Grace is still a little unimaginable: "Even so, a space city, even if calculated at 10,000 tons, is 25 times the size of the International Space Station. To send so much material into space, I think it must not only be a simple rocket transportation problem, but also need A complete space research and development system, and surely global cooperation cannot be avoided?”
"Indeed," Simon did not deny this time and said, "However, you must also know that the larger the scale, the lower the relative cost. Just like satellite research and development, it is difficult for ordinary people to imagine a high-end satellite. It costs billions of dollars from research and development to successfully sending satellites into space for use. In fact, the main reason is that mass production is impossible or unnecessary. Of course, there are still inevitable gray areas. As for me, We really need to explore space and pursue the limits of technology. Therefore, I will try my best to cut off all unnecessary gray links. I will also try my best to prevent the space exploration team of the Westeros system from becoming bloated and inefficient like NASA and other national aerospace departments. In short, although I am rich, my goal is to do the most with the least resources.”
Grace listened carefully to Simon's words, and looked at the little man with a little more admiration. She temporarily stopped what she was doing, turned around and leaned against the kitchen counter, and asked: "So, what kind of building do you plan to build?" Where’s the space city?”
"I just happened to draw some pictures, but they are on the computer. If you are interested, I can show you before going to bed tonight," Simon said, turning on the fire, putting oil in the pan, and preparing to fry the steak. When he saw the woman, he looked curious. Staring at himself, he could only continue: "Roughly speaking, the first-generation space city mainly has two aspects. One is to have a gravity chamber. You may have seen it in some science fiction movies, which creates artificial gravity through rotation. You know, human beings want to To stay in space for a long time, 'gravity' is definitely a very important thing. The second one is to be able to conduct space navigation. The first space city must at least be able to complete the flight between the earth and the moon. So, let's talk about this It’s a space carrier, which actually works.”
The sketch Simon drew was the super space station model in Ridley Scott's "The Martian" that he remembered. As for the specific design plan, this is a matter for the professional technical team.
When Grace saw the man starting to fry the steak, she turned around and got busy again, while continuing: "I still find it a bit unimaginable. Even if the space carrier is only 10,000 tons, it is equivalent to one-tenth of the federal large aircraft carrier, but in fact It’s also very huge.”
"From the scale of space, it is actually just a grain of dust," Simon said: "Therefore, the first generation of space city is just an experiment, involving various technologies. For the second generation, my goal is to reach at least 100,000 tons level, capable of completing the voyage from Earth to Mars.”
Grace followed the man's tone and said, "Is the third generation going to break out of the solar system?"
"Of course not, this matter is still too far away. For the third generation, my goal is to further improve various technical details and realize a complete closed loop that allows humans to survive in space for a long time without supplies."
Grace suddenly thought of something: "In this case, does it mean that once some extreme events occur on the earth, such as the Third World War, we, and even our children, except for the Tasmania island you arranged, , maybe there is another way out?"
Simon nodded: "Of course, this is another basket with eggs in it."
Even though he has clear goals for the future, Simon's attitude as a complete pessimist has not changed.
As the same saying goes, some things are engraved on the level of human genes and cannot be changed. After all, it is easier to plunder than to produce, and to destroy than to build. Therefore, establishing a space city will also be a possible choice for your own family in the future under certain circumstances.
As for many more people on this planet, Simon can only say regret.
Grace received confirmation from the man and said, "But we can't live in the space city forever, right?"
"Even the most extreme war cannot last forever," Simon said: "If something does happen, we will only temporarily move to space, and we can come back when the situation on the ground stabilizes."
now it's right.
Grace nodded again, fantasized about it, and shook her head with a smile: "I still think this thing sounds very sci-fi and far-fetched."
"Just do it step by step." Simon said: "Humanity will be able to land on the moon in the 1960s. Going one step further is not a problem."
Grace nodded, and then said: "So, let's talk about the first generation, how much money do you plan to invest?"
