Technological Hegemony

The brainstorming group fell into an unprecedented fierce debate. The scientists were divided into two factions. Some people supported the space program and hoped to fight with North America until they brought down the mighty scientific giant NASA.

And another group of people realized that the space program is too risky, and it is not worth the harm to invest all the scientific research strength of the entire company and spend countless funds.

Luo Jia did not express his opinion. He listened carefully to everyone's speech, and thought quickly in his brain, analyzing everyone's views and ideas.

"Bosses are very abnormal today. It's already midnight, and there is no sign of the meeting ending yet."

"I heard that the dispute occurred because of the space program. I don't know the details. It seems to be related to the company's future development direction. The atmosphere in the conference room is tense. Many big bosses rolled up their sleeves and their faces turned red."

"Stop muttering there, both of you, hurry up and deliver the supper, the bosses are all hungry, waiting to eat wontons."

Not only the staff in the cafeteria were talking about it, but the entire Star Technology, including all subsidiaries, were all looking forward to it, waiting for the headquarters to sound the clarion call to enter space.

After all, in this team full of masculinity and integrity, who hasn't dreamed of stars and seas?

Want to explore space?

Nonsense, straight men have long wanted to go crazy, okay!

However, their rationality told them that the matter might not be simple. The brainstorming group held a meeting for a whole day, but no news came out of the meeting room. Obviously, something went wrong, which made the bosses unable to make up their minds.

It seemed that the whole day's analysis and discussion exhausted everyone's energy. After supper, the conference room gradually became quiet.

Everyone turned their attention to Luo Jia. After all, no matter how lively the brainstorming team's analysis was, Luo Jia had to make a decision in the end.

To a certain extent, the brainstorming group is also Luo Jia's think tank, which is responsible for providing various opinions. Luo Jia will make a relatively objective and rational choice after comprehensive consideration of all opinions.

After clearing his throat, Luo Jia knew that he couldn't procrastinate any longer, so he stood up and walked up to the podium with the usual smile on his face, then knocked on the microphone, and tried to see if the writing with the ink pen was coherent.

After finishing all this, Luo Jia said in a deep voice: "I have heard everyone's thoughts and opinions, now let's talk about mine."

"The reason why the space program has generated so much controversy,

The main reason is that input and output are not directly proportional. Wisdom is a rarer resource than money. The software department of the headquarters plus the hardware department, 220,000 engineers and scientists, are all invested in the space program, plus trillions of dollars in funds , it is very likely that the final result is just to leave a pair of footprints on the moon, not to mention that we are not the first. "

After hearing Luo Jia's words, everyone couldn't help laughing bitterly. The first person to eat crabs was a warrior, but who would remember the second one?

North America has already gone through the path of space. Now that Star Technology has invested so much manpower and funds, it is not worth the loss to follow the path that others have taken. If the energy and funds are used on other projects, it may be more valuable. , It doesn't make sense to be hanged from a tree is not.

After a short pause, Luo Jia continued, "I understand all your concerns. Now let's think from a different angle."

"Assuming that there is a technology that can transport goods to space on a large scale at a price of no more than two thousand dollars per ton, or even lower, is this technology worth developing at all costs?"

After hearing Luo Jia's words, everyone was stunned and couldn't believe their ears.

$2,000 per ton of cargo from Earth to space?

How is this possible? It's a fantasy!

"The shipping cost is only two thousand dollars per ton? Can't we build a space station!?"

"Not only that, if the shipping cost is so low, colonizing the moon and Mars will all become a reality!"

"Of course we need to build spaceships and plunder resources. The moon is a golden egg that surrounds the earth. The titanium metal contained in the mare basalt alone is at least 100 trillion tons, not to mention the large amount of helium in the lunar soil." 3, that is an important fuel for controllable fusion technology."

"Helium 3 is well received! Now the way we obtain energy is Karman vortex street power generation. However, Karman vortex street power generation can only be used on the earth. Once it leaves the earth, it will be invalid. If we want the spacecraft to fly out of the solar system, we must We must develop controllable fusion!"

Everyone discussed excitedly. In fact, the biggest obstacle to the road to stars and seas is not technology or feelings, but cost.

The self-weight of a large space station or a colony base is tens of thousands of tons. You can't rely on the existing rocket technology to launch the base into space little by little. That will have to wait until the year of the monkey.

Inexpensive space launch technology will change the reality of space development and make space development profitable.

Only benefits are eternal. When the spaceship full of precious metals returns with a full load, the road to stars and seas will truly become a great cause that can be continuously developed.

And what is it that humans rely on to develop space now?

feelings.

The Apollo program in North America, the Star Wars program, and the Curiosity Mars rover program, behind the huge cost of these programs, are not without benefits, but that the benefits are not directly proportional to the cost, spending a trillion dollars, and gaining a hundred billion dollars. son.

