The technological competition starts with the integration of space-time memory

Chapter 353: Open Plank Road
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

This is the West Test Range of the Imperial Air Force, which is of the same level as the Cape Canaveral Rocket Launch Center, which serves as the East Test Range.

Its infrastructure is basically the same as that of the Kajiao Launch Center.

After discovering the turbulent situation in Texas, Mark immediately discussed with Firthman to move all future launch missions to colonize Mars here.

SpaceX's Starship launch missions were also relocated here.

Today is a good day.

With the help of money, Starship VI and Starship 1 were successfully completed and moved to the launch site of Vandenberg Air Force Base.

All preparations are complete.

Mark's long-awaited first starship exploration mission to Mars is finally about to begin.

Originally, Mark invited Philwin to attend the ceremony, but Philwin declined politely on the grounds that he was busy.

He also invited some wealthy financial backers, after all, he could finally fulfill part of the promise he had made before.

As long as this unmanned landing on Mars is successful, it basically means that the plan to colonize Mars can officially enter the substantive stage.

Although he himself is considered a wealthy man, his assets have shrunk significantly since the rise of the Future Science and Technology Research Institute.

Coupled with the subsequent stock market crash and the economic crisis that swept across Western countries, his ranking on the wealth list dropped from first to outside the top 20.

It is said that the top ten richest people now all come from Longguo.

Li Tang is not even ranked because everyone recognizes that he is the unsurpassed richest man in the world.

As for how much wealth Li Tang had, no one could calculate it.

Originally, Mark was pushing forward his plan to colonize Mars, and his own industry had two major sources of financial income to support it.

One is the Tetra electric car, which brought Mark huge wealth and was also the key to his becoming the richest man.

The other is the revenue from SpaceX's satellite launch business.

As a result, since Li Tang's sudden emergence, the sales of his Temolla electric vehicles have been greatly affected.

Even if he also purchased lithium-crystal batteries provided by Datang Battery, he could not compete with the electric vehicles of Future Automobile Company in terms of cost.

This undoubtedly cut off one of his sources of income.

As for the satellite launch business, since Li Tang's Datang Aerospace launched the "Sun Shooting" series of rockets, strong competition has caused the Space Exploration Company's revenue to plummet.

If it weren't for the final cooperation with the Symbiote Society, they would have pushed the Empire to fully invest in the Mars colonization plan at the government level.

Mark's original ambitions would have been completely destroyed by lack of money.

Not to mention, the Symbiosis Society later brought in a number of financial groups from all over the world and invested huge amounts of money to support it.

It is precisely because of this that Mark feels extremely grateful to the Symbiosis Society.

Originally, he and Winter had a close relationship, but Winter was later kidnapped and his whereabouts have been unknown to date.

At that time, Mark was shocked.

He thought that Symbiosis had offended someone, and that this severe blow might lead to an end to support for him.

Fortunately, Firwin comforted him and said that he maintained a good relationship with the Symbiote Society.

The Empire's plan to colonize Mars is an irreversible national policy. Let him rest assured and advance the plan steadily and strive to realize it as soon as possible.

When problems arose during the moon landing, some astronauts even defected.

Oh, that’s not the right word to use. The Empire handled the situation of astronauts stranded on the moon due to injuries in a low-key manner.

After all, if it were to become public, it would be another huge blow to the prestige of the empire.

Anyway, the Artemis program originally trained a large number of astronauts for the moon landing, but only those four were chosen to actually land on the moon.

In the end, only Matthew Dominic, who stayed in the orbital module, came back, while the other three did not return due to injuries.

Mark devoted all his efforts to the various tasks related to landing on Mars.

The most prominent plan is to use Starship VI and Starship 1 to carry out an unmanned mission to Mars.

Once this success occurs, the starship's ability to fly to Mars will be verified.

From this, large-scale manufacturing can begin. Even if the transport load capacity is not as good as that of Datang Aerospace's [Golden Chariot], it still has a considerable load capacity.

By then, it will be possible to launch in batches, so that a group of people and materials can land on Mars.

What's more, the alien creation that was stolen also conveyed the design and manufacturing technology of nuclear-powered rockets.

Mark has also begun to fully promote related work with the current financial support for space exploration.

He believes that under the 007 working system, the nuclear-powered version of the starship will be able to successfully fly to Mars by next year at the latest.

Not to mention, he would have been able to make contact with the alien creatures on Mars before that.

Perhaps new technology will be obtained, and surpassing the Golden Chariot will be a foregone conclusion.

