Just like now, after Tang Feng threw out billions of dollars, Dr. Schmitz burned nearly two billion dollars in more than half a year, and finally made a breakthrough in ion electric propulsion technology.

If Tang Feng burned money so crazy before the breakthrough in this technology, others would definitely scoff at it, and maybe there would be someone who said cool things -, this guy is simply a loser

There are definitely not a few words like this, and Tang Feng can know this without thinking about it.

However, Tang Feng, Sam, Benjamin, Chris, and Andrew, the five young people who are not over thirty years old, don't care about this, especially Tang Feng, he used this kind of reckless investment, and finally got back a small return today.

The 920 mm diameter ion thruster, to be honest, is not very effective, and it is still a long way from allowing humans to rush out of the solar system in large spacecraft.

But this kind of return in exchange for this kind of investment, Tang Feng thinks it is still very worthwhile, at least this is a technological breakthrough. Perhaps because of such a breakthrough, mankind will reduce many technical obstacles when developing larger diameter ion thrusters in the future. This is the result that Tang Feng wants.

Of course, if you want to use this ion thruster to work, you also need an extremely critical condition, and that is the power supply!

Ion thrusters are also known as electric propulsion, and from the name it is clear that electricity is a key factor in making this engine work. Without a power source of sufficient power and duration, you can't make such an engine work properly even if you make the diameter of the ion thruster five meters.

The Dawn probe has flown to Ceres, an asteroid 270 million kilometers away from Earth, of course. The Dawn probe can fly so far, mostly relying on inertia to do its motion, but don't forget that before the Dawn probe flew to Ceres, it also carried out a close probe of Vesta, just changing orbits in the orbits of Vesta and Ceres. It takes a lot of energy.

The reason why the "Dawn" probe was able to complete so many orbit changes and successfully break away from the gravitational pull of Vesta and fly to Ceres, has a lot to do with the hand-held nuclear batteries on it. It is precisely because of the existence of those key nuclear batteries that the "Dawn", which uses ion electric propulsion technology as the propulsion power, can complete so many orbit change actions.

If you just count on the power provided by the two solar panels on the Dawn, you won't be able to make the ion thrusters work anyway.

Although the current solar technology is very powerful, and some solar panels even have a photoelectric conversion rate of more than 22%, it is absolutely impossible to rely on solar panels as the power source of ion thrusters. Unless your solar panels are big enough.

But no matter how big it is, how big can it be?

Those solar panels on the ISS are big enough, right? The entire space station has a total of 8 solar cell wings, containing 262,400 solar cells, with a flat area of 2,500 square meters, more than half a football field, but even such a large area of solar panels can only produce 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity.

Of course, the power required for ion thrusters is not that great. But even the Deep Space 1 probe used for the experiment back then was an ion thruster with a diameter of 304 millimeters and an engine core weighing only eight kilograms. The amount of electricity required is about 7 kilowatts. If it's the International Space Station, it's enough power for such a small ion thruster.

But in the same way, whether it is a space station or a large spacecraft in the Tang plan, there are many places to use electricity, not only for engines, but also for various other equipment and life-sustaining facilities. Therefore, if ion thrusters are to be used in large spacecraft, more efficient power sources are necessary.

Not to mention the fact that the newly developed ion thruster needs to maintain a magnetic field and consumes nearly 20 kilowatts, which is not a small number, if such an ion thruster is used on the space station. That means at least one-fifth of the electricity generated by the eight solar wings needs to be used for the engines

In other words, if solar panels were used as a power source, it would probably not be able to provide enough power for this new ion thruster.

But now, the name is Taylor. The appearance of Wilson's little guy undoubtedly provides a good solution to this dilemma. It's no wonder that Dr. Schmitz thinks so highly of this Taylor. Wilson. If this genius of nuclear physics can really turn the small nuclear reactor he invented into practical technology, then this small nuclear reactor can be used as the main power source on large spacecraft.

Even with Taylor. Wilson's first design, a nuclear reactor about the size of a boss desk and weighing only more than 600 kilograms, could be placed on a large spacecraft, and if such a nuclear reactor could be fueled by thorium, then only five tons of thorium on the spacecraft would be enough to support the reactor for decades!

The most important thing is that this small nuclear reactor can provide 50 megawatts of electricity, 1 megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts, and 50 megawatts is a full 50,000 kilowatts! In addition to providing sufficient power for the ion thruster, this can also provide sufficient power for other large spacecraft equipment that consumes a lot of power.

For example, the large spacecraft in the Tang plan needs to use artificial gravity

An International Space Station weighs more than 390 tons, and the large spacecraft in Tang's plan is no smaller than the International Space Station, or even larger. Because only a large enough spacecraft can support a longer range and send humans farther into the depths of space.

And once such a large spacecraft enters the construction program, the load capacity of such a large spacecraft will definitely exceed that of the International Space Station by several times or even dozens of times.

Obviously, Taylor. Wilson's appearance made Tang Feng see the possibility of implementing his plan. It is precisely because of this that Tang Feng agreed to Dr. Schmitz's application without hesitation.

Not to mention cooperating, if that genius was willing, Tang Feng wouldn't mind giving that genius a few percent of the shares of the Star Exploration Company.

This kind of genius is something that can be encountered but not sought, and since it has appeared, it must be caught! (To be continued.) )