Although reading and writing are called elevators, the base of this elevator is much wider than that of ordinary high-rise buildings. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info but even so, in this more than 30,000 kilometers of length, it also makes this vertically suspended elevator look slender like a noodle.

Riding on the warship of Star Ring Trade, Jiang Chen boarded the sea base station of the space elevator.

Not long after leaving the port, a group of people walked towards him.

"We made it!"

When Jiang Chen returned to reality and saw Kerrwin for the first time, this arrogant middle-aged old man, excited like a child, held his hand and didn't let go.

On the contrary, it was Jiang Chen, who seemed more stable. Compared with the excitement of witnessing the birth of the spectacle and the excitement of leaving a name for history, at this moment he felt more relief that his wish had been fulfilled and a sigh of relief for the distant future.

"Yes, we succeeded. ”

Letting go of Kerrwin's hand, Jiang Chen looked up at the space elevator, suddenly looked at the technical director standing next to Kerrwin, and asked.

"If I want to engrave a line of words on the bottom of a space elevator, what pen is better?"

The technical director was stunned for a moment, then said, "A laser welding gun will do." ”

"Get me a laser welding gun. ”

Although I don't know what the chairman is paying attention to, the technical director still glances at the engineer next to him. Soon, a laser welding gun weighing five or six catties was handed over to Jiang Chen. Jiang Chen took it and weighed it in his hand, and looked at Kerwin and the technical director standing next to him was amazed.

Being able to hold these five or six pounds of welding torch in one hand and play with it like this, the strength in the chairman's hand is much greater than it seems.

Walking to the side of the space elevator, Jiang Chen pressed the switch of the welding gun, and carved a line of boxy simplified Chinese characters on the titanium alloy shell of the base of the space elevator with the gun head that emitted a dazzling white light.

Taking two steps back, Jiang Chen looked at the line he had carved and nodded with satisfaction.

"I knew we could solve the next problem because we had solved all the problems that had arisen before. Kerrwin, who had already learned Chinese, frowned and read that sentence over the years, looked at Jiang Chen and asked, "Is there any deep meaning in this sentence?"

"It's nothing, it's just a souvenir. Jiang Chen smiled, turned off the power of the welding gun, and threw the welding gun back into the engineer's arms, "Let's go, take me to see the inside of the elevator." ”

Walking into the interior of the space elevator, Jiang Chen appreciated the whole picture of the entire space elevator orbit and its operation mechanism through the engineering holographic concept map displayed by Kerrwin. There are six passenger tracks in total, three of which go up and three down, and the cars change tracks when they arrive at the terminus.

Because of the one-way traffic design of the monorail, multiple cars traveling at the same speed can be run on one track at the same time. It is foreseeable that in the not-so-distant future, space activities are bound to be quite frequent. People will take the space elevator to outer space, even as easily as we do today by high-speed rail.

This design can also be regarded as a plan to take precautions for future rail congestion.

After the visit, Jiang Chen enjoyed lunch directly in the canteen of the offshore platform with the senior executives of the space launch center, including Kerwin. At the dinner table, Jiang Chen asked Kirwyn about the progress of the asteroid capture program.

"The work of landing and weaving the net is going very smoothly, but the progress of the orbit change is slower than expected," Kerrwin put down the fork in his hand and said with an embarrassed face, "Although the supercomputing center has accurately calculated the orbit of the asteroid, how to ensure the speed and orbit of the asteroid at the same time is still difficult with the current technical means." Every acceleration of the towing rocket is quite critical, and even a wrong step has to be recalculated. ”

"The Bennu asteroid doesn't have much time left for us, and after mid-January, the asteroid will be farther and farther away from us. If you want to catch it again, you'll have to wait six years. The project leader of the asteroid capture program, who was sitting next to Kerrwin, interjected.

There will be so many difficulties, and they are all expected by Jiang Chen. He can bring back technical materials far ahead of the times from the end times, but he can't help these scientists and technicians to digest these epoch-making technologies. Even in the 22nd century, asteroid mining is a cutting-edge discipline.

"Deploy explosives on the asteroid to ensure that if it suddenly gets out of control, we can at least blow it up outside the atmosphere. ”

"We're already doing it. "We have deployed 2.5 tons of t.nt equivalent explosives on the Bennu asteroid. If the orbit change is wrong, and the rocket thrusters don't have enough fuel left to escape the Earth's gravitational capture, we can detonate it into meteorite fragments as it approaches the escape layer. ”

After lunch, Jiang Chen arrived at the space launch center by boat with Kerrwin.

The launch site, which was originally used to launch rockets, has been vacant since the completion of the space elevator. The transport ship between the Earth and the Moon has been designed and is now in the experimental stage. At present, it is enough to send supplies to the lunar colony by directly sending the second-stage rocket of Ring-4 to a synchronous orbit through the space elevator, and then accelerating into the Earth-Moon transfer orbit.

By eliminating the need for a first-stage rocket and fuel to be sent to outer space, the cost of traveling to and from the moon has been cut by 60 percent. Transwarp Trade is studying the feasibility of expanding the size of the lunar colony, and if the plan is finally implemented, Transwarp Trade will send an additional 100 colonists to the moon.

Just as Jiang Chen finished inspecting the situation of the lunar colony base, a phone call came to his watch.

clicked on the watch and connected the phone, Xia Shiyu's voice immediately appeared in Jiang Chen's ears.

"Our guests arrived. ”

"Oh, is it a guest from China or Russia? or is it from Washington. Jiang Chen asked with a pleasant face.

"It's a guest from Huaguo. They have already disembarked from the airport in Koro, and the Minister of Commerce and Foreign Affairs of the new country have gone to meet them. The purpose of the other party is very clear, and they want to talk to us about the space elevator. ”

Jiang Chen clicked on the holographic screen and looked at the time, it was already more than five o'clock.

"Since they're coming from afar, let's let them rest for a day. By the way, did they contact where they live?"

"They've booked a room at the Hilton in the Heart of the Ocean and are on their way to the hotel. Xia Shiyu replied.

"So let's do it first. ”

After speaking, Jiang Chen hung up the phone and set his eyes on Kerrwin.

"Have fusion generator sets been sent to the lunar colony?"

"Yes, in the newly built power station, one of the nuclear fusion generators has already been put into operation, replacing solar energy to power the lunar colony. To meet the needs of the nuclear power plant, we need to build a heavy water plant to produce the deuterium needed for fusion reactions. ”

"There's no rush in advance, I need you to prepare a report to be delivered to me by tomorrow afternoon. ”

"Report, what report?" Kerwin looked at Jiang Chen in confusion.

"Regarding the cost of transportation for the space elevator, I need you and your team to make a precise assessment. We'll use it for tomorrow's negotiations. (To be continued.) )