This initial ignition test did not last long, nor did it involve actual flight.
Just over ten minutes after it left the ground by more than ten meters, it landed under Tom's control, and the engine shut down.
Afterward, the Clones waiting nearby swarmed it, using various tools to dismantle it piece by piece, beginning to inspect the changes that had occurred in its various components during the process.
The engine system and ejection system were particularly important.
Thus, Tom saw that after only a dozen minutes of ejection, due to high temperature and high pressure, the engine components and ejector components had already undergone some unexpected changes.
"This won't do; further adjustments and optimizations are still needed."
A simple "optimization and adjustment", when put into practice, is an extremely complex, comprehensive project involving multiple disciplines.
On Earth, such a thing would be impossible to achieve without tens of thousands of people working for one or two years.
But here on Loshen Star, the situation is different.
At this moment, the total population under Tom's command has reached 1.4 million, and the number of consciousness connections has increased to 600,000. Correspondingly, the number of Clones working in the scientific research base, fully disengaged from production and solely dedicated to advancing technology, has also increased to 300,000.
What does it mean for a Civilization to have half of its population dedicated to scientific research?
Compared to Human Civilization, though its population has increased to tens of billions, even if all scientific researchers are counted—even including engineering and science university students—the total scientific research population of the entire Civilization is only about 600 million, accounting for merely 6%.
Yet, this 6% of the scientific research population has propelled Human Civilization to a very high level, even enabling it to launch a spacecraft carrying Tom to Loshen Star at the edge of the Solar System for scientific exploration.
And at this moment, the scientific research power Tom possesses is far more than a simple 50%.
These 300,000 scientific research Clones all possess knowledge reserves across all disciplines, have no communication costs between them, work 24 hours a day, year-round, without any internal friction, and dedicate all their energy to scientific research.
In total, a single scientific research Clone of his, roughly estimated, is probably equivalent to 20 Human scientists.
Thus, this is equivalent to 6 million high-quality Human scientific researchers conducting scientific research!
At this moment, approximately 50,000 scientific research Clones, equivalent to about 1 million Human scientists, have been put into the optimization and adjustment work of the aircraft.
Consequently, just three days later, a new optimization plan was released. Five days later, a new aircraft prototype was built.
This time, it flew to a height of several hundred meters, traveled several kilometers, and lasted for half an hour.
Then followed further optimization and adjustment, repeating this process. Finally, half a year later, a finalized mass-produced aircraft model was successfully built.
"Ignition!"
At this command, within this aircraft, which still maintained a hemispherical shape, the liquid methane and liquid oxygen stored in the fuel tank were released into the combustion chamber under the control of an automatic chip.
The electric igniter ignited them, and they immediately began to burn violently, rapidly expanding in volume, with temperature and pressure sharply increasing.
Through specially designed ejection pipes, these high-temperature, high-pressure gases were directed to the bottom of the aircraft and ejected downward.
Thus, the aircraft slowly ascended.
After ascending, the gas ejected from below weakened, and instead began to eject from the rear. Consequently, the spacecraft began to move, flying faster and higher.
Because Loshen Star has no atmosphere, it cannot maintain altitude using air buoyancy, so the spacecraft must continuously eject from below, otherwise, it will fall.
The process of ejecting downwards to maintain the spacecraft's altitude and ejecting backward to control the spacecraft's speed is entirely automatically adjusted by the chip; Clones only need to input the corresponding commands.
At the same time, flying on Loshen Star has another advantage: there is no air resistance. Once accelerated to a sufficient speed, it only needs to maintain altitude, and it can continue flying under inertia.
This further saved a large portion of fuel.
The first finalized spacecraft built by Tom, at a speed of up to 2000 kilometers per hour, spent several hours directly circling Loshen Star, then after a fierce deceleration, it hovered again over the test site.
The nozzles below fiercely ejected, propelling it to land steadily at a relatively slow speed.
After another comprehensive inspection, confirming that everything met expectations, Tom immediately issued the command.
Mass production!
Over the years, Tom has always been troubled by the slow speed of goods circulation.
Large quantities of goods, such as ore, do not require speed and can slowly travel along railway lines.
