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

Chapter 89 The Early Manned Spaceflight Program

After seeing Professor Song Ting off, Li Ran stayed in Lin Yu's office, lay down on the sofa, and sank into it.

Recalling the tree species that Professor Song Ting took away, Li Ran felt a strong sense of loss.

United Industries now possesses extremely rich experience in rocket launches, and was originally able to launch one rocket per week.

Two months ago, with the start of SNG production, fuel constraints were eliminated, and the pace of launching rockets has progressed to two per week.

Over the past year, Lin Yu and his team have built a total of four first-stage rocket bodies for recovery, participating in the rotation of rocket launch operations.

A total of 47 launch missions have been carried out, sending a total of 258 tons of supplies into space.

However, the weight of scientific research materials recovered from space is zero.

Li Ran lay on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, muttering to himself, "Even if we launch rockets every day, we can't send a single person up. The sense of participation is too low!"

After a while, not hearing Lin Yu's agreement, Li Ran turned to look at the figure focused on working behind the desk and called out, "Lin Yu, are you listening?"

"Nobody's here, I'm busy," Lin Yu replied without even turning his head.

"What about Wang Bing and the others? Aren't they already preparing to promote the product on their phones? Do they really need that many people?"

"Fine, just give me the technical specifications for the Joint 2 rocket, and I'll go and conscript men!"

Lin Yu felt somewhat helpless looking at Li Ran, who was standing in front of him slamming his fist on the table.

Perhaps annoyed by his urging, he printed out the technical parameters of the Joint 2 and also took out several manned spacecraft concept drawings he had drawn in his spare time from the drawer, handed them to Li Ran, and sent him away quickly.

Although Lin Yu kicked him out, Li Ran wasn't angry. He hummed a little tune as he carried a stack of documents and strolled out of the building.

Not long after, Li Ran arrived at Wang Bing's side.

After putting down the documents, he didn't explain his purpose, but instead asked indirectly, "When will our phones be online?"

Faced with Li Ran's question, Shen Zijie answered without hesitation, after all, he had been following up on this matter every day: "We will hold a press conference at the end of October and officially launch the product on Double Eleven."

We've already reached an agreement with the two major e-commerce platforms. In exchange for four rocket-themed GGs, we'll get a 7-day GG splash screen, a top ranking in the smart digital category, and keyword association features for mobile phones and other related keywords.

哦，对了，四枚火箭要有两枚是在11月11日当天发射，一枚是11月11日0时0分0秒，一枚是11月11日23时59分59秒。」

After listening to Shen Zijie's introduction, Li Ran was dumbfounded. Was this some kind of publicity campaign?

Are they mistaking a rocket for a giant firework?!

As expected of a currently incredibly wealthy e-commerce platform, besides its overflowing wealth, there isn't a single unnecessary operation to be seen.

"Are you kidding me? Are there any mission trajectories that match these two time points?"

"An inappropriate launch time simply means spending some fuel to change orbit, which will reduce the on-orbit lifespan, but has no other impact."

Moreover, the e-commerce platform is wealthy and powerful, and it covered the manufacturing and launch costs of those two satellites, so no one complained.

"Damn, do rich people know how to have fun? I'm so envious."

Li Ran couldn't contain her jealousy.

"What kind of satellites are these?"

"It seems to be a communications satellite company called Gaode —"

"Gaode?"

As soon as the company's name was mentioned, Li Ran sensed something was off and immediately asked, "Could both rockets launched on Singles' Day be from Jack Ma?"

"Mr. Li, how did you guess?"

Sighing, Li Ran said helplessly, "Couldn't you at least collect some customer information?"

"Any company that needs a private satellite is a big, influential client."

Li Ran opened his phone, entered a few keywords, and then handed over the search page.

"This Gaode is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jack Ma. The acquisition was completed in January of the year before last, and it was delisted from Nasdaq in August of last year."

After browsing the webpage, Shen Zijie was amazed by Boss Ma's actions.

"Wow—that was a brilliant move. Is Jack Ma planning something big on Singles' Day?"

Seeing this, Li Ran shrugged. He could guess a few possibilities, such as cloud computing, the globalization of e-commerce platforms, or even cross-border payments through payment platforms.

