Chapter 691: Artificial Gravity

At the same time, inside another habitation compartment inside the space shuttle.

After staring at the scenery outside the porthole for a while, assistant Tang Sijia suddenly turned his head to look at Xu Chuan and asked curiously.

"Professor, by the way, the artificial gravity technology that Prince Faisal just talked to you about, can't you do it?"

Following Xu Chuan to outer space, she knew the real situation here. If nothing else, moving in gravity alone is quite difficult or difficult for people to get used to.

Hearing Tang Sijia's inquiry, Xu Chuan shook his head lightly and said, "It's difficult, it's almost impossible to do it at the moment." ”

Prince Faisal can think of something that a layman can think of, and he can naturally think of it.

In fact, as early as the beginning of the space race between the two sides in the last century, some scientists put forward the idea and technical theory of 'simulating' gravity and creating artificial gravity on spacecraft.

Not to mention that actions in a gravity-free environment are quite difficult and troublesome to adapt to, and astronauts, or humans themselves, have not evolved the characteristics suitable for surviving in space.

At present, living and working in space for a long time will have adverse effects on the health of astronauts, such as decreased bone density, muscle loss, vision loss, etc.

During a long flight in space, astronauts find it difficult to maintain balance, sleep is deprived, the blood vessels in the heart tend to work slowly, flatulence occurs, and even has some adverse effects on the immune system.

All of this is real in the space process.

Therefore, if you want to achieve rapid space development, or if you want to implement and explore distant planets in the future, such as Jupiter, Pluto, or more distant exogalaxies and other long-lasting deep space exploration missions, finding a way to solve the impact of the gravity-free environment on astronauts is a hurdle that must be overcome.

The ideal way to do this is to create an artificial gravity field on the spacecraft to simulate the Earth's gravity.

Since the middle of the 20 th century, scholars and scientists in the field of astronautics have been thinking of various ways to do this and have put forward various theories.

But there is currently only one of the most common and possible ways to do this.

It is to simulate gravity by rotation.

The earliest and simplest theory of gravity simulation was proposed through the basis of acceleration.

Anyone who has ever been in an elevator knows that you will clearly feel the pressure on the floor as the elevator starts to rise.

Theoretically, as long as a steady acceleration is continuously provided, an environment similar to gravity can be simulated.

But in practice, it's almost impossible to do that.

You can't find an engine that can maintain acceleration indefinitely, or you can't provide as much fuel or fluid.

And on this basis, scientists thought of another way.

That's spinning!

If you have ever been to the playground and sat in the flying chair or rotating flying chair, it is easy to understand that when the speed of rotation is getting faster and faster, the centrifugal force generated by the rotation will gradually cancel out the gravity, so that the visitors on the chair are gradually parallel to the rotating column in the center.

Compared to maintaining acceleration to provide simulated gravity, this method only needs to provide a small amount of energy to keep the chair rotating and provide sufficient centrifugal force.

But it still has a drawback.

That is, if sufficient centrifugal force is to be supplied, then the speed of rotation must reach a certain height.

To make the centrifugal force reach the effect of gravity on the ground, it can be calculated by simple mathematics.

That is, F = mrω (ω is the angular velocity) instead of gravity. So the acceleration is rω. Substituting the acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s. Let rω = 9.8. If the spacecraft rotates at an R of 100m, this requires the spacecraft to rotate 18 per second.

In other words, one rotation in 20 seconds can generate enough centrifugal force.

It doesn't sound simple, but in reality, with one rotation in 20 seconds, astronauts simply can't move normally in this environment.

Of course, if you want to increase the rotation time, it is also possible to get to the point where the human body can adapt to it.

It's just that that would require expanding the volume or diameter of the spacecraft to hundreds of meters, or even thousands of meters.

This is also extremely demanding on aerospace technology and even materials.

As for other directions, what gravitational theory, mass theory, electromagnetic theory, etc., are basically just theories.

It can even be said that most of these directions are only hypothetical, and there is not even a perfect basic theory.

For example, gravity bending gravity technology is based on manipulating gravity.

And now, let alone manipulating gravity, even the physics community has not yet figured out what gravity is.

