Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Just when everyone was worried about the defense work in Alaska, a senior staff officer from the Army Aviation Command hurried in. His expression was a little panicked and even a little incoherent. "Mr. Vice President, generals, we just discovered a...very...strange thing in the sky..."

"Something strange?" Arnold couldn't help but wonder. "What's weird? Is it a German fleet? Or have the Germans developed some new bombers?" The Germans' ME-264D high-altitude bombers and B-36 super bombers currently in service completely overwhelm our own side in all aspects. Could it be that they built another more terrifying bomber? Flying to an altitude of 20,000 meters? Or is the flight speed exceeding 800 kilometers per hour?

"It's not the German fleet, but..." The senior staff officer shook his head, looking quite strange. "To be precise, that thing is outside the atmosphere, in space."

"What?!" Everyone couldn't help but be stunned, in space? "What on earth is it? A meteorite?" But what's so strange about meteorites? Everyone knows that meteorites are asteroids, comets or stones that come from space, and it’s not like they have never seen them before. In Ballinja, Arizona, USA, there is a huge crater with a diameter of 1,280 meters and a depth of 180 meters. According to research by scholars, this is a "crater" that was formed by the collision of a meteorite weighing more than 20,000 tons when it fell to the earth at a speed of 80,000 kilometers per hour 70,000 years ago. And if it was really a meteorite, they said it had fallen to the ground, or simply burned up in the atmosphere, so what's the fuss?

The senior staff officer shook his head again and explained. "It's not a meteorite. We can't say for sure. It seems to be some kind of man-made artifact. Someone sent it up there." It was simply unbelievable. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes through an astronomical telescope, he wouldn't have believed it was true!

"What?!" This time everyone was really shocked. Although they were not professional physicists, they still knew the most basic knowledge. To launch an aircraft into space, it must use huge thrust to generate a flying speed fast enough to break through air resistance and overcome the earth's gravity, soaring in space. According to the different operational requirements for space vehicles, the operating speed of space vehicles is usually divided into first, second and third cosmic speeds. The first cosmic speed, also called the orbiting speed, when an object flies horizontally on the surface of the earth at a speed of 9 kilometers/second, its falling rate under the influence of gravity is consistent with the curvature of the earth, and the object will move along a circular orbit without Fall to the ground.

Currently, their fastest fighter jet has a speed of 650 kilometers per hour, which is about 181 meters per second; has anyone actually built an aircraft with a speed of up to 9 kilometers per second? This is too terrible!

"Is it a German?!" They naturally thought of a German. "Damn, how did they do that?!"

While senior officials in Washington were discussing things in space, at the Algerian Space Launch Base on the other side, Yannick stood on the observation platform and looked at the giant rocket next to the launch tower in the distance.

This rocket is not the "one-and-a-half-stage" rockets launched before, but a brand new three-stage rocket.

He couldn't help feeling a little emotional, and couldn't help but think of the "Fire Dragon Out of Water" during the Xia and Ming Dynasties, which was the world's earliest multi-stage rocket.

According to the Ming Dynasty military work "Wu Bei Zhi", the structure of the fire dragon coming out of the water is to take a five-foot-long bamboo tube and have the inside polished. A wooden faucet is installed on one end of the bamboo tube, and a wooden dragon tail is installed on the other end. The bamboo tube is the dragon body.

The mouth of the dragon's head is upward, and several rockets are installed in the dragon's belly. The medicine lines of the rockets are always connected together and led out from the hole in the lower part of the dragon's head. At the same time, two rocket launchers are installed diagonally on the front and rear of the dragon body, and their medicine lines are always connected together. Then connect the main charge line of the rocket inside the dragon's belly to the bottom of the rocket launcher outside the dragon's body. In this way, the two rocket launchers on the front of the dragon's body are ignited, and the dragon's body will fly in the air in a certain arc. When the front two rocket launchers (first stage) burn out, the two rear rocket launchers (second stage) continue to burn. After the gunpowder in the rocket launcher is burned, it is drawn into the dragon's belly, causing it to fly out to kill the enemy.

The method of making the fire dragon water is completely in line with the structural principles of modern multi-stage rockets. Its invention town fully reflects the outstanding creative ability of the ancient people. Unfortunately, the limitations of feudal society determined that this invention could not have much room for progress.

It was not until 1921 that Tsiolkovsky, a Soviet aerospace and aerospace scientist and a pioneer in rocket and space research, proposed the idea of ​​a multi-stage rocket, which provided a theoretical basis for space navigation.

Theoretically, the more stages a multi-stage rocket has, the higher its carrying efficiency will be. However, as the number of stages of a multi-stage rocket increases, its technical complexity greatly increases. Too frequent separations will increase the weight of the connecting mechanism, control mechanism and spacecraft. The failure rate and the difficulty of recovery also increase accordingly, which leads to an increase in costs. Generally speaking, multi-stage rockets mostly adopt a three-stage setting.

In addition to transportation cost issues, rockets use a multi-stage setup because the engine characteristics required for rockets flying in the atmosphere and flying in space are different (the lower stage is responsible for takeoff, emphasizing high thrust; the upper stage is responsible for acceleration, emphasizing high thrust). Specific impulse), with the rocket technology currently mastered by mankind, it is difficult to meet two different needs with a single engine (only one aerospace company has done it in later generations).

"Prepare in 30 minutes!" A deafening command sounded from the loudspeaker at the launch site, and a group of technicians quickly evacuated the launch site.

"15 minutes to prepare!" The last group of technicians exited the launch site.

"10 minutes to prepare... 5 minutes to prepare... 1 minute to prepare!" I saw the swing rods supporting the rocket on the launch tower opening one by one, and the various systems and equipment connected to the rocket on the launch tower also quickly fell off, and the rocket was ignited and lifted off. It has entered the countdown stage.

"One minute countdown to prepare, fifty seconds, forty seconds, thirty seconds, twenty seconds!"

"Ten, nine, eight, seven...one, light the fire!"

"Ignite!" Along with the loud noise, a dazzling flame spurted out from the bottom of the rocket. The huge rocket dragged dazzling light and slowly rose into the sky. The strong thrust not only caused the rocket to fly, but also caused a slight tremor within a radius of more than ten kilometers.

Yannick stared closely at the smaller and smaller rockets in his field of vision until they disappeared from the horizon.

"The first stage thruster is separated!"

"Second stage thruster ignition!"

Soon a meteor appeared in the sky, which was formed when the first-stage rocket fell.

With the separation of the first-stage thruster, the main body of the rocket reduced its own weight. After the second-stage rocket was successfully ignited, the speed accelerated a lot again and flew towards its destination.