As more robots touched down on the surface, the construction of a massive railway network began.
"The foundation of all prosperity is a good road"—a universal truth that applied to any planet.
The plan called for two to three thousand scattered mining sites. Building smelters, power plants, and transit hubs for every small mine was wildly impractical. It would only cause massive resource waste without actually boosting industrial output.
Instead, major mining zones needed to be linked by rail. This way, raw ore and semi-finished materials could be shipped to a central hub for efficient processing.
Nuclear-powered trains remained the most cost-effective mode of transportation.
The track-laying technology was highly advanced and fully automated. Operators only needed to map out the routes on a computer, and the heavy-duty robots handled the rest.
Meanwhile, the next major phase of the plan began: the colossal space elevator project!
The planned height for the elevator was a staggering 8,800 kilometers!
The "space elevator" was a revolutionary piece of engineering developed back on Nyx. It functioned exactly like a gigantic lift, reaching over 8,000 kilometers into the sky.
Over a century ago, engineers faced immense hurdles trying to haul the massive amount of supplies needed for the Deep Space starship into orbit.
Relying on rockets or shuttles for space transport was far too expensive. The cost of fuel and thrusters alone was astronomical. Even with the boost in efficiency from modern ion engines, it simply wasn’t financially viable.
While transport blimps were cheap, they were restricted to the atmosphere and couldn’t survive orbital altitudes.
"Drawing water from the bottom of a planetary well is less efficient than shipping it across the universe!" This was a common grievance among senior scientists during the Centennial Project.
However, it perfectly highlighted the primary hurdle in space exploration: humanity was trapped in a planetary "gravity well."
Much like a physical well, a gravity well heavily restricted orbital engineering.
A person stuck at the bottom of a 10-meter well has to exhaust themselves just to climb out. Yet, that same person could easily walk 1,000 meters on flat ground without breaking a sweat.
Because of this, launching from a planet’s surface into orbit required a super-heavy rocket, but traveling from orbit to other planets only required a small spacecraft.
Take the 20th-century Apollo program back on Earth as an example. The Saturn V rocket, weighing over 3,000 tons, was required just to push the 45-ton Apollo spacecraft into lunar orbit. However, the lunar module’s ascent stage only needed a takeoff weight of 4,670 kilograms to lift off from the moon and return.
Therefore, rockets were a terrible choice for mass transport, especially on a planet with high gravity and a thick atmosphere like Nyx.
To escape these gravity wells, researchers developed two solutions.
The first was to mine resources directly from Nyx’s moons and ship them directly to the orbital shipyards. Moons naturally have low mass and weak gravity, which drastically cut industrial costs.
The second solution, naturally, was the space elevator.
This had been a massive focus for research and development at the time.
If you ignored the steep initial construction costs, operating a space elevator was a hundred, if not a thousand times cheaper than using rockets or shuttles. It relied entirely on cheap electricity and completely bypassed issues like atmospheric friction.
When it came to moving huge quantities of materials, nothing beat the space elevator.
This structural requirement was also why the Deep Space remained in geosynchronous orbit around Planet GB131, carefully matching the planet’s exact rotation!
The core concept of a space elevator wasn’t overly complicated. It essentially involved dropping a series of tethers from the Deep Space down to the surface, and using those cables to mechanically haul cargo up into the void.
Naturally, the tether couldn’t just be one continuous, unbroken cable; there were several intermediate anchor stations along the way to manage the load and tension.
The real challenge, of course, was the tether material itself.
Standard materials simply couldn’t handle the stress. If a standard steel cable were dangled for just nine kilometers under Earth’s gravity, it would snap under its own sheer weight. Standard metals were entirely useless.
Fortunately, the invention of carbon nanotubes gave engineers the breakthrough they desperately needed.
Carbon nanotubes are one-dimensional nanomaterials. They are incredibly lightweight, feature a flawless hexagonal lattice structure, and boast extraordinary mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties.
Despite being microscopic, their strength rivals diamonds. They are also incredibly flexible, allowing them to be spun into long, continuous fibers.
In theory, a nanotube cable a single meter wide and thinner than a sheet of paper could support 13 tons in standard Earth gravity, while the cable itself would weigh mere grams.
This nanomaterial finally turned the dream of a space elevator into reality.
Mastering nanotechnology is generally the hallmark of a Level 3 Interstellar Civilization. However, that didn’t mean humanity couldn’t discover aspects of it sooner. The most basic nanomaterial, carbon nanotubes had already shown incredible promise back on Earth.
After decades of exhaustive research during the Nyx era, scientists finally perfected a method for mass-producing carbon nanotubes that were tens of kilometers long. Their incredible properties offered a tantalizing glimpse into the true potential of nanotechnology.
And so, machines roared to life, motors hummed, and the Federation government restructured a massive portion of the industrial sector to support the project.
Department heads and senior scientists were equally fired up, eagerly calculating and finalizing the structural parameters for the elevator.
Compared to the one built on Nyx, the space elevator on GB131 was a walk in the park. The planet’s weak gravity made the engineering much simpler to execute. Moreover, with a behemoth like the Deep Space acting as the ultimate counterweight in orbit, the elevator tether would barely sway.
As long as the mothership periodically fired its ion thrusters, it could easily correct any minor orbital shifts caused by the elevator cars moving up and down.
Slowly but surely, the framework of the space elevator began to extend downward from the Deep Space.
This highly complex assembly couldn’t be handed off to robots just yet; it required the precision and adaptability of human engineers. As a result, swarms of astronauts were constantly working outside the hull.
Clad in heavy power armor and secured by heavy-duty safety tethers, they used built-in ion thrusters on their backs to effortlessly maneuver through the vacuum of space.
From a distance, the glowing thrusters made the astronauts look like a swarm of blue fireflies...
Watching this bustling construction site filled Jason with a deep sense of pride. It reminded him of a fascinating report he had read a few days prior.
Cosmic sociologist’s stated that a civilization’s collective capacity for action was a prime indicator of its "civilizational entropy."
The stronger a society’s unity, the faster it could execute monumental projects, and the more vibrant that civilization would be. Such societies naturally possessed boundless potential.
In this context, a lower "entropy" value meant a healthier, more capable civilization.
"It’s like a young adult in their prime," the report had noted. "Their reflexes are sharp, their motor skills are at their peak, and they have the drive to turn their thoughts into immediate action. Their potential for growth is immense!"
"The exact same principle applies to entire civilizations!"
On the flip side, if rallying a society’s collective strength was a constant, grueling struggle, and projects dragged on indefinitely, it was a glaring sign that the civilization was stagnating.
The future of such a society would be undeniably bleak.
"A civilization like that is like a dying old man... drained of all growth potential, and quietly fading into history."