Chapter 732 South Gate

On September 11, Musk arrived in Shanghai and negotiated again for Tesla to build a factory.

The previous times finally achieved some results, but due to several bills proposed by John, Tesla had to abandon the plan and implement the idea of ​​Shanghai Super Factory in Aramco.

However, this transformation was not smooth at all. John's federal finances could afford subsidies, but they could not give Musk extremely high construction efficiency. After so long, the progress was still slow.

After hearing the "rumor", Musk took action directly, hoping to confirm this "rumor" from the attitude of the Chinese.

On the 11th, 12th, and 13th, Musk wandered around Shanghai three times and got the answer he wanted.

…

“Musk wants to see me?”

Lin Ju looked at the diplomatic staff who came to inform him with some surprise, but after thinking about it, he replied:

“Okay, but I’m only free for the next two days, and I’ll be back to Xinyuan soon.”

The staff who came to inform him nodded, and then kindly reminded:

“Mr. Elon said he sent a private message to your Twitter, but you didn’t reply to him.”

“…”

Lin Ju certainly didn’t know about this. He usually doesn’t look at the background of social software now. Once he opens it, he will be bombarded with endless information.

“Elon doesn’t have much time either. He will fly back to Amei tomorrow night and fly to Beijing tonight, so he should come tomorrow morning.”

“No problem…Can I ask about Tesla?”

“Of course, it’s not a secret. Shanghai has agreed that Tesla’s super factory will be put into production in 2019. I guess Tesla’s stock has started to rise, but I don’t know how much it will rise.”

The staff’s attitude was very pertinent, but Lin Ju’s heart was already touched.

What was supposed to come still came. The secret agreement between the two countries still allowed the Shanghai Super Factory to land smoothly. The original world line relied on this incident. Tesla's stock price soared and sent Musk to the throne of the world's richest man.

However, this time it is unlikely. In addition to Xin'an's early promotion of the domestic new energy transformation, Musk's bid for the throne of the richest man has a huge obstacle: the current richest man Bezos.

Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and Amazon, has become the world's richest man since 2018 in the original world line. After divorcing his wife and dividing a large amount of property in 2019, he still maintained it until he was overtaken by Ma.

Bezos is different now. Blue Origin relies on the Artemis plan to make a big splash in the lunar plan. The originally unreliable Blue Origin has successfully become regularized through the lander project. It is already the third largest aerospace company after Boeing and SpecaX.

Their BE-4 engine has also begun to stabilize. The "New Glenn" rocket is ready to be launched next year and will become a large reusable rocket second only to Starship.

But Musk is not bad either. SpecaX has also grown rapidly due to the support of NACA. Maybe it will still acquire Twitter in the end.

Lin Ju: "Did he tell me what he wanted to do?"

"It seems to be about space and smart cars."

The staff member said something nonsense.

...

"Lin!"

Musk held Lin Ju's hand tightly, obviously very happy to see the latter at the airport.

The two hugged each other like friends, but Musk was actually 21 years older than Lin Ju, but there was no sense of disobedience when they walked together, as if they were of the same generation.

Musk was touched by Lin Ju's personal pick-up at the airport, and immediately expressed his desire to ride in the same car with Lin Ju.

However, the other party's answer surprised him very much:

"No, we don't take the car, we take that."

Musk looked in the direction of his finger and saw a C810 ready for takeoff.

"It only takes 30 minutes from here to Xinyuan, which is faster than going to the guesthouse in Beijing."

Lin Ju's meaning was already very clear. He was willing to take him to visit the Xinyuan base. Musk was only stunned for a moment and immediately became excited. Then he immediately noticed the expressionless faces of the accompanying diplomats and asked in a low voice:

"They don't seem to want to do this."

"This is already the result of my concession. I originally wanted to take you on a space plane. The Tiangong space station has a large cabin that can be used for business reception."