However, for small, special goods, such as a base urgently needing certain components, a chip factory producing more advanced chips that need to be widely deployed, a base urgently needing more Clones for replenishment, and so on, when these goods and personnel also have to slowly travel by train, it becomes somewhat intolerable.
Now, the Feal-1 Series spacecraft, named by Tom, has been finalized for mass production, which can perfectly compensate for this shortcoming and further enhance the overall productivity of the entire base cluster.
"It's a pity that at this stage, the Feal-1 Series spacecraft can only operate near Loshen Star and cannot enter space, so it cannot be considered a true spacecraft."
Tom felt a slight regret in his heart: "But it doesn't matter.
Anyway, here on Loshen Star, planes and spacecraft are one and the same. During mass production and subsequent large-scale use, the shortcomings of the Feal-1 Series will continuously be exposed, and I can then optimize it specifically.
Once optimized to a certain extent and its performance improved to a certain degree, its maximum speed will naturally break through 830 meters per second, exceeding Loshen Star's first cosmic velocity, and enter an orbiting trajectory."
Currently, the maximum speed of the Feal-1 Series is 2000 kilometers per hour, approximately 550 meters per second, which is still a significant distance from 830 meters per second.
Of course, even if it reaches this speed, it can only orbit Loshen Star. To break free from its gravity field and enter space, the speed needs to reach approximately 1.2 kilometers per second, or 4320 kilometers per hour.
With the finalization of the Feal-1 Series, the spacecraft industrial base, which had been built in advance but had never been put into production, finally received the definitive specifications and production standards.
Tens of thousands of Clones immediately entered the production lines. After a series of debugging and adjustments, the production line finally began full-power operation.
Not long after, large numbers of Feal-1 Series spacecraft began to appear in the sky of Loshen Star, trailing long plumes of exhaust as they roared across the sky.
Normally, from the appearance of a spaceship prototype to its finalization and mass production, the speed would not be this fast.
In the human world, it would take a decade or more if it were a bit slower.
During this process, spaceships would be repeatedly tested, refined, and optimized until the accident rate was reduced to the lowest possible level before mass production and market launch.
But for Tom, the entire process took only about half a month.
Everything was incredibly fast.
After the first batch of 100 Feal-1 Series near-earth spaceships was delivered, the second and third batches quickly followed.
Within just one year, the number of Feal-1 Series spaceships flying over Loshen Star exceeded 1,000.
Although they were all Feal-1 Series, their specific size, tonnage, appearance, engine power, and purpose varied.
Some spaceships were specifically for transporting people, falling into the category of passenger ships.
Others were designed for carrying heavier cargo, classified as heavy-lift spaceships, while some were characterized by their small size, speed, and agility, falling into the high-end fast spaceship category.
Under the Feal-1 Series, various types of spaceships were abundant.
However, good times did not last, and soon after, the first spaceship crash occurred.
A heavy-lift spaceship, while in flight, suddenly experienced power loss, and a large amount of liquid oxygen and methane mixed together, turning it into a large bomb that exploded with a roar in the dim sky of Loshen Star.
Not only was all the cargo in the spaceship lost, but several Clones were also killed.
Tom, however, reacted without surprise.
A spaceship exploding, how normal is that? Is it worth making a fuss over?
There was no time for Tom to spend years or even a decade refining a spaceship design, as was done in the human world, until it was truly mature before launching it to market.
Given this, spaceship malfunctions and even explosions were inevitable.
But this matter should be viewed from two perspectives.
Hasty mass production and large-scale use would inevitably lead to frequent outbreaks of various hidden dangers and design flaws.
While this would certainly cause some losses, it would also expose these hidden dangers and flaws with the highest efficiency, allowing for their concentrated resolution.
Various hidden dangers that would originally require years of repeated refinement to find and eliminate could now be fully exposed in less than a year of mass production and use, increasing efficiency by more than a dozen times.
The drawbacks were merely some exploding spaceships, some lost cargo, and some dead Clones; for Tom, it was irrelevant.
Thus, on one hand, there were frequent spaceship malfunctions and even explosions; on the other hand, spaceship engineer Clones worked tirelessly day and night; and on yet another hand, the spaceship production line was continuously iterating and optimizing.
The more spaceships exploded, the more spaceships Tom put into use.
In the first month, Tom lost over 50 spaceships due to explosions.