Luo Jia's idea is very simple. The space project cannot rely on feelings. It must have the potential to realize profitability in the future in order to continue the great cause.

Shua~

With a swipe of the pen, Luo Jia began to draw a sketch on the whiteboard. It was a space elevator, also known as a space elevator.

At this moment, the meeting room was completely silent, and thousands of thoughts were on everyone's minds. They couldn't help thinking excitedly, history has finally come to this point, is it possible that the legendary space elevator will become a reality in their own hands?

It has to be said that Luo Jiazhen has no artistic talent. In his depiction, the space elevator is like a toothpick inserted into an apple. The bottom is connected to the mainland, and the top is a large space station in geosynchronous orbit.

After finishing the sketch, Luo Jia took the ink pen and said in a deep voice: "The altitude is 36,000 kilometers, directly reaching the geosynchronous orbit. As the height of the elevator continues to climb, the internal gravity will gradually decrease. When the cargo arrives at the terminal with the elevator , its own speed will be sufficient to maintain the movement around the geosynchronous orbit, so the space station at the end of the geosynchronous orbit is in a state of complete weightlessness."

"Before introducing the working principle of the space elevator, we must clarify a question. Is the space elevator a giant tower standing on the ground, or a catenary hanging from the track?"

"Clarifying this issue is crucial to our future work, because the giant tower bears pressure, while the track catenary bears tension, and the two belong to different mechanical categories."

After a slight pause, Luo Jia said seriously: "There is no doubt that the answer is the latter. Because the pressure critical instability point is too low, the space elevator cannot bear its own weight. Our only option is to build a space station in geosynchronous orbit, and then Hanging from the space station, a conduit with ultimate tensile capacity connects the earth to the space station."

"Now that we've chosen to put the space elevator in tension rather than compression, the next problem comes up, materials."

Shua~

The red ink pen began to quickly write out the derivation formula on the whiteboard, assuming the internal tension of the space elevator, the function of the change of the cross-sectional area with the distance is T(x) and A(x) respectively.

Then apply Newton's second law, dT = -pA(x)g(x)dx.

Among them, the equivalent acceleration g(x) is the vector sum of gravitational acceleration and centrifugal acceleration...

About half an hour later, when the complex derivation was over, the brainstorming team was surprised to find that the super-strength carbon fiber used as an auxiliary material for the space elevator was up to the standard in terms of performance.

The Karmen vortex street power generation array, like a group of demons dancing wildly, is made of super-strength carbon fiber, which has withstood the double test of time and strength and is trustworthy.

You have to ask why the Karman vortex street power generation array does not use stronger graphene materials. It is very simple. When the Karman vortex street power generation array was studied, graphene materials had not been developed. Besides, the price of graphene materials is relatively expensive compared to carbon fiber. Take It is a bit overkill to make a power generation array.

Although graphene failed to participate in the great energy cause, this time, it can play its unique advantages in the space elevator project.

Due to the abnormal tensile strength required by the space elevator project, graphene needs to be further optimized to create graphene nanotubes.

In this way, the material problem of the space elevator is solved. Graphene nanotubes are used for the skeleton, and super-strength carbon fibers are used for auxiliary materials and the elevator body.

"In addition, we also face a problem. The elevator climbs from the ground to an altitude of 36,000 kilometers. Obviously, it needs a strong power. It just so happens that we have something called an ultrasonic motor. The appearance of the ultrasonic motor No, but it’s called a space motor.” Luo Jia said with a smile.

After listening to this passage, the meeting room erupted. The scientists were so excited that they almost shed tears.

As the saying goes, if you have technology, you can do whatever you want.

Unknowingly, the three key technologies for building a space elevator are already on the technology list of Star Technology. Except for graphene nanotubes, the others can be used directly.

Luo Jia stretched out her hand to signal everyone to be quiet. Due to the crazy celebration just now, the meeting room was too hot at the moment. Luo Jia opened the window to let the cold wind of early spring pour in, helping everyone clear their overheated minds.

"Although we have the key technology to build a space elevator, we must be soberly aware that this plan is still full of risks and uncertainties. For example, we need a launch vehicle whose cost and capacity are not lower than Musk's supercar. Falcon."

"I'm not referring to the heavy-duty Falcon that has been successfully launched many times in a row, let alone the Falcon 9, but Musk's next-generation rocket, the Super Falcon that is still being tested."

"With a cheap and large launch vehicle, we can send the space station into the earth's orbit in batches, and then hang a graphene nanotube from the orbit."

"At that time, the whole world will think that we are launching a rocket, but in fact, we are launching an elevator."

"The whole world thinks that what we are building is a space station, but in fact, what we are building is an elevator."

"The whole world thinks that we have accepted Musk's challenge to fight against his Starlink project. In fact, fuck the Starlink project! We want the entire space!"