The joint meeting, initiated by Stark, lasted all day, with a second temporary break at about 8 p.m. for the attendees to have dinner.

In the past three days, scientists have collected enough evidence to make a relatively clear judgment on the situation.

At around 4 a.m., the 2014X1 asteroid stopped accelerating, with a final velocity of 333 kilometers per second. If the speed of the asteroid does not change again, and according to Luo Jinyong's judgment, it begins to slow down at a distance of 20 million kilometers from the earth, and the arrival time is about 7 o'clock in the morning of September 1. Due to the way the asteroid decelerates, this prediction time has an error of plus or minus 12 hours.

It's August 4, and there are still 28 days to go.

Perhaps, it will be the last twenty-eight days of human civilization!

To this end, Stark convened a meeting of the Chiefs of General Staff, to which ten chief scientific advisers were invited, and ten commissioners were also allowed to observe.

During the day, the focus was on the "Operation Courage" project.

Because in addition to the "soft landing" that Luo Jinyong has always insisted on, the 2014X1 asteroid descends on the earth in any other way, and human civilization will perish, and there is no chance to resist, so the ten chiefs of general staff did not bother to discuss other possibilities.

As long as Luo Jinyong's prediction comes true, "Operation Courage" will be the first battle of humanity to resist the invasion of extraterrestrial civilizations.

According to the results of the simulation proposed by Luo Jinyong, before the early morning of 28 August, it is necessary to start the launch procedure of super-nuclear warheads to ensure that within three days, all super-nuclear warheads will reach the depths of the universe 1.2 million kilometers above the earth and intercept objects ejected by asteroids when they are decelerating. For an object with a mass of about one million tons, the shortest interception distance cannot be less than one million kilometers. Only at this distance can it be ensured that the object will avoid the Earth after being hit by a super-nuclear warhead. If the interception is less than one million kilometers, in addition to not having enough distance to accumulate the offset, there is a possibility that the object will hit the Earth after being captured by the Earth's gravitational field.

Although the minimum interception distance will be shortened if the mass of the object is less than one million tons, the first interception at a greater distance means that there is a chance of another interception.

The launch time proposed by Luo Jinyong was unanimously supported at the meeting of the chiefs of general staff.

If it weren't for the preparation of more super-nuclear warheads, the ten chiefs of the General Staff would prefer to advance the launch by a few days in order to be able to deal with the uneventuality.

By midnight on 28 August, 1,128 super-nuclear warheads will be in readiness.

These super-nuclear warheads are manufactured according to uniform standards, and each super-nuclear warhead has a separate carrier, of which 30 percent is deployed on the International Space Station, 20 percent on the Tiangong space station, and the other 50 percent is deployed in groups of 12 unmanned space stations in sun-synchronous orbit.

The unmanned space stations are all in sun-synchronous orbit, mainly for the sake of secrecy, that is, it is difficult for civilian astronomy enthusiasts to discover these huge space stations.

Launching a super-nuclear warhead from low-Earth orbit to sun-synchronous orbit and bringing it to a second cosmic velocity requires much less propulsion energy than launching it from the ground. In addition, launching thousands of super-nuclear warheads on the ground at the same time is not only impossible to keep secret, but also unrealistic. The ten member states of the Planetary Defense Council have only thirteen space centers and can launch up to more than two dozen rockets at the same time.

As a result of these realities, the Council for Planetary Defense launched the "Operation Courage" project two years ago.

It's just that, at the very beginning, the purpose of the project was not to intercept objects ejected by the asteroid during the deceleration phase, but to directly bombard the asteroid with a super-nuclear warhead.

At that time, almost everyone believed that 2014X1 was not an asteroid, but a spacecraft of an extraterrestrial civilization.

To this end, the Planetary Defense Council launched the "Operation Courage" project, which began to develop two super-nuclear warheads, as well as delivery vehicles.

About a year ago, after having stronger means of observation, Luo Jinyong took the lead in proposing that 2014X1 is at least an asteroid in general, even if it is controlled by extraterrestrial civilizations, and the spacecraft of extraterrestrial civilizations is inside the star, it is difficult to destroy it with nuclear warheads.

