Chapter 77: The Solution
The output from Enemy God Star consisted mainly of relatively basic products. After all, the AI's capabilities were limited at this stage, and he was unable to control the Clones on Enemy God Star in real-time, which made overly precise production impossible.
However, "basic" implied a problem: the sheer volume of goods would be immense.
Based on current production levels, hundreds of millions of tons of cargo had to be shipped from Enemy God Star to Ceres annually.
Some of the rarer, high-end, and more time-sensitive goods could be transported by dedicated cargo ships. The absolute quantity of these shipments was also substantial, roughly amounting to tens of millions of tons per year. If Li Qingsong hadn't specifically upgraded the Thrust Device technology beforehand, the existing fleet of ships alone would have been completely incapable of handling this volume.
However, even with cargo ships equipped with upgraded propulsion technology, transporting tens of millions of tons of goods per year was the absolute limit.
How were they to transport the much larger bulk of cargo, which was several times this volume?
Even if Li Qingsong went all-out building spaceships, enough to clog the entire shipping lane, it would still be impossible to transport that much material.
So what was to be done?
If this problem wasn't solved, the tens of thousands of factories Li Qingsong had spent years building on Enemy God Star would lose much of their purpose, becoming largely pointless.
But it didn't matter.
Long before the major development on Enemy God Star began, Li Qingsong had already considered this problem and found a solution.
And that solution was the large-scale electromagnetic catapult!
Li Qingsong had previously identified several gentle slopes on Enemy God Star. Now, using these slopes as worksites, massive construction projects commenced.
First, Li Qingsong directed the Clones, who piloted various machines to reinforce and level these slopes, shaping them into a straight incline pointed toward the sky.
Afterward, massive quantities of special steel rails arrived from the steelworks on RUMBLING trains. Countless Clones, operating machinery, swarmed the site. Aided by even more specialized equipment, they laid the rails one by one onto the prepared foundations.
Several power plants were subsequently erected. Thick cables were run from them, connecting to the electromagnetic catapult equipment, one unit after another.
Meanwhile, at each slope, Li Qingsong also constructed an extensive railway network, with lines reaching every factory on Enemy God Star.
Each slope thus became a major railway hub on Enemy God Star.
Here, Li Qingsong also built massive port facilities, filled with countless tower cranes, gantry cranes, and more.
After more than a month of busy work, the first large-scale electromagnetic catapult was finally complete.
With Li Qingsong watching closely, the first launch was about to begin.
The power plant's generators ROARED to life, sending a surge of immense power rolling through the cables. At the start of the 30-kilometer-long track, a massive metal container was already in place, secured to the catapult sled.
Each metal container was 30 meters long, 7 meters wide, and 7 meters tall, giving it a total internal volume of approximately 1,450 cubic meters.
Used to transport Solid Oxygen, a single container could hold 1,800 tons.
For other, denser resources, a single container could hold over 3,000 tons of cargo.
Now, with ample power supplied by a dedicated power plant, the catapult sled, driven by electromagnetic force and carrying the heavy 1,800-ton container, began to move up the inclined track.
In the first second, its speed went from a standstill to approximately 10.67 meters per second. By the second second, its speed had reached 21.34 meters per second.
Its speed increased by 10.67 meters each second. After approximately 75 seconds, it reached a final velocity of 800 meters per second.
At that moment, the ever-accelerating sled reached the end of the 30-kilometer track laid upon the slope.
At that very moment, the clamps securing the container to the sled automatically released. Freed from its restraints, the massive, heavy container instantly detached from the sled due to inertia.
The sled, confined to the rails, passed over the crest of the slope and continued forward on a downward track, beginning to decelerate.
The heavy container, however, now unrestrained, continued along its trajectory, flying straight off the highest point of the slope.
Ordinarily, under the planet's Gravity, the container would fly for a short while before falling back to the surface.
However, the situation was different this time.
The reason was simple: its speed had reached 800 meters per second, a velocity that exceeded the first cosmic velocity of Enemy God Star!
Once it surpassed the first cosmic velocity, it would no longer fall back. Instead, it would begin to orbit Enemy God Star, just like a satellite.
The heavy container continued to ascend, eventually reaching a point about 40 kilometers above Enemy God Star, where it settled into a stable orbit around the planet.
Without rockets, without spaceships, and without any chemical propulsion, Li Qingsong had hurled an immensely heavy container directly into space!
Escaping a planet's Gravity to enter space is the most energy-intensive part of the entire transport process. And now, Li Qingsong had accomplished this step right from the planet's surface.
The rest was simple.
The container already possessed a considerable initial velocity. Next, it only needed a small boost of speed to escape the gravitational field of Enemy God Star.
With a properly controlled heading and a calculated trajectory, it could fly to Ceres all on its own!
And so, under the control of the logistics AI, several small Thrust Devices automatically attached themselves to the container and began calculating the subsequent series of parameters.
These parameters included the container's current velocity, coordinates, and direction, as well as the position of Ceres. Based on this data, the AI automatically calculated how much speed to add, where to begin and end the acceleration burn, and at what power level to fire the Thrust Devices.
Once all calculations were complete, the Thrust Devices ignited, giving the container an additional boost of acceleration. With that, the container broke free from the gravitational field of Enemy God Star and flew straight into the vast, deep Cosmos.
Its speed was now a mere 950 meters per second. At that velocity, crossing the more than 40 million kilometers to Ceres would take roughly 1.4 years—a very long time.
But… it didn't matter!
Li Qingsong had already sent the time-sensitive cargo via freighter, a journey that took just over a month.
The cargo launched by this device had no such time constraints. Li Qingsong could afford to wait 1.4 years!