You promised to build cars, so why did you go into the military industry?

Chapter 74 Time Waits for No One

The office door opened from the inside, and Lin Yu, looking tired and with messy hair, appeared in front of Li Ran.

"You need to find a secretary as soon as possible to help you manage your affairs."

"I'm busy." Lin Yu led Li Ran to the sofa and sat down, yawning. "What's up?"

Li Ran didn't keep them in suspense and pulled out six certificates from his backpack.

Its dark green, hard shell is particularly eye-catching.

Lin Yu raised an eyebrow, picked up a book, and started flipping through it.

"Dr. Lin, congratulations on your certificates: three degree certificates and three graduation certificates."

"My thesis—"

"The astronauts have all moved into Tiangong. Special arrangements have been made."

Lin Yu shrugged and put the six certificates on the bookshelf behind his desk.

Noticing that Li Ran showed no intention of leaving, Lin Yu yawned and tried to shoo him away: "Is there something wrong? I'm going to take a nap. I stayed up all night yesterday and I'm a little exhausted."

"When Academician Lu came, he asked me if I was interested in space real estate. You tell me—"

"no."

Lin Yu waved his hand to interrupt Li Ran.

"Building a small space station is not difficult for us, but the country has just built one, so there is no point in us building another one."

Our top priority is to develop a reusable heavy-lift rocket, with a single payload capacity of at least 100 tons for the LE0.

Therefore, I have devoted my energy to the design and development of the Joint 2 three-and-a-half-stage tandem liquid launch vehicle during this period.

LE0 has a single-trip capacity of 100 tons?

If this thing were built, wouldn't it be able to aim at the moon?

"Is there any difficulty?"

"I heard that several new natural gas deposits have been discovered in Sichuan. Why don't you try to buy them?"

If it weren't for the limited fuel reserves, our Joint One launch frequency could reach once every three days — haha~~~

Lin Yu wiped away his tears with a tissue.

"Unfortunately, the carrying capacity of the Union 1 rocket was still too small. Although rockets are reusable, they are not the future."

Seeing that Lin Yu's eyelids were drooping, Li Ran wisely left.

"Natural gas deposits?" Wang Bing, who was organizing the certificates, looked up at Li Ran in surprise. "Why did you buy that stuff?"

"Didn't Lin Yu say they were short of fuel?"

Silently putting away the certificate, Wang Bing turned to Li Ran and gestured for her to come out with him.

Riding on the small electric scooter, Li Ran, under Wang Bing's guidance, zigzaggled his way to the northeast corner of the industrial zone, where he could faintly hear the surging sound of the Yangtze River not far away.

Wang Bing pointed to the several hemispherical buildings in front of him and said, "This is the CO methanation production area. It's just short of manpower, otherwise it would have been in production long ago."

"what?"

Li Ran was somewhat doubtful of her ears and eyes.

He had previously patrolled this area and assumed these hemispherical structures were liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks.

After all, he had seen tanker trucks transporting propellant transit through this area several times before—

So it's about "re-employing idle buildings"?

"I'll send the rest of the certificates to you first. You can take a look around here for now."

Wang Bing shook his head and drove away on his electric scooter.

The production area was deserted; the entire factory was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

I spent half an hour inside, taking a quick look around, when I heard a loudspeaker blaring from the entrance.

Thinking it was Wang Bing returning, Li Ran slowly walked towards the door.

"Hello, Mr. Li." Several cleaning staff greeted Li loudly upon seeing him.

"Okay, okay, okay. Thank you for your hard work. I'll just wander around a bit."

No wonder the factory area is so clean; it turns out that cleaning staff regularly carry out cleaning work.

Arriving at the entrance, Li Ran found a shady spot and sat down on the ground, secretly planning the staffing schedule.

Judging from the level of specialization of the internal factories, ordinary employees probably wouldn't be able to get involved at all. It might require the addition of a large number of engineering undergraduate and master's degree talents to successfully take over and start production.

