July 2029, Rocket City, Sa State, Bright Country
Led by Michael Max, Aisbei Space Technology Company owned the world's largest-caliber heavy-lift rocket, the Hunting Bird 5. With a diameter of fifty meters and a payload exceeding one hundred tons, what was most astonishing was that it was actually recyclable and reusable.
Aisbei seemed to have opened a great door for humanity into space, and commercial orders poured in.
Aisbei's annual client appreciation event was underway. The moment Michael appeared, he became the center of attention, and his electrifying speech pushed the enthusiasm of the attending guests to its peak.
The dinner banquet commenced in buffet style, with guests holding wine glasses and chatting in small groups.
The Bright Country Space Administration was, of course, Aisbei's most important partner. Professor Braun and his daughter, Daphne Braun, were among the invited guests. Michael walked over to the father and daughter with a smile. After greeting the professor, he said to Daphne:
"The clients here today are all quite interesting. In a while, I'll introduce you to them."
"Michael, congratulations! The Hunting Bird 5 reuse experiment was a success—simply wonderful!" Daphne radiated a bright smile, then asked Michael, "My explorer, is your next stop the Moon or Mars?"
"It seems I can no longer accomplish anything meaningful on Earth." Michael glanced meaningfully at Professor Braun, then lowered his voice with deliberate mystery. "I'll have to realize the other half of my dream—go to Mars."
Daphne rejoiced inwardly. Ever since she had joined the Psyche Probe Project at the Bright Country Space Administration, her key research direction had been Mars and the asteroid belt.
Daphne's doctoral thesis was titled "The Development and Regulation of Space Industry." So-called space industry was nothing more than humanity making better use of space resources. Considering engineering difficulty and cost savings, the feasibility of developing and utilizing the asteroid belt was even higher than that of the Moon.
Michael took a glass of champagne from a waiter's tray and led Daphne and the professor over to the interesting client he had mentioned. "This is President Asatani Masao of Fusheng Country's Kyojima Company. The collaborative project between his company and ours is extremely interesting."
After introductions and pleasantries, the Brauns learned of Kyojima Company's highly creative project proposal.
Kyojima was a famous construction engineering company in Fusheng Country. Beginning in 2009, it started researching intelligent construction machinery.
With the massive increase in AI computing power, remotely operated intelligent machinery had made leaps and bounds.
By 2020, Kyojima had undertaken a dam construction project in Fusheng Country. The entire construction of the dam used remotely operated AI equipment—excavators and bulldozers worked in coordinated shifts on the site twenty-four hours a day without interruption.
Kyojima set a world record by constructing the first large-scale building with no workers on site.
Starting in 2021, Kyojima collaborated with research institutions in Fusheng Country to achieve engineering coordination of AI intelligent machinery via ultra-remote operation, with control distances reaching an astonishing nearly ten thousand kilometers.
For electronic signals and remote control, there was no technical difference between ten thousand kilometers and three hundred eighty thousand kilometers. The clever Daphne immediately grasped what Michael found so interesting and exclaimed:
"Mr. President, are you commissioning Michael to send AI excavators and bulldozers to the Moon to mine?"
Asatani Masao looked at this wise lady who had seen through the secret with a single sentence and revealed a proud smile.
Daphne Braun thought of her own thesis, and a trace of worry welled up in her heart.
The lunar surface was rich in rare metals, and transporting them back to Earth would yield tremendous economic value. The surface soil was loose, and excavation and sorting costs were extremely low compared to Earth. Therefore, even if Kyojima paid Aisbei massive transportation fees, it could still obtain unimaginable profits.
This was precisely Daphne's quandary. Humanity would sooner or later utilize space resources, but how should they be exploited? What rules should be established for commercial development?
Daphne understood that, given her position, persuading the president before her to delay development would be very difficult. Still, she couldn't help but engage in a deep conversation with President Asatani.
Michael gestured for the professor to walk to a quiet corner. He said to the professor:
"I signed a non-disclosure agreement. Daphne doesn't know the secret of Tesla's theory yet, does she?" After the professor nodded in confirmation, Michael continued asking, "Could you tell me about the lunar experiment for Tesla's theory that you mentioned last time?"
The professor began to talk about the lunar experiment he had designed.
In 1936, Nikola Tesla submitted his paper "The Dynamic Principle of Gravitation." In addition to the already-verified superluminal wave hypothesis, he proposed a new theory of gravity.
Whether Newton's classical mass-based theory of gravity or Einstein's general theory of relativity, both were summarized from phenomena of spatial motion of objects.
An object moves at constant velocity in an inertial frame and possesses acceleration toward the center of gravity in a gravitational field.
