlled nuclear fusion will be achieved, only God knows.

Anyway, controlled nuclear fusion technology has been talked about for decades, and it's always "the next decade, the next decade..." If we keep talking about it, no one will believe us anymore.

In response to the heated discussions surrounding its lunar base, Nanmen Aerospace did not remain silent. Instead, it quickly held a press conference to announce some details of the lunar base plan... which were basically things that could be observed and analyzed by the outside world.

The focus of the announcement was on scientific interstellar exploration.

To say something very macro-level.

Humanity cannot be confined to Earth forever; in the future, we will inevitably have to leave our local areas and venture into space. Our company, Nanmen Aerospace, is a company with a strong yearning for interstellar travel and possesses a large number of talented individuals dedicated to lofty ideals. With the financial support of our boss, Xu Shenxue, we have launched the lunar base project to verify the feasibility of building an automated base on Earth.

This will lay the technological foundation for building bases for future missions to Mars and other planets in the solar system.

At the press conference, they also announced a series of other interstellar plans.

Including a lunar colonization base, scientists at Nanmen Space envision establishing a base with a complete ecological cycle on the moon for initial lunar colonization.

At the same time, the even larger-scale 'Mars base plan' was officially announced!
"The lunar base project is just our first step, a scientific exploration, and a preliminary verification of many technologies!"

"Once the technology is verified, we will launch the Mars base plan, preparing to build a large-scale immigration base on Mars to accommodate thousands or even tens of thousands of people!"

"Because Mars has water resources that are vital to us humans, and it is also easier to obtain fuels such as methane for rockets and spacecraft, which are needed for the return journey of spacecraft!"

"Beyond the Mars base, we will also dedicate ourselves to exploring other planets within the solar system and the outer regions of the solar system!"

"The lunar base is just our starting point, definitely not our end!"

"One day, our interstellar spaceships will appear in every corner of the solar system!"

"Our goal is the sea of ​​stars!"

At this press conference, Nanmen Aerospace set a very high tone... constantly talking about the fate of humanity, that the solar system is humanity's home, venturing into space, and even venturing beyond the solar system.

It makes you think: These people are crazy!
However, this is also the stereotypical image that Nanmen Aerospace often presents to the outside world: a crazy world's richest man leading a group of crazy scientists to form an aerospace company!
Normal people wouldn't get involved in commercial spaceflight, let alone build lunar or Mars bases.

However, this makes perfect sense in the case of Xu Shenxue.

Xu Shenxue has expressed his longing for the starry sky on many public occasions, and said that his longing for the starry sky is the core reason for his founding of Nanmen Aerospace.

Even the name of Nanmen Aerospace comes from the 'Nanmen Galaxy'... which is the closest star system to Earth.

Xu Shenxue: One day, humanity will be able to traverse vast distances and leave its mark in this South Gate Galaxy!

Everyone knows Xu Shenxue's yearning for the stars, and he's also incredibly wealthy... so it's not surprising that he created a company like Nanmen Aerospace.

Even now, when Nanmen Aerospace plans to build a lunar base, most people are shocked to some extent, but when they think that it is Xu Shenxue who is behind it, they are not surprised.

The world's richest man spending money on his hobbies is nothing special...

Other super-rich people indulge in things like yachts, luxury cars, and private jets. It's 'normal' that Xu Shenxue's hobbies are a bit more unusual and expensive.

A simple hypothetical scenario: If you were as wealthy as Xu Shenxue, as successful in your career, and had sufficient resources to promote space exploration, would you also establish a space program called Nanmen Space to explore the stars?
There wasn't any particular purpose; it was purely to satisfy my curiosity and gain a sense of accomplishment.

Most people would actually make the same choice: Yes!

And Xu Shenxue is not the only one like this; Elon Musk and other super-rich people in the United States are also involved in aerospace.

Of course, besides their ideals, they also have financial interests at play... Musk's SpaceX's biggest customer is NASA.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin was also established earlier, but it suffered a crushing defeat in competition with Musk's SpaceX, and has been incurring substantial losses ever since.

Xu Shenxue's involvement in aerospace was driven by profit, in addition to his interstellar ideals.

When Xu Shenxue first started working in aerospace, besides his various lofty ideals about the stars, his main goal was to create a global satellite communication and sensing network to provide his various smart terminals, drones, unmanned vehicles and other equipment with a global low-latency satellite communication network and various sensing data.

Simply put, it involves moving ground-based communication base stations and various sensors into space to achieve broader and more comprehensive network coverage, as well as provide ultra-high precision positioning, data sensing, and feedback.

This is the data support infrastructure for Xu Shenxue's series of unmanned devices!

A specific application scenario is: an unmanned vehicle or drone departs from any location, connects to a satellite network, acquires various data from the satellite network, then automatically plans a path to proceed... and finally arrives at any predetermined location.