In the second month, that number sharply dropped to only 20.
By the seventh month, there wasn't even a single exploding spaceship.
After this first year, at the cost of over 300 exploded and scrapped spaceships, the overall performance of the spaceships manufactured in Tom's spaceship factory more than doubled, and at this point, the first truly meaningful spaceship was built.
Powered by the newly developed high-efficiency methane-oxygen engine, its speed could be unprecedentedly increased to 900 meters per second, directly exceeding Loshen Star's first cosmic velocity and entering its orbital trajectory!
"Ignition!"
Following Tom's command, an unprecedentedly fierce and hot flame erupted from the tail of this massive spaceship, which still had a hemispherical structure, stood about 5 meters tall, and had a diameter of approximately 16 meters.
It roared as it took off, and after ascending to a certain height, it began to change its heading, flying violently upwards at an angle.
The numbers on the speedometer rapidly jumped, finally reaching 900 meters per second, which is approximately 3240 kilometers per hour.
At this point, it was already 50,000 meters above the surface of Loshen Star.
The engines shut down, and the gravity in the cabin suddenly disappeared, causing the bodies of the Clones to float upwards as if in water.
However, due to their seatbelts, they remained restrained in their seats.
At this moment, this spaceship, named "Kaitian-1" by Tom, orbited Loshen Star at a speed of approximately 110 minutes per revolution.
Spaceships that could only fly in Loshen Star's near-earth space and could not enter orbital trajectories were Feal-1 Series spaceships.
Those that could enter orbital trajectories were Kaitian-1 Series spaceships.
After several hours, this Kaitian-1, designated 01, finally caught up with the Deep Space Spaceship and docked with it.
Consequently, the Clones and some supplies were transferred to the Deep Space Spaceship, completing the first space cargo delivery operation.
Tom had performed this kind of work many times before using landing spaceships.
But none of the previous times excited Tom as much as this one.
Because this time, he used a spaceship he manufactured himself!
From this moment on, he finally truly possessed the capability for space travel!
With spaceships that could enter orbital trajectories, he could build space stations, construct zero-gravity factories, and deploy a large number of satellites, probes, and telescopes in space.
His scope of activity would be greatly extended, and he would finally no longer be confined to the planet's surface!
At this moment, it was as if a large door slowly opened before him, as if the world instantly became vast.
After a moment of excitement, Tom immediately made a decision.
"I want to build a large space laboratory!"
At this stage, a large space laboratory held significant meaning for Tom.
The reason was simple: although the gravity on the surface of Loshen Star was low, it was still present.
Some experiments and research could only be conducted in a zero-gravity environment.
For example, biological breeding, high-precision machining of machinery, high-integration chips, and so on.
If he could have a large space laboratory, Tom's technological development speed would undoubtedly increase further.
At the same time, this massive construction task would inevitably require numerous Kaitian-1 spaceships to make multiple ascents and descents, and multiple round trips to space for cargo missions.
And this would also achieve the same effect as the previous large-scale use of Feal-1 Series spaceships, exposing defects and hidden dangers in a short period.
In this way, Tom could quickly improve the stability and reliability of the spaceships in a short time, ultimately enhancing their performance.
Consequently, in addition to spaceships crisscrossing the planet's near-earth space, numerous spaceships also rapidly appeared and flew at high speeds in outer space.
Besides the spaceships used to transport construction materials for the space laboratory, Tom also specifically dispatched a large number of spaceships into space for high-speed, long-duration flight tests, trying every method to push them to their limits, and then every method to optimize and improve them.
Time quietly passed under these circumstances.
During a routine space flight test, Tom suddenly discovered something that appeared to be a metal plate near the spaceship.
The object was about one meter in size, slightly curved, resembling a broken remnant from a larger mechanical creation.
"This doesn't look like something I made?"
With a hint of doubt, Tom maneuvered the spaceship to slowly approach it.
At this moment, the object was orbiting the Loshen Star at an extremely slow speed, on an orbit relatively far from the Loshen Star.
The spaceship, controlled by a Clone, quickly approached it and then retrieved it.
Inside the zero-gravity cabin, Tom, through the eyes of a Clone, carefully examined the wreckage and saw that there seemed to be remnants of some mechanical creations on it.
