167: Chapter 167: Lunar Infrastructure Development Reduced from Two Years to Three Months – A Moment of Silence!

Alien civilization navigation timer, day forty-seven.

8:50 AM, B2 level of Pangu Laboratory.

Su Che stepped out of the elevator.

The smell of burning in the hall hadn't completely dissipated.

The maintenance team had spent the whole night replacing four burnt-through motherboards. The Pangu Quantum Computer cabinet cluster was glowing green again, and the low-frequency hum was half a tone deeper than it had been a few days ago.

The flow chart for space-based navigation was still stuck to the whiteboard.

Su Che peeled off the pages one by one, folded them, and tossed them into the drawer under the console.

He pulled out a thick black marker and drew a vertical line down the center of the whiteboard.

Left: Sub-nanometer Lithography. Right: Lunar Development.

"Come over."

Liu Huaqiang dragged a chair from the corner, Academician Qian Zhenhua leaned in clutching a red ballpoint pen, Academician Li Zhengyang found a standing spot while carrying his new cup, and Wen Bo brought his enamel mug and placed it by the console.

The fourteen researchers didn't need to be called; they automatically gathered around.

"3 nanometers is the limit. Yesterday's joint debugging wasn't a code issue, a heat dissipation issue, or any engineering detail issue—it's the physical limit of the chip itself."

Su Che flicked the cap off the marker. "The etching precision is stuck there, the quantum dot arrangement density can't be increased, the computing power pool is bottoming out, and optimizing until the end of time won't help."

He listed three lines on the left side of the whiteboard—Days 1 to 7: Underlying Architecture Design. Days 8 to 18: Atomic Deposition and Lithography Control Logic Optimization. Days 19 to 21: System Integration and Debugging.

"This machine is not called a Quantum Lithography Machine; it is an atomic-level 3D printer that stacks individual atoms onto specified coordinates. Once it's built, the Sub-nanometer Quantum Chip can enter production, and the global deep space radar will finally have a brain to use."

He snapped the cap back on. Su Che turned to the right side.

"We will simultaneously open the lunar line. First, we'll work on the small-scale Controlled Nuclear Fusion energy station for the moon. The foundation is the miniaturization of Controlled Nuclear Fusion we did previously, modified for the moon's extreme environment and Helium-3 utilization. Dean Liu, you bring your team to take over."

Liu Huaqiang pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "What about the optical modules?"

"Academician Qian will assist, Academician Li will run the physical verification, and Wen Bo will be responsible for all new material integration."

"And the Sub-nanometer Lithography?" Wen Bo picked up his enamel mug and took a sip.

"I'll take a few people and write it myself."

The division of labor was finalized in less than five minutes.

9:40 AM. Su Che set up an encrypted video terminal in the main console area.

Three screens lit up.

In the top left corner, the command tower of the Jiuquan Launch Base appeared. Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang was standing, his training uniform collar buttoned up.

In the top right corner, the circular conference hall of the Kaitian Base in the northwestern suburbs of the capital appeared. General General Shen Wangchuan was seated in the main position, with two staff officers sitting on the flanks.

The bottom screen showed the headquarters of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where Liu Huaqiang's deputy had connected on his behalf.

"Lunar Development Base construction plan," Su Che said without pleasantries. "The original plan was a two-year construction period."

Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang nodded. He had participated in the final review of that plan; the stack of documents was as high as a calf.

"Change it to three months."

The audio on all three screens cut out simultaneously. The paper cup in Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang's hand crinkled. General General Shen Wangchuan crossed his arms on the table, not moving a muscle. Even the sound of keyboards stopped on the Chinese Academy of Sciences' end.

Su Che pushed a file to the conference terminal titled "Lunar Development Base: Three-Month Deployment Plan."

"The two-year plan follows traditional aerospace logic: build it on the ground, transport it up by rocket, and assemble it on the moon. Transportation alone consumes more than half the time."

Su Che flipped to the third page. "I am not taking that path."

"Step one: energy station. We'll finalize the technology in a week. The prefabricated parts will be hauled over in one trip by the luan bird verification ship and assembled on-site on the moon. Once we have energy, the subsequent equipment can operate."

"Step two: lunar soil resource processing. The moon is not lacking in aluminum, iron, silicon, or titanium. We will use fusion energy to drive melt separation and convert building materials on-site, instead of hauling bricks from the ground."

"Step three: construction robotic arms plus material forming for on-site assembly."

"Step four: autonomous construction robot clusters, coordinated by Yiren AI, working twenty-four hours without stopping. The moon has no typhoons, no heavy rain, and no earthquakes; the construction conditions are better than any construction site on Earth."

"Seven technologies, a total R&D cycle of twenty-seven days, while simultaneously deploying equipment to the moon, waiting for the robot clusters to complete the main construction."

Su Che closed the file. "Three months, and the main frame of the Lunar Development Base will be formed."

Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang placed his paper cup on the table, the bottom making a clatter. "Chief Engineer Su, how will the transport link be guaranteed? The luan bird verification ship has a maximum single Earth-Moon transport capacity of six hundred tons, and the prefabricated parts for the energy station alone exceed three thousand tons."

