The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master

Diamond, as an old friend, saw through Collinger's concerns at a glance:

"In fact, in addition to the LENS-X that is being upgraded from LENS-2, we also plan to start from scratch and develop a new generation of LENS-XX wind tunnel with a new gas drive and expansion system, using electrically heated hydrogen instead of helium as the drive gas. Under the dual-stage drive technology, the experimental airflow speed of Mach 25 and the total airflow temperature of 7500K can be achieved, and the effective test time is not less than 10ms..."

It sounds very attractive at first, but the former was not confused by this rhetoric at all, but rolled his eyes directly:

"You will need to wait until the middle of next year to complete the transformation of LENS-X, making A brand new one..."

Through the French window at one end of the control room, he glanced at the two giant wind tunnels lying flat downstairs, leaned over to Diamond's ear and whispered:

"Even if we don't talk about technology, I'm afraid it's hard to solve the site selection problem, right?"

Buffalo has a population of less than 400,000, which is not a big city. However, the research center originally chose the shore of Lake Erie to solve the water problem, but the subsequent expansion project faced many obstacles from environmental organizations, fishery companies and waterway unions.

Although the water quality of the Great Lakes has long been catastrophically deteriorated and the fishery along the lake has been severely hit, this does not affect the relevant practitioners from asking the research center for "pollution control funds" that are easily counted in the billions.

As a non-profit academic institution, Carlspan University obviously cannot raise such a huge amount of funds in a short period of time.

Besides, everyone knows that these fees are essentially protection fees regardless of their name.

Even if multiple parties raise funds for the first time, there will inevitably be a second and third time in the future, which will not solve the problem at all.

But Diamond shook his head:

"It's really impossible here... But we have cooperated with MIT to obtain the right to use a new piece of land in Boston, and plan to build the LENS-XX wind tunnel in the future Boston Research Center..."

For this news, Ke Linjie seemed a little surprised, but it was only fleeting:

"Forget it... There's no point in saying this."

He sighed, and the whole person showed a bit of fatigue for the first time:

"From the name, you can hear that your new wind tunnel is most likely driven by heating light gas... Even if you reproduce a very high flight Mach number, it is subject to the inherent limitation of mechanical energy work, and you can only take into account one of the high airflow total temperature and long test time..."

Speaking of this, he suddenly paused:

"Speaking of which, I read the monthly technical intelligence summary issued by the company a few days ago. It said that based on the power consumption and the purchase of chemical reagents, it seems that China has increased the frequency of use of their wind tunnel group in the suburbs of Beijing?"

In fact, most of the useful intelligence is not obtained through the wonderful Infernal Affairs plot, but with the help of various low-sensitivity or even public surrounding information speculation.

Especially after entering the information age, it is even more difficult to keep the general information completely confidential.

Diamond glanced at Ke Lingjie with a slightly strange look, but still answered:

"Since the beginning of this year, the Chinese have become active... But they stopped cooperating with Yashen University of Technology, and even stopped participating in the AIAA evaluation system, so for the time being, we can only estimate that they are promoting the new wind tunnel plan."

"According to the latest information update obtained by AIAA two years ago, the other party was developing a long-term shock wave wind tunnel and a high-precision reproduction wind tunnel at that time. It should be the stage of construction..."

"What about performance? How is the performance?"

Ke Lingjie is obviously more concerned about practicality.

Diamond is also very frank:

"From a technical point of view, it is more advanced than LENS-2 or even LENS-X... To some extent, the reason why we are in a hurry to promote the LENS-XX project is to catch up with the progress of these Chinese counterparts."

As an expert in high-temperature gas dynamics, he does not shy away from the reality that the United States has fallen behind in the field of ultra-high-speed wind tunnels.

However, there is still a lack of correct understanding of the severity of this reality...

Therefore, seeing the horror on Collinger's face, Diamond quickly added:

"But you don't have to worry too much... Since they have decided to put long test time and high reproducibility accuracy on two wind tunnels, they should still focus on technical verification. In the future, they need to combine these two technologies to come up with truly next-generation application products. So at least in a few years, the data we have accumulated through equivalent simulation combined with test flights will still be unique..."

"..."

...

Under the dual urging of a large amount of funds and DDL, the X51A project is moving forward with unprecedented efficiency, even giving older people like Collinger the illusion of returning to the peak of the Cold War.

While the hypersonic wind tunnel at the Buffalo Research Center is conducting the final verification of the two-stage tangent cone waverider solution, the test of the rocket-powered booster stage is also being carried out simultaneously at Boeing's Wilmington Test Center.

Compared with hypersonic dynamics and scramjet engines, which are new knowledge to everyone, rocket power is a link in the entire project that is not technically difficult and not high.

If Party A had not made a last-minute modification to the project requirements, there would not even be a need to hire external help from MIT.

However, even if there were unexpected incidents, this part was still not very noticeable.

The atmosphere of the entire technical and testing team was relatively relaxed as a result.

Even after the test results were confirmed to meet the design requirements, Dr. Mellie Hurst proposed to line up the six completely burnt rocket booster sections and take a photo with more than 30 core personnel.

Although not everyone was interested in this kind of exposure, it was an important stage victory after all, and Hurst was now the head of the subsystem, so everyone chose to give her some face.

Coupled with a brief celebration ceremony, after all the tossing, it quickly entered the night unknowingly.

Finally, the people who finished their work left one after another, and the few who still needed to be on duty also flew their minds to the Christmas holiday soon.

Only Daniel Jabolenski, Hurst's deputy and junior, who was also directly responsible for the connection with Boeing for a long time, remained in front of the computer, preparing to sort out the test process of the past few days in order to fill in his doctoral thesis in the future.

But this behavior, which was originally just a diligent act, allowed him to quickly capture the abnormal situation-

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Although the test results were within the numerical range allowed by the project, the working curves of the No. 1 and No. 2 machines outside their respective corresponding test ranges did not match.

However, he did not take it too seriously at first.

After all, the stability of solid rocket engines is relatively poor, and it is normal for performance to fluctuate. It is nothing more than choosing two products with large differences.

Moreover, even this can pass the test, which shows that the new propellant design has a high degree of redundancy.

However, Jabolenski soon found that things were not so simple.

Because the following No. 3-6 machines also had the same situation.

The difference between each two units in order is not big, which can be easily ignored as individual differences. However, when he plotted the six curves on the same table, he found that the difference was not random like normal fluctuations, but was very regular and sequentially raised.

This does not seem to be the result of random factors...

Due to the characteristics of solid rocket engines that cannot be flexibly controlled, the test conditions are not infinitely changed, but several representative scattered intervals are selected in advance to verify the adaptability of the engine under simulated actual working conditions.

The six working curves show regular differences. The most likely explanation is that someone has made "exam-oriented" modifications to them.

Just like the computer programming exam in college, as long as you know in advance how the background verifies the submitted program, you can save the program writing process and directly output the result values ​​corresponding to several test inputs.

However, if this is the case, then the authenticity of the entire project...

Jabolensky subconsciously wanted to call Hurst who was packing up.

But his eyes caught the signatures of himself and his senior sister on the document next to him.

Suddenly, a cold sweat broke out from his back...