Going a step further, we would build a massive intelligent transportation network!
The current satellite network of Zhiyun Satellite is still in its infancy... and is far from achieving the effect that Xu Shenxue hoped to see.

The initial purpose of developing reusable rockets was simply to reduce the launch costs of a large number of satellites. As for the subsequent acquisition of a large number of commercial orders, that was just a side effect.

However, as things progressed, companies like Galaxy Life raised the need for space experiments, so they built a commercial space station... Now, the biggest customer of this commercial space station is Galaxy Life, which conducts all sorts of random experiments on it year-round.

Then... Fairy Mountain Holdings actually said that we have initially solved many of the major technical problems of controlled nuclear fusion, especially several core materials, which have been produced, and theoretically have the possibility of manufacturing controlled nuclear fusion.

This gives Nanmen Aerospace an additional mission objective: to mine helium-3 on the moon to provide a large quantity of cost-effective fuel for future controlled nuclear fusion.

This led to the lunar base plan!

This happened step by step... Xu Shenxue's personal ideals and practical needs came together, ultimately leading to the current situation.

There's no need to say these things to the outside world. When Xu Shenxue speaks to the outside world, he always talks about the fate of humanity and slogans like interstellar colonization, shouting all sorts of idealistic things. As for commercial interests or even personal interests, he never talks about them.

A reporter once asked him, "Nanmen Aerospace has been established for many years. Although it has achieved great success in the field of commercial satellite launch, Nanmen Aerospace is still operating at a loss overall. Chairman Xu, how do you plan to solve the problem of Nanmen Aerospace's losses?"
Xu Shenxue replied with a smile, "Given the current scale of losses at Nanmen Aerospace, I could support it continuing to lose money for a thousand years..."

Xu Shenxue made it clear: I have money, I can afford to lose it, and I'm happy to do it!

What can outsiders say...?

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While the outside world is still debating, Nanmen Aerospace's actions continue!
Just days after the Yutu interplanetary spacecraft returned to the Centaurus space station, a White Dragon space shuttle separated from Centaurus and successfully returned to Earth carrying more than 100 kilograms of lunar soil and mineral samples.

This provided Nanmen Space with extremely valuable lunar soil and mineral samples, which will be studied in depth in the future.

For example, we need to explore how to better refine helium-3 at a lower cost... Similarly, we need to explore how to mine and refine other mineral resources and even water on the moon at a lower cost.

Yes, there is water on the moon, but it does not exist widely in the form of conventional liquid water and ice. Instead, it is stored in different forms in lunar soil and minerals. A small number of samples brought back by the unmanned probes of Nanmen Space were studied by scientists, who discovered a mineral called magnesium ammonium chloride hexahydrate.

This mineral contains water molecules, and liquid water can be separated using certain technical means.

Furthermore, this mineral has a very high water molecule content, reaching 41%... 410 kilograms of water can be separated from one ton of this mineral.

With water available, many things become much easier.

Water is not only an essential resource for life on Earth, especially for human activities, but it is also the most important fuel source in interstellar exploration!

It's a very simple fact: electrolyzing water can produce hydrogen and oxygen!
And rocket engines include hydrogen-oxygen engines...

Finding water is the same as finding fuel!
This is extremely important for interstellar travel, especially travel to other planets.

This means that we no longer need to transport fuel from Earth to other planets to refuel various spacecraft... Transporting everything from Earth would be too expensive.

Of course, if there is no water, hydrogen and oxygen can be obtained in other ways, but it is more complicated and far less simple and straightforward than water electrolysis.

Therefore, finding water on the moon, or finding a way to extract/separate water, is very important for Nanmen Space's lunar base plan.

Subsequently, Nanmen Aerospace will collaborate with other companies and research institutions to conduct more detailed analysis and research on these numerous lunar specimens... and these are not the only specimens; there will be more to come.

The most important task of Nanmen Space's small automated lunar base is to obtain various mineral samples and then transport them back to Earth for scientists to analyze.

According to Nanmen Space's established plan, it will continue to explore and sample different areas on the moon over the next five years, and then transport the samples back to Earth for research and analysis... The weight of these samples could eventually reach several tons or even more than ten tons.

The most important thing is to cover different areas for exploration... mainly in order to find a suitable place to mine helium-3.

Helium-3 on the moon is not evenly distributed; some areas have more reserves, while others have less.

At the same time, the situation of other minerals must also be considered. After all, the purpose of building the base is to mine helium-3, but in the process, water resources, iron or other mineral resources also need to be mined to meet the needs of the lunar base itself.

Therefore, the current small automated base on the moon is not the future location of a large lunar base... This place is currently just a small exploration base.

Nanmen Aerospace will continue to build and deploy more of these small, unmanned, automated exploration bases in different regions of the moon.