A chill slowly rose in Tom's heart.
"This is absolutely not something I made! Nor is it a creation of Human Civilization!"
The appearance of non-self-made technological creations around the Loshen Star clearly indicated that another entity had reached this place.
So... when? Was it before or after he arrived at the Loshen Star? What did they come here for?
More broadly, when did they come to the Solar System? Are they related to the disappearance of humans?
Tom transported this piece of wreckage to the scientific research base on the surface of the Loshen Star at the fastest speed.
There was the most complete laboratory for the current stage, and perhaps he could analyze what kind of equipment this thing fell off of.
After an analysis, looking at the conclusion in front of him, Tom's heart was heavier than ever before.
He had figured out what kind of wreckage this was.
It still had some mechanical remnants, and its technological level was high, so Tom could not replicate it, but its basic function could still be discerned.
Those were clearly the remnants of some light excitation devices!
And not visible light, but a special wavelength of light belonging to a certain infrared band. Moreover, its total energy was extremely high.
In other words, in that frequency band, the light it emitted was extremely strong.
Further analysis showed that this special wavelength of light corresponded to the spectrum of a certain organic substance. And...
Through years of breeding and researching those Monster Birds, Tom had already determined that the organic food most favored by the Monster Birds, when irradiated by sunlight, emitted light that happened to have this spectrum!
It all matched up, everything matched up.
Those Monster Birds did not just happen to come to the Loshen Star!
Those Monster Birds probably never intended to come to the Loshen Star. But when they were not far from the Loshen Star, a high-energy "infrared bomb" exploded around the Loshen Star, releasing intense light very similar to a certain organic substance.
Because his technological level was limited at that time, and he had no corresponding observation capabilities, he simply did not discover this point.
But the Monster Birds could see it!
So the Monster Birds thought that there was a large amount of organic matter on the Loshen Star that met their needs, so they changed direction and headed straight for the Loshen Star.
They were clearly deliberately lured by some hidden entity!
That unknown entity wanted to use the Monster Birds as a weapon to kill him!
Tom controlled a Clone to suddenly look up at the vast and boundless universe.
The sky was dotted with stars, silent and profound.
"Who is it? Who wants to harm me? Why do they want to harm me?"
Recalling the scene when he fought the Monster Birds, Tom felt a chill run through him.
Although the final result was good, the process was extremely perilous.
A slight misstep, and all of his foundations on the Loshen Star would have been destroyed in an instant.
If he hadn't already possessed a certain level of industrial capability at that time, capable of rapidly producing cold weapons, and if he hadn't stockpiled a large number of Clones in advance, delaying time at the cost of the Clones' lives, ultimately developing hot weapon technology quickly, he might have already been completely devoured by this group of Monster Birds.
At the same time, Tom aimed all of his space exploration devices at the sky.
They were still relatively primitive, just some backward telescopes, radars, and the like, but they were all that Tom possessed.
After a scan, space was still empty, and nothing was found.
Tom's heart was heavier than ever before.
"We must accelerate the pace of technological development again, and at the same time, we must fully develop military technology and space exploration technology.
Even if we are behind, we must at least have some self-preservation capability!"
Tom looked at the space laboratory that had just begun construction.
This space laboratory was the foundation for all his future development.
Too many technologies needed to be researched in a space environment, and too many experiments needed to be conducted in zero-gravity space.
Without it, his spaceship technology, engine technology, space exploration technology, and weapon and equipment technology suitable for space combat would not be able to develop rapidly.
After weighing it, Tom gritted his teeth.
"Within one year, build the space laboratory!"
For Tom, this was an incredibly ambitious goal.
Because in his plan, this space laboratory would be a massive, kilometer-scale laboratory, with a total mass even reaching 1.3 million tons, far surpassing the Deep Space Spaceship.
—This, of course, did not mean that Tom's current technological level had surpassed Human Civilization, but rather that the environment of the Loshen Star was relatively special, allowing Tom to achieve round trips between space and the surface with extremely simple technology.
On Earth, human launch activities were constrained by Earth's greater gravity and thick atmosphere, making the difficulty immeasurably higher.
But even if space launch missions were extremely simple here on the Loshen Star, building a million-ton experimental base was still extremely difficult.
