The agricultural development plan has been formulated, and then Luo Jia no longer pays attention to this matter, because agriculture, like the East China Sea Westward Expansion Project, is a long-term project to transform the earth, and it cannot see results in the short term, and it needs to be gradual and continuous investment.

As the end of the year approaches, the company is becoming more and more nervous, the reason is very simple, the zero space station and the first elevator will be completed by the end of the year, which is definitely the top priority for the straight men of science and engineering who have the dream of the stars and the sea.

As the largest technology group on the planet, Xingchen Technology has too many projects to carry out at the same time, and the space program is definitely the top priority.

Nearly half of the company's projects are running around the space program, and even agriculture, which seems to be a project that has nothing to do with space, is actually a technical reserve for future space colonization, which is enough to prove the unique importance of the space program to Xingchen Technology.

Not long after Luo Jia left the Ministry of Agriculture, the company's largest secondary research institute, the Institute of Materials Science, came with good news that the electric propulsion project in charge of Cao Yuan was ready, and he hoped that Luo Jia would participate in the technical verification in the past.

Hearing the news, Luo Jia was overjoyed and immediately went happily.

At present, the Institute of Materials Science has three major topics, Ji Ming's tri-titanium alloy, Chao'anbang's superconductivity, and Cao Yuan's ion propulsion.

Among them, Chao'anbang's superconducting project, because it involves a wide range of extremely complex, only advanced to the mid-stage, although it can come up with top superconducting materials, but scientific and technological research and development is one thing, large-scale production of scientific and technological projects, and another thing, it is estimated that it will take a while for the superconducting technology of Xingchen Technology to be truly industrialized, and at that time, Luo Jia can engage in hovering cars and trains on the earth.

Ji Ming's research on tri-titanium alloy started the latest, and it is still in the initial stage, but Luo Jia is not in a hurry about it, because he knows very well that the three-titanium alloy is best placed after space mining technology.

Only a large number of cheap rare minerals, in order to make the Chinese smelting industry rejuvenated, now rare ore veins, most of the hands of Western giants, China is even iron ore to rely on imports, resource-poor country, by a lot of clamps.

At this stage, it is good to produce carbon fiber and graphene materials in large quantities, although the price is a little more expensive, but it is 100% controlled by Xingchen Technology, first use these two materials, survive the initial stage of the space program, and wait for the space mining to become large-scale, high-grade alloy smelting will naturally be launched on a large scale.

In any case, Cao Yuan's ion propulsion was completed in time, which made Luo Jia breathe a sigh of relief.

Ion propulsion is so important to the space program that without ion propulsion technology it would not be possible to complete the company's second program, which is to build a starship that will be used to travel to and from the moon, mine the valuable reactor fuel helium-3, and launch initial manned exploration of the solar system.

Luo Jia thought while coming to Cao Yuan's laboratory, and as soon as he entered the door, he saw two sets of electric thruster samples, both of which belonged to electrothermal propulsion, using a relatively old technical route, the one on the left is called the Resistojet thruster, and the one on the right is called the Arcjet thruster.

To put it simply, the Resistojet generates heat through resistance, the propellant hydrazine expands, and is ejected backwards to generate power, while the Arcjet continuously breaks down the propellant's arc as a heat source, heating the propellant to the limit temperature, so as to achieve higher efficiency.

The reason why the company researches the ancient electrothermal propulsion technology is mainly to cope with the stage before the ion propulsion is listed, for example, the space telescope array launched by Xingchen Technology uses electrothermal propulsion, although the efficiency is relatively low, but it is better than stability.

In addition to these, standard ion propulsion, Hall propulsion, magnetic plasma propulsion, pulse plasma propulsion, pulse induction propulsion, and a series of experimental products of electric propulsion engines can be found here in Cao Yuan, and being in it is like entering a museum of electric propulsion technology.

Although Cao Yuan always looks like he can't wake up, he is still very serious about doing things, and after Luo Jia handed over the task to him, he has been working very hard and doing meticulous and intensive research on the electric propulsion system.

"This guy has studied all the electric propulsion technology routes, the workload is so exaggerated, no wonder he has heavy dark circles under his eyes every day, his talent is not terrible, the key is that he has high talent and hard work, such Cao Yuan, it is difficult to succeed." Luo Jia muttered in her heart, full of appreciation for Cao Yuan.

Just thinking about it, I saw Cao Yuan playing haha, with messy hair, lazily coming towards him, such an image, I knew that he was a great scientist in the field of materials science, I didn't know, I thought it was an Internet addict young man who fought all night.

"Are you all ready?" Luo Jia asked.

"Hmm." Cao Yuan nodded slightly.

