Chapter 252 - 246 Airport_1

"Mr. Xie, the bionic robot team has a plan that requires your approval."

"The ’Brave’ project team? I’ve given the Valenkin project plenty of autonomy, so they shouldn’t need too many resources now, should they?"

Xie Liaofu was somewhat puzzled. The self-learning AI artificial intelligence and the "Warrior" series of humanoid robots were projects of the Microelectronic department and the Light Machinery department joint team, which had relatively high authority. What could be the trouble?

But when the document arrived, Xie Liaofu’s face darkened.

The project team was neither asking for money nor technology but wanted to install or intercept cameras that could view pedestrians in the bases and surrounding villages, towns, counties, and cities within New Yuan’s reach, so that "Brave" could obtain various motion data required for human-like imitation.

Clearly, this required at least the approval of a vice-president to obtain such permission.

Xie Liaofu grimaced but did not immediately reject the request. Instead, he reviewed the Warrior 001 test footage and experimental data, and his attitude softened a lot.

Although Xie Liaofu had acquired enough modern industrial knowledge by the time he arrived in 2016, he still had a very high regard for the performance of Warrior 001.

Honestly speaking, since the concept of robots appeared, various studies had proved that making robots in human form is not very efficient. But research on humanoid robots has been ongoing for many years.

Because creating robots that look like humans, behave like humans, and can even communicate with humans gives people a sense of being the Creator, which those messy configurations cannot bring.

Furthermore, the advancement of the Warrior series was initially meant for extraterrestrial landings and research station constructions. In such a lonely environment, humanoid robots can provide great psychological comfort.

Warrior 001 is now a prototype without a battery, relying on an external power source. Given the current conditions, if Warrior 001 had a built-in battery, it would run out of power within half an hour in the factory, and its power would also be limited.

But on the Moon and Mars, where gravity is only 16% and 38% of Earth’s, respectively, the burden on motors and batteries would be much less. In particular, on the Moon, current technology could only meet the basic operational requirements for robots.

Even so, humanoid robots could not be used on a large scale due to energy issues. Solar cells are limited; conventional batteries have insufficient endurance, and nuclear batteries... Only isotope nuclear batteries can be made that small, but their power is too small to be enough.

But Xie Liaofu, Lin Ju, and other executives had high hopes. Apart from assisting human operations, humanoid robots also had the potential of being remotely controlled by humans using VR equipment.

Of course, there are not many practical applications for now. But on planets with extremely harsh environments like Venus and Mercury, if one wanted to conduct exploration, then using humanoid robots would be very comfortable.

It was because of this importance that Xie Liaofu gave it some thought before deciding to approve and then directly granted the robot team authorization using his own laptop.

After basic computer control reform, office work also underwent reforms. Apart from a few temporary projects or emergencies, the base was going paperless as much as possible.

Apart from efficiency, confidentiality was more important. Although waste at the base was shredded and collectively incinerated, it still wasn’t as useful as the Mountain and Sea internal network with its no-blind-spot monitoring.

"Mountain and Sea" now had a vast array of capabilities. It could process scientific research tasks sent by researchers, intelligently allocate computational power, maintain a satellite network to keep an eye on global security changes, and recently, it had new entries added for all New Yuan projects to monitor and correct manufacturing plans in real time.

From production planning to finished product management, "Mountain and Sea" handled everything in an orderly manner. Each process and workshop just had to confirm the production plan through a computer during work hours and complete it on time. The time efficiency was also based on actual conditions.

This system had been in operation for over half a month and had significantly improved efficiency, reducing working hours by an average of 12%, providing more rest time for employees, and squeezing out time in case of urgent production orders to prevent production plans from being completely disrupted by unforeseen situations.

Xie Liaofu casually called it OGAS, thinking that if the Union had had such a thing back then, even 40 consecutive N1 rocket explosions wouldn’t have mattered!

...

Lin Ju’s first impression upon meeting Musk in person was: This man is quite broad.

"Broad" in the physical sense of the word.

Musk, with a height of 188 and a current weight of about 190 pounds, appeared much more robust than Lin Ju, who was 182 and 150 pounds, but his chest stood out the most.

He had a bit of a "barrel chest," which is often found in people who maintain posture by inhaling regularly, making the cross-section of the chest cavity thicker than in normal people, giving the appearance of exaggerated chest muscles, when in reality it was the skeletal structure that was prominent.

This made the suit Ma was wearing look a bit tight. His hair was somewhat disheveled, a consequence of the evening breeze at the airport.

On the evening of September 19, Ma had talks for two days in Modu City, and then he landed at Sanya Airport on a 767.

He only rested for one night in the vicinity, and the next day, he boarded a light twin-prop commuter plane, the Xinzhou 600, and flew to the Xinyuan Launch Site’s airport.

At this time, there were 3 hours left until the launch of the "Dream Heaven" experimental module at 11 o’clock.

The cabin of the Xinzhou 600 was a bit noisy, but as the small plane didn’t fly high, the view was good. Musk had already seen the several huge launching towers and recovery grounds of the Xinyuan Launch Site before landing.

He landed on runway no. 1, the first choice for the H1 spaceplane’s descent.

Turning his head to look at the nearly 200 meters high and thickly modified Xinyuan No. 1 launch tower, Musk then began waving his right hand at the small group of people beside the runway.

"Nice to meet you guys!"

The still-running turboprop engine of the Xinzhou 600 made his voice a bit muffled, but Lin Ju still responded loudly.

The latter was somewhat dazed; Ma looked more robust than him—a match in the octagon might be a lost cause!

Musk hurried down and shook hands with Lin Ju, who was approaching.

"Howdy, neighbor!"

"Hello, Musk, the man who’s going to Mars!"

"Thanks! But you have gone to space first! You are a hero!"

A plain exchange of business compliments, that was the process of the first meeting between Lin Ju and Musk, "East Lin and West Ma."

For Ma, his first impression of Lin Ju was very positive. Wearing simple casual pants and a work shirt, Lin appeared more like a young engineer than a businessman, much like Ma himself, who self-proclaimed as the "chief engineer of Space X."

Moreover, "Donglin" was just as young and full of energy, similar to New Yuan—youthful and vigorous.

"Lin, I can’t wait to see your huge rocket. I want to see the X3 rocket and the H1 space shuttle!"

"No problem. It’s right here!"