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

"A mass projector...that's what it is."

Zhong Cheng automatically ignored the previous term. The space elevator is still too far away from now, and it may be difficult to reach it in ten years.

But the mass projector is different. The mass projector technology based on superconducting electromagnetic acceleration orbit is not complicated, especially the lunar mass projector construction plan that already exists on the United Mining Paper.

The biggest difficulty in electromagnetic acceleration orbits for throwing ores into space is not the technology, but the scale and cost of construction.

Apart from rockets and aerospace aircraft technology, this is the most affordable means of transportation that humans are most likely to take the lead in realizing.

Lin Ju: "The limitations are too great. The cheap means on earth still have to wait for the space elevator. Other carrying capabilities are too little, and the size and weight requirements are very strict."

Zhong Cheng: "But even with carbon nanotubes, the center of gravity is very difficult to control. Then we need to build a very large super space station. There are also material issues. It is at least 50 times stronger than our existing carbon nanotube technology." times, and the resilience will be greatly increased.”

The concept of a space elevator is naturally familiar to everyone. In fact, the earliest related concept can be traced back to Tsiolkovsky, the father of astronauts. He published an article in 1895, imagining an "equatorial tower" that would extend as high as synchronous orbit. ".

In 1960, the same Lucia engineer modified this idea and formally proposed the "space elevator", the most common solution of hanging a rope from synchronous orbit.

In the eyes of people at the time, the feasibility of this plan was not low.

In a synchronous orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers, the spacecraft there is stationary relative to the ground, and the hanging rope only needs to bear its own gravity.

In the original plan, it was also necessary to place a "counterweight" in a higher orbit above the synchronous orbit and connect it to the space station in the synchronous orbit for balance so that the center of mass of the entire space elevator system could be maintained in the synchronous orbit. Otherwise, the entire system It will fall downwards and down the rail during operation, and finally the cable will be torn due to the difference in speed between the up and down.

Later, people realized that this required too much material and lowered their standards:

The bottom end of the rope is no longer connected to the ground, but is connected to a satellite in a low orbit, and the other end is connected to a satellite in a higher than synchronous orbit, so that their centers of mass are also exactly in synchronous orbit.

The purpose of this is to reduce the signal transmission power of the high-orbit satellite while maintaining communication strength. The signals of the two satellites are relayed through the connecting cable.

In 1972, the "Tethered Satellite" program changed, and it was suggested that it be combined with the space shuttle.

In 1974, this plan evolved into the space shuttle hanging a cable to cut the earth's magnetic field lines while flying around the earth for testing of the spacecraft's power supply.

In 1992, the space shuttle Atlantis conducted its first test, and the cable got stuck after being released 200 meters away.

In 1996, the space shuttle Columbia conducted its second test. The cable was released for a full 19.3 kilometers, obtained dozens of volts of voltage, and then broke.

Entering the new century, with the breakthrough of carbon nanotube materials, space elevators have once again become a hot topic. However, the results after specific calculations are still disappointing.

Even with the most advanced technology at the time, if a hollow carbon nanotube cable with a diameter of 2cm was constructed, it would only weigh 1.7g per cubic centimeter. Such a long cable would also weigh 76,000 tons.

This means that launching a counterweight of similar mass above the synchronous orbit, that is, a space station of about 76,000 tons, is simply not possible by manpower.

This is just one piece. According to the ideal model, the space elevator requires at least 100 pieces, which is 7.6 million tons, equivalent to 700,000 cubic meters of lead.

Modern carbon nanotube materials have made progress again, and are only hovering around 1g per cubic centimeter. Calculated, it is impossible to realize a space elevator.

In order to achieve the level that human beings can achieve, the material density must be reduced by 2 or at least 1 order of magnitude, and the strength must be increased by more than 1 order of magnitude, which is a combined increase of hundreds or thousands of times.

Therefore, it is precisely because Zhong Cheng has systematically studied this technology that he is pessimistic about the prospects of space elevators. In comparison, building a 1,000-kilometer acceleration orbit based on Mount Everest seems so easy. At least it is possible to achieve it as long as you spend hard money.

Zhong Cheng obviously didn't believe it, but Lin Ju didn't explain much.

The base has a full set of technical information on "Chiren" and has completed a comprehensive analysis. According to the judgment of several cutting-edge physicists, there will be no problem in small batch manufacturing of "Chiren" when the space weak force/super strong magnetic confinement laboratory is completed. of.

If "Chiren" is used as the space elevator material, the mass of the 36,000-kilometer length is only 600 tons, and a minimum of 6 pieces can meet the actual needs. That is to say, the mass of the synchronous orbit space station must be above 3,600 tons, which is completely within the feasible range.

If it is only used for preliminary verification testing, 5 tons of material is enough. Although it has basically no practical significance, as long as it can be connected to the ground from the synchronous orbit without breaking, it can already prove its excellent performance.

While the two were discussing the future enthusiastically, Qiongzhou, thousands of kilometers away, launched the "Tianwen-1" probe on time, and the Xinyuan-2B rocket with a third stage was successfully launched, opening the door to large-scale Mars exploration. prelude.

…

"I once again set up the banner of the Huayin Organization and announced the success of mankind's first multinational joint lunar exploration operation. The Guanghan Palace base will become mankind's first extraterrestrial international station (Russian, French)."

Oleg Kononenko, Meng Linlin, and Thomas Speake stuck the flagpole firmly on the base with three hands, and read the prepared lines to the broadcast camera.

Meng Senlin then slightly rotated the flagpole to display the Huayin organization's flag to its maximum extent.

The design of the flag of the Huayin Treaty Organization contains a variety of elements. It is based on red and has a ring of stars in the middle. Inside the ring are two hands held together. On both sides of the ring are several mainstream rockets. pattern and olive branch, below is a streamer composed of flags of 12 countries, and at the top of the ring is the pattern of Huashan Mountain.

Then the three astronauts unloaded a large number of folded alloy tubes from the landing module and assembled them. They placed 6 flags on each side of the Huayin flag. The 13 flags spread out in a long row, which is one of the largest in scale. most.

Originally, they planned to add the United Nations flag, but Ami disagreed and had to give up.

These 13 flags are basically the main tasks of the Shuguang-4 mission. Just placing them took more than three hours, which made the live broadcast viewers a little impatient.

After finally completing these tasks, there were televised speeches by several major parties on the ground. After completing all this, the first day of Dawn-4's mission came to an end.

When the direct broadcast camera was turned off, Kononenko finally shouted in relief:

"Britt, Davarish Lee, I want to drive your rover."

Li Wei and Fu Xiangjie, who had arrived an hour ago, were sitting on a small slope not far from Shuguang 4, waiting to be escorted to the Yushu base.

"Kononenko, nice to see you again."