"What materials are used for working fluids?" Luo Jia began to ask questions about the technology she cared about.

Cao Yuan explained: "We now have two designs, argon is used as the working fluid for traditional ion propulsion, and deuterium is used for direct nuclear fusion pushing. ”

"It doesn't matter what the working fluid is, it's all a temporary strategy anyway, and when the lunar base is established, we will definitely unify the use of helium-three, and to go further, we must develop antimatter engines, warp engines, and even space jump engines."

Luo Jia couldn't help but shake his head, "Space Jump Engine, you really dare to think about it, don't talk so much about it, let me see how you plan to send us to Mars." ”

Cao Yuan smiled and led Luo Jia into the monitoring room next to the test room.

There are many ways to move in space, in addition to those that Cao Yuan just talked about, there are also solar sail propulsion, nuclear pulse propulsion, etc., these technical routes have advantages and disadvantages, and the difficulty of implementation is also different.

Ion propulsion is divided into electric propulsion and direct propulsion, the former does not need a fusion reactor, as long as there is electricity, it can sail, while fusion direct propulsion is powerful, releasing the ultra-high temperature plasma produced by reactor fusion, thereby generating thrust, and the effect is extremely amazing.

Of course, fusion reactors are fast to push, but they also have high technical requirements, such as the need to create a powerful electron beam to neutralize the charge released by the engine and avoid serious disturbances caused by the charge.

In terms of speed, the current maximum speed of conventional electric propulsion is about 300 kilometers per second.

Fusion pushing, which uses deuterium and tritium as reactants, has a limit speed of 1,200 kilometers per second.

And when deuterium and helium-3 react, it can even reach an astonishing speed of 3,100 kilometers per second.

It is not difficult to see that direct push is much faster than electric push, but even so, Cao Yuan still developed two sets of schemes, mainly to save money.

Whether it is deuterium or helium three, it is rare and expensive, and some space probes, such as space telescopes, actually do not have much requirement for speed.

"In any case, we have to go to the moon to mine helium-three, because the reaction of helium-three and deuterium can not only enhance the efficiency of fusion reactors, but also the fastest speed." Cao Yuan muttered while preparing: "That's 3,100 kilometers per second, theoretically starting from Earth, you can reach Mars in as little as five hours." ”

"Come on." Luo Jia said disapprenously: "Theoretical data never represents reality, the closest distance between Mars and us is 55 million kilometers, but the farthest distance is more than 400 million kilometers, and the distance is not measured, so you can't always calculate according to the shortest distance." ”

"And the theoretical maximum speed is not reliable, considering the efficiency of the starship and the reactor, the starship powertrain that can reach 70% efficiency is already a very, very good design, in addition to acceleration and deceleration."

"All things considered, if we can control the average voyage to Mars within a week, it would be a very remarkable feat, and of course, before we can develop Mars, we must first build a lunar base and successfully mine helium-3."

Cao Yuan pouted dissatisfiedly, feeling that Luo Jia was too steady, as an optimist, he likes to estimate the most optimistic results, which is also destined that although he is a great scientist, he will never be able to lead the tough guy Tiantuan.

Rumble~

With Luo Jia's order, the ion thruster quickly ignited, spraying a dazzling blue firelight, argon was rapidly ionized under the action of the electrostatic field, and accelerated the reverse jet, thus producing a huge thrust.

As Luo Jia expected, about one-third of the energy was consumed for the system to operate, and the final number on the screen was frozen at 200 kilometers per second.

Theoretically, the top speed of 200 kilometers per second can already shorten the time for the Earth to reach Mars to about one week, but considering the acceleration and deceleration, as well as the orbit of the stars, etc., the actual time may take three weeks.

Immediately afterwards, Luo Jia and Cao Yuan rushed to Sichuan non-stop to the nuclear fusion center to test how much the ultimate speed could be achieved if the reactor was directly pushed and deuterium was used as the working medium.

This time, everyone was extremely excited by the answer, and the direct thrust test score of the fusion reactor was as high as 800 kilometers per second, which is four times that of conventional electric thrust!

That is, even taking into account attrition, acceleration and deceleration, taking into account all the factors that are not conducive to navigation, the starship can sail from Earth to Mars in a week.

You must know that the most successful Mars lander in human history is NASA's Curiosity, which departed in October 2011 and arrived on Mars in August 2012, taking ten months and traveling 56 million kilometers.

And Xingchen Technology uses a fusion reactor to push it directly, and it only takes a week to get to Mars, and the gap is too big.

When the lunar base is established, the jet fluid will be replaced with more efficient helium-3, and the voyage time can even be shortened to three days!