Captain Jason's tactic was masterful. He deliberately omitted the grim news about the asteroid impacts or the potential collision between the Moon and Earth. Since humanity was leaving the Moon regardless, there was no benefit in dwelling on the catastrophe left behind.
"I, Jason, will temporarily serve as the first Captain of the Noah!"
"Our spacecraft, measured from the exterior, is a sphere with a diameter of fifteen kilometers. However, the internal dimensions are vastly larger due to spatial compression technology—a horizontal diameter of roughly two hundred kilometers and a vertical height of sixty kilometers. Imagine that volume. It is more than enough space for the human race."
"Its mass is constant at 1.03 million tons. No matter how much cargo we load inside, that mass will not change. We will propel this vessel by detonating nuclear charges behind it."
"Do not worry. The ship is structurally sound. We have the technical means to ensure our safety during propulsion."
"Once the Noah launches, it will take only four to five months to reach Mars. There, we will begin our new lives!"
Every word Jason spoke hit like a heavy shell, shaking the audience to its core. After every sentence, the crowd erupted in cheers. The atmosphere in the hall climbed to a fever pitch as everyone began to fantasize about life in the interstellar age.
Humanity is a polarized species. Some are hard-nosed pragmatists who believe ideals are trash that can't put food on the table. Others are deeply emotional, willing to sacrifice everything for a dream.
However, history shows that it is often the latter who achieve world-shaking accomplishments.
Of course, the majority of people are moderates. As long as they have food in their bellies and clothes on their backs, they are willing to strive for a higher ideal. Now that the plans were laid out and sounded feasible, they were naturally willing to follow Jason and give it their all. There was a small minority who were hesitant, but swept up by the momentum of the majority, they had no choice but to agree.
"Next, I invite the heads of the various departments to come to the stage and speak."
As Jason stepped back, thunderous applause echoed through the hall. But passion alone cannot sustain a civilization; solid, reliable plans are needed to steel people's resolve.
Designing a spaceship capable of carrying fifty thousand people is an engineering nightmare. With so many lives at stake, every variable must be calculated with precision: daily oxygen consumption, food requirements, water reserves, these were all critical issues.
Life support systems, air circulation, water reclamation, power generation, were non-negotiable. And, of course, a robust waste treatment system was essential; you couldn't have the entire spaceship smelling like a sewer.
Furthermore, the spaceship had to be a self-sufficient industrial hub. If a part broke, they needed the capacity to manufacture a replacement immediately. People needed factories, farms, and plantations to build a sustainable life.
These systems were vital. Not a single one could be missing. The Moon Base possessed these capabilities, but it had taken thirty years to build the base. Now, they had only five short months.
Therefore, the first phase of the operation was—The Great Disassembly.
They had to dismantle the existing instruments and facilities of the Moon Base and reassemble them inside the spaceship.
This was not a simple moving job. It had to proceed in a strict, phased order. Critical infrastructure like the nuclear power plants had to be moved last. If they dismantled them too early, the entire base would lose power.
If the air circulation units were pulled offline prematurely, everyone in the base would suffocate.
The demolition work had to proceed from non-essential to essential, from small to large, ensuring that daily life could continue while the base was gradually cannibalized and fed into the Noah.
The second phase was—The Excavation.
The alien ship was buried deep underground, with only a small section exposed. For the Noah to launch, it had to be completely unearthed. This meant digging a massive pit fifteen thousand meters deep.
Ideally, such a massive project would be impossible to complete in five months. However, humanity had been digging here for thirty years. Large quantities of ice ore beneath the spaceship had already been mined out. Now, they only needed to clear the layer of rock and soil clinging to the ship's hull.
This led to the third phase—The Loading.
Where would they put the millions of tons of excavated rock and soil? They would load it directly into the spaceship. Whether it seemed useful or not, it was biomass and raw material. The internal space of the Noah was so vast that the human population would occupy only a tiny corner; it was impossible to fill it completely.
In deep space, matter is precious. The vacuum offers nothing. Every item used is one less item in reserve. Although water and air can be recycled, entropy demands a toll; eventually, resources are consumed.
Energy, in particular, is finite. Once spent, it is gone. It cannot be recycled or easily replenished in the void, so they had to bring a massive surplus. Currently, 70% of the base's electricity was supplied by nuclear power, with the remaining 30% coming from solar and thermoelectric generation.
Large-scale excavation of uranium ore was inevitable. Ice, iron, titanium, whatever they could get their hands on, they would take. Everything was in short supply.
The final phase was—The Creation.
Things like spaceship engines didn't exist off-the-shelf; they had to be built from scratch. This was the most audacious, difficult, and inspiring part of the project, encompassing the "Megaton Nuclear Pulse Propulsion Initiative" and the "Ten Million Ton Steel Production Plan."
When this new propulsion phase was announced, the scene became chaotic. Several engineers in the crowd who had a keen interest in pyrotechnics and cinematic explosions began screaming and roaring wildly, reaching a state of pure ecstasy.
There was something about the sheer power and scale of the new system that appealed to their intense personal passion for loud noises. Regardless of whether their actual expertise matched the job requirements, they all demanded to join the nuclear propulsion team. The result, of course, was a ruthless rejection by the hiring managers. Those assigned to coding continued to code, and those assigned to quality control went dutifully to their stations. You couldn't build a nuclear drive just because you liked loud noises.
Sitting in front of the television, Wayne initially tried to take notes, wondering if this aerospace project was technically feasible. By the end, the enormous workload and intricate logistics were simply too much to comprehend. It made sense; three thousand experts had crunched the numbers for two weeks. It would be strange if an ordinary citizen could validate their math in ten minutes.
He helplessly dropped his pen and looked at Zack, who was bouncing around the room like a child on a sugar high.
"Hey, calm down. What are you doing?" Wayne asked.
"Interstellar travel! Wayne, this is actual interstellar travel! How can I not be excited?!" Zack cried out incoherently, his face flushed.
"Didn't you take a spaceship to get to the Moon in the first place?" Wayne asked, puzzled.
"That's different!" Zack yelled frantically. "This is real sci-fi stuff! Warp drives, Type III Civilizations, the Galactic Federation, Star Wars, here we come, baby! Hahaha!"
Zack was a fervent fan of science fiction novels. He had read too many space operas and felt it was his duty to fantasize about the possibilities.
Wayne had never seen him so happy. Perhaps most people felt the same way. Originally, they were just surviving, counting the days until the end. Suddenly, they found themselves on the brink of creating a new era, becoming the heroes of humanity. How could they not be happy? The difference in mindset was night and day.
The agricultural reforms had solved the immediate issue of starvation, but they hadn't truly changed humanity's predicament. Did clinging to a barren rock like the Moon really offer a future? Wayne hadn't thought so... or rather, he hadn't dared to hope.
But Project Noah was a true revolution. It gave humanity a direction. The risks were immense, but the rewards were incalculable. If it succeeded, humanity would be reborn as an interstellar species.
Wayne glanced at the project timeline again: 5 months.
Was humanity really in such a rush? Not necessarily. Perhaps the Moon-Earth collision was real, but did it matter? With Project Noah, he no longer had to worry about such things.
Captain Jason is truly amazing, Wayne thought with genuine admiration. He is first-class, not only in his methods but in his personal capability.
If the old politicians and bureaucrats were still in charge, they wouldn't have had the courage or the organizational skill to pull this off. They would have been scared to death long ago.