Over the years, although Li Qingsong hadn't focused on developing technology, there had still been some progress.
During his time on Altair, he integrated these technological advancements into the construction of the spaceship, improving the performance of the existing spaceship compared to the original solar system migration fleet.
This is why Li Qingsong was able to increase the fleet's acceleration by 50%, from meters to meters per second squared.
As the fleet continued to accelerate, the distance from Altair grew. Li Qingsong saw the density of matter around him rapidly decrease. The once ubiquitous asteroids gradually became sparse and then disappeared altogether. Without specifically looking for them, they were no longer visible.
However, Li Qingsong did discover some special asteroids.
These asteroids had extremely flattened orbits, meaning their aphelion—here, 'helion' refers to Altair—could be extremely far, while their perihelion could be very close.
By observing their orbits, Li Qingsong gradually understood.
These were clearly small celestial bodies that had been flung out under the gravitational influence of large planets, Altair, and other large celestial bodies.
In the long evolution to come, their orbits would continue to expand, moving further and further away from Altair, eventually converging into an asteroid belt about 10 billion kilometers away from Altair, similar to the solar system's Kuiper Belt.
There were also some asteroids with even more peculiar orbits. Through simulations of the movement of celestial bodies within the Altair system, Li Qingsong believed that in the far future, they would have even more distant orbits, possibly reaching beyond one light-year, orbiting Altair from that distance.
Furthermore, with the evolution of the Altair system, more internal celestial bodies would be ejected and integrated into these two types of asteroid orbits, making them more numerous and larger in scale.
By then, Altair's Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud would have formed, and the interior would become stable, with fewer asteroid impact events.
The solar system's present is Altair's future.
However, there were some differences between the two.
Altair has a greater mass and a faster rate of fusion combustion, resulting in a shorter lifespan. It will enter the end of its life in about thirty billion years.
Perhaps it won't even have time to form a mature Oort Cloud before it evolves into a white dwarf. Who can say for sure?
There were too many variables, and even Li Qingsong couldn't be 100% certain.
While carefully observing everything within the Altair system, not missing any opportunity to improve his knowledge and understanding of stellar system evolution, he was also operating the massive fleet at full power acceleration.
Time slowly passed, and in the blink of an eye, more than six years had gone by.
By this time, Li Qingsong's fleet had increased its speed to 4% of the speed of light, about 12,000 kilometers per second, and the distance from Altair had expanded to over one trillion kilometers.
From here, Altair's apparent magnitude was still as high as -10, still bright enough to cast shadows.
If it were the sun, it would still be bright at this distance, but no longer able to cast shadows.
A speed of 4% of the speed of light was already equal to the maximum speed when leaving the solar system.
But at this moment, Li Qingsong's fleet still hadn't stopped accelerating, still maintaining full power acceleration of meters per second squared.
Continuing for about years, the fleet's speed reached 6% of the speed of light, or about 18,000 kilometers per second.
This was already equal to the speed Li Qingsong had originally set. But at this moment, Li Qingsong still hadn't stopped accelerating!
The massive fleet was still increasing its speed, continuing for another years.
It wasn't until the fleet's speed reached 8% of the speed of light, or about 24,000 kilometers per second, that the thrusters, which had been working continuously for more than a decade, were simultaneously shut down.
Acceleration stopped, and inertial navigation began.
For a weak-electromagnetic civilization, a speed of 8% of the speed of light is almost unimaginable. Not to mention the problem of particle collisions, the fuel alone would be insufficient.
But in such a short period of technological development in the Altair system, and with only a small portion of Li Qingsong's brainpower dedicated to integrating the conjectures and breakthroughs accumulated during the previous solar system migration, while focusing on industrial production and quantum supercomputer research and development, the overall performance of the fleet had improved by more than 5%, laying the foundation for accelerating to such a high speed.
Afterward, a scale 20 times larger than the solar system migration fleet, and five times the amount of extra supplies carried before, after removing fuel, laid the material foundation for the fleet.
As for the particle collision problem?
It wasn't a big deal.
After entering inertial navigation, Li Qingsong immediately dispatched a large number of robots and clones, aboard specially made spaceships, to retrieve rolls of 'plastic sheeting' from the warehouse and apply them to the outer shells of each spaceship, like applying a screen protector to a phone.
These plastic sheets were specially developed by Li Qingsong and possessed extremely high technological content, with good radiation resistance.
But they were ultimately still just hydrocarbons, so calling them plastic sheets was not inappropriate.
Thus, interstellar dust particles could only collide with these plastic sheets, damaging their structure instead of the spaceship's armor.
When these plastic sheets were damaged to a certain extent, they would be removed, recycled, and replaced with new plastic sheets on the spaceship's outer shell.
In this way, the particle collision problem was transformed from a technological problem into a material problem by Li Qingsong—as long as I have enough plastic sheets, I'm not afraid of particle collisions, problem solved.
8% of the speed of light was the first time Li Qingsong had reached it. This type of plastic sheeting was also the first time it was being used on a large scale.
During the voyage, Li Qingsong closely monitored the changes in these plastic sheets. He saw that compared to the initial black, tough, and smooth appearance, these plastic sheets gradually turned into a mixture of gray, black, red, green, and other colors as time passed.
Their texture also began to become sparse, porous, and fragile.
This process took only five years.
"A batch of plastic sheets can last for five years? Acceptable, meets expectations."
After replacing them with new plastic sheets, the old batch was thrown into the furnace to be melted and reshaped.
Thus, the plastic sheets, which were originally composed only of carbon and oxygen elements, melted and yielded as many as dozens of elements such as gold, silver, copper, iron, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, etc., like a mixed stew.
After the first batch of hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic sheets were all purified and reshaped, looking at the approximately 150-gram gold bar placed in front of him—gold was also one of the impurities, but it had just been purified—Li Qingsong felt a sense of both amusement and frustration.
"I didn't expect this thing to be able to refine gold, tsk tsk."
