Chapter 691: 429: The Shadow of Salvation, the Destined Loneliness in Old Age【1】
Chapter 691: Chapter 429: The Shadow of Salvation, the Destined Loneliness in Old Age【1】
The main difference between this Star Summit Research Institute and the past is that Harrison Clark had pre-arranged the deployment of three new materials in Area 52, as well as more emphasis on biology and medicine.
In addition to the past material and energy technologies, he further leveraged his academic standing to recruit many talented young, middle-aged, and veteran people in biology and medicine, and had reinforced the research institute’s expertise in these two fields to the utmost degree.
In frontier cutting-edge technology research, in addition to needing people, it also requires money.
This money cannot be a small amount, as even a small research item would require astronomical expenses.
Some scholars calculated that in the early 20th century, to invent a technology that could change human habits in a certain field, at least the annual living expenses of a hundred thousand people were required.
But by the early 21st century, that figure had leaped to ten million people.
And such investments don’t necessarily yield equal returns.
The essence of researching new technology is that humans invest their resources in the highly emotional, and overly powerful bank of “time.”
Once the money is deposited, humans must constantly strive to prove the authenticity of their deposits, in order to receive potentially high returns in the future.
Harrison already had an answer, written in the “Planning.”
So the house of his deposit game changed from the “Time Bank” to himself.
Hence, his deposit game could guarantee a good return no matter the circumstances.
Still, to transform his answer from a paper into a practical technology is not a simple matter of talking.
This money still needs to be deposited, albeit it could be less.
He can use relatively fewer resources to pry into massive profits steadily.
However, this relatively smaller concept is still beyond the imagination of ordinary people, not to mention Harrison simultaneously laid out dozens of battle lines.
In the early stages of the business, although he simultaneously held Summit Ventures and a portion of rapidly and successfully transformed application technology products as money-making channels, the world still felt his behavior was too risky.
No one has invested so much in technology like this.
Waves come one after another, are you a wave?
Harrison, who had observed history at this time, remained silent. He had seen many times the routine of not being optimistic about, and then his technology transformation, as fast as pouring beans out of a bamboo tube, crazily slapped everyone’s face.
As a result, his cash flow indeed appeared to be quite risky but was always within a controllable range.
Harrison and Rainer led dozens of projects under his name, turning it into a monster assembly, one more beastly than another.
The seemingly extremely difficult project, which should take decades to harvest, has turned into a small matter as casual as eating and drinking in Harrison’s hands.
Star Summit Research Institute could always steadily produce and quickly transform research projects.
He used formed technologies to continuously accumulate more funds, feeding the war with the war while always walking on a tightrope. However, no one knew that his business territory was as steady as an old dog.
Star Summit Research Institute put forward a new technology every four months, continuing in this pattern for more than ten years.
Others were so envious that their teeth ached.
What kind of divine scholars did Harrison Clark win over?
There were not enough Nobel Prizes to give out.
However, Harrison didn’t shy away from participating. He pushed all the new technologies he developed to Rainer and the heads of many project teams, forcing them to affix their names to the achievements without including his name in the second inventor.
Moreover, he ordered the scholars in his core industry territories not to publicize his contributions externally.
Unconsciously, in 2040, the same year when Carrie Thomas completed “Morning Wind,” Summit Ventures’ total market value reached an unprecedented two trillion.
In the previous timeline, Harrison was about to sell the company and change to the fireworks business.
However, he didn’t need to exhaust everything to impact outer space this time, so he didn’t sell.
He maintained the original establishment of Summit Ventures, simply cutting off some of the resources in the entertainment sector and completed partial monetization, strengthening the public authorization to the outside world. Simultaneously, he packaged and transferred the entire three new material industry chains acquired by the previous ambush in Area 52 to the Whale Group. In the end, he easily cashed out four hundred billion in cash and established a new aerospace and aviation subsidiary within the substantially complete structure of Summit Ventures.
But this time, instead of focusing on launching spaceships that could fly outside the solar system, he switched to developing resources inside the solar system, such as colonizing Mars and Venus, and letting Mercury complete its historical mission early and turn it into a Dyson Cloud.
He set this plan in 2040, officially started implementing it in 2042, and at the same time convened the first expanded meeting of the “Solution.”
He absorbed all the top leaders of his major industries and a large number of pre-selected candidates, announcing his ultimate life pursuit during the meeting.
Among the new members, there were also many core personnel developed by Avril Green in the domestic and international political fields.
The “Solution” had an observation period of 22 years for new members. This influx of members quickly accepted Harrison’s concept and began promoting the “Five Hundred Year Plan” with all their efforts.
Leonard Lewis, one of the new members, immediately created his version of “Lover” based on the information he had learned.
Compared to the original, Leonard Lewis’s “Lover” relatively weakened the emotions between Harrison and Carrie but sublimated the sense of technology and civilization. Its historical impact was no less than his own “Immortal Galaxy” series and the original version of “Lover.”
