Lop Nur is China's first nuclear testing base, and before China signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Ban Convention, it undertook a large number of nuclear testing tasks. For decades, the Lop Nur nuclear test site was a military exclusion zone. Although China disclosed the exact location of the Lop Nur test site more than a decade ago, it was never made available to the outside world, and only a small fraction of the test sites were made public.

This nuclear test base is bigger than many people imagined.

The scientific research base is located in the northwest of the nuclear test base, and uses an underground nuclear explosion test facility that was excavated before the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Ban Convention but did not have time to use. After two years of renovation and expansion, the facility, which was originally planned to conduct China's first 10-million-ton underground nuclear explosion test, has been transformed into an underground facility complex that can accommodate thousands of scientific researchers and technical staff and has the ability to operate independently.

After the transport plane landed at the field airfield, the two men flew by helicopter for more than an hour before arriving at the scientific research center.

After seeing off the guests, the helicopter immediately flew away, and the greeting personnel immediately took Zhang Xiaogang and Chu Tianjiang into the tunnel without staying on the ground.

When entering the tunnel, Zhang Xiaogang glanced at his watch.

"Reconnaissance satellites overhead?" Chu Tianjiang asked.

"In the past two years, we have launched more than 10 reconnaissance satellites under various pretexts, and the United States is four times as large as ours, with more than 100 reconnaissance satellites operating in orbit, and almost every five minutes, a reconnaissance satellite passes over Lop Nur." Zhang Xiaogang smiled and said, "This is a necessary means of prevention and supervision, but it is just a foot high and a magic high, no matter how strong the prevention measures are, there are loopholes to be drilled." ”

"So, we can't spy on secret U.S. military bases either?" Chu Tianjiang followed Zhang Xiaogang into the elevator.

"It's just pretentious, you can always cause some trouble for the Yankees, just like we do."

The elevator began to descend, and it took a few minutes before it stopped, and Chu Tianjiang estimated that it was a few hundred meters above the ground. Outside the elevator is an extremely wide tunnel for two off-road vehicles to pass side by side. The greeting staff drove a battery car that could seat ten people, and Chu Tianjiang followed Zhang Xiaogang into the car.

"How big is this?"

"It's bigger than you think."

When the battery car entered the first central hall, Chu Tianjiang's attention was diverted.

It is an oval hall equivalent to a standard athletic field, with a dome height of more than fifty meters, a white light source composed of hundreds of xenon headlights in the center, hundreds of pillars about five meters in diameter supporting the dome, and a room separated by wall panels without a roof below. Most of the rooms are about 20 square meters in size, some are slightly larger, and the smallest is 10 square meters.

Chu Tianjiang saw that there were two or three scientific researchers in white coats in most of the rooms.

Around the hall, there are two spiral lanes that can be used for electric bottle trucks, which are the down and up lanes. At the bottom end of each of the two lanes, there is a stop sign that looks like a bus stop. There is no carriageway in the hall, so people can only get on and off the train on the platform.

The battery car came to the bottom of the hall, made a quarter of a circle, and entered the tunnel again.

This is an upward tunnel, and the battery car travels for about five minutes to enter the second central hall.

The size of the hall is similar to the previous one, except that the light sources are scattered around the dome, and it is divided into three floors, each of which is divided into dozens of large rooms with wall panels, four freight elevators between the three floors, and four spiral lanes.

Most of the people who work here are technicians in blue uniforms.

Obviously, this is the center of production.

Shortly after re-entering the tunnel, the battery car passed a three-way intersection and headed to the right.

"Where does that lead?"

"Nuclear material refinery."

"What about this side?"

"Launch Vehicle Launch Center."

"That's what started to pass by ......"

"Super-nuclear warhead production workshop and launch vehicle production assembly workshop."

At this time, Chu Tianjiang discovered that the third tunnel was much larger than the previous two, and it was circular, with a diameter of about fifteen meters. The driveway is made of steel plates, reinforced with steel plates on all sides, with double-strand annular stiffeners every 10 meters and slings installed on them.

"When transporting the largest components of a launch vehicle, the lanes will be removed and transported on pulleys."

"So, the launch vehicle is huge?"

Zhang Xiaogang smiled and did not answer the question, because the battery car was about to drive out of the tunnel, and in front of it was the launch vehicle launch center.

When the battery car stopped and saw the carrier rocket standing in front of him, Chu Tianjiang only hated that he was too short.

Even a giant with a height of more than two meters is as small as an ant at a person's feet in front of a huge launch vehicle, and perhaps not even as an ant.

"We are now at the bottom of the launch vehicle, and when the launch vehicle is launched, the five fire gates in the tunnel that are two meters thick will be closed, and then these decompression gates to the ground will all be opened." Zhang Xiaogang pointed around, and along the bottom of the silo with a diameter of fifty meters, there were dozens of decompression doors. "Even so, you don't want to stay here while the rocket is launched. Rest assured, you won't get burned to death. Before you get burned to death, the tremendous pressure will crush you into a patty, and then the heat will turn you into a charred briquette. ”

Chu Tianjiang didn't pay attention to Zhang Xiaogang's words at all, his attention was focused on the huge rocket.