Simon did not answer directly, but said: "First of all, this is why I want to pursue the reuse of rockets. The current space city plan is still in its embryonic stage. However, based on the final planned volume of 10,000 tons, based on the current The quotation of other mainstream heavy-lift rockets is about 100 million US dollars for 20 tons. Just sending 10,000 tons of material into space will cost 50 billion US dollars, not to mention that various failures and losses cannot be avoided. Besides, it is repeatable. Utilizing the potential of the rocket, Falcon 9's 30-ton load capacity may eventually be reduced to only a few hundred thousand dollars in fuel consumption, or even if it is reduced to a cost of 5 million U.S. dollars each time, all 10,000 tons of materials can be sent into space. , and only need..."
Grace had already calculated quickly in her mind and couldn't help but said: "About 1.5 billion US dollars?"
"It's hard to imagine, isn't it?" Simon smiled: "The latest Ford-class aircraft carrier planned by the federal government has a budget of tens of billions of dollars."
"You are trying to change the concept and use the freight to compare the construction cost." Seeing the man's interested expression, Grace poured cold water on her: "According to the quoted price of a 20-ton heavy-load rocket of US$100 million, the International Space Station only costs US$2 billion. It’s US dollars, where do we need hundreds of billions?”
Simon shrugged slightly, turned over the steak that was already overflowing with fragrance in the pan, and said, "The problem is, I can compress the carrying cost of a 10,000-ton space city to the same level as a 400-ton space station. Then, the complete space city , the final cost and budget will definitely be in a cost range that is far lower than ordinary people imagine. Perhaps, we can make a budget assumption of 300 billion US dollars, which should be very sufficient. If we spread it over the next twenty years, this amount of money will be enough for It’s easy for me.”
Grace paused again while stirring the soup pot, and turned to glance at the man: "Building a space city with 300 billion US dollars, this... Or, don't you often say that if you want something to last in the long run, you must invest at the same time?" Enough output to form a complete business model, then what about this matter?”
Simon said: "Actually, there is a premise. In an era of lack of faith and confrontation, if you want to push some people to do something, you can only use inducement. This is a business model that can generate profits. However, I am not someone else , I do not lack a long-term vision, and I happen to have enough financial strength, so I can not pursue profits for a long period of time in the eyes of others. Of course, I still insist that this matter needs to be complete There is no business model yet, we can only look forward to the future, and we will continue to discover it while doing this. Maybe you know that the current global industry scale of diapers has reached tens of billions of dollars, and it was actually used for aerospace in the first place. There are actually many others that need to be invented.”
Grace filled some soup with a spoon, brought it to her mouth, blew on it, tasted it carefully, and waited for the man to finish speaking, then continued: "In this case, you spend so much money, but there is no direct output, even if it is your own Money will definitely receive a lot of criticism when the plan is advanced in the future.”
"Yeah," Simon shrugged: "For example, so many people on the earth are still struggling in poverty, why don't I donate the money to help them?"
Grace smiled: "Why?"
"Because I'm an alien and I just want to go home."
"Ah."
"Want to go back with me?"
"Um."
They chatted leisurely while preparing dinner, and sat beside the curtain wall of the Cloud Restaurant on the upper floor of the Westeros Building where the last ray of sunset was reflected, and enjoyed it together until the 'starry sky' under their feet was more brilliant than the sky.
After dinner, she didn't rush to the party hosted by Melisandre. Grace said she wanted to see Simon's draft about the space city. Of course she was satisfied. Then she saw the big bed in the bedroom, the party and so on. Of course it didn't matter.
The next day is still resting until the new week comes, which is February 28th.
on Monday.
Monday of the new week is about waking up in Jerry Hall’s Greenwich flat.
Jerry Hall wanted to have a child. Although Simon planned to refrain from doing so, he agreed after a little consideration.
Because this is a smart woman.
