Chapter 363 Restoring the Historical Version
Noon, 12:30.
After having lunch in the cafeteria of Medan Space City, Li Qingye came to the ground command center.
Jose, Antonio and others are busy.
He did not disturb them, but sat down in a VIP room and quietly watched the big screen outside. Through the big screen, he could see the Apollo 1 on the launch tower.
The transmission tower is 4.5 kilometers away from the command center.
The sky was cloudless at this time, which was very suitable for space launch.
As the debut of the Apollo-class launch vehicle, the one officially launched was a brand new body, not the one used in the previous test, because that test rocket had been reused six times.
Soon the launch preparations were completed, and everyone in the command center performed their duties and began the countdown.
Li Qingye, who was in the VIP room, also saw the countdown ticking on the big screen.
[10……].
[5……].
drop……
Boom! The four sturdy methane liquid oxygen engines of the Ape-Eating Eagle 1 and its two auxiliary solid rocket boosters spewed out a light blue hot flame.
Hiss, hiss, hiss... In the cooling pool at the bottom of the tower, a large amount of cooling water was instantly evaporated by the high temperature, and dense white mist emerged.
The auxiliary support of the launch tower quickly popped open to both sides.
The Ape-eating Eagle No. 1 soared into the sky, with a thrust of up to 4,500 tons, pushing the rocket all the way to outer space.
"Begin to adjust the flying posture."
The engine nozzle slightly adjusted its direction, and then the Apollo 1 tilted a little to the east. This was to take advantage of the earth's angular velocity and allow the carrier rocket to fly out of the atmosphere more easily.
Everyone in the ground command center was staring at their computers.
Although after six previous test launches, there would be basically no problems with the Apollo 1, but when the time came, they still couldn't help but get nervous.
Li Qingye was not too nervous, after all, the Intelligent Company could afford to fail.
You should know that after large-scale mass production of the Avian Eagle-class launch vehicle, the average cost is only about 6.37 million gold yuan.
Based on the resources, manpower and technology that Sapiens has invested in the aerospace field, converted into gold dollars, it would be approximately 253.4 billion gold dollars in 23 years.
This investment is almost dozens of times that of NASA, and the funding efficiency of both parties is different.
Every penny spent within the company is truly put to good use.
However, NASA is no longer the NASA of the last century. Now they have lost the ability to develop and manufacture spacecraft on their own and need to engage in space exploration through bidding.
This means that the money NASA spends needs to give up a large portion of its profits to contractors such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, General Electric, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Will private enterprises mistreat themselves and help America develop aerospace?
Stop dreaming, they won’t engage in space exploration if there is no profit.
The pursuit of profit is a nature that is difficult for all private enterprises to overcome before they develop into giant companies.
Even if the Hilltop City Council steps in and asks major companies to lower some of their inflated prices, the profits that should be retained must still be retained.
After all, this is the foundation of America. In the process of operation, capital always pursues profits. If it does not pursue profits, it will not be in line with America's values.
Of course, due to the rise and squeeze of Sapiens Corporation, the Hilltop City Council now has to make changes and stop pursuing New Freedom, and in fact it can no longer do so.
In order to counter the fierce competition from Homo Sapiens companies, big capital families such as Morgan, Rockefeller, Cleveland, DuPont and Mellon also took the lead in paying taxes, while forcing the middle class, small rich people and emerging rich people in North America to pay taxes.
For example, people like Musk and Buffett were charged a large amount of tax.
Now the comprehensive tax in North America has increased to about 63% of their personal income.
The Hilltop City Council was helpless.
Thomas Morgan, who dominated the Wall Street financial group, looked around the world, quietly called together the leaders of other big families, and decided to increase the intensity of harvesting in North America.
The reason why Thomas Morgan made this decision was very simple, because he found that America could no longer cut into the meat of other regions.
The European Union has just been cut up by them and now only a skeleton is left.
Lucia was severely damaged by the plunder in the 1990s and has not recovered yet.
Japan and South Korea are not big enough, and their blood cannot feed America.
The only one who can revive America to full health is a slippery old chess player.
As for other marginal regions such as West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America, there is not much meat to be cut.
In addition, the Sapiens Company is now eyeing the US covetously. If America reaps too much, it may force the other party to the side of the Sapiens Company.
After looking around, Thomas Morgan finally had no choice but to turn his attention to the North American mainland that was parasitized by them.
To be precise, it is aimed at the middle class, the small wealthy and the emerging wealthy.
In fact, Thomas Morgan was very envious and jealous of the model of Sapiens .
The current dilemma facing North America is that wealth is concentrated, but not completely concentrated.
The major capital families and the wealthy and small wealthy people occupy about 80% of the assets and wealth in North America. Under this circumstance, they automatically form groups such as the Wall Street financial group, the military-industrial complex, and emerging technology companies.
Then it can be further subdivided according to concepts, regions, races, and industries.
This led to the formation of hundreds of groups of varying sizes (some of the more influential ones) within North America, and they grew wildly in this free land of North America.
However, resources are limited after all. When they find that they cannot satisfy the interests of various internal groups by plundering the outside world, it means that fierce fighting will break out among them.
Although this kind of fighting did not result in an open war, its brutality was even greater than that of other wars.
Now Thomas Morgan felt that the council's mechanism limited the strength of North America, and many resources were consumed in unnecessary internal friction and waste.
Homo sapiens can do three things with one penny.
America gets what it pays for.
The current aerospace field is a typical example.
If America wants to achieve the same aerospace industry output as Sapiens, it will need to invest at least US$5 trillion in the aerospace field.
5 trillion US dollars, this is simply an astronomical figure.
Unless a Morgan family is sacrificed every year, the money cannot be raised.
Thomas could only helplessly look at the vast resources in North America, but it was difficult to mobilize these resources.
He even wanted to set up a Morgan Company similar to Sapiens Company, but the existence of other big families made it difficult for him to transform America into Morgan Company.
In fact, other big families have similar ideas.
However, due to the internal strife among them, it is destined that the system of the Hilltop City Council will be difficult to change in a short period of time.
This bloated system can only be patched up and continued to be used.
Now Thomas and his team are just restoring the historical version, using the old version's model to improve overall internal efficiency.
However, the underlying logic of some systems is an inherent problem. Unless they are torn down and rebuilt from scratch, they can only treat the symptoms but not the root cause.
The development of things always has two sides.
America's global hegemony is declining, and with external plunderable resources drastically reduced, they should have collapsed outright.
However, the emergence of the Homo sapiens Company forced them to unite and deal with the threat of Homo sapiens together.
It was precisely because of the overwhelming external pressure that America did not fall apart.
