Chapter 730 - 704 LARS

"Vigilant about repeating the Union’s mistake of economic imbalance?"

Lin Ju flipped through the summary of the first meeting sent back by Yang Zhongkai, surprised that the researchers had issued such a warning first.

"Vigilance... is indeed necessary."

Unlike Lin Ju’s curiosity, Ye Changsi regarded the report with considerable importance:

"We do have a good amount of cutting-edge technology, but it will take at least a decade to transform these technologies into something that impacts the daily lives of ordinary people.

On one hand, these advanced technology applications consume massive amounts of resources, and on the other, they do not improve our basics, like a top-heavy giant that cannot walk far.

Especially when we have to prepare for war in the future... that will be a colossal investment of resources. The resources that would normally circulate in society will turn into cold aerospace vessels and warships, resulting in a deformed development over the long term."

"But we have no choice, and besides, industrial productivity can be improved."

Lin Ju glanced at the factory building not far away, clearly referring to the OGAS System.

The so-called imbalance is when resources meant for the sustenance of ordinary people’s lives are reallocated and become insufficient, but as long as productivity is sufficient, it can entirely be alleviated.

But let’s not forget that the base’s OGAS is a plagiarized concept from the Union, managing only a single enterprise. The real OGAS aims to achieve national automation and command control.

Don’t exaggerate, by including just one limited heavy industry—aerospace industry production chain under OGAS control, we can significantly free up human resources and greatly improve efficiency.

OGAS, AI, robots, CNC machining—when combined, these will unleash an unimaginable power.

However, Ye Changsi still shook his head:

"This is not the Moon. Once OGAS is truly implemented, it will need cooperation from a complete industrial chain, and the impact will be too great... It’s better to get the LARS system at Yushu Base up and running first."

LARS is an acronym for Lunar Automatic Command Release System, meaning a fully automatic lunar command release system, commonly referred to as LARS.

This system was proposed to meet future construction needs on the Moon. Once mining on the Moon commences, a powerful and highly automated chemical-steel production conglomerate will be required for metal refining.

Around this conglomerate, a series of component factories and assembly plants should also be built, for manufacturing the machinery, vehicles, and living supplies required on the Moon.

With foundations in steel, chemical engineering, and machinery processing, it represents a small yet complete industrial base capable of supporting large-scale lunar settlement or even the construction of urban clusters, in turn, generating substantial demand.

This is the correct path for the comprehensive exploitation of Moon resources: to focus on building bases that utilize local materials, then to gradually self-replicate and expand.

Yet, the first process is extremely arduous, either by controlling expenses but progressing slowly.

LARS was thus born out of necessity, aiming to initiate machine production controlled by computers after completing mining-smelting processes, using many versatile robots and AI integration to utilize lunar resources as much as possible for colony construction.

To put it more eloquently, it means throwing robots onto the Moon to work tirelessly, while they also produce new robots, allowing humans to sit back and reap the benefits, a delightful and easy scenario.

And the basis for this system comes from the base’s OGAS, smaller in scale but broader in coverage, with a complexity that needs to rise by an order of magnitude.

The concept of LARS has been taking shape since the beginning of the year, but it has always received strong support from Lin Ju, because he believes that if LARS is successfully implemented, it will be meaningful not just in outer space, but even more so on Earth.

After all, this thing always reminded people of the robots in science fiction novels that served humanity, with productivity skyrocketing exponentially—yet it seemed there was still a long way to go.

Even LARS seemed very difficult to Ye Changsi; the project’s lead, Xie Liaofu, not only aimed to achieve the above but even pursued full automation, which was sheer madness.

That entailed the automation of a complete industrial chain, and the technical coordination required was simply too demanding.

Addressing the issue of limited resources for production was overly complex, and both Lin Ju and Ye Changsi started to feel a headache as they delved deeper, ultimately deciding to give up.

Lin Ju returned to the base mainly to continue monitoring the development progress of the Moon and to avoid any contact with the visiting American delegation.

The results of negotiations with David and Robert would be sent to the Space Strategy Research Society simultaneously; since they had not mentioned it, it was clear that communication was still underway.

...

The Moon, Yushu Base.

While Earth was quietly undergoing earth-shattering changes, the astronauts of Sky Canopy-4 were still faithfully carrying out their missions.

June was extremely busy for them; sandwiched between two blasts, various plans and tasks piled up.

In addition to sending back samples and data from the last nuclear blast, there was also the reception of supplies, and—the installation of no less than three habitation module segments.

Prior to this, only four astronauts were crammed into two living modules, but after May, the Aerospace Development Committee redoubled its efforts and sent half of the remaining six module segments.

One service module, one cultivation module, one transition/equipment module—three 20-ton segments were sent by three New Yuan-2 rockets to the vicinity of the Black Rabbit Space Station, taken down by Chapter 9 after refueling, along with up to 40 tons of supplies—including five hydrogen bombs.

Bearing the tail end of June, four permanent astronauts and four payload specialists worked hard to install the new module segments in place and then had to immediately start sorting the new supplies.

They had barely separated the four hydrogen bombs and other urgently needed equipment when the four foreign inspectors could hardly bear such high intensity work; following Deng Lei’s suggestion, they readily accepted the task to explore the mines and set off for several hundred kilometers away on two T7 Lunar Rovers.

Watching the departure of the four foreigners, Deng Lei’s eyes flickered, turning back he saw Fu Xiangjie already seated against the cabin wall, his eyes revealing exhaustion.

The ground task scheduling was too tight, even though in reality each astronaut’s daily work hours did not exceed eight hours, but the intensity was still much higher than on Earth, posing severe challenges to both body and mind.

Deng Lei just murmured a few words of comfort, these days would soon be over. With the five modules of the Yushu Base landing soon, the number of permanent astronauts would increase to eight, which would be much better than now.

Of course, the main reason for the fatigue was the lack of robots’ participation; the investigation into the "14" accident had concluded, excluding the risk of other robots experiencing the same malfunction, but secrecy had to be maintained due to the presence of foreign experts.

Deng Lei had subtly managed to temporarily deflect these foreigners with work, but it wasn’t to stealthily use the robots.

After confirming the two lunar rovers had driven off into the distance, he and Li Lei approached the storage locker and opened a small box that had accompanied the latest batch of supplies.

The box was locked, labeled ’Deng Lei’s Private Belongings,’ yet the two of them simultaneously pressed their thumbs against the fingerprint lock, only then came a faint "click."

The moment the box was opened, a puff of white vapor billowed out, dissipating to reveal 10 nearly transparent injections with a hint of blue, with the disposable injectors carrying simple numeric markings on the side:

"304"