Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 84 Low Intensity Major Downturn
Luo Ji has been in hibernation for a long time.

Luo Qing certainly couldn't wake the other person up because of some doubts in his heart.

It's best not to disturb people when they're sleeping. Luo Qing wouldn't do something like Su Shi, who would drag someone out of bed and take them for a walk in the courtyard when he couldn't sleep and had nothing better to do.

Not to mention that this is hibernation; in my previous life, this would be called a death retreat.

Luo Qing still has a lot to do today. The discovery of the Trisolaran fleet's probes is certainly big news, but according to Dr. Ling's calculations, these probes will take at least 200 years to reach Earth, which gives humanity more room to maneuver.

Luo Qing wasn't in a hurry; he couldn't possibly fly out of the solar system to actively search for those probes.

In 200 years, even if humanity cannot build a complete defense line covering the entire solar system, it will at least have the foundation to freely navigate within the solar system's outer space.

Based on humanity's current progress in exploring space, Luo Qing is quite confident.

Over the past three years, the Wallfacer has served as a strong motivator in humanity's efforts to advance space exploration.

He did not issue orders through force based on his status as a Wallfacer or his superior position based on strength, but rather subtly influenced human internal decision-making to a certain extent through his position.

Such as now.

The television was broadcasting the trial operation of Ladder 3, and Luo Qing appeared on the scene at Verne Island.

Verne Island, a large artificial island on the equator, serves as the ground link base station for Sky Ladder 3. Luo Qing's appearance at the trial operation site marked the completion of the five-year-long space elevator project.

In fact, the initial plan was to build only one transport rail each on Sky Ladder 1, Sky Ladder 2, and Sky Ladder 3, just to make do for now.

However, under Luo Qing's strong attention, the efficiency of building the space elevator was greatly improved. Five years later, the space elevator, which was originally planned to have only one guide rail, appeared in near-Earth orbit with a complete set of five guide rails.

Fifteen space rails extend from the ground to near-Earth orbit.

Besides the space elevator, the expansion of the space station has not stopped.

Humanity has long dreamed of building space cities in low Earth orbit.

Currently, the space station has evolved from a space 'village' to a space 'town'. The next step is to build a space 'county', and it is expected that a space 'city' of preliminary scale will be completed in 50 years.

International Space Station, Chinese Space Station, Joint Space Station.

It will be the 'fertilized egg' of these three future space cities.

Luo Qing had also inspected the three human space stations. Currently, the total number of permanent residents on the three space stations has exceeded 8000. Ten years ago, this number was only 10.

Some of the space station's engineers have been in space for two years, breaking the record for the longest time humans have spent in space.

Scientific research facilities, hospitals, green areas, and even a space school... the functional areas of the space station have undergone epoch-making changes.
This is clearly inseparable from the operation of the three space elevators. Nowadays, the cost for humans to go into space is lower than that of taking a commercial airliner, and the capacity to transport space supplies has also increased exponentially.

In Crisis Era 11 (2017), humanity returned to the moon with a new type of space shuttle capable of taking off and landing on the lunar surface. This marked the second time in 50 years that humanity had landed on Earth's natural satellite.

However, this lunar landing mission did not go smoothly.

The spaceplane successfully landed on the Sea of ​​Tranquility and retrieved the laser reflector prism that Apollo 11 had placed on the moon. However, as it was nearing its return, the spaceplane was unable to ignite vertically due to interference from lunar sand.

This directly resulted in the spaceplane being unable to escape the microgravity of the moon.

Dozens of astronauts from various countries who had been on the moon were forced to remain there.

In the end, Luo Qingfei went over and carried the plane to its near-lunar orbit, set it on fire, and rescued the dozens of people.

With this black swan event
Major spacefaring nations have realized one thing: with the safety net provided by Luo Qing, they can be bolder in their space exploration activities.

Influenced by this mentality, humanity embarked on a manned landing on Mars without fully mastering lunar landing technology, and did not even conduct any unmanned landing experiments on Mars during this period.

Sure enough, an unlucky guy and a robot named Old Cat were stranded on Mars.

Finally, Luo Qing spent a long time flying over and pulled himself and the Mars landing capsule out of Mars' gravitational influence, returning to Earth.

Luo Qing severely criticized the research team that was carrying out the Mars landing plan, and stated bluntly: "I will not pay for the bad consequences caused by human technological adventurism in the future."

The construction of the Mars base, originally scheduled for 2020, has been postponed to 2025 because of Luo Qing's remarks.