To the outside world, the uninformed public knew that the starting salary at United Industrial was five times that of the industry average, and that they even received housing.

Internally, loyalty is strengthened by Li Ran's [Gratitude] trait.

This has resulted in a zero turnover rate at United Industries in recent years.

Therefore, long ago, after each department had filled its staff, campus recruitment was naturally stopped.

But now, time is of the essence, and simply recruiting from the general public is no longer efficient enough; we must restart campus recruitment.

Moreover, unlike previous campus recruitments, this time the required talent level is higher.

Li Ran took out his phone and called Academician Lu Xiangwen, but was told that he was out of service. He then contacted Zhao Feng and Qiu Cunming, but they were also out of service.

Could it be that—

With these guesses in mind, Li Ran dialed Director Qi Kaifeng's number.

"Sorry, the number you dialed is not in service area, please————"

Taking a sharp breath, Li Ran suddenly recalled Academician Lu Xiangwen's question from that morning: "What are your thoughts on space real estate?"

"Have they already started a closed-door meeting?" Li Ran was a little unsure.

After some editing and revisions, Li Ran sent a text message to Lu Xiangwen 10 minutes later.

They expressed their hope that the United Industries would recruit master's and doctoral degree-level talents at Sichuan University, while also acknowledging the promising prospects of space real estate.

Then, for reasons unknown, Li Ran inexplicably sent Qi Kaifeng a text message saying, "United Industries is conducting research and development on a heavy-lift rocket with a single payload capacity of over 100 tons."

After a moment of blankness, Wang Bing returned.

"Finished watching? What did you think?"

"Feelings? I don't know—" Li Ran glanced at her phone, which was displaying no notifications, and answered absentmindedly.

Fourteen hours earlier, Lu Xiangwen, who had left United Industries, arrived at Qilian Mountain 627 Factory by high-speed rail with Zhao Feng and Qiu Cunming, arriving under the cover of darkness.

Early in the morning, the three of them participated in an internal meeting hosted by CNSA and the National Bank, and were in high spirits.

After the host gave a detailed introduction to the content and agenda of the meeting, the three men looked on incredulously.

What does it mean to increase investment in the aerospace sector?

Oh, it's a budget of NT$500 billion annually for 15 years, so that's what the increased investment is all about!

Is this still in China?

What does it mean to carry out research and development work on reusable rockets?

Recycling network? Why not use United Industries' vertical recycling model?

There is also preliminary research and demonstration of second-generation spacecraft and second-generation space stations to prepare for lunar space stations and deep space travel within the solar system.

Are they also planning to achieve a manned lunar landing within fifteen years, that is, before 2030?

Wouldn't that be—

"The Biosphere 1 module, developed under the leadership of Academician Lu Xiangwen, Professor Zhao Feng, and Professor Qiu Cunming, has been operating stably in orbit for 14 months — Approval granted, with a budget of 10 billion yuan, to deliver a system capable of providing long-term extraterrestrial living space for 30 people within five years —"

Zhao Feng poked his ear hard with his little finger and shook his head. For some reason, he felt like he had suddenly gone deaf.

As Zhao Feng shook his head, he felt his thigh being pinched. Turning around, he saw Qiu Cunming's face flushed with blood, his voice trembling: "Time waits for no one! Time waits for no one!"

Before the meeting adjourned, a man who looked like a secretary jogged in quickly, whispered a few words to the people on the stage, and then turned and left.

With a click, the conference room door closed again, and the room suddenly fell silent.

"Comrades, we have just received news that an hour ago, the private international aerospace company SpaceX successfully completed the vertical recovery procedure for the first stage of a rocket —"

The meeting room erupted in chaos.

"This is unacceptable—"

Someone instinctively stood up and denied it, but before they could finish speaking, they saw the serious expressions on the faces of the leaders on the stage and sat down dejectedly.

"We've only just broken through the 10km high-altitude hovering and controlled return barrier —"

"Time waits for no one—" Zhao Feng murmured.