Launching rockets
Day by day, two years have passed. Within these two years, the number of robots in Hawke has increased to more than 10,000, and the number of steel-making blast furnaces has increased to ten, and there are also foundries and precision machining plants to go with them.
Of course, all these factories were built within the base. In the past two years, the base, which covers an area of one square kilometre, has taken shape, but it is still in the early stages of construction. Only some of the more crucial factories were built by Hawke first.
In the intervening two years, Titan's upper metropolitan area has changed considerably.
The industrial zone, which covers several square kilometres, is lit up with lights and furnaces, with countless robots of all types moving about.
And Hawke is the brain of this vast industrial park. With more than 10,000 robots and tens of millions of sensors installed on various equipment, every data transmitted back is perfectly received by Hawke without the slightest omission, and the moment it is received, Hawke immediately gives instructions for the next step. In other words, Hawke can do tens of millions of things at the same time without producing the slightest error. Such efficiency is something that only Hawke can achieve.
This was the power that could be generated by combining human and electronic devices together.
"Eh, sensor information for sector b, number thirteen, the temperature is too high? That's good, give the order to controller sixty-five to strengthen the cooling system operation ..."
"Sensor number three thousand and fifty in sector d is not receiving data ... Shit, it looks like it's broken again, droid number nine hundred and seventy, take spare parts and go replace it immediately."
All kinds of messy but huge information flowed into Hawk's brain all the time, and Hawk's computer was in full swing, arranging all kinds of things in a well organized manner.
Looking at the utilization rate of computing power, which had soared to ninety-five percent, Hawke sighed with worry: "Alas, the computing power of the central computer, although far more than similar computers on Earth, is still a bit short ... en, let's put the construction of a new computer on the agenda. "
The computer's usage rate could not be increased to 100 percent because that would mean that the computer would be running at full capacity and would certainly generate some information that would not be processed in time, which could cause a major accident.
And there is always some computing power left over to prevent any unexpected accidents.
"Reduce the production rate by ten percentage points and stop building new equipment, so that we can save about eleven points of computing power.
Hawke thought for a while and made up his mind.
Apart from the problem of computing power limitation, Hawke also perceived another problem.
With the increase in the types of factories being built and the gradual increase in demand for production, Hawke gradually felt that this one current iron mine was no longer sufficient for his needs.
It was not that there were not enough reserves. In fact, with this iron mine's reserves, even if Hawke mined it for another thousand years, he would not be able to finish it. The most important thing is that the elemental reserves here are a little bit monotonous.
Here, the largest reserves are undoubtedly iron, followed by copper, aluminium, gold and other metals, but there are some industrially necessary metals, such as rare earths - the lanthanides are much scarcer. While the impact was not yet visible in the early stages of construction, by now the scarcity of these elements, and the limitations of computing power, had become two of the biggest constraints on Hawke's development.
Hawke made up his mind, "The new computer can't be solved in a short time, so let's solve this problem first."
After a month of building a helicopter, Hawk went through all the technology he had collected on helicopter construction, added in some new technology he had acquired in the meantime, and combined it with the special environment on Titan, and finally built a helicopter.
The construction of this helicopter took Hawker another two months.
The helicopter, black in colour and shaped like an upside-down bowl, was the "Wind God" helicopter that Hawke had built.
The helicopter looked very different from those on Earth. It looks more like a flying saucer. This is due to Hawker's latest technological breakthrough, which no longer requires a propeller for power. Moreover, the semi-circular shape allows for maximum space with minimal material.
After the final series of tests, Hawke's mood perked up: "So, let's take off, Wind God One!"
A pale blue flame shot out from several jets in the lower part of the Wind God One, and with a powerful counter-thrust, the hundreds of tonnes body of the Wind God One slowly rose up, all the way up, and finally, flew out through the open skylight of the factory.
Hawk gave a command and a steering jet spewed out a jet of flame next to Wind God One, which flew straight away and disappeared.
