The brainstorming group is embroiled in an unprecedented heated debate, with scientists divided into two factions, some of which support the space program and hope to fight North America until the unstoppable scientific giant, NASA, is brought down.

Others realized that the space program was too risky, and that it would be worth the cost to throw all the research power of the entire company into it, and to spend untold sums of money.

Luo Jia didn't say anything, he listened carefully to everyone's speeches, and thought quickly in his brain, analyzing everyone's views and ideas.

"The bigwigs are very abnormal today, it's midnight, and there is no sign of the meeting."

"I heard that there was a dispute because of the space program, I don't understand the specifics, it seems to be related to the future development direction of the company, the atmosphere in the conference room is tense, many bigwigs have rolled up their sleeves, and their faces are flushed."

"You two don't mutter there, hurry up and send the supper up, the big guys are hungry, waiting to eat wontons."

Not only the staff in the canteen are talking, but the entire Xingchen Technology, together with all its subsidiaries, are all looking forward to it, waiting for the headquarters to blow the horn of entering space.

After all, in this team full of male uprightness, who doesn't have the dream of a sea of stars?

Want to develop space?

Nonsense, straight men have been thinking crazy for a long time, okay!

However, reason told them that things might not be simple, and the brainstorming team held a meeting for a whole day, and there was no news coming out of the conference room, obviously something was wrong, so that the bigwigs could not make up their minds.

It was as if a whole day of analysis and discussion had exhausted everyone's energy, and after a supper, the conference room gradually became quiet.

Everyone is looking at Luo Jia, after all, no matter how lively the brainstorming group's analysis is, it will ultimately need Luo Jia to make a decision.

To a certain extent, the brainstorming team is also Luo Jia's think tank, responsible for providing various opinions, and Luo Jia will make a relatively objective and rational choice after considering all opinions.

Clearing her throat, Luo Jia knew that she couldn't drag it any longer, so she stood up and walked onto the podium with the usual smile on her face, and then knocked on the microphone and tried to see if the ink pen was coherent.

After doing this, Luo Jia said in a deep voice: "I have heard everyone's thoughts and opinions, now let's talk about mine." ”

"The main reason why there is such a big dispute in the space project is that the input and output are not proportional, wisdom is a rarer resource than money, the software department of the headquarters plus the hardware department, 220,000 engineers and scientists, all invested in the space program, plus trillions of dollars in funds, it is likely that the final result is only to leave a pair of footprints on the moon, not to mention that we are not the first."

Listening to Luo Jia's words, everyone couldn't help but smile bitterly, the first person to eat crabs was a warrior, but who would remember the second?

The road of space, North America has already walked, now Xingchen Technology has invested so much manpower and funds, taking the road that others have walked, no matter how you look at it, it will outweigh the losses, if you use energy and funds on other projects, it may be more valuable, there is no reason to hang a tree.

After a slight pause, Luo Jia then said: "I understand all your concerns, now let's think about it from a different perspective." ”

"Suppose there is a technology that can transport goods into space on a large scale at a price of no more than two thousand dollars per ton, or even less, is this technology worth developing at all costs?"

Listening to Luo Jia's words, everyone was stunned and couldn't believe their ears.

Two thousand dollars per ton of cargo transported from Earth to space?

How is this possible, it's a fantasy!

"Shipping costs are only $2,000 per ton? Wouldn't we be able to build a space station!? ”

"What's more, if the freight is so low, colonizing the moon and Mars will all become a reality!"

"Of course, we have to build spaceships and plunder resources, the moon is a golden egg that circles the earth, and the titanium metal contained in the basalt of the moon sea alone is at least 100 trillion tons, not to mention a large amount of helium-3 in the lunar soil, which is an important fuel for controlled fusion technology."

"Helium 3 praise! Now the way we get energy is Kármán vortex street power generation, but Kármán vortex street power generation can only be used on the earth, once it leaves the earth, it will fail, if we want the spacecraft to fly and fly out of the solar system, we must develop controlled fusion! ”

Everyone discussed excitedly, in fact, the biggest obstacle to the road of the stars and the sea is not technology, nor feelings, but cost.

A large space station, or the weight of a colonizer's base, to say the least, costs tens of thousands of tons, and you can't count on the existing rocket technology to launch the base into space little by little, and that will have to wait until the Year of the Monkey.

Cheap space launch technology will change the reality of space development and make space development profitable.

Only interests are eternal, and when the spaceship loaded with precious metals returns with a full load, the road to the sea of stars will truly become a great cause that can be sustainably developed.

And what is the basis for human development of space now?

Feelings.

North America's Apollo program, Star Wars program, and Curiosity Mars rover program, behind the huge cost of these plans, it is not that there are no interests, but that the benefits are not proportional to the costs, spending a trillion dollars of funds and achieving 100 billion dollars of harvest.