Tom currently had only 200 Kaitian-1 spaceships in total, and a single spaceship's single transport capacity was only two tons.
Assuming an eight-hour transport time—including fueling, maintenance, loading and unloading, return, etc., this was already the fastest—even if all 200 Kaitian-1 spaceships went all out, it would still take approximately three years.
Adding in the transportation of personnel and the transportation of various supplies, the total time would probably increase to more than ten years.
And this was only for transportation; it did not even include the time required for actual construction.
"I can't worry about that much! Full speed ahead! It must be completed in one year!"
Under the threat of this unknown entity, all 700,000 Clones in the entire Loshen Star base group, whose consciousness could be directly linked to Tom, began to act.
In the collective dormitory building, the 2 million Clones kept as reserves were also ready to step in at any time.
The entire Loshen Star seemed to be shrouded in an atmosphere of solemnity and grimness.
Tom knew that all his development over the past hundred years had come to a comprehensive test at this moment.
Building this space laboratory itself involved almost every industrial category and every industrial capability he possessed.
"If that's the case, then let's do it!"
The first challenge Tom faced was the transportation of materials and goods.
If he had sufficient technology, Tom would naturally hope to build a Space Elevator, which would save him from the various troubles of spacecraft transportation and allow him to conveniently transport massive amounts of materials directly into space.
Unfortunately, his technology had not yet developed to such a high level; at this stage, he could only rely on spacecraft.
The existing spacecraft could only transport two tons of materials at a time, which was too inefficient. But developing new spacecraft was not something that could be done overnight.
Since that was the case, he could only increase the quantity.
Thus, Tom's first decision was to immediately expand the productivity of the spacecraft industry chain, to build more spacecraft in the shortest possible time.
At the same time, building more spacecraft and frequently using these many spacecraft was itself a process of finding hidden dangers, identifying defects, and seeking upgrade and optimization solutions.
At this moment, all dozens of precision machining factories owned by Tom were converted to production, dedicated to the task of manufacturing spacecraft components.
In an open space, after simple leveling and reinforcement, and adopting a framework structure, a spacecraft assembly production line was completed in just one month, replacing the original small-scale production line.
Thus, amidst the continuous roar of heavy-duty trains and Feal-1 Series spacecraft, a large number of components surged here like a tide.
The more than ten thousand Clones working here, assisted by the most efficient automation technology possible, themselves seemed to have transformed into robots, not daring to relax for a moment.
Behind them, dozens of Clones were even constantly on standby.
Normally, they would quietly stay there, not consuming Tom's precious consciousness connection quota. But once a Clone at a workstation needed to leave, even if it was just to relieve himself, a Clone would immediately step in, seamlessly taking over his work, ensuring that the production line was not delayed for even a second.
Under these circumstances, this new spacecraft assembly production line, with a total of hundreds of precision machining factories, several high-reliability chip factories, and numerous factories for connectors, plastic films, screens, rubber, detectors, controllers, etc., operating at full capacity simultaneously, saw its production capacity surge to four spacecraft per day in a short period.
Don't think that four spacecraft a day seems small, but one must know that this is a large mechanical device that integrates Tom's most advanced technologies in various aspects at the current stage. Its complexity and precision are simply incomparable to a train or a factory.
On the assembly line, one massive spacecraft after another, weighing over 30 tons and reaching over 50 tons when fully fueled, were continuously produced and quickly put into transportation operations, without a moment's delay.
In the launch site, spacecraft were taking off or landing almost every moment.
Due to the excessively frequent takeoffs and landings, the ground of the landing field was even vitrified in some areas.
And this was only one of the existing dozen or so launch sites.
Under these circumstances, one after another box-packed space laboratory construction materials were transported into space, orbiting Loshen Star at a speed of approximately 900 meters per second.
While fully expanding the number of spacecraft, Tom was also doing another thing simultaneously.
With more spacecraft, naturally, more fuel would be consumed.
The existing fuel reserves were insufficient; the production capacity of methane and oxygen had to be increased to more than a hundred times the current level!
One spacecraft consumed about 15 tons of fuel per trip. Three trips a day would be 45 tons. With about 220 existing spacecraft, that meant about ten thousand tons of fuel per day.