This discovery made Luo Jinyong firm in the idea that the asteroid will "soft land" on Earth.

However, this discovery also divided the "Courage Action" project into two, namely Plan A and Plan B.

Because it adheres to the "impact hypothesis," the United States believes that it is necessary to destroy asteroids and extraterrestrial spacecraft inside stars, and advocates the development of nuclear warheads with a yield of up to 2 billion tons. At that time, the US military proposed to first use a 200-million-ton nuclear warhead to blast a channel on the surface of the asteroid, and then let the 2-billion-ton nuclear warhead explode at the center of the asteroid, so as to achieve the goal of destroying the asteroid and the spacecraft of extraterrestrial civilizations at the same time.

This may seem like a clever solution, but it's actually self-defeating.

First of all, the interception distance must be far enough, otherwise the debris generated by the asteroid's explosion will also hit the Earth. Because the mass of an asteroid is as high as 50 billion tons, the probability of an explosion forming debris with a mass of more than 1 million tons and hitting the Earth is very high. According to simulation calculations, if a 2-billion-ton nuclear warhead explodes inside an asteroid, there is a 50 percent chance that the asteroid will be split in two, and the mass of both parts will be more than 20 billion tons, and the probability of one of them hitting the earth will not be less than 50 percent.

How far is it far enough?

According to the ideal result: 50% of the energy released by the two billion nuclear warheads is converted into kinetic energy, and the asteroid will split into two after the explosion, and accelerate and decelerate respectively, changing the speed and thus changing the time it will reach the Earth's orbit, so that the two parts of the asteroid will pass in front of and behind the Earth respectively, instead of hitting the Earth, and the interception distance must reach at least 15 million kilometers!

This is a result that would only be produced under ideal circumstances. For example, after a nuclear warhead explodes, it will certainly not be able to convert 50% of its energy into kinetic energy.

Even so, it greatly exceeds the scientific and technological strength of human beings.

Not to mention sending thousands of 200-million-ton nuclear warheads weighing 2.2 tons to 1,500 kilometers away and hitting the same part of an asteroid in turn by remote control, even if a 2-billion-ton nuclear warhead with a design mass of 12 tons is sent 15 million kilometers away.

Accelerating a 12-ton payload to the second cosmic velocity, even if launched from low-earth orbit, the mass of the launch vehicle is more than 3,000 tons. Perhaps, building a 3,000-ton launch vehicle and assembling it in low-earth orbit can barely be done with the scientific and technological strength of mankind. The point is that the ideal point of impact is in the middle of the asteroid, which is the edge of the mass balance plane, so the warhead needs to reach the speed of the asteroid before impact. Even if the asteroid does not accelerate, it is still 113 kilometers per second, and the scientific and technological strength of mankind cannot raise the 12-ton nuclear warhead to this speed, even if it is a 2.2-ton 200-million-ton nuclear warhead, it is impossible!

The second is that even if the previous difficulties are solved, the asteroid will produce a large number of massive debris after exploding, and some of the debris will not change significantly after colliding with each other, so a large part of the debris will definitely hit the Earth. If you run out of super-nuclear warheads to intercept asteroids, what will you do against these asteroid fragments, which can also lead to human extinction?

In the face of the scientific advisory board's questioning and the joint opposition of China and Russia, the United States had to shelve the defense plan codenamed B.

It's just that the United States has a lot of money.

In the year that followed, the United States insisted on developing a two-billion-ton nuclear warhead, bypassing the Planetary Defense Council, and declared that it was the best line of defense to defend human civilization.

Although the purpose of the United States' action alone can be said to be Sima Zhao's heart, China and Russia have no reason to oppose it.

The United States is a nuclear power and has the right to develop nuclear weapons, and the United States has funded it alone, without using the funds of the Planetary Defense Council.

It's just that the scientific research resources spent on the "Operation Courage" project have slowed down the development of the United States.

