Washington, D.C., North America.

In a large conference room, the country's most important figures from the White House, from the Department of Defense, from the CIA, and from NASA and the heads of major laboratories gathered.

Musk is also in the ranks of these people, and is in a more important position, he seems to be a little bored to play with the ballpoint pen in his hand, with a light flick of his thumb, the black ballpoint pen immediately spun quickly in the palm of his hand.

"Musk, what do you think about the space elevator?" The old man in the general's uniform asked curiously, he seemed to be attending the meeting on behalf of the Ministry of Defense.

Musk frowned, then stood up, walked to the front of the conference room, where the big screen was, pointed to the zero space station in the picture and said: "My opinion is very simple, those Chinese people, they have succeeded, so far, Xingchen Technology's space elevator program has overcome all obstacles and moved forward steadily." ”

"Someone just mentioned the problem of tensile force, thinking that each nanotube line weighs 360 tons, which completely exceeds the tensile force of Station Zero, and as the construction progresses, more and more nanotubes will eventually pull the space station from the synchronous orbit into the atmosphere, resulting in a crash."

"I disagree with this speculation, the weight of the elevator is indeed large, but Station Zero is like a counterweight for a space elevator, always building and expanding, providing stronger and stronger pulling force."

Boom~

Musk pulled over a whiteboard and began to write quickly, bringing a series of parameters such as the self-weight of Station Zero, the speed of the earth's rotation, the length and weight of the nanotubes, and so on into the formula, and finally got a number of 1.6679.

"You see, the pulling force provided by Station Zero has always been maintained at 1.6 times the weight of the nanotube, and Xingchen Technology has left enough safety redundancy, in my opinion, they are not radical, even very conservative, and always put safety in the first place of the space elevator."

Mathematics does not lie, Musk's calculations undoubtedly formalized the safety of the space elevator, and at the same time, this well-known genius in North America also showed a strong mathematical foundation, he did not use tools, and mentally calculated the rally redundancy of the space elevator.

There was a sigh in the conference room, and everyone was speechless for a long time, but to this day, they still can't believe that a space elevator that creates a miracle is on top of their heads, and the Chinese people who built the elevator, just a few decades ago, they were still poor and couldn't eat enough.

However, in the blink of an eye, Dick Si counterattacked, and the Chinese people were in the field of space, crushing the invincible North American and Western civilizations with a devastating momentum, which made people embarrassed.

Special Presidential Envoy Mitterrand nodded slightly: "The White House doesn't want to delve into the fact that it has been established, but Mr. President wants to know that the elevator of Xingchen Technology will be completed in February next year, what can we do to surpass those Chinese people?" ”

Overtake?

Now the conference room is even more silent, the elites from the scientific community secretly slander themselves, the president is really a layman who doesn't know anything, according to the current situation, it would be good to be able to maintain the advantage of Starlink in low earth orbit, as for synchronous orbit and outer space, North America has no strength to fight at all.

Seeing that everyone didn't speak, a sad emotion surged up from Mitterrand's heart, thinking that at the beginning, NASA was alone in the world, and Armstrong successfully landed on the moon, shocking the world and attracting the attention of the world, what a scenery and what a courage it was.

In the blink of an eye, the smoke disappeared, and the news that the space elevator was about to be built was obtained, and many countries, including some allies in North America, lined up to visit Huaxia to get a piece of the pie in future space development.

Compared with the small earth, the fool also knows that the future of mankind can only be in the distant sea of stars, and Huaxia is the only existence that can provide tickets to the sea of stars.

"We still have a chance, in the field of controlled fusion." Dr. Shurakel said in a deep voice: "At present, we have multiple laboratories that are investing in research on controlled fusion at any cost, and once we succeed, whether it is Star Technology's Carmen vortex power generation technology or their space elevator, we will be overtaken by our Jedi." ”

Everyone nodded slightly, North America has invested a lot in controlled fusion research, and the famous Los Laboratory, Oak Ridge Laboratory, Argonne Laboratory, etc., all have fusion research teams.

