This was like the current space station; all components were built based on the six by four standard proposed by Celestial Trade. If someone designed a six by five interface, there would be no available interface for it to dock and its only fate would be to float in space.
Whoever controlled the standards would have the right to control the industry for half a century, or even an entire century.
It was easy to tell how attractive the first million-ton ship would be.
Hua and Russia didn’t even possess the entry technology to build a 500,000-ton ship, let alone a million-ton ship, or else the first order wouldn’t be swallowed down by Future Heavy Industries alone.
However, only Future Heavy Industries could confidently complete the million-ton ship. Although Hua and Russia both built shipyards on Celestial City, they only received orders for smaller ships.
Future Heavy Industries was different. Not only did the company successfully build three 500,000-ton “Seagull-class” transport ships, it was in the process of building the the fourth “Seagull”. The four Seagull-classs not only helped Future Heavy Industries to accumulate a wealth of shipbuilding experience, but they also allowed the shipyard building process to advance to a new height.
Although Hua and Russia both eyed the attractive deal, there was very little they could to change the situation. They just regretted that their own space companies didn’t have the capability to close the giant technology gap.
Of course, Future Heavy Industries took away the biggest piece of meat. But there was still a lot of meat and soup left in the pot.
It was important to know that through the 50% defense tax and the output value contributed by the member states, the Earth Defense Alliance Fund had raised a total of 349 billion New Xin Dollars. Based on the team of professional managers employed by the fund, the fund would raise over 12 trillion New Xin Dollars by the end of 2019 with its current momentum.
How astronomical was this number?
To choose a reference for comparison, based on the GDP data released five years ago by Hua, the 12 trillion New Xin Dollar was more than 10% of the annual GDP of Hua in 2015.
It was 10% of the GDP output from the world’s second largest economy!
Of course, Hua’s current GDP was by far higher than what it was five years ago. Especially after the announcement of the asteroid mining program, the GDP of the major aerospace powers saw quite a substantial increase. Even so, the 12 trillion New Xin Dollar still was an astronomical amount.
Even if they couldn’t help building the ship, it was still possible to build the computer, or even worse, at least possible to contribute the screws or the buttons on the spacesuit. The more upstream the industry, the more downstream industries were involved. The construction of the mega million-ton military ship would have far more stimulating effects on the aerospace industry of the member states than the four Seagull-class transport ships.
Because of this, everyone wanted a piece of the ship.
Not only the Earth Defense Alliance coveted this pie, but also the aerospace companies from non-member states.
Although these non-members also contributed a lot of money in the form of defense tax, when the Earth Defense Alliance chose cooperation partners, it was extremely critical of companies from non-member countries. Even the leading SpaceX only received an order of 1.7 billion New Xin Dollars in navigation projects.
Out of a total of 12 trillion New Xin Dollars!
Those aerospace companies in Silicon Valley and Seattle were all extremely envious and countless times arranged their employees and unions to petition the Capitol. They lobbied to join the Earth Defense Alliance, or at least to establish good cooperative relations with the Earth Defense Alliance.
It was the first time in the history of the UA where capitalists and unions worked so closely together, unprecedented.
Nippon was even more direct, the only asteroid mine was operated by several powerful consortia, which provided millions of tons of mineral resources to the Nippon manufacturing industry every year. When the 50% defense tax was introduced, the profits plummeted. Later, when the 12 trillion New Xin dollar fund was announced, they worked together to pressure the Nippon government to join the Earth Defense Alliance.
Inside Future Building on Coro Island, Jiang Chen was in his office sipping on his coffee, he was carefully writing something on paper.
The line “Earth Defense Alliance Research Fund Allocation Plan” was written on it.
The first order for Future Heavy Industries shipyard was an unarmed ship. Lu Hao’s proposal ended the nonstop debate at the committee. The Earth Defense Alliance no longer had to worry about which company’s weapons to buy, because weapons were no longer a consideration.
In the short run, it was undoubtedly the best choice to save resources. Instead of wasting production capacity on weapons that are destined to be eliminated, it was better to think long term. However, in the long run, this proposal was still somewhat ill-considered.
Without enticing the arm dealers who make cannons and turrets, why would they put money into research to upgrade and advance weapons?
The more weapons purchased, the stronger the weapons. If there were no sales, there would be no competition. Why did military technology on the wasteland recover so fast? Because for most survivor camps, 50% or even 80% of GDP was spent on weapons.
In that kind of environment, even without proper labs, the Sixth Street used sickle and welding torches to create the T3 Power Armor no inferior to the power armor before the war. After NAC unified the Wanghai area, although Jiang Chen invested a lot in scientific research, the speed of weapon upgrade slowed down.
After the T4 Power Armor, the Sixth Street didn’t manage to create a new power armor. The K1 kinetic skeleton became the standard for the three division. With the kinetic skeleton, the NAC Army could easily sweep through the wasteland, and naturally technology progression was no longer needed.
Earth Defense Alliance’s urgent task was to find a way to stimulate military companies to develop weapons. The best way was to use methods other than orders to give them incentives to do research.
Money is no longer the problem, but how to spend the money is now the problem.
Jiang Chen let out a sigh.
Sometimes he would exclaim, why he did not transmigrate from the future. Without any precedent to follow, he must explore. Now he only faced the problem of his budget. After the Earth Fleet is formed, there would be many things he would have headaches over.
“Talents, talents… Earth Defense Alliance is still lacking talents.”