Chapter Sixty-four: Desert North Base

Peng Dongli patted Zhang Mingyang on the shoulder and replied, “Don’t worry, Wenwen is just like that—cold on the outside but warm inside. Once you get to know him, you’ll understand.”

Zhang Mingyang shook his head. “Forget it. Right now all I want is to finish the current task. Matters of romance can wait.”

“All right,” Peng Dongli shrugged. “Let’s go then, we’d better hurry to the ‘Northern Desert Base.’”

“Okay.”

The two left the base and arrived at the airport where they had first come, boarding a transport vehicle heading north toward the ‘Northern Desert Base.’

The ‘Northern Desert Base’ was located to the north of the ‘Southern Desert Base,’ less than twenty kilometers away. Both belonged to the same organization: the Aerospace Department.

After the transport had traveled less than ten kilometers, Zhang Mingyang saw dozens of towering buildings in the distance to the north.

“Senior brother, what’s over there?” he asked.

Peng Dongli looked in the direction Zhang Mingyang pointed. “Oh, that’s the Northern Desert Base.”

“There are so many buildings! What does the Northern Desert Base do?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Peng Dongli replied, keeping him in suspense.

…

As the transport drew closer to the Northern Desert Base, the imposing buildings gradually revealed their true nature: they were all rocket launch towers!

Seeing dozens of launch towers standing in neat rows on the Gobi Desert, Zhang Mingyang’s mouth fell open—this was his first time seeing rockets.

“These… are all rocket launch towers? And there are rockets on many of them?”

Peng Dongli explained, “This is exactly what the Northern Desert Base is for—it's our country’s lunar resource transport hub. All these heavy-lift rockets are used to transport resources mined from the Moon.”

Listening to Peng Dongli’s explanation, Zhang Mingyang was even more astonished. “Why have I never heard anything about this in the news? When did our country build such a place?”

Peng Dongli smiled. “Do you think the nation has to let everyone know about everything? These are strategic resources—every country keeps such things under wraps.”

When the transport arrived at the Northern Desert Base, the two got off the vehicle.

As soon as he stepped down, Zhang Mingyang ran straight to the nearest launch tower, craning his neck to look up. Worried about safety, Peng Dongli hurried after him.

“Well? Impressive, isn’t it?”

Zhang Mingyang looked up, uttering a sound of amazement.

“Senior brother, how many rockets must there be here, and what are they all for?”

Peng Dongli pulled Zhang Mingyang back to a safe distance and explained, “Have you heard of the metal ‘Lunar Gold’?”

Zhang Mingyang nodded. “Of course. I’ve seen it at the fusion power plant next to the base. It’s black, very light, and I’ve heard it comes from the ‘Dadi Valley’ on the Moon.”

Since Zhang Mingyang already knew, Peng Dongli stopped being mysterious and continued, “Twenty-two years ago, our country launched the ‘Jade Rabbit II’ rover to the far side of the Moon—the first human landing on the lunar far side.”

“Two months later, the rover reached a crater in Dadi Valley and discovered a ‘Lunar Gold’ deposit on a giant meteorite.”

“At that time, the base had just been established and the ‘Oceanic’ was still in the design phase. There was no metal on Earth that could meet the design requirements for the Oceanic. Somehow, Wang Huairen heard about the new ore discovered by Jade Rabbit II. He personally went to the space agency to examine the data on the Lunar Gold deposit. When he realized the refined metal could fulfill the Oceanic’s construction requirements, he proposed to the leadership that heavy-lift cargo rockets should be built to mine Lunar Gold on the far side of the Moon.”

“To beat Country M to Beihe-3, the government approved his proposal. Wang Huairen was a genius; from design to construction, he completed the rocket in just a year. The following year, the rocket launched successfully, carrying a full set of heavy unmanned mining equipment to Dadi Valley, and the Lunar Gold was successfully extracted.”

As he listened, Zhang Mingyang’s curiosity grew. “Senior brother, how do you know all this?”

Peng Dongli smiled. “You all go to the base archive to read Wang Huairen’s notes, but I go there to study the history of the base. That’s why I know these things.”

“I see. I guess I should check out the base’s history next time I’m there.”

“Go on, senior brother.”

Peng Dongli continued, “To build the heavy-lift cargo rockets, Wang Huairen chose the current locations of the Southern and Northern Desert Bases. The Southern Desert Base was for building the Oceanic, and the Northern Desert Base for constructing and launching the heavy-lift cargo rockets.”

“This very place was chosen by Wang Huairen. Rockets are built and launched here, and all the rockets are nuclear-powered designs of his own. They’re reusable.”

“In other words, after launching to the Moon’s far side and landing, the rocket loads up with ore, flies back to Earth, lands at the Northern Desert Base, unloads the ore, and then flies back to the Moon again. That’s what we call reusability.”

“That’s incredible!” Zhang Mingyang was astonished. What kind of mind could conceive of this? He kept asking, “Senior brother, are today’s rockets the same as before? How much can they carry?”

Peng Dongli pointed at the rocket in front of them. “Today’s rockets are naturally not the same as decades ago, but the principle is unchanged. Only the payload has increased. The rockets Wang Huairen designed could carry two hundred tons. Now, at the Southern Desert Base, the smallest rockets can carry three hundred tons; the largest, seven hundred and fifty tons.”

He gestured toward an even larger rocket in the distance. “See that one? That’s the latest super-heavy rocket: a hundred and fifty meters tall, fifty meters wide, and it can carry a maximum payload of seven hundred and fifty tons.”

Zhang Mingyang looked where Peng Dongli indicated. Indeed, there was a much bigger, stockier rocket standing there.

“Senior brother, how many rockets are there at the Northern Desert Base?”

Peng Dongli thought for a moment. “In total, twenty-five: ten with a three-hundred-ton capacity, ten with five hundred, and five with seven hundred and fifty.”

Zhang Mingyang asked again, “Senior brother, how long does it take to reach the far side of the Moon from here?”

“Well…” For once, Peng Dongli was stumped. He pulled out his computer, checked the base’s data, and replied, “If you only count the round-trip journey, it’s twenty-four hours. Including loading time, it’s fifty hours.”