The answer is obvious, Xinyuan needs money, lots and lots of money.

When Lin Ju convened the engineers to discuss which technology patents to open, everyone gave an astonishing unanimous answer.

The maximum capacity of the system is twofold: one is to ensure loyalty and confidentiality after giving super-average treatment to the research institute engineers recognized by the system; Second, as long as money is given, the research and development of various new technologies can be promoted.

As long as it is a technology that human beings can think of, the research institute can appear a progress bar, all kinds of outrageous ideas can be, except for the "development of perpetual motion machines", which at least proves that the law of conservation of energy is still correct from the side, at least the human theory has not failed.

In 2016, the settlement system rewarded 10 billion yuan of special research funds, but this money is not too much, because the technology that Xinyuan needs to promote by the research institute is not a simple commodity.

The use of the research institute also has skills, each project to sort out the most critical subdivision of the technology and then research is the most cost-effective way, directly and arbitrarily promote a large project has a great risk of duplicate construction.

Technical research can be used in research institutes, but physical manufacturing is different, it consumes real money and time, such as NAPE and A100, these things need to find a way to make up the manufacturing conditions in the real world.

Why does the NAPE project cost a lot of money? Because this is a futuristic technology, it is necessary for the site to have the manufacturing capabilities that it had in the era of NAPE design, and to break through the technology that will only be developed in the next 30 years......

Of course, it's not all, otherwise it's not enough to go to tens of billions of dollars to stuff your teeth, but it's difficult enough.

The expansion of the base has also gradually stopped, and the three bases add up to more than 9,000 people and nearly 10,000 employees, not including the basic workers who make screws.

In the two and a half years of development, the ultra-high level of automation of the base and the regular use of skill cards have made the lowest level of workers in the base except for service personnel D, that is, the first level of engineers.

The work that accounts for the proportion of simple and repetitive labor such as screwing is completed by automated equipment, otherwise at least 20,000 people are needed.

Is it more than 10,000 people? For aerospace, there are actually quite a lot, and there are only more than 30,000 people directly involved in the Apollo program, and 10,000 are all professional and technical personnel, which is already terrifying.

However, it is not enough for future development, if the aerospace market can only feed the volume of 10,000 people, it will not be enough to support them to continue to explore the outside world.

The market for space tourism and satellite launch services is limited, and commercial orders can only feed a limited number of businesses.

If it wants to compete for these limited markets, Xinyuan can indeed rely on its technological advantages to defeat all other aerospace companies and institutions and form a monopoly advantage, but then what?

A large number of private aerospace enterprises continue to go bankrupt, the market has begun to shrink, and countries have gradually closed their markets in order to protect their own enterprises from restricting commercial launch orders, and even if they monopolize it, they will not be able to make money.

In addition to commercial needs, the military needs that are connected with rockets and the honor needs to demonstrate national strength are the main driving forces for the development and progress of aerospace.

Xinyuan needs power, the market, the world's needs, and people need to spare no effort to invest in aerospace.

In fact, NACA has already experienced such a dilemma, so they have also cooperated with the military-industrial complex to promote the Apollo program, Star Wars, the space shuttle, the return to the moon, etc., but not as strong as Xinyuan.

Promoting the Moon Race and the Mars Race is to support its own existence and expansion efforts, of course, Xinyuan is also trying to use chips, cars, etc. to make money to subsidize the space program through diversified development, but in the end it is not as fast as the competition environment.

The engineers, you and I clearly showed the essence of Xinyuan's vigorous and difficult progress under the surface of the competition, and diluted the latter's great joy because of the breakthrough in the laser laboratory.

In the end, it was Selev who concluded:

"The main thing is to ask for money, although compared with normal enterprises, our debt ratio is almost 0, and the cash flow reserves are tens of billions, but the hematopoietic ability is too poor, and I am ready to continue to implement large projects.

The launch site renovation project in Qiongzhou was jointly carried out by XCMG and China State Construction, and this kind of infrastructure investment is difficult and has little return, and as a result, it is not easy to use there. ”

"The storm, the storm affects too much."

Ye Changsi took over the conversation and turned the notebook in front of him towards Lin Ju:

"According to the satellite meteorological maps provided by the Meteorological Bureau, the three calculation centers have made calculations, and this year's No. 1 typhoon 'Meihua' is about to take shape and will make landfall in Qiongzhou in July.

This year, we have too many launch missions, and it is only theoretically feasible to huddle together for a centralized launch, but in fact it is very difficult to support personnel and prepare materials, and the recovery site is also a big problem.

Sergei and I discussed two plans, the first of which was to build an overseas land launch site. ”

Ye Changsi simply walked to the blackboard opposite Lin Ju, turned over the side of the whiteboard and fixed the map with magnetic nails.

"Laos and Annam in Southeast Asia, these two countries can build launch sites at a lower latitude than Qiongzhou, and Brunei, Indonesia, Malay and other countries near the equator in the south, and even several ports in Africa are ideal overseas launch sites."

As soon as the words fell, most people at the table, including Lin Ju, shook their heads.

Without it, the first thing about this plan is that it is difficult to guarantee safety, and the second is that it is very difficult to build infrastructure in underdeveloped areas and maintain the operation of the launch site, especially since there is a 99% probability that the Nimitz-class will be seen circling around the coastline and will be directly vetoed.

"It seems that everyone also has great doubts about this plan, and that is the second plan: a mobile sea launch platform."

The projector screen is pulled down, revealing an oversized structure resembling an offshore oil extraction platform.

"The 40,000-ton offshore mobile launch platform, which integrates rocket fuel filling, hoisting and maintenance, temporary transformation and other capabilities, can be carried by semi-submersible barges to a calm sea area for launch, and the offshore recovery platform is also used for recovery.

Such a Sea Launch platform can launch almost all of our rockets, and also, regardless of the weather, can move to extremely low latitudes near the equator. ”

After Ye Changsi finished speaking, he stepped aside and showed the images and parameters on the curtain to everyone, and everyone was thinking seriously.

This is a solution that he discussed with Seryov and Anderov, which cost almost 500 million yuan, but because of the short construction period, it requires a lot of energy.

But the response to this plan does not seem to be very good.

Chen Xuan, the person in charge of the automation and control system who has always had a low sense of existence, first raised objections:

"It's too troublesome, not to mention the energy invested in the construction of this kind of platform, first of all, this kind of platform can only launch one rocket at a time, the efficiency is very low, and the transfer rocket is also very troublesome, it is better to gather more people to launch it in a centralized manner."

Ye Changsi: "Then build two." ”

"Two ships are not good, timeliness, sea transportation is not time-sensitive, we lack time."

(End of chapter)