Luo Jia's idea is very simple, the space project cannot rely on feelings, and must have the potential to achieve profitability in the future in order to continue to do great things.

Swish~

With a flick of the pen, Luo Jia began to sketch on the whiteboard, which was a space elevator, commonly known as the existence of a space elevator.

At this moment, there was silence in the conference room, thousands of thoughts were in everyone's hearts, and they couldn't help but think excitedly, history has finally come to this point, is the legendary space elevator going to become a reality in their own hands?

I have to say that Luo Jia really has no artistic talent, and the space elevator in his depiction is like a toothpick inserted in an apple, the bottom is connected to the continent, and the top is a large space station located in geosynchronous orbit.

After the sketch was finished, Luo Jia took the ink pen and said in a deep voice: "Height, 36,000 kilometers, direct to geosynchronous orbit, as the height of the elevator continues to rise, the internal gravity will gradually decrease, when the cargo arrives at the terminal station with the elevator, its own speed will be enough to maintain the movement around the geosynchronous orbit, so the terminal space station of the synchronous orbit is in a state of complete weightlessness." ”

"Before we get into how the space elevator works, we have to be clear about the question, is the space elevator a giant tower standing on the ground, or a catenary hanging from orbit?"

"Clarity on this issue is crucial for our future work, because the tower is under pressure, while the orbital catenary is under tension, and the two belong to different mechanical categories."

After a slight pause, Luo Jia said seriously: "There is no doubt that the answer is the latter, due to the low pressure critical instability point, the space elevator cannot bear its own weight, our only choice is to establish a space station in geosynchronous orbit, and then hang a tube with extreme tensile ability from the space station to connect the earth and the space station." ”

"Since we chose to put the space elevator under tension rather than stress, the next question arises, the material."

Swish~

The red ink pen began to quickly write the derivation formula on the whiteboard, and set the internal tensile force of the space elevator, and the cross-sectional area as a function of distance were T(x) and A(x) respectively.

Newton's second law is then applied, dT=-pA(x)g(x)dx.

where the equivalent acceleration g(x) is the vector sum of the acceleration due to gravity and the acceleration of centrifugal acceleration...

After about half an hour, when the complex derivation ended, the brainstorming group was surprised to find that the original super-strength carbon fiber was used as an auxiliary material for the space elevator, and the performance was up to standard.

The Carmen vortex street power generation array, which is like a group of demons, is made of super-strength carbon fiber, which has withstood the test of time and strength, and is trustworthy.

You have to ask why the Carmen vortex street power generation array does not use stronger graphene materials, it is very simple, when studying the Carmen vortex street power generation array, graphene materials have not been developed, besides, the price of graphene materials is relatively expensive compared to carbon fiber, and it is a bit overkill to use it as a power generation array.

Although graphene has not been able to devote itself to the great energy cause, this time, it can play its own unique advantages in the space elevator project.

Since the tensile strength required by the space elevator program is really perverted, graphene needs to be further optimized to create graphene nanotubes.

In this way, the material problem of the space elevator was solved, and the graphene nanotubes for the skeleton, the auxiliary materials and the elevator body were used for super-strength carbon fiber.

"In addition, we are also facing a problem, the elevator climbs from the ground to a height of 36,000 kilometers, obviously requires strong power, and it is a coincidence that we just have something called ultrasonic motor, the nickname of ultrasonic motor, but it is called space motor." Luo Jia said with a smile.

When they heard this, the conference room exploded, and the scientists were so excited that they almost shed tears.

How do you say that, with technology, you can do whatever you want.

Unconsciously, the three key technologies for building a space elevator have been lying on the list of technologies of Xingchen Technology, except for graphene nanotubes, others can be used directly.

Luo Jia stretched out his hand to signal everyone to be quiet, due to the crazy celebration just now, it was too hot in the conference room at the moment, Luo Jia opened the window, let the cold wind of early spring pour in, and help everyone clear their overheated minds.

"Although we have the key technology to build a space elevator, we must be soberly aware that this plan is still full of risks and uncertainties, for example, we need a launch vehicle with a cost and capacity not lower than Musk's Super Falcon."

"I'm not referring to the Falcon Heavy, which has been successfully launched many times in a row, let alone the Falcon 9, but Musk's next-generation rocket, the Super Falcon, which is still being tested."

"With cheap large launch vehicles, we will be able to send the space station into Earth orbit in batches, and then hang a graphene nanotube from orbit."

"At that time, the whole world thought that we were launching rockets, but in fact, we were launching elevators."

"The whole world thinks we're building a space station, but in fact, we're building elevators."

"The whole world thinks that we have accepted Musk's challenge to fight against his Starlink program, but in fact, fuck the Starlink program! We want the whole space! ”