In the vast deep space, the huge cargo box gradually disappeared. At this moment, at the starting point of the 30-kilometer-long railway built on a gentle slope on Enemy Star, another cargo box was ready for ejection. At the same time, in the port of this catapult base, products from tens of thousands of factories across the entire Enemy Star are pouring in by train. They were transferred at the port and then sorted into standard containers. These standard containers were lined up at the starting point of the catapult track and fixed on the catapult vehicle, ready to be launched. So, one cargo box after another was ejected into space, and then completed subsequent acceleration under the automatic control of the traffic AI, and was thrown onto the course flying to Roselle. On average, a standard cargo container is ejected every half hour. Assuming that the average mass of a cargo container is 1,500 tons, this catapult alone can launch about 25 million tons of cargo every year. Li Qingsong built a total of 20 such catapults next to various industrial clusters on the enemy star based on the principle of facilitating transportation! An average of 500 million tons of cargo can be ejected every year! This can fully meet the transportation needs between Enemy Star and Luoshen Star.
"This method is good, but it consumes a lot of electricity..." Looking at the No. 1 catapult that had already started operating, Li Qingsong sighed silently in his heart. Accelerating a standard cargo box of standard weight from zero to 800 meters per second requires a total of *10^11 joules of energy. Converted into electricity, it is 133,000 kWh. But it is obviously impossible to convert electrical energy into kinetic energy 100%, and there are also losses. For example, the conversion efficiency of this catapult is only about 50%. Therefore, it takes about 260,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity to eject a cargo box. Launching 48 cargo boxes a day means million kWh of electricity! Adding other losses, the daily electricity consumption of this launch base alone is as high as 13 million kWh. This requires a power plant with an installed capacity of approximately 550,000 kilowatts to work 24 hours a day and at full capacity to meet the needs of this catapult base. But in fact, high electricity consumption is not the main problem. The main problem is that so much electricity is not released smoothly, but concentrated in a short period of time. It takes about 80 seconds to eject a cargo box, during which 260,000 kWh of electricity will be released. Each ejection cycle is 30 minutes, 1800 seconds. In the 1720 seconds of this 1800 seconds minus the 80 seconds, the power consumption will fall to the bottom again. Such huge power fluctuations are the biggest technical challenge in building this catapult base. But for Li Qingsong, solving this problem was only slightly complicated and not too difficult. The reason is simple, he has 20 catapult bases! In this way, it is only necessary to stagger the ejection time of different ejection bases to achieve the effect that there is always a cargo box in the ejection stage in each time period, so that the power consumption is stabilized. It doesn’t matter if there are some instabilities occasionally. Li Qingsong's overall industrial plate is large enough, with tens of thousands of factories. How much electricity does it consume every year? The overall power consumption is large enough, so the power grid must be strong enough. Since the power grid is strong, the impact of this fluctuation and load on the grid can be reduced to the lowest point and is completely tolerable.
Similarly, Li Qingsong still handed over the complex power dispatching, such as how much power each power plant should produce and whether to increase or reduce power, to the power AI. The clones in the power industry still only play the role of supervision, maintenance and decision-making. At this moment, after building these 20 catapult bases, Li Qingsong has completed all construction tasks on the enemy star. In the future, you won’t need to put in much effort here, a steady stream of resources will automatically come to you. In just a few days, thousands of cargo boxes, totaling millions of tons of goods, have set out on the journey to Luoshen. "It's time to go back." At the command, half of the million clones originally brought to the enemy planet were evacuated directly and returned to the huge cargo spacecraft. When they arrived, these cargo ships were loaded with equipment needed for construction. When returning, the spacecraft was filled with various resources produced on the enemy planet. After several months, the huge fleet finally returned to Luoshen Star, and there was finally no delay between Li Qingsong and the clones. No delays mean that some time-sensitive and complex tasks can finally begin. "You've rested for so long, have you rested enough? Let's get to work!" Under Li Qingsong's order, massive construction began again. A brand new research base, more advanced research equipment, intelligent upgrades to the factory, and so on. But at this stage, Li Qingsong's construction work is always somewhat constrained and he cannot give his full effort, and the progress of the project is also somewhat slow. Or it’s because the local resource output here on Luoshen Star is insufficient. But it doesn’t matter, the resource supplies from the enemy planet will arrive soon. While carrying out the preliminary preparations, Li Qingsong was eagerly waiting. One year passed slowly. Finally, in Li Qingsong's long-awaited expectation, the first cargo box finally flew to Luoshen Star, and without any external intervention, it accurately entered the orbit of Luoshen Star and began to revolve around Luoshen Star! At this point, the work becomes simple. It is nothing more than sending some special deceleration thrusters to attach to the cargo box to slow it down, and then transport it to the port of Rosene. So the first cargo box slowly landed in the port. After opening the box, the box was taken for recycling - they themselves were part of the cargo. The more than 1,000 tons of oxygen ore that had been initially refined in the box were also quickly loaded onto the train and roared to the factory along with the train. After the first box, there is the second, the third... Box after box of oxygen ore, methane ore, steel, aluminum ingots, copper ingots, rare earth elements, castings, primary chips, lubricating oil, starch... These cargo boxes flowed to the star Luoshen like a vast river, bringing vitality back to many factories that had been thirsty due to the drying up of the river. The resource depletion crisis that Li Qingsong was facing was completely resolved at this moment. The various projects that were originally restricted and unable to operate and research at full capacity, and temporarily slowed down their progress, were finally freed from the shackles. "Finally, we can go all out to promote technological development again." Li Qingsong sighed silently: "Then... it's time to start the research and development of the second-level battleship, that is, the gold-class battleship!"
