After the ground end of the first cable for the space elevator was secured, a spaceship roared into the sky, pulling the other end of the cable, and began to ascend, climbing to an altitude of 45,000 kilometers above Ganymede's surface.

The other end of this 45,000-kilometer-long cable extended to this height, fully stretched.

The cable, with a diameter of about 7 centimeters and a length of 45,000 kilometers, seemed as though it would have an extremely high mass, not something a medium-sized spaceship could pull.

But in truth, such a long and thick cable had a total mass of only about 170 tons, which could be fully stretched into space by the current spaceship.

After the stretching work was completed, a heavy spaceship, fully loaded with ballast, flew over at a speed exceeding Ganymede's escape velocity.

Flying at this speed, it should have broken free from Ganymede's gravity and entered space.

But due to the extra thrust from its engines, it remained in place.

However, very soon, it would no longer need to consume extra fuel to maintain its orbit.

The reason was simple: some clones in spacesuits floated over and secured this end of the cable, which was connected to Ganymede's underground, to this heavy cargo ship, which was fully loaded with ballast and had a total mass of 15,000 tons.

The cargo ship had already been equipped with a force-bearing structure to evenly distribute the tension of the cable to every part of the hull, preventing damage.

After the connection work was completed, the engines of this heavy cargo ship were shut down in the next moment, losing the thrust that had kept it so high yet still near Ganymede.

Under the effect of inertia, it began to move away from Ganymede.

The slightly curved cable gradually straightened.

When it became completely straight, the immense pulling force from Ganymede's ten-thousand-meter deep strata, through this cable, directly spanned the long distance of 45,000 kilometers and extended to this heavy cargo ship.

Its movement suddenly stopped.

A mass of 15,000 tons was firmly held by this single cable, only 7 centimeters in diameter.

The cable was stretched taut.

Tom nodded in satisfaction, reviewing the data from various sensors.

Everything was as expected.

With the first cable established, subsequent work became much easier.

More cables were continuously produced from 2,500 production lines; these cables were also fixed at one end beneath the ten-thousand-meter rock layer, intertwined with the previous cable along the way, and finally connected to that heavy cargo ship.

The cable of this space elevator began to rapidly thicken.

Similarly, at the space end, with that heavy cargo ship as the base, a larger volume of ballast was attached.

As long as it was within the cable's stress limit, the heavier the ballast at the space end, the greater the centrifugal force, and the more cargo the cable could transport.

Beyond the end, a space-end base also needed to be built in synchronous orbit.

In synchronous orbit, the orbital angular velocity of an artificial object is the same as Ganymede's rotational angular velocity.

Therefore, it can maintain a relatively stationary state with respect to a certain point on Ganymede's surface while rotating around Ganymede.

From the ground, it appears as if the object is always suspended motionless in a certain spot in the sky.

The space-end base would be equivalent to a "dock" located in space.

In the future, all cargo entering or leaving Ganymede's surface will be transferred here.

Large-scale construction also simultaneously began at the ground end.

Docks, hoists, transfer stations, power supplies, railway lines, and so on, appeared one by one over two and a half years.

When the last cable was wrapped around, and the cable's diameter reached the predetermined 10 meters, Tom used a special lightweight steel plate to directly encase the entire 45,000-kilometer-long cable to block external influences.

The ground-end base had been completed, and at the same time, the "cable cars" used for the space elevator's ascent and descent missions had also been developed.

These cable cars were semi-circular in shape, with an internal diameter of 10 meters, fitting closely to the space elevator cable, and an external diameter of 20 meters.

Thus, it had a cargo area of about 110 square meters.

Each cable car was five meters high, with a total internal volume of 550 cubic meters, and could carry a maximum of about 300 tons of cargo.

If carrying people, it could accommodate about 300 clones without prioritizing comfort.

When building the main cable, Tom had already pre-embedded power lines and electromagnetic coils, allowing these cable cars to attach to the cable using electromagnetic force and perform ascent or descent operations.

Its maximum operating speed could reach three times the speed of sound, which is about one kilometer per second.

At this speed, it would take about 12 hours to ascend from the surface to Ganymede's synchronous orbit at approximately 43,000 kilometers.

At the space-end base, it would unload its cargo, which would then be transported by spaceship to other planets or bases.

Then it would turn to descend, transporting cargo brought from other planets or bases, from synchronous orbit to Ganymede's surface.

This completed one cargo exchange.

Under Tom's control, these cable cars could operate every two minutes, allowing for 720 trips to send or receive cargo in space per day.

Calculating an average cargo load of 200 tons per trip, this space elevator could send approximately 144,000 tons of cargo to space per day, and simultaneously receive approximately 144,000 tons, totaling 288,000 tons.

Over a year, that would be just over 105 million tons.

In the past, to send and receive 105 million tons of cargo, Tom would have needed to specially prepare thousands of aerospace-capable spaceships to shuttle between space and the surface, working tirelessly, without a moment's rest.

Fuel alone would have consumed hundreds of millions of tons annually.

Not only was the consumption huge, but it was also extremely troublesome.

But now, with the completion of this space elevator, everything was different.

The cable cars used electricity as their energy source.

A single full-power trip would consume approximately 4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.

In one day, with a total of 1,440 up and down trips, it would consume approximately 5.76 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

To generate 5.76 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, with the nuclear fission power plant efficiency currently mastered by Tom, less than one ton of uranium-235 would be needed to produce enough electricity.

Although uranium ore mining is relatively complex, in any case, the change from consuming hundreds of millions of tons of fuel annually to now consuming only a little over 300 tons annually is a monumental shift.

At this moment, this space elevator was put into use, and it began operating at full capacity from the start.

On this side of the space elevator, one ascending cable car after another sped along the cable like cannonballs, instantly entering space and disappearing.

At the same time, from the high altitude that seemed to have no end, one cable car after another sped down and landed at the ground-end base.

Railway lines extended from the ground-end base, and countless heavy-haul trains roared in, fully loaded with cargo, unloaded, then reloaded, and departed fully loaded once more.

At the space end, one heavy-haul cargo ship after another also arrived fully loaded and departed fully loaded.

This space elevator truly opened up the transport channel between space and the surface.

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