Great Country Academician

Chapter 691: Artificial Gravity

At the same time, in another habitation module inside the space shuttle.

After staring at the scenery outside the porthole for a while, assistant Tang Sijia suddenly turned her head to look at Xu Chuan and asked curiously.

"Professor, is there no way to achieve the artificial gravity technology that Prince Faisal just talked to you about?"

Only after following Xu Chuan to outer space did she know the real situation here. Not to mention other things, just moving in a weightless state is a very difficult or difficult thing for people to adapt to.

Hearing Tang Sijia's inquiry, Xu Chuan gently shook his head and said, "It's very difficult. It's almost impossible to do at the moment."

He could naturally think of things that a layman like Prince Faisal could think of.

In fact, as early as the last century when the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union started the space race, some scientists proposed the idea and technical theory of 'simulating' gravity and creating artificial gravity on the spacecraft.

Not to mention that it is very difficult and troublesome for people to adapt to actions in a gravity-free environment. Astronauts or humans themselves have not evolved characteristics suitable for survival in space.

Currently, long-term living and working in space will have adverse effects on astronauts’ health, such as reduced bone density, muscle loss, decreased vision, etc.

During long-term space flights, it is difficult for astronauts to maintain balance, they are deprived of sleep, their heart and blood vessels tend to run slowly, they suffer from flatulence, and they even have some adverse effects on the immune system.

These all exist in the aerospace process.

Therefore, if you want to achieve rapid aerospace development, or if you want to implement and explore distant planets, such as Jupiter, Pluto, or longer-lasting deep space exploration missions to further exoplanets in the future, think about it. Finding a way to solve the impact of a gravity-free environment on astronauts is a hurdle that must be overcome.

Among them, the most ideal way is to create an artificial gravity field on the spacecraft to simulate the gravity of the earth.

Since the middle of the 20th century, scholars and scientists in the aerospace field have been thinking of various ways to do this and put forward various theories.

But there is currently only one most common and most possible method.

It is to simulate gravity through rotation.

The earliest and simplest gravity simulation theory was proposed based on acceleration.

Anyone who has ever taken an elevator knows that when the elevator starts to rise, you will clearly feel the pressure you are exerting on the floor.

Theoretically, as long as stable acceleration is continuously provided, an environment similar to gravity can be simulated.

But actually doing this is almost impossible.

Because you can't find an engine that can maintain acceleration indefinitely, or you can't provide that much fuel or working fluid.

On this basis, scientists thought of another way.

That’s spin!

If you have ever been to an amusement park and sat on an aerial flying chair or a rotating flying chair, you will easily understand that when the rotation speed becomes faster and faster, the centrifugal force generated by the rotation will gradually offset the gravity, causing the tourists on the chair to Spin the column gradually parallel to the center.

Compared with maintaining acceleration to provide simulated gravity, this method only needs to provide a small amount of energy to keep the rotating chair rotating and provide sufficient centrifugal force.

But it still has a drawback.

That is, if sufficient centrifugal force is to be provided, the rotation speed must reach a certain height.

To make centrifugal force achieve the effect of ground gravity, it can be calculated through simple mathematics.

That is: F=mrω (ω is the angular velocity) instead of gravity. So the acceleration is rω. Substitute the gravity acceleration of 9.8m/s. Let rω=9.8. If the spacecraft rotates r is 100m, this requires the spacecraft to rotate 18 times per second.

To convert, it means that one rotation in 20 seconds can generate enough centrifugal force.

It sounds very simple, but in fact, it takes 20 seconds to rotate once, and astronauts simply cannot move normally in this environment.

Of course, if you want to increase the rotation time to the point where the human body can adapt, it is also possible.

But that would require expanding the spacecraft's volume or diameter to hundreds or even thousands of meters.

This also places extremely high demands on aerospace technology and even materials.

As for other directions, such as gravity theory, mass theory, electromagnetic theory, etc., they are basically just theories.

It can even be said that most of these directions are just assumptions and do not even have a complete basic theory.

For example, gravity-bending gravity technology is based on the manipulation of gravity.

Now, let alone controlling gravity, the physics community has not yet figured out what gravity is.

Therefore, the technology of artificial gravity still only exists in theory or in a very small number of laboratories.