Nikola Tesla redefined the inertial frame and the gravitational field. He believed that all forms of motion originated from the distribution of energy density.
A uniform distribution of energy in the environment is an inertial frame. If a high energy-density "gravitational source" exists, the energy distribution in the surrounding region becomes non-uniform, expanding outward in a spherical pattern with energy intensity decreasing with the square of the distance.
Whether in an inertial frame or a gravitational field, the law of object motion is as follows: during motion, if the environmental energy density remains unchanged, the object maintains constant velocity; when moving from a region of low environmental density to one of high density, the object accelerates, and vice versa, it decelerates.
Nikola Tesla's gravitational theory can be summarized in one sentence: the motion of an object is caused by non-uniform environmental energy density. Through motion, the object approaches and remains on an iso-energy-density line where absorption and emission of energy are balanced.
More abstractly, the motion of an object is a mapping of the environmental energy density distribution.
If an object maintains constant-velocity motion, its trajectory must be an iso-energy-density line. This can be inertial linear motion, circular motion, or orbiting circular motion in a gravitational field.
If an object undergoes variable motion, its trajectory must cross different energy density lines. The gradient vector of the energy density lines determines the direction and magnitude of acceleration.
A child's bouncing ball, a falling apple, a rocket ascending to the heavens, electron energy level transitions, and the Earth revolving around the Sun all follow the above laws.
Michael blinked his eyes and looked at the professor before him in amazement. "Tesla believed that gravity is not emitted by mass, nor is it caused by the curvature of spacetime, but rather is a phenomenon produced by non-uniform energy density. This would overturn physics!"
The professor nodded deeply. "I also find Tesla's gravitational theory bizarre—utterly absurd. That's why I designed an experiment."
In 1968, as the Bright Country Space Administration's lunar exploration program progressed in full swing, scientists discovered that when small spacecraft passed through low lunar altitude, their actual orbits did not match calculated ones. Without manual correction, the spacecraft would crash toward the lunar surface.
In 1972, after the Sun God 16 mission, astronauts released a small lunar-orbiting satellite. They discovered that the satellite's trajectory fluctuated erratically, showing that the lunar gravity it experienced was extremely non-uniform, until it finally crashed.
Observations and calculations over recent decades uncovered the answer. The distribution of gravitational acceleration on the lunar surface was non-uniform. Contrary to common sense, gravity at lunar peaks was lower than average, while gravity in low-lying areas was higher than average.
Scientists offered an explanation. These low-lying areas on the Moon were called lunar maria, formed by asteroid impact events. After impacts carved out deep valleys, the lunar mantle beneath the surface rebounded and bulged from the collisions, increasing the inner mass beneath the impact sites. Scientists figuratively called this concentrated additional mass a "mass tumor."
The largest mass tumor on the Moon appeared at the southeastern corner of an impact basin called the Sea of Rains. The Sea of Rains depression was extremely deep, reaching six kilometers below the lunar datum.
"Michael, if we use massive amounts of material—such as space debris filling near-Earth space—to fill in that six-kilometer-deep hole in the corner of the Sea of Rains, do you think gravity would increase or decrease?" the professor asked.
"Of course it would increase. According to scientists, there's already a mass tumor beneath the Sea of Rains. Adding extra mass on top would certainly increase gravity in that region." Michael looked at the professor in confusion, finding this method of space debris disposal rather interesting.
"No matter how absurd Tesla's gravitational theory is, we must admit it is a scientific hypothesis because it can be falsified. Of course, it may also be verified," the professor replied.
Professor Braun had designed the "Mass Tumor" Experiment according to Nikola Tesla's gravitational theory—if, after the Sea of Rains was filled in, gravity did not increase but instead returned to normal, meaning even weaker than the gravity supposedly caused by the mass tumor, that would be inexplicable by any existing gravitational theory and would become irrefutable proof of Tesla's gravitational theory.
The professor regretfully told Michael that although his experiment was well-designed, turning the Moon into a landfill for humanity's space debris would trigger enormous environmental and ethical controversy. Therefore, the experimental proposal had been shelved.
The shrewd Michael seemed to realize something. He said to Professor Braun, "You want to borrow Kyojima Company's bulldozers to fill in that corner of the Sea of Rains?"
The professor smiled as well. "Yes. Bulldozers."
&
Collected-lines poem:
"How different is it from gazing within the moon?" —Su Ting (Tang)
"Waxing and waning span both extremes." —Liu Shen (Yuan)
"Only then does one know beneath the rock valleys," —Yan Zhengju (Ming)
"The bright night stamps a perfect circle." —Shi Jujian (Song)