The first stage of the rocket has a gap of about five meters from the silos, which also means that it has a diameter of forty meters. The six bundled boosters have the same diameter as the core stage, all of which are more than thirteen meters. It's just that the booster is very huge, and when you look up, you can't see the top at all.

According to Chu Tianjiang's understanding, there is at least a second level above.

If the load, including the orbital rocket, is to be accelerated to the second cosmic velocity, then at the top, there must be a third stage.

How long is this thing?

Probably guessing Chu Tianjiang's thoughts, Zhang Xiaogang nodded to the accompanying scientific researchers and asked him to turn on the lighting system in the silos.

The lighting system is installed on the inner walls of the silo in a ring shape, with twenty xenon headlights per circle and a twenty-meter interval between two adjacent circles. When the topmost lighting system was turned on, even with Chu Tianjiang's eyesight, he could barely distinguish the two xenon headlights next to each other.

"How tall?" Chu Tianjiang was very surprised.

"How deep it should be." Zhang Xiaogang took out a cigarette, but before he could react, he was taken away by the scientific researchers next to him, and then the lighter was also confiscated. "Where we are now, the ground is about five hundred and fifty meters. Counting the decompression zone buried below, the total depth is close to six hundred meters. ”

"It must have taken a lot of effort to build the silos, right?"

"It's not big, our ancestors laid the foundation for us, we just stood on the shoulders of giants and picked the fruit at the top of the big tree."

"This ......"

"Half a century ago, this base existed. At that time, the slogan was 'dig deep holes, accumulate grain, and slowly become kings', and the military and civilians of the whole country, in addition to their daily work and life, all they wanted to do was to fight big battles and fight ruthless battles. This base can be said to be a typical representative of that era. In the beginning, it was planned to be used to store food and garrison troops, and fight to the death against a strong enemy from the north. With the development of two bombs and one satellite, China has transformed it into a nuclear and missile weapons base integrating development, production, and storage. At the end of the 70s of the last century, there were tens of thousands of soldiers, scientists and workers here. Later, for the sake of economic development, the investment in national defense gradually decreased, and the personnel size of the base began to shrink. Prior to the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Ban Convention, China had planned to conduct the last underground nuclear test here. Fortunately, the Gulf War of that year caused a frenzy of high-tech warfare, and then the disintegration of the Red Empire, the possibility of a nuclear war was greatly reduced, and the mass of nuclear weapons replaced the yield. ”

"How big is the launch vehicle?"

Zhang Xiaogang smiled and left the opportunity to introduce the situation to Chu Tianjiang to the scientific researchers.

"Counting the unassembled payload module, the total height is 220 meters, which is almost twice as large as the Saturn 5 launch vehicle used by the United States in the Apollo manned lunar landing program. Due to the large use of light alloys, supercavitation solid materials and special composite materials, the total mass of the rocket after refueling is 8,700 tons, and the payload after the third stage is 250 tons. ”

"So, this rocket is the equivalent of a Type 052D destroyer?"

The researcher smiled and said, "To be exact, it's a little bigger." The Type 052D destroyer has a full load displacement of only eight thousand two hundred tons. ”

"Boy, I'm going to launch such a big guy out of the ......"

"The first stage is bundled with six booster rockets, using the same hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine as the core stage, with a single thrust of 15,000 kN and a total thrust of 105,000 kN. The second stage is bundled with three rocket engines of the same type, with a total thrust of 47,500 kN. The third stage has only one rocket engine of the same type with a thrust of 17,000 kN. After the third stage falls off, the payload will reach the second cosmic velocity. ”

"Wait......" Chu Tianjiang thought of something. With such a large rocket and a silo so small, it is impossible to assemble it on the ground and put it into the silos, right? ”

The researcher said with a smile: "Unlike other launch vehicles, the 'magic arrow' is assembled from top to bottom. ”

Chu Tianjiang understood, he really didn't think of this method.

"Now, we have three 'magic arrows' ready to be launched, and the fourth is in the process of system debugging, and it is expected to be ready for launch within half a month."

"And three?"

The scientist nodded and said, "This is the fourth, and the other three are in front." To facilitate assembly, we started with the farthest silo. ”

It's a very clever way to do it.

"Alright, let's go see 'Crazy Ivan'."

"Nuclear warheads?"

Zhang Xiaogang nodded and took the lead in getting into the car.

The battery car turned around and returned to the second central hall along the tunnel. Then, everyone took the freight elevator to the lowest floor.

After passing through three checkpoints guarded by armed guards and requiring the presentation of ID cards, the group arrived at the nuclear warhead warehouse.

"The three nuclear warheads here have all been tested, and the fourth is in the decompression room, which is being assembled after the most intensive work, and it may take 20 days to complete."

"Can't speed it up?" Zhang Xiaogang asked.

"It's already the fastest speed. To be sure, every job has to be done accurately. If something goes wrong, no one can afford to take responsibility. ”