Interstellar Industrial Age

There are two difficulties in implementing controllable nuclear fusion: one is how to heat the material of nuclear fusion to a high enough temperature. Nuclear fusion requires a high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees. Scientists have solved this problem by using laser polymerization to generate a high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees. to solve this problem.

The use of laser ignition seems simple, but it is actually very difficult, because it must be ensured that the heated object is heated evenly in all directions within a short heating time, and collapses toward the center of the sphere uniformly. A simple understanding is to imagine the heated material as a football. To squeeze the air inside the football, the best way is to use force from all directions to compress the volume. If you only squeeze from two directions, the football will be deformed, and the effect of squeezing the air inside the football will be greatly reduced.

This not only requires extremely precise control of the alignment direction of each laser, but also requires strict control of the energy level of each laser in this extremely short period of time. At present, Uncle Sam's research progress in this field is the fastest. The National Ignition Facility is currently capable of focusing 192 lasers on the same spot.

The same is true for the nuclear fusion laboratory on the moon of Galaxy Science and Technology. It is built with reference to Uncle Sam's national ignition device. It can focus 365 laser beams on the same point, instantly generating a high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees, enough to ignite the nuclear Fusion materials.

And compared to Uncle Sam's national ignition device which takes several hours to perform an ignition experiment, this ignition device of Galaxy Technology can achieve 10 ignitions per second and release 10 pulses.

This ignition device first enhances the external laser by 10,000 times, then splits one laser into 2 lasers, and then splits the 2 lasers into 4 beams, and finally splits into 365 beams step by step. The beam is continuously enhanced, and its total energy increases to 5,000 trillion times the energy at the beginning, and finally focuses on a deuterium-tritium nuclear fusion fuel with a diameter of 3 mm, which can generate a high temperature of over 100 million degrees, which is enough to cause nuclear fusion.

Some people may ask, how much energy does it take to ignite it?

The photons of the laser are all directional, unlike ordinary light sources, the photons are diffused. The sunlight shining on the ground will not burn the paper, but focusing the light on a point can burn the paper. Are the same.

Lasers are highly concentrated in energy, but the energy contained in them is not necessarily very large, and the energy consumption is not too scary.

But solving this problem is still a very long process from the realization of controllable nuclear fusion, because the temperature of the nuclear fusion reaction is very high, and the high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees is comparable to the temperature of the core of the sun. What do we do to make a nuclear fusion reactor? ?

You must know that the most high-temperature resistant material researched by scientists is tetratantalum hafnium pentacarbonide, with a melting point of more than 4,200 degrees, but this temperature is insignificant compared to the high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees.

The most high temperature resistant materials will also be directly vaporized at such high temperatures,

To become the most basic ion state, the problem of this nuclear fusion reactor is the problem that really plagues scientists.

The controllable nuclear fusion technology is different from the hydrogen bomb technology. The hydrogen bomb only needs to be destroyed, and it can be detonated by an atom. The rest can only be as powerful as possible.

But this controllable nuclear fusion, in order to control this nuclear fusion and control this huge energy, scientists must find a way to solve this terrifying high temperature problem.

Before solving the problem, we must first know the way of heat conduction, heat conduction, heat radiation and heat convection.

Heat conduction is a heat transfer phenomenon when there is no macroscopic motion in the medium, which can occur in solids, liquids and gases, but strictly speaking, only in solids is pure heat conduction, and even if the fluid is in a static state, it will Natural convection occurs due to the density difference caused by the temperature gradient, so thermal convection occurs simultaneously with heat conduction in the fluid.

Thermal radiation is the phenomenon that objects radiate electromagnetic waves due to their temperature. All objects with a temperature higher than absolute zero can generate thermal radiation. The higher the temperature, the greater the total energy radiated and the more short-wave components.

The spectrum of thermal radiation is a continuous spectrum, and the wavelength coverage can theoretically range from 0 to 0. Generally, thermal radiation is mainly propagated by visible light and infrared rays with longer wavelengths. Since the propagation of electromagnetic waves does not require any medium, thermal radiation is the only one in a vacuum. heat transfer method.

Thermal convection, also known as convective heat transfer, refers to the heat transfer process caused by the relative displacement of particles in the fluid. Thermal convection only occurs in the fluid.

Knowing the three ways of heat transfer, scientists have also imagined several methods to control the high temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees.

