I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

"Warm celebration ceremony for the complete success of the Tianmu-3 lunar exploration mission"

On January 27, "Tengyun" landed at a military airport in Baofu, returning the last five payload experts of the Tianmu-3 mission to the ground.

More than half a month ago, this airport completed its final renovation and has the ability to perform simple maintenance for aerospace aircraft until they can be re-taken off, allowing manned return spacecraft to land so close to the capital for the first time.

It's a pity that several airports in the capital are too busy and airspace management is strict, otherwise it would be more respectable to land directly in the capital.

This time, the celebration ceremony was held at the United Mining Headquarters, and all important figures were present, including the main leaders of the Aviation Development Committee.

Nine payload experts accepted praises and delivered brief remarks on the platform in turn. However, since this was the first large-scale lunar exploration mission organized by a "private enterprise", the whole ceremony still seemed grand and lengthy. Lin Ju hid in the least attractive place early on. Even the camera has a hard time catching him in the corner where people pay attention.

He was staring at his phone with a frown on his face, a look of confusion on his face.

Yesterday, the Shanghai Composite Index opened at 3075, closed at 3044, and reached its lowest point at 3011, hovering dangerously close to the 3,000-point mark.

Although he doesn't pay much attention to the stock market, he vaguely remembers that the situation at the beginning of 2018 was not so bad. Could it be because of the sharp drop in exports since July?

Under this situation, there has always been a voice for United Mining to be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. This...

Even though he couldn't figure out how to save Big A, he could only turn off his phone silently, sigh and continue to sit still.

"Why, are you worried about Jupiter?"

Academician She's voice sounded next to him. He had just given a speech above, but when he walked down to find a place to sit, he saw Lin Ju sighing.

"No, I'm thinking about when I can make money from big A's surge."

"..."

Academician She pretended not to hear and forcibly changed the topic:

"I just met someone from the Astronomical Union backstage. I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"

Lin Ju didn’t even raise his head:

"Let's talk about the bad first."

"Your business has been disrupted. NACA came forward to ask the IAU to find reasons to give up the plan to launch the detector with self-funding. They are willing to sponsor a lot of funds, and they also use nuclear engines. After all, it is a big order of nearly 1 billion US dollars. Now it is completely Gone.

But there is also good news. Although the business of the International Astronomical Society is gone, our own Astronomical Society has also proposed a deep space exploration plan. You can start researching it now, but there is no US$1 billion, and only US$1 billion can be given immediately. RMB. "

The setbacks in IAU's plan did not surprise Lin Ju. He was extremely skeptical of the plan from the beginning, but he was impressed by his own astronomical society's ability to spend 1 billion yuan. The status and organizational strength of these two astronomical societies But it's completely different.

As if he knew what Lin Ju was thinking, Academician She explained:

"Now there are opinions from above that we are still very far behind in deep space, and many projects are set up by the space agency itself, demanding that the influence of academic institutions be improved... Do you understand?"

After some winking, Lin Ju understood that the Astronomical Society was just a name. Academician She's meaning was also obvious. Although this 1 billion was far from enough for the entire detection plan, it was enough to give Xinyuan an emergency start.

This kindness is not light, and it may be that Academician She is afraid that he will come up with something scary in exchange for money.

"We will try our best... Xinyuan plans to launch a probe in May to fly by Jupiter and Saturn and survey their main satellites."

"So urgent?!"

Academician She did not expect that he would lead to such shocking news. There are only three months left!

"Our plan is to use a platform like Lihuo. The structure and detection function are just optimized. There is no particularly targeted design. It just adds an additional sub-detector that can enter the atmosphere. If it is propelled by a nuclear engine, maybe Able to reach destination within 1 year.

However, the main purpose this time is to test the new space shuttle. We will use Storm's sister aircraft Typhoon to complete the mission and test the reliability of the nuclear power platform's ultra-long-distance and long-lasting working time. "

Lin Ju's next words were even more surprising, but they allowed Academician She to accept one year to complete the journey.

When the base originally considered the Titan exploration plan, the most expensive expense was the propulsion part. Nuclear engines are really expensive, and the cost of special modifications is even more prohibitive.

Even if the huge funds rewarded by the follow-up system arrive, no one can ignore this point. Finally, some engineers finally came up with a way: to modify the second H2N and use the Typhoon as an ultra-long-distance interstellar transportation platform, carrying a large amount of fuel and detectors. Task.

The biggest advantage of this solution is that there is no need to build a new platform, and the Typhoon can increase its overall mass to nearly 300 tons when traveling in space. When it goes to Saturn, it can carry up to 80 tons of payload even if enough fuel is left for return, providing unimaginable abundance. Electricity, but if you really install so much, it will definitely need to be mounted on the fuselage or an external fuel tank.

The Typhoon's three nuclear engines also bring high reliability. With the support of the control system, as long as one of them can work normally, it is enough to ensure that there are no problems with the mission.

Another hidden advantage is the characteristics of the space shuttle itself. According to preliminary calculations by engineers, for planets with atmospheres such as Europa and Titan, Typhoon has the feasibility of entering the atmosphere for flight surveys, and its core there is The engine can still maintain some working conditions and can wander over and over again for a long time.

In particular, Titan has an atmosphere thicker than that of the Earth, and at the same time its gravity is very small, fully providing conditions for the use of aircraft.

The original Typhoon was designed to serve the Earth-fire route, but it would not have much impact on the Saturn mission. Its powerful load capacity can still support carrying a certain Mars exploration payload.

As for testing the long-term maintenance-free operation reliability of the nuclear engine, it is indeed necessary. If successful, it will inject more confidence into the future deep space navigation of the Advance.

Academician She listened to these explanations in silence. Although they all made sense and were well-founded, he still felt that something was not right.

But he had no reason to object. The rigor of Xinyuan's plan was well known, and since it could be stated, it had already passed the feasibility verification.

Moreover, the deep space exploration planning team has just been established. If a fairly large plan can be implemented immediately, it will also increase its prestige. At least it is not a bad thing.

But using a space shuttle on an alien planet... was indeed a rather bold idea, at least he couldn't think of such a thing consciously.

"Let's discuss this matter when we have time... One more thing, the Advance should find time to start spinning. The title of the first artificial gravity device in space will be taken away by others."