Wind God One was equipped with the latest mineral detection equipment and was on a mission to help Hawke find minerals.
Wind God One can reach a maximum speed of three times the speed of sound, and is much more flexible than any other aircraft on Earth. For example, it can hover in the air, take off and land vertically, and fly at extremely high speeds at very low altitudes, all of which are beyond the reach of similar aircraft on Earth.
Looking at the various data coming back from Wind God One, Hawk launched his analysis.
"En, there is an aluminum mine eighty kilometres from here, but the reserves are too low and the location is too deep to have mining value, discard ..."
"There's actually a tungsten mine here? Not a bad location either, just a little low reserves. Good, we'll have to send some robots to survey the field after a while."
Hawk maneuvered Wind God One, roughly three hundred meters from the surface of Titan, following a spiral line, gradually expanding the exploration area in a circle with the location Hawk was at as the center of the circle.
When the radius of exploration expanded to five hundred kilometres, Hawke had to stop his intention to continue exploring further. This distance was the maximum distance for effective communication; any further and Wind God One would drop below the horizon, and since Titan was circular, when Wind God One dropped below the horizon, Titan itself would become the biggest killer of blocked signals. At that point, Hawk would have lost control of Wind God One. Without Hawke's control, the only possible outcome for Wind God One would be a crash.
And there is no way Hawke could leave the ship he currently inhabits and shift his position to Wind God One's computer. The reason was simple: the computer on Wind God One did not have the computing power of such a huge computer, and the amount of data generated by the entire base under construction would have killed it instantly, and Hawke would have died without incident.
Thinking about it, Hawke wailed: "I have to build a special satellite for this shitty plane? No, one isn't enough. Based on Titan's mass and size, I'd have to build at least twelve satellites to get a dead-end signal. Twelve satellites!"
This amount of work gave Hawke a huge headache. If we started building them, it would mean that we would have to delay the development of the new computer. Moreover, the twelve satellites would not be allowed to have a simple navigation and communication function, but would have to add functions such as observing Saturn, other moons, or the Sun.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. After thinking about it for a while, Hawke had to bear the pain of postponing the research of the new computer again, lowering the rate of base construction by another ten percentage points, and fully starting the construction of the satellite as well as the launch rocket.
This time, Hawke intended to play a big game. On Earth, countries that had mastered high-end technology might launch two or even more satellites at the same time with a single rocket, called one-arrow-multiple-satellite technology. This technology is very **high-end, and ordinary countries can't afford to play with it.
However, this time, Hawke intended to get a one-arrow twelve-star to play with.
Yes, there is no mistake, one arrow and twelve stars! Using one rocket, launching twelve satellites at the same time.
Hawke did this in order to save construction resources. After all, a rocket is a big guy and a disposable item. If it were to be launched twelve times in a row, with Hawke's current metal output, especially rare metals, he would be knocked straight into the poor class. If it were fired only once, although the individual rockets would consume more resources, the total count would be an unknown saving over firing twelve times.
A twelve-star, however, would also be a challenge for Hawke. For this kind of thing, Hawke hadn't done it before.
If it wasn't for the fact that this was Titan, where the gravitational force was much less than that of Earth, and the altitude and speed required for the launch were much less than that of Earth, and thus much less difficult, Hawke would not have dared to make such an attempt.
This time, it took Hawke two months to build the rocket and satellite.
Inside the huge factory, a huge rocket, ten metres high, stood vertically. Yes, compared to the rockets on Earth, which are 40 or 50 metres high, this 10-metre rocket is a small one.
On Earth, rockets are generally forty to fifty metres high, mainly because they are generally three-stage rockets, because only then do they have enough power to send satellites into orbits of several hundred kilometres around the Earth.
But not so here on Hawk. Titan's gravity is low, its orbiting altitude is low and, accordingly, the demands on the rocket are much less. So Hawke's rocket, this one, has only one stage.
In fact, if he hadn't had to launch twelve satellites at once, Hawke could have modified the rocket to be only seven metres high.