Moreover, as the number of spacecraft increased, this figure would rapidly skyrocket.
In the future, it would not be surprising to consume tens of thousands of tons of fuel per day on average.
Especially, with the construction of the space laboratory, the power consumption and energy consumption of all other factories simultaneously increased significantly.
To generate enough electricity, there must be a sufficient fuel supply.
According to Tom's statistics, in the previous stage, his base cluster consumed about one hundred thousand tons of tolin and methane, and thirty thousand tons of oxygen per day on average.
But now, including the fuel required for spacecraft, this figure suddenly doubled, reaching two hundred thousand tons of tolin, methane, and over sixty thousand tons of oxygen per day!
Thus, the Clones working in the oxygen ore, thorin ore, and methane mines also became busy.
Large batches of machinery and Clones joined the mining teams, and heavy-duty trains roared on the lines all day long, without stopping. Even to make up for the insufficient transport capacity, even Feal-1 Series spacecraft joined the temporary emergency material transport tasks.
With more spacecraft, the consumption of chips also increased significantly.
In addition to the main control computer, other parts of the spacecraft also used chips.
A single sensor, a single controller, all required chips.
One spacecraft required tens of thousands of chips!
Producing four spacecraft daily meant over two hundred thousand chips, and over seventy million chips a year!
What's more, the space laboratory he was building itself also required a large number of chips.
According to Tom's estimation, at least hundreds of millions were needed.
Thus, the chip factories also became busy.
And, in order to reallocate more personnel to production, the number of personnel in the planting, breeding, and aquaculture bases decreased significantly. But at the same time, the production of food and biological resources could not be reduced.
So, those areas also became busy.
At the same time, the construction of this space laboratory itself meant a large number of production tasks and research tasks. Thus, more factories, as well as the research Clones in the research centers, also became busy.
For a time, because of this space laboratory, all bases owned by Tom, whether mining bases or industrial bases, whether research bases or food bases, all, completely plunged into busyness.
Tom utilized his 700,000 consciousness connection quotas to their utmost.
Every minute and every second, large numbers of Clones scurried to their beds, and the moment they collapsed onto the bed, the consciousness connection was severed. At the same time, a Clone on another bed instantly opened his eyes, almost leaping up, quickly finished his breakfast, and rushed out of the dormitory.
Open-top buses were parked at the dormitory entrance at all times, with large numbers of Clones jumping off them, and every open-top bus that had just emptied would be filled with Clones jumping on within a minute.
Then the buses roared away, like flying, delivering loads of Clones to factories, bases, buildings, research institutes...
In space, thousands of Clones in spacesuits were performing spacewalks, assembling components one by one.
On the ground, spacecraft took off and landed, transporting boxes of construction materials into space.
Everything was orderly, though extremely busy and highly efficient, there was no chaos at all, nor any coordination errors.
It was under these conditions of extreme efficiency, where 700,000 Clones were constantly working at full capacity, that the massive space laboratory, located approximately 50 kilometers from the surface of Loshen Star, gradually began to take shape.
Overall, it resembled a stick passing through a dozen or so rings of varying sizes and diameters, with a total length of 1.6 kilometers.
The central axis had a diameter of about 50 meters, and its interior was entirely divided into numerous laboratories, both large and small.
Various experimental instruments were placed in these laboratories.
The rings on its body maintained different rotation speeds, creating varying levels of gravity through these speeds.
The lowest gravity could reach one-thousandth of Earth's, far less than even Loshen Star. The highest gravity could reach twice that of Earth.
The gravity level could be easily adjusted to suit different experimental environment requirements.
Its interior also contained rest areas for thousands of people, where Clones, after a day's work, could conveniently rest. Once rested, they could easily return to their workstations, taking over from their colleagues.
The number of research Clones constantly maintaining a working state reached 10,000. Furthermore, at least 10,000 people were engaged in research tasks at all times, studying technology across various disciplines.
Powering this massive laboratory were five enormous generator sets.
Their total installed capacity reached 300,000 kilowatts, capable of generating approximately 7.2 million kilowatt-hours per day on average. Correspondingly, it consumed about 2,500 tons of methane or tolin, and 700 to 800 tons of oxygen daily.
