Interstellar Industrial Age

In a void more than 60,000 kilometers away from the moon, the first space factory of Galaxy Technology Group is still very busy here. Anti-gravity spaceships come and go constantly transporting materials from the earth here.

The second phase of the space factory project is in full swing, carrying human ambitions for the stars and the sea. This space factory was officially named the "Dragon Nest" factory not long ago.

Dragon's Nest, where dragons were born.

It means that here, there will be giant dragons soaring in the starry sky and universe, leading the descendants of Yan and Huang to move forward continuously in the sea of ​​stars.

In the first phase of the factory that has been completed, in a huge and empty room, scientists and engineers are floating in special space suits, busy with each other around a super-large engine.

This super-large engine is very huge, with a length, width and height of more than 100 meters. It is like a huge building. There are countless dense wires and copper wires that are as thick as an adult's arm. Qi, people can't help but be shocked when they look at it.

"I don't know how the stability is. It is better to use integrally cast parts to be more reliable. This kind of combination of various small parts, such a huge volume, has hundreds of thousands of parts designed. , reliability and stability are worrying.”

Qin Yi carefully looked at the behemoth in front of him.

This is the second-generation anti-gravity engine that Qin Yi, Yang Hongyan, and Zhang Jian led more than 200,000 scientists and engineers to build after more than half a year.

The second-generation antigravity engine uses the gravitational force of stars, which is actually the same as the stellar gravitational sail in science fiction, and the principle is the same as that of the antigravity engine.

"We have no way to transport the integrally cast parts into space at all. Its size is too large. With our current technology, we have no way to miniaturize it when it is not yet mature."

"And it is foreseeable that for a long time in the future, the volume of the second-generation anti-gravity engine we have built will only get bigger and bigger."

Beside Qin Yi, Yang Hongyan said helplessly.

He now understands why Qin Yi insisted on spending such a huge price to build such a huge space factory in space.

Without such a huge space factory, it is impossible to say that the second-generation anti-gravity engine will be manufactured, because its size is too large.

And it involves some manufacturing technologies, which must be completed in space. In the environment of microgravity and vacuum, many high-tech products can achieve the most perfect state.

"It seems that the project of the space smelting factory must also be put on the agenda, but at present, even if the space smelting factory is built, it seems that we transport the ore into space for smelting, and it seems that the gain is not worth the loss."

"It's better to be able to mine asteroids. It's the most cost-effective and profitable way to smelt asteroids directly."

Qin Yi smiled and nodded.

In my mind, I thought of the smelting technology of some interstellar civilizations I had seen in the technology tower, and used powerful spacecraft to haul back asteroids with a mass of hundreds of millions of tons.

The asteroid is then smelted directly using starlight.

Super-large parts can be directly cast in space to make large spacecraft, space battleships, etc. The integrally cast parts are more stable, reliable and safe.

"I think the stability and reliability should still be OK. In order to manufacture this second-generation anti-gravity engine, we spent hundreds of billions of dollars, almost all of which are made of real money and silver."

"There should be no problem with the large parts assembled from these small parts. Repeated simulation operations have been performed on the quantum computer."

On the side, Zhang Jian touched his chin and said that he actually didn't understand why Qin Yi always emphasized the use of large-scale integral casting parts. In fact, in his opinion, large-scale integral casting parts are naturally very good, but It doesn't have to be that way.

"If it is a general small spacecraft, aircraft, etc., of course there is no problem, because the power is limited, the power of the engine is limited, and the overall structure and stability of the spacecraft are not high."

"However, ours is a second-generation antigravity engine, which uses the huge gravitational force of stars, once it is installed on a large spacecraft."

"Once it starts, its huge force will all act on the spacecraft, and it will also act on itself, and the spacecraft using the second-generation anti-gravity engine, according to our current calculations, its speed will be Now the antigravity spacecraft is hundreds, thousands, and even able to reach a certain percentage of the speed of light.”

"You can imagine that under the action of such a powerful force and such a terrifying speed, if the engine and the spacecraft are still built according to the previous ideas, and nothing else is needed, this huge force is enough to give the spacecraft to torn to shreds."

"The greater the power, the more powerful structure and body it needs to support. Only by using high-strength materials, using integral casting, and then hollowing it out can it be the most reliable and safest way."

"The more parts there are, the less safe and reliable it is, and the more likely it is to go wrong in the face of powerful power."

Qin Yi said with a smile.

Interstellar HNA has just begun. Everyone has no experience in building spaceships and space battleships that can navigate among the stars, and their thinking is still in the old mode.

In fact, hundreds of years ago, in the era of great navigation on the earth, Europeans cut down almost all the large trees in Europe in order to be able to manufacture bigger and stronger warships and ships.

In that era when ships were made of wood, to build a good ship and a powerful warship, the most important thing was the keel of the ship, and the manufacture of the keel required large trees, and the larger the ship needed the keel the bigger.

In Europe at that time, there were a lot of fir, pine and the best teak. These trees were good wood for shipbuilding, and the most precious teak was used to make the keel and deck of the ship.

The bigger the teak, the bigger the boat, the more expensive it is and the more valuable it is.

At the same time, the Huaxia side was in the Ming Dynasty. Although Zheng He's great voyages to the Western Oceans, but because the wood used for shipbuilding was very difficult to find at that time, all of them had to be found from Yunnan, Guichuan, Hainan and other places to find large-scale trees to manufacture. In disguise, the cost of this shipbuilding was very high. From this perspective, it basically hindered the development of Huaxia in the field of navigation at that time.

Because there is no suitable wood, naturally it is impossible to build a powerful boat. Even if it can be built, the cost is very high. A piece of wood that can be used to lay a keel is too expensive.

The situation now is a bit similar to that time. The second-generation antigravity engine is very powerful. It needs the spacecraft to have a strong structure and support. Otherwise, under such a terrifying force, the spacecraft will not be able to support it at all.

PS: Happy Mid-Autumn Festival~~