Voyage of the Stars

The ascending track extends from the tangential direction of the outermost circle to the distance. Its vertical lifting part is built on the basis of a mountain peak and extends upward. The total length of this part is about 80 kilometers.

The bottom of the climbing part of the track is supported by huge reinforced concrete pillars that gradually increase in height, like Optimus Pillars.

As far as the eye can see, as the electromagnetic track gradually climbs, the support columns gradually change from vertical to the ground at an inclined angle, from one to two side by side, to three cross-inclined supports, and finally to the support. The vertical part of the mountain.

This design is mainly to offset the huge pressure caused by the aerospace aircraft's ascent from flat ground to vertical ground. There is no doubt that this is a track specially designed for manned air and space travel, from the track that hovers on the ground to gradually climbing vertically.

The design of such a lengthy track and complex climbing curve is mainly to consider the acceleration limit of human beings, ensuring that the acceleration generated during the acceleration process does not exceed the 6 G that normal humans can withstand.

In addition to the manned orbit for launching space planes, there are four electromagnetic orbits for launching cargo. These tracks are distributed on both sides of the manned track ground disk, with four tracks on each side.

Compared with passenger tracks, the design of freight tracks is much simpler.

Because there is no need to consider the acceleration of gravity, the cargo track is much shorter. It is only designed to have a straight part on the ground and a curved part for climbing. It uses a simple and crude method to perform miracles and eject the spacecraft carrying cargo like an electromagnetic gun. After leaving the electromagnetic orbit, the fuel carried by the spacecraft itself is used for auxiliary propulsion to achieve the purpose of overcoming air resistance and maintaining the speed of the spacecraft. After reaching the predetermined orbit, the fuel carried by the spacecraft itself is also used to adjust the attitude.

Although it is short, the shortest track has a total length of 7 kilometers.

Obviously, the lengths of the four freight electromagnetic rails are not the same, and the difference in length is mainly used to transport different types of goods.

Simply put, the goods that can withstand greater acceleration will have shorter delivery tracks, and vice versa.

Taking this shortest electromagnetic orbit as an example, the length is 7 kilometers. With a simple conversion, it can be roughly estimated that cargo launched into space through this electromagnetic orbit will have to withstand an acceleration of approximately 450 G.

In fact, nowadays humans can easily use electromagnetic guns to accelerate the shells to more than 60,000 g. However, the goods are not cannonballs. Not only is their mass larger than the cannonballs, but too much acceleration will crush some goods.

Due to the characteristics of electromagnetic orbital acceleration, cargo will only be accelerated by electromagnetic force when it is still on orbit. Therefore, the object being pushed from rest to the first cosmic speed must be completed on orbit.

This requires ensuring that the orbit must be magnetically levitated. Otherwise, if there is physical contact, the frictional heat generated by a single launch at such a high speed will be enough to melt the orbit or spacecraft.

From a distance, these four freight tracks plus one manned track look like a giant holding his palm empty and placing it on the ground. The five tracks are like the five fingers of the Tathagata holding the Buddha's kingdom in his palm. It looks very strange. Magnificent, one can't help but think of a bit of mythology.

Of course, since the manned track in the middle rises in an arc, discerning netizens often secretly regard it as a prominent middle finger.

Yue Yuan occasionally saw some "finger-grabbing" comments on some videos promoting orbital mass accelerators on the Internet.

It has to be said that no matter what era, the comment section will always be a hidden place.

At this moment, Yue Yuan received news from Zhu Pite, saying that the baggage check-in procedures had been completed and the boarding pass had been purchased.

After replying that he understood, Yue Yuan and the two bodyguards joined Zhu Pite at the boarding gate of the aerospace plane that was ready.

The shape of an aerospace plane is similar to that of an airplane, but in order to reduce launch resistance, the wings are set to a swept-back folding type. When launching, the wings retract like cicada wings.

In order to match the orbital mass accelerator, an electromagnetic base is installed in the belly of the aerospace aircraft, and the wheels used for landing are now retracted in the belly.