At present, earth scientists have proposed many methods for controlling nuclear fusion, including ultrasonic nuclear fusion control method, laser confinement control method, inertial confinement control method, magnetic confinement control method and so on.

Among them, the most feasible is the magnetic confinement control method. The development of the "superconducting tokamak" device is to realize the storage of substances of hundreds of millions of degrees. The specific principle is very simple. It is mentioned in the high school physics textbook. , is to fix these substances in a closed space by confining them in a closed ring to rotate at a high speed, thus realizing the disguised storage.

It seems that the two major difficulties of nuclear fusion have already been solved by the people of the earth, but there is still a more serious problem, that is, there is no way to combine these two solutions for the two difficulties!

That is, at the current level of the earth, nuclear fusion fuel can only be ignited or the "superconducting tokamak" can be used to load it up, but it is very difficult to concentrate hundreds of laser beams on such a small point!

The fusion material needs to be stationary at the designated target position to wait for heating and ignition, while the superconducting tokamak device belongs to the process of magnetic confinement. If the fusion material is stationary, it cannot be affected by the corresponding Lorentz force in the magnetic field. Confinement in a designated confined space.

Therefore, although scientists on earth have solved the two major problems of nuclear fusion, they still have no way to achieve controllable nuclear fusion. These two solutions can only find ways to solve the other when they have a great advantage in solving one problem. a question.

Qin Yi looked at the huge and complex ignition device in front of him, and thought a lot in his mind. There are many ways to achieve nuclear fusion in the technology tower.

Like the space control method, freezing method, gravity restraint method, etc., the space control method is designed with space technology, because thermal radiation is the only way of conduction in a vacuum, so using space technology can very easily change the temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees. Take control.

As for the freezing method, which is the cold nuclear fusion technology in transmission, this technology is one level higher than the thermonuclear fusion technology, and it is too far away.

Gravity confinement method is to send the fuel of nuclear fusion into a spherical three-dimensional space, and then apply strong gravity to the three-dimensional control, relying on strong gravity to constrain the energy of hundreds of millions of degrees, and at the same time, the energy can be guided according to needs. , for various purposes.

As far as the current level of Galaxy technology is concerned, the closest and most likely to be realized is this gravity restraint method. Because anti-gravity technology has been mastered and utilized, it is still possible to develop gravity technology.

And gravity technology is very important. It can not only be used to control nuclear fusion, but also to add gravity to spacecraft. You must know that there is no gravity in space.

Human beings have been in such an environment for a long time, and their bones will slowly lose calcium. After returning to the earth, they are very likely to be paralyzed and become useless.

And the universe is too vast and vast. Even the Centaurus galaxy, which is closest to the earth, is 4.3 light-years away. With such a long distance, it will take a very long time to navigate in the interstellar universe.

Therefore, spaceships and space battleships used for space navigation must have gravity generation devices, so that the people on the spaceship can live in the environment of gravity and simulate the environment on the earth as much as possible, so as to reduce the amount of energy as much as possible. Various problems arise.

Right now, the study of nuclear fusion technology also requires the use of gravity technology, which can be said to serve multiple purposes.

If gravity technology can be researched, the spaceships and spaceships that will sail the interstellar space in the future will have a super energy heart. The powerful energy generated by nuclear fusion is enough to make the spaceships and spaceships never need to worry about energy.

If a gravity generating device can be installed on the spaceship, the spaceship can also have gravity. Living on the spaceship will not be much different from living on the earth, which is very conducive to long-term navigation in the interstellar universe and greatly reduces the void synthesis. Symptoms appear, protect health.

In order to study gravity technology, Qin Yi took out the relevant technology from the science and technology tower a few years ago. While studying anti-gravity technology, he also established a corresponding gravity research laboratory. Lu Qingwei is responsible for this laboratory. people.

He is not only an expert in the field of antigravity, but also an expert in the field of gravity technology. He leads a huge scientific team on the moon to secretly study gravity technology and controllable nuclear fusion technology.

Although this interstellar mining is technically difficult, there is no need for Qin Yi to arrange Lu Qingwei. He is a talented person, a high-end talent that Qin Yi dug out from the country's major projects.

The real role is naturally the same as Yang Hongyan, Zhang Jian and others in scientific research. As for managing companies and enterprises, it is enough to leave it to professional managers. There is no need to waste talents like Lu Qingwei.

All of this is to hide people's eyes and ears, in order to facilitate frequent travel to and from the moon, to and from this laboratory located on the moon for scientific research.