Therefore, the technology of artificial gravity still only exists in theory or in a very small number of laboratories.

However, if artificial gravity can be achieved, the impact on the development of aerospace will definitely be significant.

The importance of artificial gravity technology can be said to be greater than that of aerospace engines. In a way, it is no less than controlled nuclear fusion technology.

Of course, this refers to the kind of artificial gravity technology that is 'complete' or 'high-level'. Instead of the current low-level technology that is simulated by centrifugal force.

However, the research direction of artificial gravity is placed in the Xinghai Research Institute, and it is still possible to explore it.

The direction is divided into two parts: the future and the future.

The future direction is naturally to start from the most basic gravitational aspect, and study things in a purely theoretical direction, probably after the large strong particle collider is repaired, to see if we can find traces of gravitons.

Now, it's mainly application-oriented.

Whether it is to create centrifugal force to simulate gravity, or other means, you can selectively experiment and try.

After all, the trouble of gravitylessness in space is a problem they have already come into contact with, and if they don't solve it now, they will have to face it sooner or later with the development of space technology in a few more years.

After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan floated to the porthole of the living cabin, overlooking the planet below him.

After a period of orbital flight, the space shuttle Xinghai has now circled the backlit side of the Earth.

But even on the backlit side, the Earth isn't completely in darkness during the summer months.

Thanks to the fact that the stars in the Northern Hemisphere are always refracted through arcs and scattered with bright light, the planet beneath our feet is no longer blue and white, but scatters more of its own color.

There were a few clouds floating in the gray-yellow Taklarigan Desert, and when you looked at the ocean to the north, the green aurora seemed to bring an emerald green crown to the earth.

Even more striking is the night lights. The bright stars converge into a sea of bright lights, which are fireworks in the world, the most brilliant light on the planet.

"It's so beautiful~"

Beside her, Tang Sijia stared at the earth at night, and the scenery was even more intoxicating than that of the day.

"Professor, what's that?"

At this moment, Zheng Hai, who was by another porthole on the side, seemed to notice something, turned his head to Xu Chuan and asked.

"What?"

Xu Chuan looked at it, and he didn't know what Zheng Hai was asking?

"Over the Pacific Ocean, over there, professor, take a look."

Zheng Hai stretched out his hand and pointed to the scenery outside his porthole, and Xu Chuan floated over, curiously looking in the direction he was pointing.

With the orbital flight of the space shuttle, the Pacific Ocean gradually came into view.

Accompanied by the deep and dark deep sea, a dark blue light entered Xu Chuan's pupils.

"What is this?"

Looking at this faint blue light with some curiosity, Xu Chuan was a little surprised: "This is the lightning formed by the ocean storm?" ”

Although it was the first time he had seen such a scene, he quickly made a judgment based on the knowledge in his mind.

The blue light in the Pacific Ocean is most likely the ocean carried by storms in the Pacific Ocean.

"Storm?"

Zheng Hai muttered, frowned slightly and looked at the earth under his feet through the porthole, suddenly looked up at Xu Chuan, and asked, "Professor, can you calculate the scale of this storm by the brightness of this lightning cluster?" ”

The storm in the Pacific Ocean, and geographically, is quite close to the East China Sea region.

As a soldier, the first reaction in his mind was how big the storm would be and whether it would cause damage to life and property to cities and civilians in coastal areas.

Hearing this, Xu Chuan glanced back at the porthole and measured the size of the dark blue storm.

Although the size of the lightning clusters formed during the storm aggregation is not fixed, sometimes large and sometimes small, some data can be assessed overall.

Counting the current high-brightness lightning cluster, some blue-white clouds next to it can be seen, Xu Chuan made a simple calculation in his mind.

"Judging from some visual data, if it is determined that this dark blue light is a lightning mass formed by a typhoon, the diameter of the typhoon's core, that is, the cloud wall area outside the eye of the typhoon, may exceed 200 kilometers."

Hearing this, Zheng Hai's face suddenly changed.

Xu Chuan glanced at him and asked curiously, "What's wrong?" ”

Zheng Hai took a deep breath and quickly replied: "This may be a super typhoon, which may cause serious damage or flooding to cities in coastal areas. ”

As a talent from the special forces, he has some learning about these things.