Simon likes smart women, because his children will also be smart in the future, and they will be taught to be smarter by smart women.
In the restaurant in the morning, Hall's eldest daughter Elizabeth was not there. Following the second stop of Fashion Week in London, James, who was one year younger than Elizabeth, went to his father Mick Jagger, so only the youngest Glory Ya dined with two adults.
The eight-year-old girl didn't need to pay too much attention, Simon and Hall still talked about some serious matters.
"Project Runway" is about to start production. After thinking about it, Hall finally decided to step back behind the scenes and only be a producer. After all, even for the moment, if you get pregnant, there will definitely be a lot of trouble later.
After some selection, 'Snowflake Queen' Claudia Schiffer was finally selected as the host.
In fact, Hall initially considered Cindy Crawford. Cindy had also been a host before and had some experience. She was also a native American girl and was famous enough to be recognized by American audiences more easily.
Unfortunately, no agreement was reached in the end.
It's not that Cindy's asking price is too high. After all, the opponent has reached retirement age and has to consider his own options. It's just that the initiative required is too great, and the opponent's position is indeed sufficient. Hall is worried that one of them will not be able to control it. It will bring uncontrollable variables to the subsequent production. After all, this is definitely intended to be a series, and Cindy’s first request is to sign one contract per season, which is definitely not acceptable.
Relatively speaking, Claudia Schiffer, who happens to be 30 years old this year and is also striving for transformation, readily signed a three-season agreement at once.
Simon still thinks Heidi Klum is more suitable, but because of the child's affairs, the decision has been made, so he doesn't think about it anymore. This time it is Snowflake Queen, good or bad, I can actually accept it. Again, the current development of the Westeros system has enough room for error.
Speaking of which, it reminds me of Snow Flower Queen's perfect ODY.
Last time, it was the last time. Maybe we can try it again when we have time.
At the dinner table, Jerry Hall said this. He wiped the mouth of the little girl next to him with his hand, and then mentioned another thing: "Simon, I saw that Melisandre is trying to acquire Hermès recently? "
Simon nodded.
Word should have spread as well.
As the king of luggage, Hermès has always been a jewel in the industry that many fashion groups hope to win, whether it was before or this time. For Melisandre, if she can win Hermès, she will immediately have an 'aircraft carrier-level' brand with a sales volume of US$1 billion.
In the original time and space, Hermès was almost eaten by LVMH, which also triggered an investigation by the French government into a hostile takeover by LVMH. However, because of LVMH’s special status in France, in the end, they only had to drink three drinks and pay a fine of millions of dollars. However, Hermès was not taken down because the founding family of the brand used a poison pill plan to stop LVMH. Xuan's further annexation.
This time, because of the rise of Melisandre, LVMH's development is far worse than before, and it is no longer able to think about Hermès. Melisandre was strong enough, and Sophia took decisive action.
The reaction of the Hermès family is still the same as before.
After all, Hermès is operating normally, with huge profits, and its brand style is still at the top of the industry pyramid, so it definitely doesn’t want to be subordinate to others.
The company isn't infallible, though.
Hermès is a listed company, currently owning 37% of the shares in the circulating market. Although the Hermès family holds the remaining 63% of the absolute majority of the shares, they are scattered in the hands of more than fifty Hermès family members. This means that as long as someone can obtain more than 10% of the outstanding shares of Hermès, they can easily become the largest shareholder of Hermès.
Melisandre & Co. does exactly that.
Some less than compliant methods were also used. The main thing is that the French stock market also has rules that require reporting of shares holding more than 5%. However, just in the past few days, Melisandre's shareholding amount was exposed for the first time. It is already as high as 21%, some of which are absorbed from the open market, and some are from Hermès family members who want to cash out.
Then, now.
When the news came to light, both the Hermès family and the French government showed strong concern. In addition to the four ongoing spring fashion weeks, this event has also become the biggest hot spot in the global fashion circle recently.