"The verification ship will make one trip every three days. We will launch intensively in the first month to send the energy station and the first batch of equipment up first."

Su Che switched to the monitor wall feed and pushed it to the terminal. The skeleton of the space Dry Dock gleamed with a cold white metallic luster on the screen, and the installation of the final assembly cabin's outer shell was closing in on the last empty area.

"The Dry Dock is almost topped out, and the hundred-thousand-ton class luan bird is being assembled inside. The transport capacity of the luan bird is absolutely incomparable to that of the verification ship."

"The luan bird will take a long time to assemble," Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang replied.

"The verification ship will hold the line first. If the transport capacity is truly insufficient, we will have the luan bird take over bulk transport once it rolls off the production line. We will move with both legs alternating, without stopping."

General General Shen Wangchuan turned his head to exchange a few words with the staff officer beside him, his voice suppressed outside the microphone's pickup range.

"Have the aerospace side re-calculate the transport arrangements and launch windows," General General Shen Wangchuan said, withdrawing his gaze. "The three-month plan is approved in principle. The construction details will be aligned item by item by the staff group and your team within twenty-four hours."

"Old Chief, one thing."

Su Che changed his sitting posture in front of the camera. "Three months is limited to the main frame. Subsequent functional improvements, environmental testing, and putting it into use will take time, but the frame must be erected first."

"Reason?"

Su Che did not answer. Three months: from the middle of the second month to the middle of the fifth month of the alien civilization navigation timer. He was the only one who knew how this timeline had been calculated.

"Time waits for no one."

General General Shen Wangchuan stared at the screen for three seconds. "Execute."

The meeting cut off. Su Che turned off the terminal and pulled over the keyboard.

He created a new encrypted folder: "Sub-nanometer Lithography · Underlying Architecture."

This all-in-one machine was a completely different species from the previous Quantum Lithography Machine.

The core logic of a lithography machine is "etching," using light to carve out circuits.

The core logic of the sub-nanometer all-in-one machine is "assembling," using quantum fields to clamp onto individual atoms and precisely deposit them onto specified coordinates.

Su Che reviewed the machine architecture blueprints unlocked by the system in his mind.

Three bottlenecks.

Control precision of atomic directional deposition. The tolerance is smaller than one-millionth of a human hair; traditional mechanical means cannot touch this scale, so quantum fields must be used as clamps.

Sub-nanometer optical paths. It is not traditional ultraviolet light, nor extreme ultraviolet light, but a quantum coherent state light field with a wavelength three orders of magnitude shorter than extreme ultraviolet. The manufacturing process for every optical component in the optical path must itself reach the atomic level.

Global ultra-precision anti-vibration and temperature control. During operation, vibration cannot exceed ten picometers, and temperature fluctuation cannot exceed one-thousandth of a Kelvin.

No laboratory on the ground can meet these conditions. The only place that can is four hundred kilometers above our heads. Zero gravity, vacuum, and extremely low thermal noise.

Su Che typed four words in the notes column of the architecture blueprint: In-orbit Manufacturing.

He placed the cursor on the first code block of the file and began building the underlying control framework.

At the other end of the hall, Liu Huaqiang had already gathered ten researchers around a makeshift long table, with technical documents for the lunar energy station spread across the entire tabletop.

"Who is reviewing the processing blueprints for the beryllium-copper alloy vacuum chamber?" Liu Huaqiang held up a stack of printouts.

Wen Bo strode over from the materials area, placed his enamel mug on the corner of the table, and took the blueprints.

"Can we just copy the previous plan for the superconducting coil winding process? The lunar surface temperature difference is three hundred degrees; the stress compensation coefficient for thermal expansion and contraction definitely needs to be recalculated."

"Old Li." Liu Huaqiang raised his chin.

Academician Li Zhengyang passed by carrying his thermos, his pace not slowing down. "I'll give you the coefficient the day after tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow?" Wen Bo didn't even look up.

"Tomorrow I have to help Academician Qian with the thermodynamic model for the Helium-3 extraction module."

"The day after tomorrow is fine." Liu Huaqiang folded the corner of a document to mark it.

The space footage in the center of the monitor wall was switching quietly. A few more dark gray heat shield panels had closed on the outer shell of the Dry Dock's final assembly cabin.

A blue data bar for the Mirror World backend hung in the bottom right corner of Su Che's screen. The number of global active users had exceeded nine hundred million. The independent point pool was rising.

But the exchange price for the Quantum Ultimate Isolation Medium was hanging there: three million. It was far from enough.

One billion new glasses were moving along global distribution lines, and new users were flooding into the Mirror World every minute. It was far from fast enough.

Su Che withdrew his gaze and slammed his fingers back onto the keyboard. Sub-nanometer Lithography underlying architecture code, line one.

The air conditioning vent on the B2 level hummed, blowing the two columns of text on the whiteboard so they swayed slightly.

Two lines, running simultaneously. Time waits for no one, and neither does the moon.