But it has nothing to do with them, so I'll just keep quiet.

Seeing them huddled together, whispering and staring at their phones, Li Ran coughed twice to draw everyone's attention.

Yesterday, we received several tree seeds from Tiangong on behalf of the Shenzhou-11 crew, presented by astronaut Kong Lingcheng. Although we do not have good conditions to plant them at the moment, we can only reluctantly send them to Professor Song Ting of Sichuan University for seedling cultivation.

However, this unusual gift represents the nation's high expectations for our United Industries.

Everyone was stunned by Li Ran's sudden tone, and for a moment they looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

"Am I wrong?" Li Ran narrowed his eyes, and his voice became serious.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing and nodded quickly and in unison, like chickens pecking at rice.

Seeing that no one objected, Li Ran patted the stack of documents beside him, leaned forward, and revealed his true intentions: "Then! To repay this support, I have decided to enter the manned spaceflight business ahead of schedule!"

At that time, we will also bring a great gift to the people of the whole country from the sky!

You don't want to be left behind by the country, do you?

"No, no, no."

Everyone shook their heads frantically.

"Hmm. Very good, very energetic."

Li Ran stood up, held up one finger, and said, "Then, the preliminary feasibility study for the manned spacecraft will be handed over to—"

After looking around, Li Ran couldn't find anyone to point to. Frustrated, he slapped his thigh and said, "What are you hiding for? None of you can escape!"

Once the phone is officially released, everyone except the essential maintenance personnel, get to work!

Immediately, Li Ran patted a stack of documents beside him, said, "Don't try to fool people. Every single one of you will have to take this to the sky," and then turned and left.

After watching Li Ran leave, everyone looked at each other, and then their eyes all fell on the stack of documents.

"Wang Bing, why don't you take the lead on this?" Shen Zijie pushed the stack of documents over. "After all, this is a matter of life and death, and there's no room for error. And you're the only one here who has been involved in the entire project. We'll assist you."

Song Xuewu, Su Qing, and Zhou Rui nodded in agreement.

"You guys—" Wang Bing looked at the stack of documents in front of her, feeling both amused and exasperated.

He originally planned to use the end of the year to do some preliminary design work on the third Lingyun SU7, to see which new technologies he had on hand could be implemented to facilitate the production and testing of the engineering prototype next year, and strive to put the new model directly onto the new production line when the super factory is completed in early 2017.

Now, Li Ran has been so excited by the seeds from Tiangong that he has pushed forward the manned spaceflight program by a significant margin.

Wang Bing picked up the documents and looked through them for a while. Then, he glanced at the group of people who were doing nothing and had an idea in mind.

It seems like manned spaceflight can be brought forward.

After all, doing it sooner or later is the same as doing it later, so there's really no need to postpone it any longer.

"Isn't the technology for mobile phones already frozen? The subsequent publicity and promotion have all been arranged, so there's no point in you just keeping it around."

Wang Bing broke down the materials according to everyone's strengths and distributed them: "Let's take a look together. Wouldn't it be romantic to take to the sky in a flying machine you designed yourself?"

Su Qing took the documents from Wang Bing, frowned, looked pained, and said wearily, "At least let us rest for a while. Even the donkeys in the production team need to sleep."

Song Xuewu, who was fiddling with the computer, agreed with Su Qing's words. He nodded and echoed, "That's right, that's right. We just finished migrating the algorithm. You think we're relaxed now, but that's because you haven't seen the overwhelming amount of bug reports from users after the phone is released."

"Overwhelming?" Wang Bing placed a stack of flight control-related materials next to Song Xuewu. "If you can really write an overwhelming number of bugs, then I'll really admire you."

However, by then, I will be prepared to recommend Xu Qinghe to General Manager Li to take over your position.

Noticing that everyone was indeed a bit tired, Wang Bing changed the subject and comforted them gently: "You all said you would help me, so why didn't you cooperate from the beginning?"

I'm not an unreasonable person. The National Day holiday is coming soon, you guys should rest first.

Before December, all you need to do is familiarize yourself with the materials you have on hand. You have plenty of time, right?

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