"I'm really sorry!"

"I'm sorry for your trouble!"

"It's a small gift to show your appreciation, so be sure to take it!"

"Although T2800GB carbon fiber cannot be supplied on time, T2000GB and T1600GB models will definitely be supplied to you with quality and quantity!"

"Please accept our sincere apologies, please!"

Tokyo, Minato-ku, Honda Co., Ltd., Yacht Division.

A middle-aged man in a black suit, like a chicken and constantly bowing and apologizing, comes from the world's largest carbon fiber supplier, Toray Group, with the rapid rise of the carbon fiber project department under Xingchen Chemical, now Toray Group has become the second in the field of materials science, and the DuPont Group in North America, which was once the second, has become the third.

Here's the thing, Honda's yacht manufacturing subsidiary, has ordered super-strong carbon fiber materials from the Toray Group to T2800GB for the manufacture of new luxury speedboats, however, the Toray Group is now trying to tear up the contract.

Although the sales representative of Toray Group kept bowing and apologizing, Nobuhiro Hatada, who was sitting in the boss's chair with his arms in his arms, was still extremely dissatisfied, and he slapped the table hard and reprimanded him with a fierce voice.

"We want to provide our customers with the highest quality products! If it weren't for the T5000GB and T4000GB carbon fiber of Xingchen Technology, which is not sold to the outside world, how would we order your T2800GB models! ”

"Well, now you advise us to use T2000GB that is less stretch-resistant? How do I explain this to my clients? You know, this is our flagship speedboat! Race to the pinnacle of the global speed championship! ”

The representative of Toray Group, who was sprayed with foaming stars, said helplessly: "We really have no choice, Mr. Nelson, director of the White House Office of Education and Science, personally came to us and contracted all the high-end carbon fiber production capacity in the next three years in the name of the North American authorities. ”

"If you don't dare to offend the people of the United States, you dare to offend our Honda Co., Ltd.!?" Feeling discriminated against, Shinhiro Tanada instantly burst out and angrily scolded the Toray Group representative.

After venting, Shinhiro Hatada, who sat back in his chair, calmed down, touched his chin with his right hand and said, "North America wants all of your production capacity, I'm afraid it's for the Starlink plan, right?" ”

The representative of Toray Group whispered: "It should be, but there must be other more important uses, after all, this battle for space supremacy has been going on until now, and three months have passed, and the battle situation is really unprecedentedly tragic!" ”

"China and the United States are the two most powerful countries on the planet, and NASA and Xingchen Technology, which are also the world's largest scientific research groups, are so strong that they have carried out dozens of launch missions in just three months!"

"Today, Xingchen Technology launched the space station module, and the day after tomorrow Cape Canaveral exploded a cluster of communication satellites, it is really terrible, now except for China and the United States, the world is silent, Russia and Europe, which once clamoured to participate in the space hegemony, have completely shut up, in the face of the contest between two prehistoric giants, they have no strength to participate at all, Europe launches an Aliana kung fu, and China and North America can shoot more than a dozen rockets!"

"Now in the synchronous orbit, there are a lot of modules of Xingchen Technology, and in low earth orbit, there are thousands of Starlink communication satellites, I doubt that it will not be long before the synchronous orbit will become the territory of China, and the low earth orbit will become the backyard of North America."

"Suppose they set up the legendary space-based weapon in the sky, I'm afraid that the neon sinking will not just be, but will become a reality!"

Ay~

Shinhiro Tsukita let out a sigh, he was still majestic just now, but he is a little wilted at the moment, and if he is the president of Toray Group, I am afraid there is no better way, and he will choose to break the contract, and then go all out to supply North America.

After all, North America and China are giants on the earth that cannot be offended.

"Sit down."

Nobuhiro Tanada pointed to the sofa beside him, and the representative of the Toray Group sat down nervously as if he had been granted amnesty.

"Do you know why their launch rhythm suddenly slowed down at the end of the year?" Shinhiro Sueda asked curiously.

The U.S.-China space supremacy struggle began in mid-September and reached its climax in October and November, and now in December, the frequency of launches by both sides has suddenly slowed down.

Toray's sales representative lowered his voice and said: "It is said that the production capacity cannot keep up, and the rhythm of the launch between the two sides is really crazy, and the parts that were previously stored are exhausted, and they fall into the embarrassing situation that there is nothing to launch." ”

"Because of this, North America will directly contract all of our production capacity, and I heard that we will build a joint venture factory in Illinois, not only we, but also suppliers from Germany, France, Switzerland, etc., are fully committed to supplying North America, and NASA's own factory has entered a rare 24-hour operation."

"Oh, so that's the case, it's worthy of Huaxia and North America, they are really strong!"

It dawned on Shinhiro that before the start of the space program, Luo Jia and Musk had a little inventory, but now due to the fast launch speed, the inventory has been exhausted, and the new products have not yet been put into storage, and the two sides have empty rockets, but there is no cargo that can be launched, which is more embarrassing.

