Although a Jupiter aircraft required four clones to operate, plus the transfer platforms, the fleet for transferring from Jupiter to its moons, etc., the total number of clones needed reached approximately 600,000.

This seemed like a massive team, but it was still a significant reduction compared to the manpower required for the previous series of processes, such as the mining and refining of nuclear fission fuel.

That process required tens of millions of clones to maintain.

Now, setting aside everything else, just the manpower aspect has been reduced to less than a tenth of the original.

The reduction in losses in other areas is immeasurable.

After the Jupiter aircraft were put into Jupiter's atmosphere, the first batch of transfer platforms, named "Black Bird" by Tom, were also put into use.

The "Black Bird" is also an atmospheric aircraft.

However, unlike the Jupiter aircraft, it has a greater mass and volume.

Overall, it somewhat resembles an aircraft carrier from the Earth-era, with a massive helipad and runway on top, perfectly flat.

Below the helipad are numerous facilities and living spaces for clones.

Its total length reached 1 kilometer, its width 200 meters, and its total mass tens of thousands of tons, dozens of times larger than an Earth-class battleship.

Such a behemoth floats in Jupiter's upper atmosphere, relying on huge fans driven by nuclear fusion reactors to blow an immeasurable amount of Jupiter's atmosphere downwards, maintaining its suspended state.

Tom built a full 500 such "Black Bird" aircraft, then distributed them in the mining area according to a roughly uniform geometric structure.

Thus, these Black Bird aircraft became the distribution centers for the Jupiter aircraft.

Once a Jupiter aircraft completed its flight in Jupiter's lower atmosphere and collected enough deuterium, it would increase thrust and climb to the Black Bird platform located 30,000 meters above Jupiter—according to the tradition of the Earth era, Tom considered the place in Jupiter's atmosphere where the pressure was one Earth standard atmosphere as Jupiter's "surface"—and land on its long runway.

After landing, the Jupiter aircraft would move to a suitable parking position, and two passages would connect to it.

One passage connected to the Jupiter aircraft's gas storage compartment, taking away the deuterium collected by the Jupiter aircraft for temporary storage; the other passage connected to the Jupiter aircraft's cockpit for clones to enter and exit, while also taking away garbage, waste, etc., from the Jupiter aircraft, and replenishing its fuel, water, food, and other supplies.

Clones who had piloted the Jupiter aircraft all day would leave the aircraft and enter the Black Bird platform for rest, while the relieving clones would enter the Jupiter aircraft, piloting the Jupiter aircraft, which had already been resupplied and had its deuterium taken away, to take off again and plunge into the lower Jupiter atmosphere to continue the deuterium collection work there.

Tom deployed 500 Black Bird platforms and 100,000 Jupiter aircraft, so on average, one Black Bird platform serves 200 Jupiter aircraft.

On average, every 24 hours, a Jupiter aircraft returns to the Black Bird platform once.

Thus, on average, about eight or nine Jupiter aircraft land or take off every hour, creating a busy scene on the large Black Bird platform.

But this is not all of the Black Bird platform's work.

In addition to the Jupiter aircraft continuously delivering deuterium, heavy transport ships also land from outer space, responsible for transporting the deuterium away.

Every day, the Black Bird platform collects about 108 tons of deuterium; after deducting its own consumption, about 3,000 tons remain each month.

So, every month, a massive spacecraft docks, bringing supplies while transporting these 3,000 tons of deuterium away, delivering them to the main distribution center on Ganymede for further allocation.

They would either flow into the various power plants on Ganymede via the Space Elevator, or take short-distance spacecraft to other moons, or take long-distance heavy cargo ships to other planets.

Mercury, Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Vesta, Ceres, and so on.

The deuterium from Jupiter supported Tom's entire industrial system, supporting the industrial operation of the entire solar system.

But this was not without cost.

The reason was still the extremely harsh environment within Jupiter's clouds.

Even the weaker thunderstorms on Jupiter have hundreds to thousands of times the power of Earth's strongest thunderstorms.

Supersonic hurricanes are, of course, a daily occurrence.

There is also hail there.

But on Earth, the largest hail is only watermelon-sized, at most capable of killing a person; there is no greater destructive power.

But it's different on Jupiter.

Stone-sized hailstones, under strong winds, also achieve extremely high speeds, even reaching supersonic speeds, comparable to cannonballs.

Moreover, their quantity is extremely large; once they occur, they cover the sky and earth, with nowhere to hide.

Such a hailstone hitting something is not as simple as killing a person; it's a tragic accident leading to the destruction of the aircraft and loss of life.

Crucially, Jupiter's clouds are too complex, making weather forecasting at least ten thousand times more difficult than on Earth.

Even though Tom specifically built a supercomputer for weather prediction and ran a specially trained weather AI called "Storm Oracle", the prediction accuracy was very, very low.

As a result, such incidents often occur: a Jupiter aircraft is flying normally, everything is calm, but the next moment, the Jupiter aircraft suddenly plunges without warning, directly falling into the depths of Jupiter, swallowed by the thick atmosphere, completely destroyed with all lives lost.

That is wind shear.

Sudden changes in airflow or sudden changes in density make it impossible for the Jupiter aircraft to fly normally.

Or one moment the weather is clear, the next it is overcast, with streaks of lightning descending from the sky like tree roots, with nowhere to hide.

Once struck by lightning, the Jupiter aircraft would also be instantly destroyed.

Or the next moment, dense, countless hailstones flying at supersonic speeds would arrive, directly smashing the entire aircraft.

Similar drastic meteorological changes are countless.

Even with Tom's current technology, an average of 10 Jupiter aircraft crash every day due to weather.

However, the Black Bird platform, located in the thin air of high altitude, is not as dangerous.

This is not the full extent of the danger.

In addition to the variable Suspend weather, there are communication and equipment failures caused by Jupiter's strong magnetic field, which also lead to an average of one Jupiter aircraft crashing per day.

And another environmental problem Tom cannot solve: gravity.

Jupiter's gravity is too high; whether it's the clones in the Jupiter aircraft or those on the Black Bird platform, they endure the torment of approximately 2.5 times Earth's gravity every moment.

A clone weighing 70 kg would weigh 175 kg here, equivalent to each clone carrying a 100-kilogram sandbag while performing various tasks.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.