Inside Li Qingye's villa. Sanchi Badaraiar has prepared black tea and refreshments.

"I have seen the company's harvest, and I have done a good job." Liu Zhifan replied respectfully: "It is the company's technical advantages that can bring such a huge harvest." Picking up the teacup, Li Qingye smiled at the two of them and said, "How are you going to arrange those small islands?" Liu Zhifan hurriedly replied: "Mr. Chairman, I plan to do so, considering the location of the Karnak Islands, it can be divided into the operation area of the Western Pacific Branch. Glancing at the holographic earth, Li Qingye nodded.

"And the Gilbert Islands, Ellis Islands, and the Union Islands can set up a Central Pacific branch to manage these assets."

"The Association Islands, the Tua Islands, etc., can set up a South Pacific branch to manage the company's assets in the sea area."

"The Masculin Islands, and other islands in the South Ceylon Ocean, set up a South Ceylon branch in Saint-Denis to manage the company's assets there." Li Qingye thought for a moment, then nodded: "Yes." Carmen added: "Recently, we have successfully established a full-seat branch in the Equatoriae country of South America, and with our presence in Africa, the entire Equateur region is now a full-fledged area for the company. ”

"Very good." Li Qingye is very satisfied with the work of the company's management. Liu Zhifan called up a document, projected it in the air, and then explained: "Mr. Chairman, this is a big project we formulated last year, and it was put on hold considering that there are some areas in the equatorial region that have not established a full power branch, and now I think the time is ripe." Li Qingye looked at the content of the projection.

The project is called: the Circum-Equatorial Railway. At first glance, it may come as a surprise. Circum-equator? Railway?

These two terms do not match at all, after all, the equatorial region has not only three landmasses, but also the Pacific Ocean, the Ceylon Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

There is nothing wrong with building a railway on land, and it is simply impossible to build a railway that can cross the Pacific Ocean, the Ceylon Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Even Homo sapiens, which is the world's best in tunneling technology, cannot hold up the trenches along the way, as well as the seabed at an average depth of three or four thousand meters.

So the plan seems a bit fanciful. However, the reason why the engineering division of Homo sapiens proposed this plan was because of a special technical background.

The technology of the circum-equatorial railway is not tunnel technology, nor is it a bridge-building technology, but airship technology.

That's right, it's airship technology. The engineering division plans to use vacuum airships to build a high-altitude railway around the equator at an altitude of 20 kilometers above the equator.

And this railway, because of the buoyancy of the vacuum airship, does not need to build bridge piers, nor does it need to worry about bad typhoon weather.

After all, the 20,000-meter altitude area belongs to the stratosphere with thin air, and weather such as storms, typhoons and thunderstorms are unique to the troposphere, and the stratosphere does not have this kind of weather.

And the air is thin at high altitudes, and even vacuum tracks are not needed, the resistance of the air itself is very small, and the train can run at near-sonic speeds.

The length of the Earth's equator is kilometers, and at this time, the company Homo sapiens produced vacuum airships with a length of several kilometers, which was not difficult, as long as the airships were connected, a railway could be laid on the airships.

Some people may think that such railways are not of much value. After all, airplanes can be transported quickly, and there is no need to build tracks.

The problem is in the price-performance ratio. Among the various means of transportation currently owned by Homo sapiens. Aircraft: The economic speed is 700~900 km/h, and the maximum transport capacity is 200 tons.

Ground effect aircraft: the economic speed is 200~300 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transportation capacity is 1500 tons.

Nuclear-powered carriers: economic speed of 40 kilometers per hour, maximum transport capacity of 500,000 tons.

Transport airship: economic speed is 300 km / h, maximum transport capacity is 15,000 tons.

Sub-vacuum high-speed railway: the economic speed is 240~360 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transportation capacity is 15,000 tons.

Aircraft and ground effect flights obviously do not have an advantage in terms of transportation volume, and the energy consumption is relatively high.

The most cost-effective mode of transport is still nuclear-powered carriers. The transport airship has obvious advantages in land transportation, and can be on par with the sub-vacuum high-speed railway, whether it is the transportation volume, or the speed, or the energy consumption, the difference between the two is not big.

When the circum-equatorial railway was first conceived, it was considered that the speed of airship transportation could not compete with that of aircraft, and the transportation volume could not compete with large nuclear-powered transport ships, so it could only compete with sub-vacuum high-speed rail.

Homo sapiens needed a mode of transportation that was very fast, had a relatively large volume of transportation, and had relatively low transportation costs.

Among the large number of proposals solicited internally, the Circum-equatorial high-altitude railway proposal stood out and became a very suitable one.

On the one hand, the cost of vacuum airship is relatively low. At present, the ex-factory price of the airship of the Mada Island Branch is 0.0022~0.0024 gold yuan per cubic meter.

A vacuum airship with a length of about 3 kilometers has a vacuum chamber of about 4 billion cubic meters, and the total cost is about 8.8 million ~ 9.6 million gold yuan.

The high-altitude railway platform around the equator requires a vacuum airship with a length of about 3 kilometers, and the cost is about 1100~120 billion gold yuan.

What's more, once it is really mass-produced, the production cost will be further reduced. Coupled with other supporting facilities, the total cost of the circum-equatorial high-altitude railway platform is about 2400~260 billion gold yuan.

This cost is not a pressure on Homo sapiens. Li Qingye looked at the back part of the plan and found that the engineering division had further ideas.

That is, based on the high-altitude railway, gradually increasing the scale of the vacuum airship upwards until the airship reaches the Kármán line directly and reaches an altitude of 100 kilometers above sea level.

According to the principle of vacuum airship, its maximum flight altitude is about 85 kilometers above the altitude, and the vacuum buoyancy of the airship is not enough.

The engineers in the engineering division plan to use an arch bridge scheme to extend the structure upwards.

This is also the reason why they built at the equator, because the angular velocity of the equator is parallel to the equator.

The circum-equatorial railway can also adopt an arch bridge structure to enhance the strength of the structure, as well as its own supporting force, to ensure that the entire structure can be extended to the Kármán line.

As long as the circum-equatorial railway is extended to the Kármán line, the astronauts will be able to take the elevator directly from the ground to the Kármán line, and then board a spacecraft to outer space at the Kármán line's spaceport.

Going to outer space in this way is safer than flying on a launch vehicle, and the comfort is also very high.

Similarly, materials entering and exiting the atmosphere can also be very convenient, without having to consider problems such as atmospheric drag and friction, and not worrying about the pull of gravity, which will cause the spacecraft to lose control.

This idea is very good, but for the later idea, Li Qingye did not blindly approve of it.

"Can the strength and weight of the material reach this level?" Liu Zhifan shook his head: "There is no problem with the stratospheric railway, but the current materials of the Kármán line platform cannot be made, and the weight of the materials that meet the strength standards is too large; The ultra-light weight of the material, but the strength is not up to the standard. ”

"Is that so?" Li Qingye pondered for a moment. Although there are no suitable materials at this stage, he still agrees with the first stage of the stratospheric railway: "In this case, let's build the stratospheric railway first!" In the later stage of upgrading, wait for the materials to meet the standards, and then consider whether to build. ”

"Yes." Liu Zhifan replied excitedly.