Musk smiled and said: "Nuclear fusion is indeed an opportunity, although the Kármán vortex power generation array of Xingchen Technology is strong, it cannot be applied outside the earth, and the spacecraft with fusion reactors and super ion thrusters can theoretically take off and land vertically between the earth and space, so that the significance of Huaxia having a space elevator is also negated." ”

"At present, the liquid oxygen methane engine used in the space vehicle is very cumbersome and consumes a huge amount of energy, if we want to develop Mars in the absence of fusion technology, we must build a permanent space station in the outer orbit of Mars, and then use the Mars spacecraft to carry out landing and disengagement operations, 60% of the mass of the spacecraft must be used to load fuel, such as ten tons of its own weight, of which six tons are used to load fuel, otherwise we will not be able to come back to Mars."

"Of course, we can also have the luxury of building the Martian spacecraft into two stages, and the landing stage will be abandoned after sending the spacecraft to the surface of Mars, and when we come back, we will only drive the upgrade, and because of the weight reduction, we can carry an extra ton or half a ton of materials."

"At the same time, we also have to build a large number of transport spacecraft to travel between the Earth space station and the Mars space station, even if there is a best window every two years, the distance between Mars and Earth is as long as 78 million kilometers, and the standard flight time is 609 days, considering that we can't always send spacecraft during the window, so the average time to travel to and from Mars will take four to five years."

"We must build at least twelve transport spacecraft, because the people who stay on Mars have to consume materials every moment, and the journey from the earth to Mars is so long, assuming that we don't have enough transportation power, the construction team stationed in the Martian area will run out of ammunition, after all, we are not like Xingchen Technology, we do not master robotics, and we have to send a large number of human engineers to develop Mars."

"And if there is controlled fusion, the situation is completely different, equipped with controllable fusion of ultra-large spacecraft, a single weight can reach thousands of tons, or even tens of thousands of tons, with decades of self-sustaining ability, not to mention Mars, through the Ebola belt, flying out of the solar system is by no means impossible."

"So guys, do you understand? A spaceship equipped with controlled fusion, which will be as powerful as the Star Destroyers we have seen in Star Wars, and the small wrecked ship that uses liquid oxygen methane fuel will not be a species at all! ”

Musk talked eloquently, colonizing Mars is his lifelong dream, various designs and ideas have long been very mature, the long starry sky and countless risks and difficulties, through Musk's description in front of everyone, people can't help but sigh.

After a pause, Musk continued: "According to intelligence, Xingchen Technology has started fusion experiments in southwest China, and fortunately, they, like the brainless Germans, have chosen the stellar simulator scheme, which is expected to meet with huge resistance." ”

Hahaha~

There was a knowing smile on everyone's faces, if the stellar simulator could succeed, it would be a hell of a thing, except for the Germans with a tendon, no one has played this thing for a long time.

Mr. Mitterrand let out a cold snort and said in a deep voice: "It's rare that Xingchen Technology will also have a strategic miscalculation, since they are looking for their own death, we should seize the opportunity to give them a funeral." ”

In the end, these big names in the North American authorities unanimously decided to increase their investment in controlled fusion research, and invest more money in this field, as well as in all other areas that could compete with Xingchen Technology.

As everyone knows, North America's finances have long been unable to make ends meet, and the deficit caused by the increase in investment will be raised through the issuance of treasury bonds.

……

Chengdu, Southwest Branch of Xingchen Science and Technology Fusion Research Institute.

On the eve of the fusion experiment, there were many more people than expected, in addition to the bigwigs of the two houses, the military also sent a representative team, and the general's most trusted secretary Lu Junlin was also among them.

"The general has a special status, so it is inconvenient for him to appear here, but he asked me to tell you, be bold and do not have any worries, no matter when, the army is your solid backing." Lu Junlin said to Luo Jia.

Luo Jia doesn't know how many times I've heard this way, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the relationship between Xingchen Technology and the military is absolutely extraordinary, this probably belongs to the sympathy between tough guys, anyway, the two groups of people are just throwing their tempers, how to look at it and how pleasing to the eye.

