It's normal to develop some black technology in the future, right?

Chapter 412: Did you comply?

"I am very happy to come to Guangjia Aerospace and witness this historic moment with my junior brothers!"

"Today is an exciting sleepless night. Why do I say that? Because I received an invitation from my junior fellow student to visit the first step of their asteroid mining series. This is also the first step taken in the true sense after my junior fellow student proposed such a grand vision. I believe it has extraordinary significance for our entire human history.

I am very excited to be invited to the ceremony. I originally planned to drive our latest generation Xiaomi Ultra to the ceremony, but our executives advised me not to do so. They said, "Mr. Lei, the Xiaomi Ultra is too fast, and they were afraid that I would be too excited to control the speed. In the end, I drove the max version of Xiaomi."

Lei Jun was posting on Weibo and Douyin in the open-air parking lot on the first floor of Guangjia Aerospace, fearing that others would not know that he was invited by Chen Yuanguang.

Of course, it is normal to advertise at the same time.

This is indeed a historic moment. A large number of bigwigs from Yanjing and local bigwigs from Shenhai gathered in the Guangjia Aerospace building. People like Lei Jun are business partners.

Musk also falls into this category.

In addition to Musk, executives from Volkswagen, Bosch and Temasek were also invited.

Of course, these foreign companies are here to see China flex its muscles and show you whether China’s nuclear bombs have any deterrent power.

Therefore, unlike last time, this time Chen Yuanguang was unable to broadcast live to the audience, and instead the engineers from Guangjia Aerospace were responsible for it.

After Lei Jun posted his Weibo, netizens commented enthusiastically:

"Mr. Lei, some people on the Internet are saying that our room-temperature superconducting technology has not been stolen. Can you help ask the God of Light?" This is the comment with the highest number of likes, far higher than other comments.

After Chen Yuanguang explained the matter to his employees, many of them leaked it out, some directly and some implicitly.

In addition, all kinds of news are flying around on the Internet, so there is now a heated debate on the Chinese Internet about whether there has been a leak of room-temperature superconducting technology.

As a big shot who is openly on good terms with Chen Yuanguang and may know the inside story of this matter, Lei Jun appeared again in the Guangjia Aerospace Headquarters Building and obviously became the focus of netizens' fire.

"Mr. Lei, please help me get the autograph of the God of Light. If you get it, I will buy Xiaomi's latest ultra!"

"Mr. Lei, can you help me get some souvenirs made of metal from asteroids for the raffle?"

"Boss Lei, the 5 million yuan ticket to the Tiangong Space Station is still too expensive. Please help us get it to 500,000 yuan!"

There were all kinds of other comments, some even as outrageous as "Can Mr. Lei persuade Guangshen to divorce?"

Lei Jun arrived more than an hour earlier than the scheduled start time, so after he arrived he had a lot of time to chat alone with Chen Yuanguang.

As soon as Lei Jun saw Chen Yuanguang, he started to complain: "Junior brother, your pricing is too harsh, even more expensive than Xiaomi."

As soon as Chen Yuanguang heard it, he knew what Lei Jun was talking about. It was obvious that he was saying that Tiangong’s pricing was too low.

"Brother, you are also a businessman. You know very well that we can make a profit from this pricing." Chen Yuanguang said.

Lei Jun smiled bitterly: "Of course I know you have made some money. Not to mention that Tiangong has been in operation for more than five years, this can be counted as equipment depreciation.

It cost $100 billion and was expected to have a lifespan of 10 years. Now that it has been in use for five years, its remaining value is only $5 billion.

In addition, the current launch cost is much lower than in the past, and the cost of the space station itself can be greatly reduced. The price of five million will certainly provide profit margins for Guangjia Aerospace.

But this is equivalent to locking out all other companies that want to enter this market. If they want to enter this market, there will be no profit margin at all."

Chen Yuanguang understood now: "Why, Brother, you also want to get a piece of the pie in space tourism?"

“We had discussed internally whether or not to undertake a space tourism project.

After seeing your prices, all the executives fell silent. They felt that Guangjia Aerospace’s pricing was even more ruthless than ours, and that it was even more difficult for our competitors to survive. ” Lei Jun sighed.

