Chapter 77: Solution
The production at God-Enemy Star primarily consists of more basic goods, as the AI’s current capabilities are limited, and Tom cannot control the Clones on God-Enemy Star in real-time, making it impossible to perform overly precise manufacturing.
However, being more basic means one problem: the quantity of goods must be extremely large.
According to current production, an average of hundreds of millions of tons of goods must be transported from God-Enemy Star to Loshen Star each year.
Some rarer, high-end, and time-sensitive goods can be transported by specialized cargo ships—the absolute quantity of this portion is actually quite large, roughly amounting to tens of millions of tons per year on average.
If Tom hadn’t specifically upgraded the thruster technology before, the previous ships alone truly couldn’t complete this transportation.
But relying on cargo ships, even those with upgraded propulsion technology, transporting tens of millions of tons of goods annually is already the limit.
How are the much larger quantities of goods, several times this amount, to be transported?
Even if Tom went all out to build ships, filling the entire route with them, he still couldn’t transport so many materials.
So what should be done?
If this problem isn’t properly solved, then the tens of thousands of factories Tom spent several years building on God-Enemy Star would lose a significant part of their meaning, becoming a mere burden.
But it doesn’t matter.
Even before the major development of God-Enemy Star, Tom had already considered this problem and found a solution.
This is the large-scale electromagnetic catapult device!
Tom had previously found some gentle slopes on God-Enemy Star, and now, using these slopes as construction sites, large-scale construction began.
Tom first controlled the Clones, driving various machines to complete the reinforcement and leveling of these gentle slopes, shaping them into a straight line sloping towards the sky.
Afterward, large quantities of special steel rails from the Steel Plant arrived roaring by train, and countless Clones, operating mechanical equipment, swarmed forward, laying these special rails one by one onto the previously leveled foundations with the assistance of more specialized machinery.
Several power plants then sprung up, and thick cables extended, connecting to one electromagnetic catapult device after another.
At the same time, at each gentle slope, Tom built a network of railway lines extending in all directions, reaching into every factory on God-Enemy Star.
Each gentle slope served as a railway junction on God-Enemy Star.
Here, Tom also built large port facilities, with countless types of tower cranes, gantry cranes, and so on.
After more than a month of busy work, the first large-scale electromagnetic catapult device was finally completed.
Under Tom’s close watch, the first launch was about to begin.
The generators of the power plant hummed, and surging electricity rolled in along the lines.
At the starting point of the 30-kilometer long rail, a huge metal box had already been placed on the catapult vehicle and secured.
Each of these metal boxes is 30 meters long, 7 meters wide, and 7 meters high, giving it a total internal volume of approximately 1450 cubic meters.
If used to transport solid oxygen, one of these boxes could transport 1800 tons.
If transporting other denser resources, a single box could even hold over 3000 tons of goods.
At this moment, with the ample power supply from the dedicated power plant, based on electromagnetic power, the catapult vehicle, carrying a heavy cargo box weighing 1800 tons, began to move along the rail on the gentle slope.
In the first second of its movement, its speed changed from stationary to approximately 10.67 meters per second.
In the second second, its speed became 21.34 meters per second.
Every second that passed, its speed would increase by 10.67 meters.
Finally, after approximately 75 seconds, its speed reached 800 meters per second.
At this point, moving faster and faster, it had also been pushed precisely to the end of the 30-kilometer long rail laid on the gentle slope.
At this moment, the clamps on the catapult vehicle used to secure the cargo box automatically sprang open.
Losing its restraint, under the effect of inertia, the massive and heavy cargo box immediately separated from the catapult vehicle.
The catapult vehicle, confined by the rails, passed over the highest point of the gentle slope and continued forward down the slope, beginning to decelerate.
However, the heavy cargo box, having lost its restraint, could only continue along its current trajectory, flying directly off the highest point of the gentle slope.
Normally, under the influence of planetary gravity, the cargo box would eventually fall back to the planet’s surface after flying for some time.
But the situation is different now.
The reason is simple: its speed has already reached 800 meters per second, and this speed has exceeded God-Enemy Star’s first cosmic velocity!
Having exceeded the first cosmic velocity, it will no longer fall but will begin to orbit God-Enemy Star like a satellite!
This heavy cargo box flew higher and higher, eventually reaching space approximately 40 kilometers from God-Enemy Star, where it achieved a stable orbit around God-Enemy Star.
Without using rockets, without using spacecraft, without using any chemical fuel propulsion equipment, such a heavy cargo box was directly thrown into space by Tom using this method!
Throughout the entire transportation process of goods, breaking free from planetary gravity and entering space is the most energy-intensive stage.
And now, Tom has completed this step directly on the planet’s surface.
The rest is simple.
This cargo box has already acquired a considerably high initial speed.
Next, it only needs a little more acceleration, and it will be able to break free from God-Enemy Star’s gravity field.
Then, by controlling its heading and calculating its trajectory, it can fly to Loshen Star by itself!
Thus, several small thrusters, under the control of the traffic AI, automatically attached themselves to this cargo box and automatically completed the calculation of a series of subsequent parameters.
This included the cargo box’s current speed, coordinates, and direction, as well as Loshen Star’s position, and based on this data, automatically calculated how much speed should be added to the cargo box, where to start accelerating, where to stop, how high the thrusters should be powered up, and so on.
All calculations completed, the thrusters ignited, adding a little more acceleration to it.
Thus, this cargo box broke free from God-Enemy Star’s gravity field and flew straight into the vast and deep space.
At this moment, its speed was only 950 meters per second.
At this speed, crossing a distance of over 40 million kilometers to reach Loshen Star would take approximately 1.4 years, which is quite long.
But... it doesn’t matter!
Time-sensitive goods had already been transported by Tom using cargo ships, arriving in just over a month.
Goods sent via this catapult device have no strict time requirements.
Tom can afford to wait 1.4 years!