Chapter 12 Chapter 8 Super Fleet

Sir Lawrence was not a sentimental man, and he was too cosmopolitan to give full play to his patriotic sentiments, although during the Third Cultural Revolution, as a college student, he also enthusiastically rejected outmoded customs and ideas , But now, because the planetarium has re-added the data of the deceased Qian's spacecraft, his interest in the universe has been touched, and he has decided to invest more influence and energy in space. Not long ago, he used the weekend to travel to the moon and appointed his second youngest son Charles (the one born at a cost of 32 million yuan) as the vice president of Zong's Space Transportation Company.This new company has only two ramjet rockets that launch and land, use throw as fuel, and have an outer shell of less than one thousand tons. These two rockets will soon be scrapped, but Sir Lawrence believes that this can give Charles some experience, and in the future It will definitely come in handy within a decade of , because looking ahead, the space age is upon us.

Half a century after the Wright Brothers invented the airplane, cheap mass air transport has become humanity's vital means of communication; but it still takes twice as long to challenge the solar system. When Luis Alvarez and his group discovered particle-catalyzed nuclear fusion in the 1950s, it seemed like nothing more than a curious experiment with only reasonable interests.Just as the great Lortherton once regarded the power of the atomic bomb, Avarez himself doubted whether "cold nuclear fusion" was of substantial importance.In fact, human beings never expected to accidentally create a stable hydrogen meson "complex" in 2040, which opened a new page in human history, just as the discovery of neutrons opened the age of atomic energy.

With the development of science and technology, the shortcomings of traditional equipment have been overcome. Now, small and portable nuclear power plants that only need simple protective measures have been established very commonly. However, the impact of this small nuclear power plant on space tourism is very direct, because it It must be used in conjunction with the jet revolution that occurred in air transportation a hundred years ago. Because there is no longer a restriction on energy use, the spacecraft can travel between the stars at a higher speed; flying in the solar system is no longer measured by years and months, but now it can be calculated by weeks.But the meson drive is still a nuclear reaction device (it's a sophisticated rocket, basically similar to earlier chemical designs), and it needs efficient fluids to power it, and the cheapest and most common fluids are - pure water.

The space station in the Pacific Ocean seems to have an inexhaustible supply of water, but this is not the case on the moon at the next station. Explorers, Apollo and lunar survey spacecraft have not found any water on the moon.If the Moon ever had any native water, it must have been boiled and blasted into space by meteors and meteorites. Or as lunar scientists believe: Ever since Galileo pointed his first telescope at the moon, many contradictions have been found.Some mountains on the moon appear to be covered with a layer of snow-like things that emit a bright luster in the hours after dawn. William Hessel, the father of astronomy, also observed a very bright flash in the dark night on the moon, which made him think it was an active volcano.But he was wrong. In fact, what he saw was light from the earth, reflected on a thin, penetrable frost after three hundred hours of cold and dark.

The discovery of vast amounts of ice beneath the Sullot Valley (a canyon that winds outwards from Erystark Volcano) was a decisive factor in the economics of spaceflight, so that the Moon could be placed in the lowest position in the Earth's gravitational field. Fuel supplies are provided above the outer layer to facilitate longer interstellar voyages. The Comet is the first spaceship of Zong's fleet. Its main mission is to transport cargo and passengers between the earth, the moon and Mars. It is also an experimental means of transportation. After complicated negotiations with dozens of governments and non-governmental organizations, Comet is equipped with muon drives, which are still experimental.The Comet, built at Imbury's shipyard, had enough thrust to lift off from the Moon in no-load conditions, orbit-to-orbit, and no longer touch the surface of any world.

On the centenary of Sputnik: 4 October 2057, Sir Lawrence arranged for the maiden voyage of Comet. Two years later, the sister ship Yinhe also joined the fleet. The mission is to sail between the earth and Jupiter. It has enough thrust to fly to the mission satellite of Jupiter, but it must sacrifice a lot of gravity. If necessary, it can Return to its satellite relay for resupply.It is apparently the fastest vehicle ever built by man.When it accelerates at full speed, it can reach a speed of one thousand kilometers per second, so that it can fly from the earth to Jupiter in only one week, and it only takes 10,000 years to fly to the nearest galaxy.

The third spacecraft in the fleet, the Cosmos, is the most proud of Sir Lawrence. It has all the advantages of the two sisters, but it is not mainly used for transportation. It was originally designed as a The first regular flight to transport passengers between space lines, as far as Saturn, the most precious and beautiful planet in the solar system. Sir Lawrence had planned some surprises on Cosmos's maiden voyage, but an argument with the head of the construction alliance, Runa Tripter, delayed construction of the spacecraft, and thus its launch. maiden voyage.All that's left is just enough time for maiden voyage tests and Lloyd's deadline of 2060 to issue a release permit for Cosmos to leave Earth orbit and carry out its mission.

The time is running out: Halley's Comet will not be late, nor will it be late for Sir Lawrence.