Both of them communicated in English. In actual communication, foreigners like to use abbreviations and simple vocabulary to express. Almost no sentence conforms to grammar. As long as it does not involve professional vocabulary, it is quite easy to translate and communicate.

When Musk heard "Space plane" and "Tiangong", he didn't even react. It took him a long time to realize what he was asking:

"Is it easy for a space plane to go to space?"

Three Tengyun series space planes have been in service so far, and the remaining three are also progressing rapidly, but the outside world actually doesn't know much about the specific content.

NACA and the Aramco Air Force do not believe in the propaganda. Not only is there little information, but the description is also vague. It is completely a report by outsiders. Information such as maintenance cost and time are not clear.

In Musk's mind, the newly appeared aerospace plane should also be extremely expensive and sophisticated, more delicate than the space shuttle. It can only show high efficiency under the crazy expenditure of China's aerospace.

However, judging from Lin Ju's performance, it seems that this is not the case.

"Hahaha... Elon, if I want to go to space now, it only takes three hours from the ground staff to the time it takes to fly into the sky, half of which is due to refueling. In general, the workload is about the same as maintaining a Boeing 747.

I was serious just now. Xinyuan is not only transferring industries and R&D centers to space, but also has the idea of ​​transferring management centers. This is a very grand plan."

Lin Ju maintained a calm expression and gave Musk a little shock to Xinyuan.

The result was as he expected. Musk believed that Lin Ju was not bragging, and thought carefully about how long it would take to prepare a Dragon spacecraft, and finally gave his thumbs up.

"Okay, Lin, I want to see what kind of factory creates such a miracle."

...

The feeling of riding in a nearly three times the speed of sound passenger plane is indeed extraordinary. At this speed, the speed of the earth moving below is already very obvious, and you can feel the obvious G value changes from time to time.

Lin Ju, who is a pilot, has long been accustomed to it, but the almost fifty-year-old Ma obviously still needs to adapt.

But his first sentence after getting off the plane is still "I must get one."

This was his first time at Xinyuan's manufacturing base, and he immediately took the opportunity to scan around, but there was nothing special around the runway.

Lin Juze and Ye Changsi in the welcoming team exchanged glances to confirm that confidentiality measures were in place.

The security robots in the base were temporarily removed, and the "Black Stone" was also transferred to the Star Ring Research Center, so there would be no special risks.

Bringing Lao Ma here was a certain excitement, but it also had a purpose.

The first stop he was taken to visit was, of course, Xinyuan's most proud fully automated unmanned factory.

The factory building filled with various large-scale mechanical processing equipment was extremely noisy, and even with sound insulation facilities, it could not be avoided. Generally speaking, workers need earplugs to work normally.

Before entering, Musk heard the sound of various machines running, and a picture of a large number of workers working in an orderly manner had already emerged, but the actual situation opened his eyes:

This is a processing factory for rocket shells, and the size of the parts being manufactured is quite terrifying. Musk estimated that only Xinyuan No. 4 can match it.

The 18-meter-diameter super-large shell cannot be formed as a whole at one time, but even if it is split, it almost occupies all the height of the factory. The gantry crane is only a few meters off the ground when it grabs them.

Unlike ordinary assembly lines, rockets and aircraft are difficult to make because of the volume of parts, and the output is unstable and the demand is small, so the workstations are relatively concentrated. Most of the time, the processing equipment revolves around the parts, and the production speed can be flexibly adjusted. There are more manual participation links.

But in this rocket shell processing workshop, Musk looked around and didn't see a single human walking around, not even an engineer, and even the visiting group could only walk in the glass corridor, separated from the processing area.

There are a large number of manipulators mixed in the various types of working machines, completing each process in an orderly manner.

"Why set this up? The rocket shell does not need such strict protection measures."

Musk pointed to the glass above his head and raised his first question.

Ye Changsi: "In order to ensure stable quality, unmanned factories need to eliminate all interference factors, and tiny floating dust also has an impact. This factory adopts the cleanliness standard of precision electronic device processing."