The aerospace plane, which is fixed on the electromagnetic track before taking off, looks like it is semi-encircling the track from the outside, as if it is penetrated by the track from the bottom and is gliding steadily on it.

Yue Yuan took the boarding pass issued by Zhu Pi and stepped into the cabin.

Since I bought a first-class cabin, it was a little less noisy this time.

There are a total of eight seats in the first class cabin. When he stepped into the cabin, Yue Yuan found that the seats in other seats were already full. He glanced around and saw the remaining four passengers, two men and two women. He could tell from their sparse conversations that they were related. It's a couple and a couple.

The man in the couple has a slicked back hair, and the bridge of his nose between his eyes is somewhat sunken. He should be wearing glasses, but he has taken them off.

Yue Yuan knew that the reason was that aerospace aircraft regulations did not allow passengers to wear glasses from startup to space. This was for the sake of passenger safety.

The man took off his glasses early, presumably because he is a stickler for rules.

Judging from the woman's exquisite dress and the topics of conversation, this couple should be businessmen.

As for the younger couple, the man's black hair is slightly curly, his black eyes are set in deep-set eye sockets, his facial features are three-dimensional, and he looks European, most likely Italian. The couple has long, straight black hair, big watery eyes, typical Asian faces, and speaks pure Chinese. They should be Chinese.

To be honest, this era is not interested in worshiping foreigners, but the other way around, so it feels a bit strange to see Yue Yuan paired up like this.

During his words, Yue Yuan vaguely heard the words "Artemis" and so on. He thought he was going to the Artemis base on the moon.

Since the development of the aerospace industry, humans have built many bases outside the earth. Therefore, in addition to scientific researchers, there are also many normal people living in the bases, working or traveling, and so on.

Because the Tiangong Space Station has become a transit station in this era, most space planes that go to space go to the moon or Mars.

Yue Yuan and the other four people didn't say much. They just nodded politely and took their places.

After a while, a flight introduction announcement sounded in the cabin: "Dear passengers, hello everyone, welcome to this space flight. I am your captain. Now, I will introduce the information of this flight to you. .”

"The general number of this flight is: Shenzhou KT666, the departure time is 16:30 BJ time, the destination is Tiangong Space Station, the estimated electromagnetic orbit on-orbit acceleration time is 102 seconds, and the aerospace aircraft engine boost acceleration part is 190 seconds , the orbital intersection and docking time is 3 hours and 40 hours.”

Like cargo, the manned orbit also requires the fuel of the spacecraft itself. The reason is that after leaving the acceleration orbit of about 300 kilometers in length, although the speed is already very fast, the spacecraft itself is still in the atmosphere, and the spacecraft itself must be used. Fuel boosting continues to push, otherwise the spacecraft will stall and crash to the ground due to resistance problems.

Of course, it would be good if the manned spacecraft was accelerated beyond the first cosmic speed while it was still in orbit, but in this case, the orbit length would need to be longer. If the acceleration does not exceed 6 G, it is estimated that the total length must reach 600 kilometers.

Therefore, it can be roughly calculated from the data introduced on this flight that the aerospace aircraft is accelerated to about 6 kilometers per second on the orbit, and then boosted by the fuel of the aerospace aircraft itself, it completes the acceleration from 6 kilometers per second to the same speed. Accelerating to 7.9 kilometers per second, this process takes 190 seconds.

During these 190 seconds, the aerospace plane will arc across the sky above the Earth, passing 2,223 kilometers before entering the predetermined orbit for docking with the Tiangong Space Station.

What follows is three hours and 40 minutes of attitude adjustment, orbit docking and other actions.

This is where the shortcomings of the orbital mass accelerator can be seen.

Therefore, the best solution for carrying people into space on a large scale is actually a space elevator. However, humans currently do not have the materials to support the construction of space elevators. They can only settle for the second best and choose orbital quality that meets the standards in terms of construction technology and material conditions. accelerator.

If it is only used for freight, the orbital mass accelerator is not bad. However, despite the shortcomings, it is many times better than traditional chemical rocket propulsion.

Large-scale space construction relies on it.