Once we have a clear understanding of the situation on the moon and found a suitable location, we will then choose a place to build a large-scale lunar base.

These things will take time, and quite a while; they won't be visible anytime soon.

After encouraging the staff of Nanmen Aerospace, Xu Shenxue boarded a special plane and returned to Shenzhen... Before leaving Qiongzhou, he also gave a rare interview to a reporter.

Mainly because he was in a good mood, and the reporter he encountered was also quite polite in requesting an interview, so he gave the reporter a few minutes.

In the interview, Xu Shenxue naturally spoke at length about the necessity and importance of humanity breaking out of Earth and venturing into space...

"Humanity's journey should not be confined to Earth, but should extend to the vast expanse of space!"

"The stars and the sea are where we humans truly belong!"

When asked about the lunar base, Xu Shenxue also revealed its importance to the public.

"Establishing a base on the moon to explore and experiment with a range of space technologies is an essential step for humankind to reach the stars!"

"The lunar base is just our first step. The second step is to establish a Mars base, and in the future, we will also establish related bases on other planets in the solar system!"

"But to venture into the solar system or even break out of it, we must first conquer the moon, which is right on our doorstep!"

"If we can't even establish a foothold on the moon, which is right on our doorstep, how can we talk about going out into the world?"

In the interview, Xu Shenxue emphasized the role of the lunar base in exploring and experimenting with a range of aerospace technologies... which is highly consistent with the information released by Nanmen Aerospace.

Xu Shenxue's remarks in this interview quickly became global news... Xu Shenxue's personal statement was far more important and attracted more attention than the statement made by the spokesperson of Nanmen Aerospace.

As a result, after watching the interview, some people thought Xu Shenxue was bragging... The current technological level is not that high, building a base on the moon is suicidal.

Some people are being sarcastic, saying that there are countless deserts on Earth that haven't been properly managed, and that managing and transforming them would be even easier. Yet some people are ignoring Earth's deserts and instead want to build bases on the moon or even Mars...

Many people still suspect that there must be a conspiracy involved!

Xu Shenxue must have discovered aliens on the moon... In fact, the reason why Xu Shenxue's companies have been able to produce so many cutting-edge technologies and develop so rapidly in recent years is because they have obtained technology from aliens on the moon.

Let's not talk about the reactions of ordinary people.

Let's also talk about some responses from industry insiders.

Musk stated that they will steadfastly continue to push forward with the Mars base plan, and that they are already developing a super rocket that, once successfully developed, will be able to support the establishment of a base on Mars.

As for the lunar base, he originally had no such plan, but now Xu Shenxue is causing a lot of trouble on the moon... Although he still doesn't know why Xu Shenxue is doing this, it's clearly a losing proposition.

However, in the spirit of following up and taking a safe approach, Musk also stated that SpaceX is already pushing forward with its lunar landing program.

Let's put aside the lunar base for now and launch a few probes to see what Xu Shenxue is doing on the moon... Otherwise, we'll just keep being suspicious.

He didn't doubt that Xu Shenxue had discovered living aliens on the moon, but rather he thought: what if Xu Shenxue really did find the wreckage of an alien spaceship on the moon?
In short, let's put everything else aside for now and send a probe to the moon to see what Xu Shenxue is doing there!

Then Japan also announced that they had launched a lunar landing program, and that unmanned lunar probes were under construction. Japan's first lunar landing program would be launched in the near future.

Even India has announced that its lunar landing program has been launched and the design of its lunar probe is nearing completion.

It is worth noting that although Indians like to boast in many fields, their strength in the aerospace field is quite good.

As for Europe... they've never really been involved in the space industry; their capabilities in this field are even inferior to India's...

Not only in the aerospace field, but also in many other cutting-edge fields, Europe has fallen behind the times.

Europe is already lagging behind in many emerging fields such as smart terminals, the Internet, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, robotics, and electric vehicles.

This old Europe is truly getting old!

After all, when Chinese companies like Zhiyun Group are fiercely competing with American companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple in advanced fields such as smart terminals, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles...

What are Europeans doing?

They are researching how to make mineral water bottle caps more environmentally friendly...

However, this kind of Europe is quite good. It can honestly live off its limited resources and serve as a consumer market... Xu Shenxue really likes this kind of Europe.

Having a substantial family fortune means they are wealthy and have good spending power.

At the same time, the lack of cutting-edge technology means that there are no strong competitors in the local area.

This kind of market is Xu Shenxue's favorite!

Therefore, Xu Shenxue often praised Europe on many occasions.

Some of his senior executives, such as some senior vice presidents of Zhiyun Group, also frequently travel to Europe on business trips, where they would shower Europeans with praise.

When you're making money at someone else's house, it's normal to flatter them a bit!

(End of this chapter)