Musk: "But this is mechanical processing, there are waste materials, metal chips, and coolant residues everywhere."

Ye Changsi: "If you pay attention, you can see that there are professional cleaning equipment in every aspect."

Musk looked over and found several small square boxes moving rapidly on the floor, cleaning the ground where the workpiece moved like a sweeping robot.

There are also a large number of unfamiliar auxiliary equipment. It is these seemingly simple, but in fact systematic and large-scale small machines that solve the necessity of the last existence of human labor and always keep the production environment in the best condition.

Ye Changsi: "The machinery and equipment are not very important. I would rather show our OGAS system. What is being produced is the shell of the Long March 18. The order to produce it was issued from the central computer a week ago, and then the computer issued a procurement order, supervised the logistics and began to arrange the production of each part.

From aluminum materials to finished shells, they are placed in our warehouse. As long as they enter Xinyuan, no human participation is required."

"What if the process needs to be modified?"

"Then we adjust the equipment through the computer. What humans can do, machines can do."

Musk: "How long will it take to produce this rocket?"

Ye Changsi: "The second Long March 18 is expected to be launched on November 15, sending 200 tons of supplies to Mars, half of which is liquid hydrogen fuel."

It takes at least 25 days from Xinyuan to launch, that is, starting from scratch, it only takes 50 days to produce a super giant rocket.

The delivery speed of Starship is lower than this, but that is the result of multiple production lines working at the same time. For example, the total working hours of the T34 tank are 10,000 hours, but it does not mean that it takes 416 days to actually deliver one.

A giant like the Long March 18 must be produced one by one, and most of the parts are made from scratch, which means that the working hours of the Long March 18 are extremely low, or the production efficiency is amazingly high.

As long as there are no faults, the unmanned factory can continue to operate without sleep, and the high mechanical efficiency has created the miracle of Xinyuan's huge output in a short period of time.

While Musk was stunned and calculating rapidly, Lin Ju seized the opportunity and continued:

"The OGAS system has achieved complete success in Xinyuan. I am asking Xinan to build a similarly unmanned automobile factory. After that, we will let AI gradually replace industries with an excessive proportion of manual labor and continue to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Cars produced through fully automated factories may roll off the assembly line next year.”

After witnessing Xinyuan's production model, Musk continued to accept the impact. He suddenly realized that AI was developing rapidly on the land under his feet and had far surpassed the world.

He also recalled the news last month that Xin'an obtained autonomous driving qualifications. Tesla currently does not have similar technology.

The keyword AI was deeply imprinted on his mind, stronger than ever before.

"Lin, you grabbed the future first."

Numerous thoughts suddenly came to Musk's mind. He pulled Lin Ju excitedly and started talking, completely unaware of Ye Changsi's silent smile.

He speculated that Musk's original purpose may have been to test the rumored market opening plan between the two countries, but Lin Ju did not intend to answer this question, so he grabbed the topic first.

AI is attractive enough and is what Xinyuan most wants to promote externally. It is quite appropriate to use Musk, a hugely influential figure, as the entry point.

…

Beijing, Aviation Development Commission.

While Lin Ju was working hard to fool Musk, the headquarters of the Aviation Development Commission was also quite lively.

Zhong Cheng not only summoned almost all the private aerospace companies that ranked high on the list, but also brought over many leading companies that cooperated with United Mining and all the leading companies in various industries.

Even though the requirements were very strict, there were still about 300 people present, spanning various industrial fields, and together they could almost represent China's industry.

This lineup has far exceeded the functional scope of the Aviation Development Committee, but now the upper management has returned to the state of special handling. As long as the report is passed, it will have temporary power.

But this situation will not last long, and adjustments are being made to address changes in future work focus.

Nowadays, many problems have arisen in the work of the Space Force, the Space Administration, and the Aerospace Development Commission. The upper-level management does not have clear rules and regulations, and they all rely on a few heads to communicate with each other. This is not only tiring but also has many consequences.