"No, isn't Xiaomi Auto your last entrepreneurial venture? Why are you thinking about space tourism now? It's even more difficult than Xiaomi Auto." Chen Yuanguang asked curiously.

Lei Jun is less than two years away from turning sixty. Even if the upstream and downstream supply chains of commercial aerospace are mature, it will take at least five years for Xiaomi to integrate a space station that can be used normally.

“We think commercial spaceflight is the future, so we have been exploring whether we need to expand this business.

Xiaomi's slogan is to let everyone enjoy the fun brought by technology. The tourism industry derived from commercial aerospace also falls into this category, so our executives asked whether we could also develop space tourism projects.

After some internal discussion, we found that Guangjia Aerospace has helped the entire industry to cultivate a large number of talents over the years, and the entire supply chain has become mature. Although no other company has built a space station except China Aerospace and Guangjia Aerospace, we feel that we can do it after sufficient research.

So everyone started to think about whether they should get into the space tourism project.

This project is being personally demonstrated internally by the vice president of the entire Xiaomi Group.

Our expectation for it is not to make money, but just not to lose money.”

Obviously, as a company with huge amounts of cash and having carved out a niche in the new energy vehicle field, Xiaomi wants to engage in space tourism. On the one hand, it wants to find new room for imagination for the company. After all, the prospects of commercial aerospace are worth trillions of dollars.

Any discerning person can see that commercial space travel is what smartphones were ten years ago and what new energy was five years ago. The upstream and downstream supply chains have gradually matured, and technical difficulties are being overcome one after another. It is impossible for Guangjia Aerospace to eat all the cakes alone, and it is inevitable that the cakes will be divided.

Therefore, many companies are ready to take action, and Xiaomi is no exception.

Among the many commercial aerospace projects, space tourism is the project with the clearest profit point and the most clear business model.

Even the space station can be handed over to Guangjia Aerospace or Huaguo Aerospace, and sending customers up and bringing them back can also be outsourced to Guangjia Aerospace.

Xiaomi only needs to put a label on the space station and install the space version of Xiaomi smart home appliances inside.

At that time, at the press conference, we will spend at least half an hour talking about how we can solve the problem of guests drinking coffee in the space station and how to make a coffee machine that can be used in space.

Then the Xiaomi coffee machine in space will be sold to the public. With the support of space technology, it is not excessive to add a premium of one thousand yuan, right?

In addition, if Xiaomi has its own space station, my motor test can also be sent there for testing. At that time, the press conference can say that our test scenarios are sufficient. We have even considered the scenario in which Xiaomi customers may drive Xiaomi cars to Mars in the future.

The second is that this can further implant the concept of Xiaomi's core technology into the minds of consumers. You like to belittle Xiaomi for not having core technology, but I am the first mobile phone manufacturer to handle space tourism. This is just like the success of Xiaomi Automobile, which immediately boosted the entire Xiaomi mobile phone business.

In short, space tourism projects are beneficial to Xiaomi and have no disadvantages. Executives are leading the project.

The previous disagreement at the executive level was simply whether we should build the space station ourselves or buy it from suppliers. We would only make some small things that we could build ourselves, such as electrical equipment used in the space station.

Should we be a pure airline, buying planes to operate, with the airline's logo printed on the planes, and the lunch boxes, drinks, and games on the planes being customizable, or should we be a combination of COMAC and an airline?

As a result, the pricing of Guangjia Aerospace gave them a heavy blow. With a price of 500 million RMB, they would be doomed no matter what price they set.

Guangjia Aerospace can provide differentiated services, including the Tiangong Space Station nearby and the Guangjia Space Station far away. The differentiated services have a minimum price of 500 million RMB.

If Xiaomi sets the price at 500 million, it will undoubtedly suffer a huge loss and will not be able to make back the investment at all, even if other product lines are driven by it.

If the price is set too high, there will be no market.

So after the price was announced, even the executives in charge of this matter said to Lei Jun: "Boss Lei, why don't we just forget it? The pricing of the Guangjia gang is really leaving us no chance of survival."

“After you came up with the price, our vice president in charge of project research was completely disappointed.

He told me that this is just like when the first generation of Xiaomi mobile phone came out and sold for 1999, but Apple priced it at 999.

