Project Overworld

- "Michael, you'll be taking care of the pipeline for the time being." Keith ordered. The leader of Spacol had made his mind on the new organization his team would be following, and decided that both Jim and Michael would be working on the water pipe while the rest of them would be focused on their Moon base. Leyla and Xena would still be working on the structure of the base, leaving Keith and Tyler with the farming stuff.

Actually, Keith would be spending more time planning things for the future than anything else and only deciding on the best plant disposition he could think of for their greenhouses. For the time being, Spacol had four greenhouses connected to their base which were already producing a bit of oxygen surplus. It was not quite enough to cover their consumption, especially if they needed to fill some tanks and other reservoirs out of this essential resource for exploration purposes, but they were slowly getting there.

As for the rest of the base, they already had a bit over ten modules being finished, a good portion of the total structures they initially decided to establish upon. However, each room was only about one hundred and fifty to two hundred square feet in size, not enough regarding their future needs. Keith wanted to build a large factory just like their base back on Earth was, and a measly two hundred square feet would not be getting them really far in that regard.

That was why, the leader of Spacol would be spending most of his time designing their future base. For now, the modules they had built would only be temporary while they were growing photosynthesis plants all around their greenhouses and all. Afterwards, these small dwellings would be replaced by lot larger rooms which could fit several big automated machines at once.

In any case, Keith also had to think a bit further down the line. Since Leyla, Michael, Tyler and him would be occupied with the NASA recruitement session for a while, and maybe even afterwards for them to get accustomed to their new working schedule and all, he had to plan for their organization in that regard.

He had also spotted a lot of differences regarding engineering in the 'real world' compared to this game, so he began thinking of a 'formula' taking into account most of the physical differences between these two worlds. If he ever managed to do that, Project Overworld could be used as a white board for new ideas where people could be experimenting before translating their construction to real-world measures.

It was kind of presumptuous, but it would be his ultimate goal. Ever since he joined Project Overworld, he realized this game would be one of the best enjoyments he ever found while extending his knowledge by the day. Eveyone could be using this simulation the same he did and get to know engineering better. Of course, motivation would be a big part of it but he had not doubt a game would provide this kind of input for their users.

After leaving his friends to their tasks, Keith closed himself inside one of the rooms of the Spacol Moon Base and started designing plans for both their ice factory and for the rest of their base. He would not have a lot of time before him to complete everything, especially since the NASA recruitement session was closing in at an alarming rate, but he had to try his best so Jim and Xena would not be taken aback.

In the meantime Keith also had to attend to his current job that he could not let go until he was certain about the results of the NASA test. He and his friends could clearly be eliminated with no other opportunity to get into the ranks of the organization again. That was why, until the very last moment Keith could not resign from his job at the factory, nor did his friends could. Thus, their schedule would be pretty tight between their actual job, the workload of taking care of their Moon base inside Project Overworld as well as the preparations for the incoming 'examination'.

'Okay, so we'd need another person to go on back on the Earth to take care of the 'Rocket assembler' again.' Keith meditated. He recently realized that it would be very limitating to have there resources shipped to the Moon once per week, especially regarding the total amount of materials that could fit into one of their supply rockets. Their future projects would be requiring a crap ton of materials and it would be really slow at the current pace.

'How should we do that? Another Rocket assembler maybe?' Keith thoughta about it for a while. The more he dug into the subject, the more he realized it would be taking a lot of time for any solution he could think of. Obviously, once their greenhouses would be producing enough oxygen to cover all of their needs, these supply rockets would not be required to transport oxygen tanks and all, leaving them with around fourty percent more overall space in their supply rockets. However, as long as they would be working on their pipeline and on that ice factory, they would still be requiring a lot of water to be shipped towards their Moon base.

Thus, they would not be gaining a lot of space for the time being, if not any.

'Shit, this is getting quite tiresome... Maybe we should recruit more people into Spacol, in the end.' Keith concluded. If they were able to assemble a team of around ten people constantly shipping resources towards the Moon, no doubt they would have enough for all of their future projects. However, this was provided the fact people would be as interested in the company as Leyla, Jim and Xena were back then.

To Keith, this solution would only be the last resort of Spacol because he was not sure about the result of another recruitement session organized by himself. In any case, he would have his mind focused on the NASA for a while so he could not prepare for such an event as of now.

Another solution would be to improve their current 'Rocket assembler', but his best hopes were that they could be improving its production rate by only ten percent, at the very most. In the end, the only other solution Keith retained was to build another one of those machines. They could be doubling the amount of rockets being sent to the Moon which would be really useful for the time being.

The only problem would be time-wise. Last time they built such a machine, it did require over six months of work, after all. Of course, they could be using the already existing assembling machines which were already producing more parts than the 'Rocket assembler' needed, but it would still require two months to take care of it, at the very least.

Between this solution and the recruitement of new people, Keith clearly distinguished a better one. Although he did not like the idea, having a large team of engineers at his command would be a lot more interesting in the long run.

'Let's just set that aside for now and plan for the incoming month.' Keith decided. 'It should be quite the hectic one between the finalization of our Moon base and the NASA job opportunity.'

_______________

By the end of the week, Spacol had connected two other greenhouses to the base and another dwelling was completed. According to the leader of the company, everything about the Spacol Moon Base should be finalized in two weeks worth of time, even considering the incoming attendance at the NASA headquarters by the four american friends.

In that regard, their last training session was held at Keith's parent's house and their project of making a quad came to an end.

The vehicle was about nine feet long, and three feet tall at its highest point without a roof. In fact, with such a limited size, no one of the crew could get into it if it had a structure on top of it. Two people could be seating on the vehicle at the same time, and Keith also managed to buy a honk at the last moment for a bit more fun. It was one of the very few 'fun' addings they made to their quad because they did not have enough time to work on this.

- "Ready for the final test?" Keith inquired.

Michael and Tyler cheered on for their vehicle while Leyla just nodded in confirmation. Keith started pulling a string out of the vehicle to activate the spark plug of the engine. Fortunately, he did not have to pull too hard until a loud buzzing invaded the whole backyard.

- "Everything seems to be working perfecly!" He commented. "Let's test it out on the road, I don't want to dig holes in the yard of my parents."

Taking the vehicle on the main road, Keith made sure no other car was getting through for the time being. His parents were living in a small town of Missouri so the four friends would not be inconvenianced a lot by other people around here.

Activating the engine again, Keith jumped onto the driver's seat while Michael rushed into the side seat.

- "Let's go!" The man told Keith. Without further ado, the latter pushed the acceleration pedal and the vehicle started gaining speed with a roar from its engine. After a couple of seconds, they were already far away from their two other friends.

- "Woohoo!" Michael exclaimed while air was whipped his face. Keith too could not hold a laughter and pushed down the pedal even more. In all objectivity, the speed the quad was reaching was nowhere impressive. At the very most, they managed to get to around thirty to fourty miles per hour, but regarding the fact it was their first every creation in the real world they were really proud of being able to speed through the landscape.

'Well, I think we should be ready for the NASA recruitement session now.' Keith meditated. 'Let's just try and take days off of work to review a few details of our craft before the final test.' He concluded as he was turning back to the other side of the road.