Interestingly, in opposition to the implementation of Plan B, Russia also launched work on the development of a two-billion-ton nuclear warhead, and invested more than the United States.

Scheme A became dominant, and the core purpose was to intercept the objects ejected by the asteroid during the deceleration phase.

It is for this reason that a year ago, the Planetary Defense Council formally approved a defense plan for the deployment of super-nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles in low-Earth orbit and sun-synchronous orbit.

The question is, who will control and use these nuclear warheads?

Although the Planetary Defense Council is a single entity, the ten member states are not unified under a single government, and the contradictions between the member states are very acute.

The United States believes that the right to control and use nuclear warheads should be allocated by voting rights, while China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France are all opposed to allowing non-nuclear powers to have this power.

This problem has not been solved.

It was this question that was most hotly debated during the day's meetings.

Although Stark persuaded Stockton and the French chief of the General Staff, General Reynaud, softened his attitude, Yang Fanglie and Sergeyev were uncompromising. At the height of the controversy, both Yang Fanglie and Sergeyev proposed to withdraw from the Planetary Defense Council.

Of course, the two didn't have to withdraw, because they could veto any proposal.

Stark had to make concessions and distribute control and use of super-warheads among the five nuclear powers on the basis of voting rights.

On the grounds that the U.S. military has the most advanced technical equipment, Stark demanded a 10 percent increase in the right to use it.

This means that China, Russia, Britain, and France will only receive a share equal to the voting rights, while the United States will gain 70 percent of the control and use rights.

Yang Fanglie did not object to this proposal, after all, the US military's technical superiority was there.

It's just that Sergeyev refused to agree anyway. In order to avoid the fatal consequences of Russia's withdrawal from the Planetary Defense Council because of the lack of support, Yang Fanglie could only support Sergeyev, saying that the 60% authority that the United States originally had was large enough.

The argument continued into the evening, and with the mediation of the other three chiefs of the General Staff, Stark and Sergeyev each gave in.

The United States and Russia each have 10 percent of the authority, the United States has 65 percent, and Russia has 10 percent.

The next thing is relatively simple, mainly to allocate the control and use rights of super-nuclear warheads.

The United States is responsible for all nuclear warheads on the International Space Station and three unmanned space stations, and is jointly responsible for one unmanned space station with Britain and France. On this basis, Britain and France are each responsible for a nuclear warhead on an unmanned space station. Russia is responsible for all the remaining nuclear warheads on the unmanned space station, as well as a quarter of the nuclear warheads on the Tiangong space, while China is responsible for three-quarters of the nuclear warheads on the Tiangong space.

In addition, each of the five nuclear powers will have a ground command center.

Because according to the prediction given by Luo Jinyong, when intercepting the asteroid ejection object, Diego Garcia is the most likely to face the asteroid among the five military bases managed by the Planetary Defense Council, so the joint command of the interception operation is located in Diego Garcia.

In accordance with the resolution adopted by the Council of Chiefs of General Staff, in the next 28 days, the United States, Russia, China, and Europe will each launch three special communications satellites to be responsible for the communications and liaison work of "Operation Courage." In addition, a backup communications system with submarine communication fiber as the core will be established.

After these matters were discussed, Stark announced a second temporary adjournment.

Since it is almost certain when the "Judgment Day" will come, the issue of the abolition of other scientific research projects and defense plans will be discussed in the evening.

The most critical is the "Doomsday Force" project.

Regarding the importance of the Doomsday Force, everyone is tacitly aware. If human civilization is really going to perish, all projects and plans will be in vain. As long as human civilization has a future, it will play a decisive role in determining the future of each country and nation, and it will be the Doomsday Force project.

The evening meeting must have been noisy about it.

Luo Jinyong only spent ten minutes eating dinner, and then went to find Zhang Xiaogang. It's just that Zhang Xiaogang is not in the office. After learning that he was called away by American Commissioner Smith, Luo Jinyong returned to the scientific research center. Like Mr. Zhang, he has an office of his own.