The good news came one after another, which made Tang Feng, who was still thinking about the food problem, smile happily. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The first good news is that after more than two years of construction, the five space elevators have finally successfully extended the space terminal to a geosynchronous orbit 36,000 kilometers from the earth.

At this time, after more than two years of "expansion", the "Prince Barnett", which was originally in a 400-kilometer low-earth orbit as the intermediate support point of the space elevator, has also become a behemoth at this time.

Two years and two months ago, when the decision to start construction of the space elevator program began, Prince Barnett, who had just returned from Mars, was designated as an intermediate station for the construction of the space elevator. So for more than two years, Prince Barnett has been staying in low-earth orbit 400 kilometers above the surface, acting as an intermediate station for the construction of the space elevator.

Because three space elevators will be built at the same time in the Tinder plan, and at the suggestion of Tang Feng, the Star Exploration Company will also build two space elevators for the construction of super plasma thrusters, so there are a total of five space elevators appearing in space.

With the original length of 147 meters, the Prince Barnett can barely cope with the intermediate station of two space elevators at the same time, but the length and width of the Prince Barnett are far from enough if it is the intermediate station of three or more space elevators.

Anyway, in Tang's plan, Prince Barnett will eventually need to be expanded into a large Martian manned transport spacecraft, so Tang Feng asked Star Exploration Company to expand Prince Barnett at the same time when the space elevator plan began to be implemented.

Because Prince Barnett is in low-Earth orbit, there are few restrictions on the launch time window for the launch vehicle, so two years ago, the Princess Belle Space Center launched the Starry Heavy launch vehicle almost every three days on average.

To this end, Rockwell International, which has been working closely with the Star Exploration Company, is also working at full capacity, and several major factories have started to build the "Starry Sky" heavy-lift launch vehicle for the Star Exploration Company at the same time.

At most, the Princess Belle Space Center will have 10 "Starsky" heavy-lift launch vehicles with different serial numbers taking off and landing in a month.

It is precisely because of the continuous flow of supplies for the Prince Barnett that the Prince Barnett has expanded into a large spacecraft that can act as an intermediate station for five space elevators in just six months.

Transporting materials to the Earth's near-earth orbit is not as difficult as transporting materials to the geosynchronous transfer orbit, especially the "Starry" heavy-lift launch vehicle has been continuously improved and upgraded in recent years, and now the low-earth orbit capacity of the "Star" heavy-lift launch vehicle, that is, the LEO transport capacity has increased from 135 tons to 158 tons now, and its GTO capacity has also increased from 21 tons a few years ago to 28 tons.

In other words, during the busiest period of the Princess Belle Island Space Center, the "Star" heavy launch vehicle delivered a total of more than 23,000 tons of dry weight to the Prince Barnett in half a year.

Of course, these materials are mainly based on expansion modules and reinforcements, because the main function of Prince Barnett in the near future is to assume the role of five space elevator intermediate stations at the same time, so it is necessary to reinforce the Prince Barnett and the part of the spacecraft that has been expanded, otherwise, with the strength of the spacecraft itself, it is impossible to assume the function of five space elevator intermediate stations at the same time.

Up to now, the Prince Barnett, which has been serving as an intermediate station, has become a behemoth with a length of more than 800 meters and a width of more than 100 meters......

However, this change also has a great effect, at least, relying on the Prince Barnett, the space terminal of the five space elevators was finally built to the predetermined orbit, and the successful construction of these five space elevators also played a role in laying the foundation for human beings to really begin to colonize alien planets.

It is very difficult to build a space elevator, but if there is no space elevator, then human beings will have to wait at least ten or even twenty years to immigrate to alien planets.

And now, what Tang Feng can't afford the most is time, so he didn't hesitate to turn the originally "slender" Prince Barnett into what it is today.

However, the change of the Prince Barnett is not useless, at least after two years of continuous expansion, if the super plasma thruster is successfully built and installed on the Prince Barnett, then this greatly changed spacecraft will become a large spacecraft with a capacity of at least 1,000 people.

In other words, in more than two years, Prince Barnett, which was originally able to carry only 12 people to Mars, can now send 1,000 people to Mars at one time. The most important thing is that this spacecraft belongs completely to Star Exploration in that sense.

And with the arrival of the second good news, the Prince Barnett, which has always served as an intermediate station, can be completely liberated and send the 1,000 elites selected by Tang Feng to Mars two and a half years in advance.

Originally, according to the space elevator construction plan, when the space terminal of the space elevator extends to a geosynchronous orbit of 36,000 kilometers, it is the day when the three large manned spacecraft construction platforms are built. Then, two years later, the three large spacecraft will be successfully assembled, and in the fifth year after the launch of the "Tinder Project", the first batch of 12,000 people will be relocated to Mars. Then, in the next five years, the Earth will rely on these three large manned spacecraft to transport 120,000 people to Mars.

And the initial foundation for that platform was the Prince Barnett, which completed the intermediate station mission. In other words, after completing the intermediate station mission, the Prince Barnett will change its orbit to geosynchronous orbit and continue to serve as the foundation for the construction of the platform.

Prince Barnett, who once made great achievements for the landing of the earth on Mars, has completely become a bitter in the "Tinder Project". The forced bricks are really moved where they need to be moved......

However, with an asteroid with a maximum diameter of 1.1 kilometers, successfully transported from the asteroid belt to geosynchronous orbit by Star Exploration Company, the Prince Barnett was completely liberated!

PS: I'm going out early tomorrow morning, so I'll send these two chapters first...... (To be continued.) )