The investment in space resources involves a national issue, and it would be more dangerous to simply hand it over to a certain department, so the committee is still preparing.

Just like what Zhong Cheng is seeing now, future space development will basically cover all industries. The new organizational structure will have the ability to influence the whole country, but the main focus of work is still space, and the space force, aerospace force, and aerospace industry must be allocated. different areas of work of the bureau.

At the same time, the biggest purpose of this new organization is to establish a solar system defense system to block possible invasion by alien civilizations, so it is actually being pursued by both the military and civilians.

If Zhong Cheng's guess is followed, the new organization may have some characteristics of a planning committee. Even if it enters full preparations for war in the future, it is not impossible to become a planning committee again.

On this basis, it also coordinates the military, and its influence is absolutely unprecedented.

But separation is even more unreasonable. The two are inseparable in the space field. Separation will lead to serious waste of resources. This is the only way to do it.

That's why the higher-ups haven't made a final decision. Even Zhong Cheng didn't dare to inquire too much and just focused on his own work.

What is being held is a private meeting, and the procedures are much simplified. The venue decoration is very rough, but everyone present is cheering up and not slacking off at all.

The "Nantianmen" plan is indeed outrageous, but the fact that the gossip has spread for so long without any opposition speaks volumes.

Looking at the luxurious lineup present, many people have already guessed the truth.

Long Jiacheng, who was the first to receive the "official leak", was even more excited. Although Lingxi Technology Company focuses on satellite manufacturing, if there is such a grand plan as a spaceport, part-time manufacturing of cabin sections and various equipment is also quite promising. !

"Everyone, welcome to the first comprehensive space seminar organized by the Aerospace Development Commission. We may continue to hold similar meetings in the future."

Zhong Cheng said almost no nonsense and went straight to the topic when everyone gathered:

"In order to better adapt to future space resource development and homeland defense, with the approval of the central government, the Aerospace Development Commission plans to build a large-scale space building cluster integrating scientific research, production and living.

This cluster also needs to undertake the task of developing and utilizing extraterrestrial planets and celestial materials, or conducting transit with the earth. We call it a space port.

The space agency and Xinyuan Company have determined the basic data of the space port and are preparing for transportation capacity support. It is expected to build a space port with an empty mass of no less than 42,000 tons and an operating mass of more than 70,000 tons by 2025. .

This spaceport is part of the "Southern Gate" plan, and we have decided to invite various industries to join in and contribute together. "

Perhaps due to overwork and fatigue, Zhong Cheng's voice was not loud, and Ambitol could not provide a long period of excitement, so he was not in good spirits.

But every word he said caused huge waves in everyone's hearts and immediately made the atmosphere extremely heated.

Zhong Cheng did not organize the hundreds of people below to form a noisy group. Instead, he took this opportunity to start putting imaginary drawings and preliminary structural sketches of the spaceport on the whiteboard.

The space agency and Xinyuan engineers spent several months and came up with three configuration plans:

The first is the module cluster type, which manufactures different sections of scientific research, living and production into different cabin modules, and then launches and assembles them bit by bit. The spaceport only provides rotational gravity in the living area, just like the Fram;

The second is the overall manufacturing type, which imitates the construction form of future spacecraft. Only parts are launched from the ground, and then welded and assembled in space to manufacture giant overall functional modules that cannot be launched. Similarly, only the living area provides gravity through additional rotating components;

The third is the spoke-shaped overall rotating space station, which looks like a trumpet-shaped cylinder. It can create different gravity from zero to more than 1G to adapt to different working environments, and requires space manufacturing methods.

Three configurations, from the simplest to the most complex, each can meet the minimum indicators, but the investment is also increasing linearly.

Due to the joint collaboration of hundreds of industries, Xinyuan and the Space Administration can no longer accurately judge the difficulty of implementing the project, and can only work together.