Chapter 102 101: Massive Construction
Li Qingsong did not intend to develop Earth.
Although Earth's various mineral deposits were abundant, they were not irreplaceable. 'Let Earth remain in its pristine, natural state. That way, when I find my compatriots one day in the future, I can return an intact Earth to them.'
Numerous small landing craft roared as they took off. Watched by countless animals with gazes full of awe and curiosity, they returned to Earth's orbit and entered the Space-Air Carrier.
Immense power once again surged from the nuclear fission reactor, transforming into blazing fire that shot out from the rear, pushing the vessel to gradually accelerate toward the Jupiter System.
It would still be several months before it could rendezvous with the main fleet. However, Li Qingsong's consciousness could travel at the speed of light, so he left the Clone and returned to the Jupiter System ahead of time.
At this point, the comprehensive survey of Ganymede was complete. The blueprints for various bases had also been finalized.
During the survey, Li Qingsong discovered that Ganymede truly lived up to its reputation as a large celestial body, with a volume greater than that of Mercury, one of the Eight Major Planets.
Earth's radius was a mere 6,370 kilometers, and Mercury's only 2,440 kilometers. Ceres's radius was even smaller, at around 900 kilometers. And yet Ganymede, merely a moon, had a radius of 2,600 kilometers!
Its various mineral deposits were extremely abundant, far beyond what a dwarf planet like Ceres could compare to.
What surprised and delighted Li Qingsong the most was his discovery of large deposits of uranium and plutonium ore on Ganymede!
'This is the most suitable fuel for nuclear fission reactors!'
With enough uranium and plutonium, along with the vast amounts of methane and liquid oxygen on Ganymede, he wouldn't have to worry about fuel at all.
With the preliminary surveys, site selections, and construction plans complete, large-scale construction began immediately.
From the fleet of 49 Space-Air Carriers and dozens of heavy cargo ships, a multitude of industrial and transport vessels, fully loaded with various industrial facilities and supplies, descended upon the vast, desolate surface of Ganymede.
A total of over 1,000 construction sites, more than 1,000 bases in all, were established, with as many as 15 million Clones thrown into the construction effort.
In an instant, the once desolate and silent Ganymede came to life.
Ship after ship flew at high speeds across the moon's sky. Railway tracks spread out like a spider's web, and fleets of heavy-duty trucks with exceptional off-road capabilities sped across the terrain.
The various construction materials and industrial facilities, which had been manufactured on Ceres and brought here by Li Qingsong across a vast distance of over ten billion kilometers, now poured onto the surface of Ganymede like a torrent.
Before long, the first large-scale factory built by Li Qingsong was completed.
It was a nuclear fission power plant.
The factory's area reached an unprecedented ten million square meters, and its installed capacity hit a staggering one hundred million kilowatts.
In just one day, it could generate 2.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity! That's over 870 billion kWh per year!
A coal-fired power plant of this scale would probably require dozens, or even hundreds, of dedicated heavy-load railway lines, doing nothing else all day but transport fuel to the site.
But this plant used uranium as its energy source.
As a result, it only required about 300 kg of uranium per day—an amount that could be delivered in a small car.
By the time this colossal nuclear power plant was finished, a factory of equally massive scale, integrating uranium ore mining and enrichment, had also been completed nearby.
Li Qingsong first took over ten tons of fuel rods with a uranium content of about 3% from his fleet and sent them to the power plant. With this initial energy source, the plant began operations.
A massive amount of energy was transmitted, powering up the millions of high-speed centrifuges in the uranium mining and enrichment factory, which roared to life.
But this single uranium mining and enrichment factory obviously couldn't consume such an enormous amount of electricity.
Having already mastered the basics of miniaturizing nuclear fission reactors, the power plants Li Qingsong was building now would no longer operate at a loss like his initial ones; instead, they could produce a large surplus of electricity.
This surplus power was transmitted to the other bases through superconducting lines with almost no loss.
The surface temperature of Ganymede is approximately -160 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, many materials can already enter a superconducting state.
And so, the other bases, which had been entirely reliant on temporary power plants set up by Li Qingsong to carry out their construction, finally received a powerful surge of local electricity.
The temporary power plants were limited in their output, after all, and couldn't support such large-scale construction. Now, the situation was completely different.
With 2.4 billion kWh of electricity per day, what construction project couldn't be supported?
Backed by this abundant supply of electricity, a metallurgical plant built near an iron ore deposit was completed in no time.
Massive quantities of iron ore were sent to this factory. Fueled by the plentiful electricity, it was quickly smelted into rolls of steel coil, steel bars, and steel plates. These products varied in model, specification, carbon content, and trace element composition, giving them different properties suitable for a wide range of industrial applications.
On average, about 200,000 tons of steel were produced by this steel mill each day and transported to other locations.
With power and steel, Li Qingsong's construction efforts were now completely unrestricted.
Following this, a massive precision casting factory was rapidly built and began producing all sorts of components. Then, mines for copper, aluminum, tin, rare earths, and more began to spring up one after another.
While simultaneously building these mines and factories, Li Qingsong undertook another, even more massive, construction project.
A comprehensive base for agriculture, animal husbandry, aquaculture, and mycology!
This was a gigantic food production base. It covered an area of 100 square kilometers, but when including its various supporting facilities—such as nutrient solution plants, flour mills, slaughterhouses, processing plants, power plants, automated equipment factories, water and heating plants, and so on—the total area exceeded 150 square kilometers.
It stood over 200 meters tall and was designed with 60 floors, bringing its total usable internal area to 6,000 square kilometers.
Within this space, Li Qingsong dedicated a full 1,000 square kilometers to growing wheat. This resulted in an annual wheat yield of 4.8 billion kilograms, enough to feed the existing 15 million Clones with a surplus left over for industrial use.
Of the remaining area, Li Qingsong allocated another 1,000 square kilometers for rice. In addition, vast areas were also planted with cotton, alfalfa, potatoes, soybeans, rubber trees, fruit, and more.
For the animal husbandry section, Li Qingsong planned out pasturelands spanning thousands of square kilometers, raising more than enough livestock to feed all the Clones.
This single comprehensive base alone could completely supply the needs of all the Clones!