Chapter 47: The Heaven-Opening Spaceship

Generally speaking, from the emergence of a prototype spacecraft to its final finalization and mass production, the process does not move this quickly.

In human society, a slightly slower pace would mean a dozen years or so.

During this process, the spacecraft would undergo repeated testing, refinement, and optimization, until the accident rate was reduced to the absolute minimum before mass production and market release.

However, in Li Qingsong's hands, this entire process took only about half a month.

Everything was fast to an unbelievable degree.

Following the delivery of the first batch of 100 Skysong-I near-Earth spacecraft came the second and third batches. Within a mere year, the number of Skysong-I vessels flying in the skies above planet Luoshen exceeded 1,000.

Although they all belonged to the Skysong-I series, they varied in specific size, tonnage, exterior shape, engine power, and intended purpose.

Some spacecraft were designed exclusively for passenger transport, falling under the category of passenger ships. Others were built specifically to haul high-tonnage cargo, making them heavy-duty freighters, while certain vessels prioritized agility and speed, categorized as high-end rapid transport craft.

A wide variety of models flourished under the Skysong-I series.

However, good times do not last forever, and before long, the first spacecraft crash occurred.

Midway through its flight, a heavy-duty freighter suffered a sudden power failure. A massive quantity of liquid oxygen and methane mixed together, turning the vessel into a giant bomb that detonated with a deafening roar in the dim skies of Luoshen.

Not only was all the cargo on board completely destroyed, but several clones were also killed in the explosion.

To this, Li Qingsong's reaction was one of complete indifference.

A spacecraft blowing up—how normal was that? Was it really anything to make a fuss about?

If Li Qingsong were to spend years or a decade refining a spacecraft design like the human world used to do, waiting until it was truly mature before introducing it to the market, where on earth would he find the time?

That being the case, spacecraft malfunctions and even explosions were simply unavoidable.

Yet this matter had to be viewed from two perspectives.

Rushing into mass production and large-scale deployment would inevitably cause various hidden dangers and design flaws to erupt frequently.

While this would certainly result in certain losses, it allowed these hidden dangers and flaws to be exposed with maximum efficiency, enabling them to be resolved collectively.

All the various latent defects that would normally require a decade of repeated refinement to uncover and eliminate could now be fully exposed in less than a year of mass production and usage. The increase in efficiency was far greater than a dozen-fold.

The downside was nothing more than blowing up a few spacecraft, losing some cargo, and getting a few clones killed. To Li Qingsong, none of this mattered.

Consequently, frequent spacecraft malfunctions and explosions existed on one side, the round-the-clock toil of the spacecraft engineer clones on the other, and the continuously iterating and optimizing spacecraft production lines on yet another.

The more violently the spacecraft blew up, the greater the number of vessels Li Qingsong put into service.

In the first month, Li Qingsong blew up over 50 spacecraft. In the second month, that figure plummeted straight down to just 20. By the seventh month, not a single spacecraft explosion occurred.

As the first year passed, at the cost of more than 300 destroyed and scrapped spacecraft, the overall performance of the vessels manufactured in Li Qingsong's spaceship factory more than doubled. At this juncture, he finally built the first true spacecraft in the true sense of the word.

Powered by a newly developed, high-efficiency methane-oxygen engine, its speed could be unprecedentedly increased to 900 meters per second, directly breaking Luoshen's first cosmic velocity and entering its orbit!

"Ignition!"

At Li Qingsong's command, unprecedentedly fierce and scorching flames roared from the tail of the massive spacecraft, which still retained a hemispherical structure with a height of about 5 meters and a diameter of about 16 meters.

With a thunderous rumble, it lifted off, ascending to a certain altitude before beginning to alter its course, soaring steeply upward.

The numbers on the speedometer jumped rapidly, finally settling at 900 meters per second—equivalent to a speed of about 3,240 kilometers per hour.

By this time, it had reached an altitude of 50,000 meters above the surface of Luoshen.

The engines shut down, and the gravity inside the cabin vanished abruptly. The bodies of the clones floated upward slightly, as if submerged in water.

Yet, restrained by their safety harnesses, they remained anchored to their seats.

At this moment, this spacecraft, named the "Open-Heaven I" by Li Qingsong, orbited Luoshen at a speed of approximately one revolution every 110 minutes.

Vessels capable only of flying in the near-Earth space of Luoshen without entering orbit were designated as Skysong-class spacecraft.

Those capable of entering orbit were designated as Open-Heaven-class spacecraft.

Several hours later, this Open-Heaven I spacecraft, numbered 01, finally caught up with the Deep Space vessel and docked with it.

Thus, the clones and various supplies were transferred to the Deep Space vessel, completing the very first space cargo transport mission.

Li Qingsong had executed such operations many times previously using landing craft. But none of those prior occasions had thrilled him quite as much as this one.

Because this time, the spacecraft used was built by his own hands!

Starting from this moment, he had finally truly acquired the capability for space travel!

With spacecraft capable of entering orbit, he could build space stations in orbit, construct zero-gravity factories, and deploy massive arrays of satellites, probes, and telescopes. His sphere of activity would expand immensely, and he would finally no longer be restricted strictly to the surface of a planet!

At this moment, it felt as though a grand gate was slowly swinging open before him, and the entire universe instantly expanded in scope.

After a brief moment of excitement, Li Qingsong made a resolute decision.

"I am going to build a large-scale space laboratory!"

At the current stage, a large-scale space laboratory held monumental significance for Li Qingsong.

The reason was simple: although the surface gravity of Luoshen was low, it still existed nonetheless. Yet certain experiments and research could only be conducted in a zero-gravity environment.

Examples included biological breeding, high-precision mechanical processing, high-integration chips, and so on and so forth.

If he could possess a large-scale space laboratory, the pace of Li Qingsong's technological advancement would undoubtedly accelerate even further.

Simultaneously, this colossal construction task would inevitably require numerous takeoffs and landings by multiple Open-Heaven I spacecraft, executing round-trip cargo missions to space on a frequent basis.

This, in turn, would produce the same effect as the early large-scale deployment of the Skysong-I spacecraft—exposing flaws and hidden defects within a short timeframe. Consequently, Li Qingsong would be able to rapidly enhance the stability and reliability of the spacecraft in a short period, ultimately elevating their performance.

Thus, alongside the spacecraft darting back and forth within the planet's near-Earth space, a multitude of vessels began operating at high speeds in outer space as well.

Aside from the spacecraft utilized for transporting the construction materials of the space laboratory, Li Qingsong specifically dispatched a large number of vessels into space to conduct high-speed, long-duration flight tests, torturing them by every conceivable means in order to optimize and upgrade them by every possible method.

Time slipped away quietly amidst these circumstances.

Right in the middle of a routine space flight test, Li Qingsong suddenly spotted an object resembling a metal plate floating near the spacecraft.

The item was roughly a meter in size, presenting a slightly curved shape, appearing much like a fractured remnant broken off from some larger mechanical construct.

"That doesn't look like anything I manufactured, does it?"

Filled with a trace of doubt, Li Qingsong maneuvered the spacecraft to slowly approach it.