Including other experimental consumables, personnel consumption, and equipment and material replenishment, Tom needed to transport nearly 4,000 tons of various materials to it daily, requiring about 600 spaceships to shuttle between the surface of Loshen Star and space day and night.
Simply providing supplies for this spaceship occupied a significant portion of Tom's consciousness link share.
All in all, although it was merely a laboratory over a thousand meters long, its overall resource consumption was greater than that of Tom's ten bases combined!
But even with such a huge investment, Tom still built it without hesitation.
At this moment, the construction of this space laboratory was finally complete. And subsequent logistical supply aspects had also formed a process, requiring no further adjustment.
Various experimental equipment, instruments, and over 10,000 Clones tasked with research had also taken up residence inside.
It was finally time for it to begin normal operation.
Consequently, thousands of experiments and studies across more than a dozen major academic disciplines were simultaneously initiated.
In just half a month, the first technological breakthrough had already appeared.
It was a special metal material formula.
In a zero-gravity environment, various different atoms could be arranged according to a specific pattern, greatly enhancing their hardness and toughness.
"This material is suitable for spaceship hulls, significantly reducing weight while ensuring sufficient protection."
Following this, was the second breakthrough.
A brand new photolithography-etching technology.
By adopting the corresponding photoresist and etching technology, Tom could manufacture chips with a process node of about 10 micrometers. Compared to existing chip manufacturing technology, chip performance would increase by at least 150%, while power consumption could be further reduced by over 30%!
After that, came the third technological breakthrough.
A completely new spaceship attitude control system!
This paved the way for Tom's subsequent development of combat spaceships. After all, a spaceship's weapon system generates enormous recoil during firing. If the spaceship's attitude control is poor, the projectiles fired by the weapons simply cannot maintain accuracy.
And the technology Tom currently valued most.
High-sensitivity space radar technology also achieved a breakthrough!
Thanks to the successful development of a new material and the successful experimentation with a new structure, Tom finally created a practical space radar!
Space radar can be considered the eyes of a spaceship.
Previously, Tom's space radar was not only bulky and energy-intensive but also had extremely low sensitivity, even leading to multiple accidents because of it.
But from this moment on, things were different.
The new space radar scans extremely fast and has high sensitivity; even a spaceship flying at supersonic speeds can easily capture its reflected signal.
After this, more technologies achieved breakthroughs.
The construction of this space laboratory certainly consumed a huge amount of Tom's resources and energy.
But now that it was built and operational, its returns were unprecedentedly rich.
Almost every day, there would be anywhere from a dozen to hundreds of new technological breakthroughs!
All sorts of new technologies emerged like a gushing wellspring, constantly appearing in a dazzling manner for Tom, thanks to the work of the 10,000 research Clones who were always working.
Electronic control technology, sensor technology, high heat-resistant material formulas, voltage stabilization systems, radiation-resistant materials, engine rapid adjustment technology, high-reliability communication equipment...
And the emergence of each new technology would bring certain changes to all of Tom's bases and factories.
Each new technology would be applied on a large scale at the fastest speed, then feedback data during actual use, and the research Clones would further adjust and optimize based on this data.
Tom's technological progress had never been as fast as it was now.
Under these circumstances, the power plant's generation efficiency became higher and higher, and the fuel consumption per kilowatt-hour became lower and lower;
The speed of trains became faster and faster, while their stability became higher and higher;
The output of planting bases became higher and higher, while the number of Clones working there became fewer and fewer;
The tonnage of transport spaceships became lower and lower, but their flight reliability became higher and higher. At the same time, their payload increased by more than double from the previous two tons to the current five tons. Whereas before, 600 spaceships were needed daily for supply missions, now only over 200 were enough;
The number of Clones in various factories became fewer and fewer, while productivity became higher and higher.
The most obvious example was the spaceship industry chain. Previously, tens of thousands of Clones were invested, yet only four outdated spaceships could be produced daily. Now, the number of personnel has been reduced by one-fifth, but productivity has increased to six spaceships per day, and they are the latest, more advanced models.
Time flowed by silently.
On this day, another technological breakthrough that Tom valued highly appeared.
Low expansion coefficient, high purity, high uniformity glass manufacturing technology!
With this special glass, Tom could finally manufacture high-performance space telescopes, and finally possessed the ability to actively conduct space searches!