However, if artificial gravity can be achieved, the impact on aerospace development will definitely be significant.

The importance of artificial gravity technology can be said to be greater than that of aerospace engines. Even to a certain extent, it is no less than controllable nuclear fusion technology.

Of course, this refers to the kind of 'complete' or 'high-level' artificial gravity technology. Rather than the current low-level technology through centrifugal force simulation.

However, the research direction of artificial gravity should be placed in the Xinghai Research Institute, and it is still possible to explore it.

Direction is divided into two parts: future and direction.

The future direction is naturally to start from the most basic aspects of gravity and study things in a purely theoretical direction. We probably have to wait until the Large Strong Particle Collider is repaired to see if we can find traces of gravitons.

But now, it is mainly based on applications.

Whether it is creating centrifugal force to simulate gravity, or other means, you can selectively experiment and try it out.

After all, the trouble of zero gravity in space is a problem they have already been exposed to. If they don't solve it now, they will have to face it sooner or later with the development of aerospace technology in a few years.

After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan floated to the porthole of the living cabin, overlooking the planet below him.

After a period of orbiting, the Xinghai space shuttle has now orbited the backlit side of the earth.

But even on the backlit side, the earth is not completely plunged into darkness during the summer.

Thanks to the stars shining in the northern hemisphere that can always refract and scatter the bright light through arcs, the planet under your feet is no longer blue and white, but instead scatters more of its own colors.

There are a few clouds with the same sandy yellow floating on the gray-yellow Takarigan Desert. Looking towards the northern ocean, the green aurora seems to bring an emerald green crown to the earth.

What's even more eye-catching is the lights at night. The bright stars gathered into a sea of ​​​​bright lights. They were fireworks on earth and the most brilliant light on the planet.

“So beautiful~”

Beside her, Tang Sijia stared at the earth at night. The scenery was completely different from that during the day and was even more intoxicating.

"Professor, what is that?"

At this moment, Zheng Hai, who was sitting next to another porthole, seemed to notice something and turned to ask Xu Chuan.

"what? What?"

Xu Chuan looked over, wondering what Zheng Hai was asking about?

"Over the Pacific Ocean, over there, Professor, take a look."

Zheng Hai pointed at the scenery outside his window. Xu Chuan floated over and looked curiously in the direction he pointed.

As the space shuttle orbited, the Pacific Ocean gradually came into view.

Along with the deep and dark sea, a group of faint blue light entered Xu Chuan's pupils.

"This is?"

Looking at this faint blue light with some curiosity, Xu Chuan was a little surprised: "Is this lightning caused by ocean storms?"

Although it was his first time to see such a scenery, he quickly made a corresponding judgment based on the knowledge in his mind.

The faint blue light on the Pacific Ocean is most likely the ocean carried by the storms generated in the Pacific Ocean.

"storm?"

Zheng Hai muttered something, frowned slightly and looked at the earth under his feet through the porthole window. He suddenly looked up at Xu Chuan and asked: "Professor, can you calculate the scale of this storm based on the brightness of this lightning group? ?”

The storm in the Pacific Ocean, and from a geographical point of view, is already quite close to the East China Sea area of ​​​​China.

As a soldier, the first reaction in his mind was how big the storm was and whether it would cause life and property damage to cities and people in coastal areas.

Hearing this, Xu Chuan looked back at the porthole again and visually assessed the size of the blue storm.

Although the size of the lightning clusters formed in the storm gathering is not fixed, sometimes large and sometimes small, some data can still be evaluated as a whole.

In addition to the current high-brightness lightning cluster, some blue-white clouds nearby were visible. Xu Chuan did a simple calculation in his mind.

"Judging from some visual data, if it is determined that this faint blue light is a lightning cluster formed by a typhoon, the diameter of the typhoon core, that is, the cloud wall area outside the eye of the typhoon, may exceed 200 kilometers."

Hearing this, Zheng Hai's expression suddenly changed.

Xu Chuan glanced at him and asked curiously: "What's wrong?"

Zheng Hai took a deep breath and quickly replied: "This may be a super-strong typhoon, which may cause serious damage or floods to cities in coastal areas."

As a member of the special forces, he has learned a lot about these things.