The two walked into a classroom-like room hand in hand, due to the large number of people, they couldn't sit in the conference room, so the administration department arranged another big room for Luo Jia, and Luo Jia wanted to represent Xingchen Technology and respond to the questions of the bigwigs from all parties.

"Mr. Luo, when will the fusion experiment start?" An old man with glasses asked.

Luo Jia raised his wrist and glanced at the smart watch, "Specifically, there are still three hours and forty-five minutes, that is, at one o'clock in the morning tonight, we will conduct the first ignition of the double helix stellar fusion device on time, and at present, my colleague Dr. Xie Tian is undergoing final inspection and preparation." ”

"I heard that this time you not only abandoned the traditional tokamak in the fusion device and chose the stellarator, but also in terms of fusion matter, you also chose the deuterium-deuterium reaction?" An old man with a thick beard from the Academy of Engineering asked.

Hearing this, there was an uproar, most of the experts present understood that it was too difficult for deuterium (knife) and deuterium (knife) to react, and everyone usually used deuterium (knife) and tritium (Chuan) to react.

"Reacting with deuterium and deuterium? So awesome!? ”

"I heard you right, Xingchen Technology has mastered the deuterium-deuterium reaction technology?"

"It's a little incredible, don't worry, let me take a look..."

Seeing the surprised expressions of everyone in the audience, Luo Jia hurriedly explained with a smile: "Senior, I'm afraid that your source has misunderstood, first of all, I am indeed optimistic about deuterium-deuterium fusion, because deuterium is really cheap." ”

"Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen, the content of deuterium in seawater is very high, on average every 6420 hydrogen atoms, there is a deuterium atom, the total tonnage of seawater on the earth is about 1.4 times 10 to the 18th power, that is, 40 trillion tons of deuterium elements, without considering the energy conversion efficiency, so much deuterium, theoretically can produce 9 times 10 to the 24th power of electricity, enough for the entire earth to use 90 billion years."

"According to the current market price, the price of deuterium monoxide per kilogram is 7,000 yuan, and 80 million kilowatt-hours of electricity can be produced after fusion, and the cost is almost negligible.

Everyone listened to Luo Jia's words and nodded one after another, the reason why there were nearly twenty bigwigs from the two academies at the scene was because of the importance of controlled fusion, if the experiment was successful tonight, scientists would wake up laughing in their dreams, controllable fusion is one of the most critical keys to the road to the sea of stars, it is too against the sky.

"In other words, deuterium-deuterium fusion is the future goal of Xingchen Technology, not the current one?" An academician understood Luo Jia's words and tried to ask.

Luo Jia said: "That's the case, in the test in the early hours of this morning, the reactants we used are still the traditional deuterium and tritium, but tritium is too expensive, because the half-life of tritium is only more than ten years, so tritium almost does not exist in nature, and artificial preparation is extremely difficult, converted into a price of more than 150 million US dollars per kilogram, we can't afford to use it, so we added a multiplication system to the reaction." ”

"To put it simply, the breeding system is to use the neutrons produced by fusion and lithium to react to generate and multiply tritium, which means to reproduce while consuming, but the use of neutron reaction to generate tritium is not efficient, so we have developed a second system, a recycling system."

"First, we reduced the retention of tritium outside the recovery loop to keep the total amount of tritium intact, and then we created a tritium capture and recovery system using plasma materials, mainly tungsten, that directly encapsulate deuterium and tritium in fusion."

"Anyway, our double helix stellar simulator fusion device only needs to consume a very tiny amount of tritium as fuel, and the continuous addition of deuterium and lithium during the reaction process is enough to maintain its normal operation, because we have two auxiliary systems for breeding and circulating capture to protect tritium, and these two systems are our original."

Luo Jia said his own design ideas, the energy civilization is worthy of being the top player of the star fusion technology, how advanced the double helix stellar fusion device is, just look at the expressions of the experts present.

At this moment, the room was silent, and after hearing about the fusion device of Xingchen Technology and two sets of unheard of auxiliary systems, the bigwigs from the two academies felt like they were listening to a book from heaven, and they were all stupid.