If the impact of a typhoon is two hundred kilometers in diameter, it is not a big deal. Tropical storms and typhoons in the Pacific Ocean form storms of this magnitude almost every day.

But in the cloud wall area with a diameter of 200 kilometers, it is a super typhoon.

Xu Chuan frowned slightly and asked, "Will the impact be great?" ”

Zheng Hai thought for a moment and replied: "If the core diameter of the Cloud Wall Area reaches two hundred kilometers, its peripheral influence range is at least more than 1,500 kilometers, and even 1,800-2,000 kilometers!" ”

Hearing this data, Xu Chuan's face also changed suddenly.

The 2,000-kilometer sphere of influence, if its core is in Shanghai, then it can almost cover the entire area of Beijing-Yangcheng-Star City in a circle.

"I'll contact the Weather Bureau."

After taking a deep breath and confirming the seriousness of the problem, Zheng Hai took out a satellite phone from the pocket of his clothes, quickly transferred it to the ground through the Xinghai's contact channel, and then transferred it again to contact the General Bureau of Meteorology.

At the same time, the building of the General Directorate of Meteorology.

In the middle of the night, the staff on duty 24 hours a day looked at the data transmitted by the high-orbit remote sensing satellite, and their faces were solemn.

After receiving Zheng Hai's call, the staff of the typhoon monitoring center quickly dispatched meteorological remote sensing satellites to scan the Pacific Ocean on the outer edge of the southeast sea area, that is, the Philippine Sea.

For China, it is true that meteorological monitoring satellites work 24 hours a day, but remote sensing for typhoons has a time period.

The nine-dash line in the South China Sea and the East China Sea are the boundaries, with a 24-hour warning line within the boundaries and a 48-hour warning line outside the Philippine Sea.

This data is based on the time when the typhoon in the region makes landfall on the mainland, so the time and frequency of detailed scanning and remote sensing will vary from area to region.

The typhoon reported by Zheng Hai was within the 48-hour warning line, which is very close to the 24-hour warning line.

According to the data analysis of remote sensing satellites, the energy level of the core of the eye of the storm is very high.

The radius of the 12-level wind circle (wind speed of 32.7 meters per second or more) reached an astonishing 230 kilometers, which is quite consistent with the judgment data transmitted back by Zheng Hai.

What's even more striking is not the size of the wind ring, but the top speed at the core of the wind circle.

Judging from the satellite feedback data, the core wind speed of this 'monster', which has only just formed, has reached a speed of nearly 50 meters per second.

This is already the highest intensity of a Category 14 typhoon, and a little further up, it is a Category 15 typhoon.

What's more, this behemoth can be generated, and it will theoretically be strengthened for a period of time over time, and it may also be weakened.

But strengthening is more likely, because in the southern part of the typhoon, remote sensing satellites detected the subtropical thermal high pressure zone.

Under the pressure of the subtropical high pressure belt, it will theoretically only become stronger.

If there is no problem with the theoretical judgment, then this typhoon inadvertently observed by Xinghai may eventually form a 16-level super typhoon, or even a 17-level super typhoon.

A storm of this magnitude, if it makes landfall on the coast, will cause extremely serious damage to coastal cities.

Natural disasters such as floods, landslides, and mudslides can occur when infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, and roads are destroyed, and natural disasters such as power and communication systems are interrupted.

In 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan swept across the Philippines with gusts of up to 100 m/s and a tsunami of up to 14 meters.

Heavy rains + seawater inflow leveled almost all the towns near the landfall site, killing more than 6,000 people and causing incalculable economic losses.

Judging from the current remote sensing data, the eye of this newly generated typhoon storm has already shown a perfect 'circle', and its data intensity is not weaker than that of 'Haiyan' ten years ago.

"Ten years, is this another petrel?"

thanked Zheng Hai for reporting the news, the staff hung up the communication phone, and after muttering a sentence in his mouth, he picked up the red emergency contact number on the table with a heavy face and dialed it to his boss.

A typhoon of this magnitude, even if given an early warning, may cause serious economic losses to coastal areas and even endanger people's lives.

Thankfully, it was discovered at the early stage of formation, and they still had time to monitor and do early warning!