If the diameter of a typhoon's impact is two hundred kilometers, that's nothing. Tropical storms and typhoons in the Pacific form storms of this magnitude almost every day.

But a cloud wall area with a diameter of 200 kilometers is a super typhoon.

Xu Chuan frowned slightly and asked, "Will it have a big impact?"

Zheng Hai thought for a while and replied: "If the core diameter of the Cloud Wall Area reaches two hundred kilometers, its peripheral influence range will be at least more than 1,500 kilometers, and can even reach 1,800-2,000 kilometers!"

After hearing this data, Xu Chuan's face changed immediately.

The two thousand kilometers of influence range, if its core is in Shanghai, then it can almost cover the entire area of ​​​​Beijing-Yangcheng-Xingcheng in a circle.

"I'll contact the Meteorological Bureau right away."

After taking a deep breath and confirming the seriousness of the problem, Zheng Hai took out a satellite phone from his pocket, quickly transferred it to the ground through the Xinghai's contact channel, and then transferred it again to contact the General Meteorological Administration. .

At the same time, in the building of the General Meteorological Administration.

Late at night, the staff on duty 24 hours a day looked at the data transmitted back by the high-orbit remote sensing satellite with solemn expressions.

After receiving Zheng Hai's call, the staff of the Typhoon Monitoring Center quickly dispatched meteorological remote sensing satellites to scan the Pacific Ocean on the outer edge of the Southeast China Sea, that is, the Philippine Sea.

For China, weather monitoring satellites do work around the clock, but remote sensing of typhoons has a limited time limit.

Taking the nine-dash line in the South China Sea and the East China Sea as the boundary, there is a 24-hour warning line within the boundary, and a 48-hour warning line outside the boundary to the Philippine Sea.

This data is roughly based on the time when typhoons in the region land on the mainland, so the time and number of detailed scanning and remote sensing will be different in different regions.

The typhoon reported by Zheng Hai was generated within the 48-hour warning line, very close to the 24-hour warning line.

From the data analysis of remote sensing satellites, the energy level at the core of the eye is very high.

The radius of the Category 12 wind circle (the range where the wind speed reaches or exceeds 32.7 meters per second) reaches an astonishing 230 kilometers, which is quite consistent with the judgment data sent back by Zheng Hai.

Moreover, what is more astonishing about it is not the size of the wind circle, but the maximum speed of the core of the wind circle.

Judging from satellite feedback data, the core wind speed of this newly formed 'monster' has reached a speed of nearly 50 meters per second.

This is already the highest intensity of a Category 14 typhoon, and a little higher is a Category 15 typhoon.

More importantly, this behemoth is worthy of being born. In theory, it will be strengthened or weakened for a period of time as time goes by.

But the possibility of intensification is greater, because in the south of the typhoon, remote sensing satellites detected a subthermal high pressure belt.

Under the squeeze of the subtropical high pressure belt, in theory it will only become stronger.

If there are no problems with the theoretical judgment, then this typhoon inadvertently observed by Xinghai may eventually form a super typhoon of level 16, or even a super typhoon of level 17.

If a storm of this magnitude hits the coast, it will cause extremely serious damage to coastal cities.

It will destroy infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, and roads, cause interruptions in power, communication and other systems, and trigger natural disasters such as floods, landslides, and mudslides.

In 2013, super typhoon Haiyan swept across the Philippines with unprecedented intensity. The maximum gust of nearly 100m/s set off a typhoon tsunami that reached a maximum of 14 meters.

Due to extremely heavy rains and seawater intrusion, Haiyan almost flattened all the towns near the landing site, causing more than 6,000 local deaths and incalculable economic losses.

Judging from the current remote sensing data, the eye of this newly generated typhoon storm has already shown a perfect 'circle', and its data intensity is not weaker than that of 'Haiyan' ten years ago when it first formed.

"Ten years, is this another Haiyan?"

After thanking Zheng Hai for reporting the news, the staff member hung up the communication phone. After muttering something, he picked up the red emergency contact number on the table with a heavy expression and dialed his supervisor.

A typhoon of this level, even if there is a warning, may cause serious economic losses to coastal areas and even endanger people's lives.

Fortunately, it was discovered in the early stages of formation, and they still had time to monitor and implement early warning measures!