September 11th.

The disturbances from the outside world did not affect Li Qingye's daily work.

He was in the Hugang Basin in Honsavady.

As one of the five space cities of Homo sapiens.

Compared to the other four space cities, the military style is even stronger.

Wu Feng, who was previously in charge of the Longerang Mountain base, was recently transferred here to be in charge of the management of this space city.

In addition, people from the Ministry of Space and the Ministry of Defense also appeared here.

Python Aoyama, who was sent by the Defense Department, explained to him, "Chairman, this is the Quetzalcoatl Legion that we have recently formed. ”

"How do you train?" Li Qingye was a little curious, he knew about the Defense Department's formation of the Feathered Serpent Legion, after all, this kind of big thing must be approved by him.

Python Qingshan is the person in charge of the legion, and when he heard the question, he hurriedly replied: "We cooperated with the Ministry of Space to borrow some astronaut training facilities, and as for actual combat training, there is no way yet. ”

"I heard that the Department of Defense has recently been revising the previous plan?"

Python Qingshan nodded: "Yes, it is because of the emergence of new technologies and technical adjustments." ”

"What part has been adjusted?"

"Previously, we planned to use the space shuttle to take off on the ground, but now it has been modified to take off at a position of 30,000 meters in the stratosphere."

Li Qingye's eyes flashed with a hint of clarity: "Vacuum airship platform? ”

"Yes, taking off in the middle of the stratosphere, the atmospheric drag will drop by about 15 times, and the distance from the Kármán line is also 70,000 meters, which can meet the needs of a space shuttle with a large load in and out of the atmosphere."

Li Qingye touched the stubble on his chin, and then ordered: "Bring out the plan of the Ministry of Defense and take a look." ”

"Please wait a minute, I'll arrange it right away."

After a while, Python Qingshan called up an internal planning document of the Defense Department and projected it on the holographic device.

There are not only various planning options, but also many concept models and scenarios.

Specifically, it is to build an airship platform about the size of a dandelion airship, but with a vacuum volume doubled, which will have a vacuum volume of 4 billion cubic meters.

At an altitude of 30,000 meters, the airship will have 40,000 tons of buoyancy, minus the weight of 10,000 tons of supporting facilities, and the remaining 30,000 tons of buoyancy will be used to carry the space shuttle.

To be precise, it is not the space shuttle, but the aerospace fighter and the aerospace transport aircraft.

The Quetzalcoatl is the unit responsible for managing the Helicarrier, and it is also a special force, because the Quetzalcoatl has three orbital airborne regiments, which can be airborne from suborbital to any area of the earth.

As for why this is redundant.

The reason of the Ministry of Defense is to avoid the airspace of other countries, and the airspace in the usual sense refers to the airspace below the Kármán Line, and the suborbit and low-earth orbit above the Kármán Line are all international public areas, which can be passed freely without the permission of other countries.

In other words, those landlocked countries actually have a "coastline", and that coastline is the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 kilometers.

If Homo sapiens were to enter the Mobei region, they would have to do so through Lucia or the Far East's control zone according to the traditional mode of transportation.

But if the suborbital route is adopted, then Homo sapiens does not need to pass through the control zone of Lucia and the Far East, and naturally does not need to pass through the permission of the other party.

In this case, Homo sapiens could use the concept of a "cosmic sea" to radiate its influence to landlocked countries.

Li Qingye looked at the cost again.

Among them, the total cost of the Aerospace Helicarrier 2 is expected to be 520 million gold yuan.

Aerospace fighter jets cost 7.5 million gold yuan each.

An aerospace transport plane costs 38.6 million gold yuan.

A set of armor of the Orbital Airborne Forces is 80,000 gold yuan.

In terms of operating costs, the aerospace carrier uses a nuclear reactor, and the energy consumption cost is 6 million gold yuan for 50 years.

Aerospace fighters and air-space transport aircraft, on the other hand, use methane liquid oxygen engines, and the fuel cost of a single flight is only about one-thirtieth of that of a ground launch.

Li Qingye saw five aerospace planes designed by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Space.

One of them, an aerospace transport aircraft with a payload of 2,000 tons, has a dead weight of 1,200 tons and only 3,000 tons of methane and liquid oxygen.

If it is launched on the ground, it will require at least 60,000 tons of methane and liquid oxygen to send 3,200 tons of payload into suborbit.

Launching at high altitude can indeed save a lot of fuel and effectively reduce operating costs.

As soon as you enter the suborbital zone, you can easily fly over the target and drop 2000 tons of payload.

The 2,000-ton payload will be landed using a method similar to the recovery technology of launch vehicles, which can be special air-space containers, special airborne troops, or simply a large number of bombs.

In fact, a rocket that launches solid fuel in suborbital orbit, with the blessing of gravitational acceleration, can easily reach more than ten times the speed of sound.

It is even possible to use an electromagnetic cannon directly to fire tungsten steel rods at the target ground.

There are too many condescending means of attack, even if a steel ball is thrown down, the power is comparable to that of a bullet.

The Quetzalcoatl was formed to enhance the strike power of Homo sapiens in suborbitals, and at the same time, it was also to exploit loopholes in the existing rules.

The cost of launching a 2,000-ton payload into a suborbital orbit is actually 3,000 tons of methane and liquid oxygen, and the cost is about 40,000 gold yuan, with an average transportation cost of 50 gold yuan per ton of load.

This cost is not too high, but it is not cheap either.

However, for some closed inland areas, the transportation cost of 50 gold yuan per ton is also acceptable.

For example, the transportation of some emergency supplies, special equipment, important items, etc., can be quickly put in place in this way.

Li Qingye understood the thoughts of the Ministry of Defense.

They should have considered that Homo sapiens would meddle in the affairs of other regions in the future, and they didn't want to waste words with other forces along the way, so they promoted suborbital transportation and suborbital airborne.

After all, the relationship between Homo sapiens and other regions is not very good now, even the countries of Africa, South America and West Asia that cooperate with Homo sapiens on the surface are actually very wary of Homo sapiens secretly.

This is mainly due to the fact that Homo sapiens often annexed other small countries, an act that is obviously difficult for the vast majority of powers to accept.

If it weren't for the strength of Homo sapiens enough, the great powers would have formed a coalition to defeat Homo sapiens.

Therefore, it will definitely not be so easy to pass through the airspace of other regions in the future, and the forces along the way will definitely be very wary of the air force of Homo sapiens entering its control area.

You can't fight all the way, can you? If you really do this, that is, for a dish of vinegar, a special meal of dumplings, a bit more than worth the loss.

Li Qingye didn't say anything about this, the Ministry of Defense has this kind of strategic thinking, which is a good thing.

The development and progress of technology will inevitably lead to innovations in tactics and strategies.

There is no need for the Ministry of Defense to follow the rules too much, just as when America developed information warfare, it was because of the military changes brought about by the development of information technology.

Now Homo sapiens is also exploring new tactical strategies to take full advantage of the advantages offered by new technologies.

Suborbital, a special interstellar public area, was previously unreachable by technology, and many forces had no way to use it, so they could only do some theoretical research.

Now Homo sapiens is about leading the times and developing a completely new mode of warfare.

He finished reading the internal documents of the Ministry of Defense: "Wu Feng, put it away!" Let's go to the training base and have a look. ”

Wu Feng hurriedly turned off the projection, and by the way, instructed the assistant to clean up the traces of that document.

He took Li Qingye to the training base of the suborbital airborne forces.