Whether it's building a space station, returning to the moon, or landing on Mars, all these demonstrate humanity's immense enthusiasm for space exploration. With the logistical support of a space elevator, space development is expected to become a mainstream mission for human civilization in the foreseeable future, perhaps for the next twenty years. The economic benefits of space development have also begun to emerge, albeit with limited returns.

But it's a good start nonetheless.

The United Nations Space Program Development Agency has reported that by Crisis Era 32 (2038), low Earth orbit and the Moon will be fully incorporated into human territory.

Today, people in low latitudes can occasionally see the five guide rails shimmering on the horizon at sunset, with rising starlight above them. These are like space elevator cabins, one after another, rising from the ground into the sky. These stars represent the hopes of countless people, as well as the precious accumulation of the world's 'tightening of belts and pans,' flying towards the stars, flying towards the ethereal future.

...

Besides looking up at the sky, humans have also noticed the land beneath their feet.

Thanks to Luo Qing's environmental initiatives, environmentalism, once considered an act of treachery, has been stripped of that label. The ever-deteriorating natural environment and desertification have made those eager to go to space reconsider their ambitions.

Luo Qing initiated a special Wallfacer program: "Developing traditional agricultural techniques, planting trees, and preventing desertification are part of the program."

Despite the existence of various global engineering projects that cause enormous pollution, such as the hibernation bases that contribute to warming in Antarctica, the wave of desertification on Earth has been somewhat contained by the global afforestation campaign.

Countless older tree planters who spontaneously made environmental efforts but were labeled as ETO (Environmentally Transmitted Toxins) activists saw hope, even though the earth is still becoming increasingly desertified, the rate has slowed down considerably.

Luo Qing also keenly realized that even though he promoted the Wallfacer Project on environmental protection, he could not stop the overall degradation of the Earth's environment; he could only slow down the rate of desertification.

Planting trees alone cannot save the Earth.

The transformation of Earth's ecosystem cannot be stopped simply by planting trees.

Considering that all the spirit stones in his hand had been converted into quantum spirit stones, he didn't have a good solution for the time being. After all, he wasn't an agricultural cultivator in his previous life and didn't know how to change the environment on a large scale.

The great trough predicted by the futurist school of history will eventually happen.

However, Luo Qing's actions may turn a major downturn into a minor one.

but……

Some members of the futurist school of thought have pointed out: "Low-intensity major depressions can also have lasting effects. Whether humanity can achieve self-revolution and civilizational rebirth in such a long-term low-pressure environment remains a question mark."

Luo Qing had no way to deal with this. He couldn't just stand by and watch humanity destroy itself, could he?
Ecological collapse and civilizational reconstruction—these eight words are simple to say, but behind them lies the survival of billions of people.

Humanity's various applied technologies are still developing rapidly. Apart from cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computers, other applied technologies have not yet touched the technological barriers erected by the sophon.

Regarding Zhizi, Luo Qing also tried to conduct entrapment operations by hiding in the particle accelerator, but unfortunately, this was unsuccessful.

Zhi Zi was extremely wary of Luo Qing and almost never approached within 1000 meters of him. Although Luo Qing had secretly mastered a method to kill Zhi Zi within 10 meters, he had been struggling to implement it.

These sophons, capable of escaping at the speed of light at any time and place, are indeed difficult to deal with.

Sophon also adjusted the way it interfered with the particle accelerator. Instead of replacing the experimental particles with collisions, Sophon began to make some subtle perturbations to the accelerated particles during the acceleration phase.

This tiny perturbation can drastically change the final experimental results.

Moreover, once Luo Qing approaches the particle accelerator, Zhi Zi will obviously know what he intends to do and will naturally become wary.

Of course, the interference from sophons is not a panacea. Beyond theoretical limitations, applied research on controlled nuclear fusion has yielded tremendous breakthroughs.

This is naturally thanks to Ding Yi.

Interestingly, the much-anticipated breakthrough in controlled nuclear fusion was not achieved in a tokamak device in space, but in an ordinary research center on the ground.

After stubbornly stumbling along the dead end of the tokamak approach for a year, Ding Yi finally realized his mistake and glimpsed the correct path to controlled nuclear fusion in reverse, thus shifting his research focus.

At the No. 3 nuclear fusion experimental base in Beijing, Ding Yi completed the first trial run of controlled nuclear fusion. In a media interview, he frankly stated: "From today onwards, energy on Earth is no longer something that needs to be conserved."

In the 12th year of the Crisis Era, humanity ushered in an era of 'unlimited energy'.

Two more chapters, tonight.

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(End of this chapter)