This time they are using large rockets with amazing carrying capacity.

The A1 engine of Xingchen Technology has a standard thrust of 550 tons, but the thrust does not represent the transportation capacity, and the combination of 12 A1 engines has a thrust of 6,600 tons, which can probably transport 200 tons of cargo to the synchronous orbit.

Luo Jia's disadvantage over Musk is that Musk builds Starlink at an average distance of 150 kilometers from the ground, while Xingchen Technology's space station is built in a synchronous orbit of 36,000 kilometers above the ground.

When Xingchen Technology launches an 18-engine 10,000-ton rocket, it can only transport 300 tons of goods at a time, there is no way, who makes Luo Jia's ambitions bigger and sets his goals higher.

In short, the unstoppable torrent is rolling in, and although it is a space competition between China and the United States, it has involved everyone in the world, from East Asia to Australia to Europe, no one is immune to it.

Shinhiro Tanada leaned back and said in a deep voice: "I understand, Toray Group is forced to participate in this competition between major powers, and it is not up to you to decide, but I don't know, between China and the United States, who can laugh in the end?" If Huaxia wins in the end, they should be angry with you, right? After all, 70% of the carbon fiber materials used in North America are supplied by you, and the other 30% comes from the DuPont Group. ”

"Who knows." Representative Toray bowed his head silently, "In the long run, it should be that North America has a greater chance, after all, the Starlink plan has very broad profit prospects, and the synchronous orbital space station of Xingchen Technology seems to have no way to create profits, and it looks like it is purely burning money." ”

……

Florida, just outside of Miami, NASA's Space Dynamics.

Neon Toray's high-grade carbon fiber took off from Narita Airport and was delivered here day and night to make Hall-effect thrusters, an important component in Starlink communications satellites.

Whether it is Hall effect thruster or ion thruster, they all belong to the electric thruster family, but there is a relatively large gap in technical methods and potential.

As we all know, there are three ways to achieve electric propulsion, namely electrostatic, electromagnetic and electrothermal, among them, electrothermal propulsion is quite simple and ancient, not worth mentioning, and electrostatic technology is represented by electronic bombardment thrusters, and electromagnetic technology is represented by pulsed plasma thrusters.

In addition to this, there is a special type of thruster, which is also electrostatic propulsion, but it is different from the electronic bombardment thruster, which is the Hall effect thruster.

In 1879, the North American physicist Hall discovered that when an electric current passes through a conductor perpendicular to the external magnetic field, a voltage will appear between the two end faces of the conductor perpendicular to the magnetic field and the direction of the current, which is the Hall effect.

The interstellar thruster based on the Hall effect is the Hall thruster, at this stage, most of the world's satellites are using this technology, Luo Jia has not long ago made a large-scale improvement to the Hall thruster, so that it can meet the needs of flying out of the solar system, it is the second generation of Hall thruster, and the large-scale application in the West is still the first generation of technology.

The first-generation Hall thruster did not have a lot of horsepower, at most a few kilowatts, but it was no problem to propel satellites to move in space.

The factory is in full swing, from the management to the workers, all working as if they were beating chickens, and parts from the global supply chain are constantly being sent into the warehouse by trucks.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 5,000 companies directly or indirectly provide parts or outsourced technical services to NASA, using what can be called the most powerful force in the entire West.

People see the crazy launch plan of the two major space bases, just the appearance, the real deep-seated competition, in all aspects of society, although North America manufacturing hollowed out, but in North America's allies, there are still neon and Germany such top manufacturing power, not to mention North America, which has financial hegemony, is far more wealthy than China.

According to statistics, the direct consumption of the US military in the Iraq war alone was as high as $763 billion, and the indirect consumption caused by stability maintenance and war in the later period was even more exaggerated, which was as huge as $4 trillion!

However, even so, North America was not dragged down by the war, and after the Iraq war, North America also fought the wars in Afghanistan and Syria, which were also very expensive, and during the war, the GDP growth rate of North America was much higher than that of Europe, which did not have a war.

It can be seen from this that it is unrealistic to expect a space race that will cost tens of trillions to bring North America down, otherwise North America would have fallen in the Iraq war a long time ago.

On the contrary, the pressure of Huaxia and Xingchen Technology is unprecedentedly huge, with an annual consumption of one trillion US dollars, even if Xingchen Science and Technology has a big business, it is inevitable that it will hurt the muscles and bones, Shen Lang sells cosmetics to domestic women at a high price, to put it bluntly, it is a lack of money.

After all, the money for Chinese women to buy cosmetics did not fall from the sky, the family subsidized some, the husband and boyfriend subsidized some, and the children originally planned to travel abroad, but now they have also changed to the big city of Tieling.

Anyway, for the sake of the space program, for the first time since the establishment of Xingchen Technology, it has collected heavy taxes from its hometown compatriots, so it is not difficult to see that the tragedy and difficulty of the current situation have reached an unprecedented level, and everyone on the earth cannot be alone.