This time, Harrison never left, staying in the solar system until 2166 and dying at the age of 170.
The intensity of his promotion of science and technology in this era was indeed visible after changing directions.
In 2087, Samantha proposed the core of quantum supercomputing 35 years in advance, six years after sending off Ward Owen.
In 2089, a student of Eilen Elvin invented the Summit Amino Acid in advance.
In 2099, humans built large solar photonic wings in a far-Earth orbit and a space station that could accommodate 100,000 people for long-term living and had a considerable degree of productivity.In 2115, humanity built the first space station on Mars that could accommodate a thousand people for long-term living, with controlled nuclear fusion and solar energy as the main power sources.
In 2121, Venus Base was completed.
In 2133, the first large-scale mining ship was sent to Mercury.
In 2137, the first photovoltaic module of Mercury Dyson Cloud was launched into sun-synchronous orbit.
Incredibly, Harrison Clark’s personal presence is involved in each of these five significant events that are essential to human aerospace industry.
He’s not there to serve as some sort of chief engineer, but rather to do the grunt work.
From pilot to operator, he can do it all.
Even in the last mission, at the age of 141, he could still walk through space wearing a heavy operating armor.
From repairing damaged parts of a spaceship, to using a single-person engine to forcefully adjust the space station’s orbit, to assembling delicate space equipment, to remotely controlling dozens of intelligent robots to quickly cut out-of-control meteorites that were bombarding Dyson cloud modules, it was him all along.
He didn’t seem like an old man at all, with his abundant energy and amazing response and control abilities.
He didn’t participate in any training either; he was somehow just naturally adept at everything.
It is estimated by later generations that if it weren’t for him, these critical events would have been delayed by decades.
At first, when he wanted to go to space, people on the ground tried to stop him but were always rejected by him.
He just laughed and said, “You all don’t know squat. I’ve left everything I need to leave behind. If I don’t do these things, are you going to send some young kid instead? What if they mess up a spaceship? How big of a loss would that be? How much time would be wasted? I have to do it myself, and I’m really good at it.”
People couldn’t argue with him and found the situation quite baffling.
But every time he resolved crises and safely brought his younger teammates back to Earth or space bases, people realized his importance.
You old man, you are indeed very strong!
In 2166, the year Harrison Clark died, Mercury was decomposed as a complete Dyson Cloud in his honor.
After that, Harrison Clark went through his long, lonely life once more.
In 2081, he bid farewell to Ward Owen, and in the following decades, he bade goodbye to Chris Owen, Julia Lambert, Rainer, Avril Green, Carrie Thomas, and Samantha.
His life was simple, yet complicated, ordinary, yet epic.
His life seemed fulfilled, but it was full of regrets.
In the end, he was unable to leave an heir to inherit his massive legacy.
It was as if he were destined to be alone in his old age.
According to historical records, he seemed to be able to predict his own death.
So he prepared his own grave five years in advance.
On the day of his death, he wore the newly developed single soldier combat armor named Morning Wind and flew to Black Bear Training Base alone.
He sat there alone, with an intelligent robot named Star that only obeyed his commands by his side.
He sipped tea while gazing at the sky with a puzzled expression.
Most people, including members of Solution, didn’t understand what he said at that time.
“Am I still there this time? I’m sorry, I owe you a wedding.”
Until the end, people never figured out his marital status.
No one knew whose wedding he owed.
After his death, Summit Ventures transformed from a large private conglomerate controlled entirely by him to the first publicly owned enterprise representative of all mankind.
Of course, saying that it’s publicly owned, the core controlling team was basically composed entirely of Solution members.
Aside from promoting the development of science and technology to advance civilization, Summit Ventures also bears the responsibility of providing financial resources for various missions of Solution.
Without their founder, Solution did not decline but continued to grow and develop into a powerful force that could not be ignored and was omnipresent.
In 2213, humans have established bases and colonization stations on most planets in the Solar System, and the scope of human control has expanded to the Kuiper Asteroid Belt.
In 2235, gene fluid modification technology was reborn, 154 years ahead of schedule compared to the previous time.
The global situation progressed strictly in accordance with the framework elaborated in the Five Hundred Year Plan, continuously accelerating.
In 2241, a programmer who might have been only a coincidence of the same name and surname, or perhaps some sort of inevitable fate, also called Panda, decrypted the content of The Madman’s Conjectures Collection 1.0 version, and many things about the future suddenly appeared before humanity.
Years ago, famous author Leonard Lewis said in his book, Lover: “If science fiction is no longer fiction, but fact, what should humanity do? How can humans find a glimmer of hope in chaos?”
Facing a new and inevitable crisis, humans were plunged into a brief confusion.
But this confusion came quickly and went quickly.
Solution, a group that never lost its grip on civilization, emerged unyieldingly, dissolving conflicts and confusion with incredible speed, uniting humanity into a strong force, and successfully establishing the World Government around the Chinese nation, which had gained absolute leadership.