Otherwise, Mark would not have stayed at the space exploration company so hard, forgetting to eat and sleep. Many times, he would eat hamburgers when he was hungry and sleep on his desk when he was sleepy.

It was as if he had returned to his college days to start his own business.

Ham Nick, director of the Imperial Space Agency, looked at Mark who was standing in a daze under the launch tower and couldn't help but walk over.

He whispered, "Mark, we're about to ignite and launch. Do you still want to give a speech?"

Mark suddenly came to his senses and looked up at the huge Starship VI on the tower and Starship 1 at the head.

He turned to look at Ham Nick again, shook his head and said, “No, I plan to give a speech after the successful launch today.

Now, I don’t want to waste even a minute.”

Ham Nick smiled and said, "Well, in that case, let's go back to the command hall. We can't stay here."

Mark nodded slightly and turned to look at the crowd watching the ceremony in the distance.

After thinking for a while, he said to Ham Nick, "Well, you will be in charge of today's launch. I will go to the crowd watching the ceremony, and after the launch is successful, I will give a speech directly to the crowd."

In fact, a viewing platform had indeed been set up there, and the representatives of the investing consortium were sitting on the platform.

Mark plans to hang out with these people for as long as he can. The more follow-up funds he has, the better.

Seeing this, Ham Nick had no choice but to say, "Okay, then you take an electric car. The time is almost up, and it's too late to walk there."

Mark waved his hand, walked out quickly from under the tower, got on an electric car, and drove towards the viewing platform 3 kilometers away.

When it was 17:30 in the afternoon, Mark, who was already sitting in the viewing platform, was talking to a representative of the Mitsui Zaibatsu from East Japan.

At the same time, I noticed that the white liquid oxygen was already dispersing.

"Mr. Inoue, look, this is the countdown to ignition."

As soon as Mark finished speaking, the loudspeaker at the scene began to count down.

"Ten, nine, eight...two, one, fire!"

A huge flame instantly spurted out from the bottom of the huge rocket, and the white gas covered most of the hull.

Starship VI is the result of applying more new technologies on the basis of previous starships. Its length reaches 135 meters, its take-off mass is 5200 tons, and its take-off thrust is 7800 tons.

The payload capacity has also been increased to 120 tons, and its performance in all aspects surpasses that of the Starship V that sent the Orion spacecraft to the moon. It is already the largest rocket currently owned by mankind.

The most important thing is that the first and second stage rocket bodies of Starship VI can be recycled.

This is the most critical part of the Mars colonization plan.

If costs cannot be reduced to a certain level, colonizing Mars will be a costly disaster.

Space activities that have absolutely no commercial value will eventually fail.

Just like the Empire's moon landing decades ago, the cost of its investment was completely not worth commercial operation at that time.

Everything is built up with money, and will naturally disappear if there is no money.

Ultimately, decades later, the empire almost lost the technology to land on the moon.

So much so that the moon landing decades ago has been constantly questioned as a fake.

The huge Starship No. 2.25 was rising steadily towards the sky at a speed that seemed slow but was actually fast. This huge human creation was trying to break free from the earth's gravity and was about to fly towards Mars, which was million kilometers away from the blue planet.

In fact, Starship VI cannot do what the Golden Chariot does, which is to fly directly to Mars after entering space from the ground.

Instead, it must circle around the blue planet to accelerate, using the centrifugal force mechanism to reach the second cosmic speed, and then be thrown out of the gravitational range of the blue planet.

Although this increases the flight distance of Starship VI, it saves a lot of fuel.

In this way, more fuel can be used and more load capacity can be achieved.

Mark said to the Mitsui representative: "Look, Starship VI will separate the first stage rocket at an altitude of 100 kilometers.

The first-stage rocket can be recycled and the cost will be effectively controlled.

If we colonize Mars on a large scale in the future and build a large number of starships, the cost will be further reduced.

I believe our starship will become the cheapest means of transport to Mars."

Inoue Nagamichi squinted his eyes and looked at the huge monster in the sky, feeling a little emotional and a little doubtful.

As a representative sent by the Mitsui Group, he actually had reservations about the group's investment support for Mark.

It was for this reason that he was sent here by the president, hoping that the successful launch would be a lesson for him.

After hearing what Mark said, Inoue Nagamichi asked, "Mr. Mark, can the cost be controlled lower than that of Datang Aerospace's [Golden Car]?"

Mark's face suddenly turned red, Inoue's words were like a slap in the face.

"Well, this... Starship and [Golden Chariot] belong to different categories. Starship is a rocket, and [Golden Chariot] should be a nuclear-powered space shuttle..."

"Oh, is that rocket falling?"

(End of this chapter)