The scariest thing about Apple is not that it prices its products at 999. The scariest thing is that Apple can still make a profit by setting the price at 999. It is still fighting a price war with you that will force it to raise prices sooner or later.

We simply abandoned the entire project, and some of the PhDs we had originally recruited were transferred to work on other projects.”

After Lei Jun finished speaking, Chen Yuanguang immediately understood: "Hahaha, after all, this is our main business, and there are still barriers for you to come in.

Brother, you should be glad that I set this price in advance. If we lower the price after you come in, the sunk costs will be a considerable amount.

In fact, commercial aerospace can be used in many areas and does not necessarily have to be limited to space tourism.

For example, a gas station that provides space refueling services is a business that we cannot handle alone. We need to rely on private capital. If Xiaomi is interested, we can consider it.”

Lei Jun didn't say it, but he didn't want to do this kind of business at all. This kind of business would not drive the business of other sectors of Xiaomi at all.

"This is still too difficult for us, Junior Brother, have you ever considered selling the space station?

It's not the Guangjia module that's for sale, but an entire space station, like the Tiangong." Lei Jun asked.

Chen Yuanguang understood immediately: "Brother, it seems that you still don't give up, and it probably won't happen in the short term.

We will not consider doing this kind of B-side business in the short term.

As you know, Tiangong used to be the space station of China Aerospace. Its main function was actually experiments, so the space tourism project of Tiangong will focus on experiments and be supplemented by sightseeing.

Tourists will be taken to participate in space experiments.

In the future, we will launch some other space stations, which will be developed into differentiated space tourism projects.

The next one should be the space station to be launched the year after next, which will mainly provide sightseeing and photography services, and will focus on these two aspects in its design.

In fact, if you are really interested, we can make some joint products on the next space station.

At that time we can bring some Xiaomi Polaroid cameras and put them on it, so that tourists can print them out directly after taking photos.

Such cooperation can give people below time to think carefully.”

Lei Jun's eyes lit up. Yes, this was undoubtedly a plan that could achieve some of the goals at the lowest cost. "Okay, I will have a meeting with the senior executives as soon as I get back. We will keep in touch at that time."

After chatting with Lei Jun, official bigwigs arrived one after another. This time the scene was grand, and even bigwigs from the first row came.

"Yuan Guang, don't feel pressured. Although I hope you can succeed at once, it's okay even if you don't succeed."

"Guangjia Aerospace is the pride of Shenhai. Shenhai will increase its support in the future. Can it be bolder in supporting land, water, electricity and taxation?"

"The security of Yuanguang and those around him is of utmost importance. You responsible comrades must strengthen your awareness, predict the occurrence of problems in advance, and prevent accidents from happening at the source."

The foreign executives simply exchanged a few words and then sat down in the seats with their names on them.

When Musk arrived, his identity was sensitive. He had good relations with China as a businessman in the past. Tesla's super factory took advantage of China, but it also brought great help to China's new energy industry.

Not to mention that his mother often lives in Shenhai and has even done live streaming to sell goods in China.

From the perspective of foreign websites, the relationship between Musk and the Chinese people cannot be more ambiguous.

But the technology leak happened today, and Musk's status in this White House is also very important, at least judging from his title and the tone of past presidents.

Therefore, he felt a little awkward when he arrived. Fortunately, Musk shook hands with Chen Yuanguang first, and then tried to ease the awkwardness by discussing the matter at hand:
"Wright, what I'm trying to say is that using a nuclear bomb to change the orbit of an asteroid is a crazy but practical idea.

But have you ever considered that it will have uncontrollable impacts on the earth?

A nuclear bomb could potentially break an asteroid into pieces or even hit the Earth directly.

It could pose a serious threat to the Earth.

Guangjia Aerospace made such a hasty decision without conducting a close-up study of the asteroid in advance, without understanding its composition and structure, and without understanding what kind of force would be needed to effectively deflect or destroy it, which would pose a great threat to the Earth.

In addition, China has signed the Outer Space Treaty, which strictly prohibits the use of nuclear weapons in space. China is violating the agreement.”

"Elon, Article 6 of the Outer Space Treaty stipulates that SpaceX should disclose the orbital information and orbit change plan of Starlink to all parties, and coordinate to avoid collision risks and maintain space order. Did you comply with it at the time?"

(End of this chapter)