Great Power Industry: You're a private company building an aircraft carrier?

Max is an extraordinary person.

He was born in the Rainbow Nation. His father is of British and Dutch descent and works as a mechanical and electrical engineer. His mother is Canadian and is a model.

Although his parents divorced when he was nine, his childhood was still very affluent. In 1981, he bought his first computer, and in 1984, he wrote a space game called Bomb and sold it for $500, earning his first pot of gold.

He excelled academically from a young age. After graduating from high school, he came to Canada to study at university, where he studied many different majors, including economics, physics, and materials science. However, after entering Stanford University to pursue his doctorate, he found it uninteresting and left the school on his second day to start his own business.

He had run a software company and an online financial and electronic payment company. Just a few days ago, this company called PayPal was acquired by eBay, the world's largest online company, for $15 billion. As a result, Max, who owned 12 percent of the shares, received a whopping $1.65 million.

He's a wealthy man now, but...

His interests don't lie in the internet. Last year, he conceived a Mars Oasis project, planning to land a small laboratory on Mars and allow crops from Earth to grow in Martian soil.

That's right, he's been eyeing Mars since last year.

Just recently, he went to Russia hoping to buy a launch vehicle to launch his laboratory, but... even though he had hundreds of millions of dollars, he found himself too poor; Russia's asking price was far beyond his means.

Upon returning, Max, whose self-esteem had been hurt, decided to start an AirFork company to research how to reduce rocket launch costs, achieve Mars colonization, and build a human space civilization.

Currently, SpaceFork Company is still in the theoretical research stage, but then, like a thunderclap from the East, Starship Company was established. They aim to obtain a low-cost way to enter space through reusable technology, and their goal is to colonize Mars!

This made Max extremely excited. He had never planned to study rockets, but because the Russians' price was too high, he had to study how to reduce the cost of rocket launches himself. Now that the Easterners had done the research, he could just sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor!

"President Qin, your idea is truly ingenious!" In the conference room, Max made no attempt to hide his admiration upon seeing Qin Chuan.

Although Max is now a successful person, he is still just a founding member of an internet company. In contrast, President Qin of the East has many industries under his Laiyang Group, many of which are number one in the world. He has to look up to him.

Qin Chuan smiled and said, "It's nothing, it all happened naturally."

In fact, these plans are plagiarisms of ideas from the company under this person. However, they don't have these ideas now. Can you call it stealing when it's something a scholar does?

"President Qin, how long will it take for your starships to land on Mars?"

“Our current plan is for the next twenty years,” Qin Chuan said. “You’re still young, you should be able to see the day when humans land on Mars on a large scale. We just had a meeting this morning, discussing various technical routes and timelines. Is there anything you need?”

“I want to do a Mars Oasis project, which is to launch a small laboratory to Mars and let crops grow there,” Max said. “This project is very important; it can serve as preliminary work for human colonization of Mars, so…”

He didn't hesitate much. Since President Qin was a pragmatist like him, he might as well be frank with him.

"Therefore, I hope you can allow me to purchase one of your transport ships, and I also hope the price can be particularly cheap. The maximum amount I can invest is one hundred million US dollars."

Don't you want to develop the relevant technology yourself?

"If there's something readily available, then I won't bother with it."

Qin Chuan was secretly delighted: "Great, in that case, I can agree to your request. This one hundred million US dollars needs to be transferred to our Starship Company's account as soon as possible."

I meant later, not now! Max was taken aback.

“We just had a meeting and discussed that, in order to utilize the power of the world, we will launch a global public fundraising campaign. Consider your one hundred million US dollars as fundraising funds.”

First, make Max penniless! We have to get that money! And that way, we'll have the start-up capital for Starship Corporation, without having to put any money in ourselves!

"As a benefit of the fundraising, the first Mars One spacecraft to fly to Mars will be yours. You probably don't know what class of spacecraft it is, but it can transport fifty passengers to Mars at a time."

Max took a deep breath: "Okay!"

The original purpose of setting up the SpaceX company was to reduce launch costs. Now that someone has solved that problem, he no longer needs to run the company. He can simply send all the company's funds here and wait for the Sun Group's Mars spacecraft.

Moreover, transporting fifty people at once is a huge undertaking. Such a large spaceship would cost at least 100 million, which is definitely not too much. You know, the people from Russia have quoted 400 to 500 million!

"how long it takes?"

"According to our plan, the experimental spacecraft should be launched in about twenty years, and it will probably take about thirty years to actually fly to Mars."

This $100 million is essentially a venture capital investment!

Max frowned: "That long?"

"Yes, we must be cautious when it comes to space exploration. After all, manned landing on Mars is something that has never been done before. If we were to formulate a ten-year plan, would you believe it?"

If the timeframe is too short, it's just a PowerPoint presentation; a sufficiently long timeframe indicates that the work is being done in a down-to-earth manner.

“Of course, if we want to speed up this process, we need a strong person to lead Starship Corporation.” After Qin Chuan finished speaking, he glanced at the other party: “Mr. Max, would you be willing to come? If you do, I can appoint you as the general manager of the entire Starship Corporation.”

“Me?” Max was somewhat taken aback. “I’ve never studied rocket building.”

Max had studied physics, but he was still far from being a professional in building rockets and had a long way to go. When he heard Qin Chuan say that he wanted to be the general manager, he subconsciously thought that he had misheard.

"However, you have a tenacious and enterprising spirit. I believe that with your joining, the thirty years may be shortened to twenty years, or even fifteen years. Of course, after you go back, you can think about it carefully. The position of general manager will always be reserved for you."