Thursday, July 20.

The Aramco Senate passed a Pentagon motion to conduct research on a future nuclear-powered space platform, known as FATS, with the participation of NACA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Bell Labs, Northrop Grumman and many others.

The abbreviation FATS happens to be the plural form of the word fat, so the FATS project is also called the "fat man" plan.

The first $3 billion budget for FATS will be built to build a fuel-efficient, power-generating nuclear-powered engine and then retrofit a space shuttle for testing.

That's right, retrofit, the new space shuttle will be more advanced and complex, and it will take more time to build, at least three years.

The H2 has now made its maiden flight, and in order to catch up with the schedule and save money, Michael Carey proposed a large-scale modification of the decommissioned "Endeavour" to build the first nuclear-powered space shuttle within 18 months.

Endeavour last flew in May 2011, and it has only been in place for five years now, and the preservation is still relatively good, and NACA also believes that if it is overhauled and upgraded, not only Endeavour, but also the remaining two Discovery and Atlantis are in good condition and can be commissioned again.

As a result, the FATS program also listed the remaining two space shuttles as a preparatory option, which can be restarted when the time is right, and can be repaired on a small scale initially.

The most happy about the FATS program is Boeing, because whether it is the STS program or the current FATS, the space shuttle is built by them, and it is definitely a business that can last for another thirty years.

NACA began to rummage through its vast database, and in the last century, they launched the "ROVER" and "NERVA" programs to study nuclear thermal rocket engines, and built 8 types of engines, which are quite rich in data, and theoretically have the world's richest reserve of experience.

For nuclear engine technology, to be honest, it was just when the alliance was still in the league that it could wrestle with NACA, looking at the current world, NACA is the first, and everyone else is embarrassed to be second, because NACA is too far ahead on this side.

The fission nuclear program is inseparable from heavy pollution, and it is only in the last century that Aramco seized the opportunity to take advantage of the increasingly stringent nuclear pollution control treaties that had not yet taken shape, and used the first-mover advantage to conduct countless nuclear tests.

Although the initial investment in the FATS program is much smaller than that of the Artemis program, it is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

FATS is promoted by the Pentagon, and those military leaders are much better at talking than scientists, and if they really want a project to be done, the level of support will definitely be unexpected.

AAF has been suppressed since the 90s, F22 produced more than 100 dismantling the production line, the manufacturer of parts for the B2 bomber went bankrupt and needed archaeological information, in order to be "cheap" AAF was forced to engage in the JSF joint fighter program with NAVY, and produced the F35 with a maximum speed of 160 cruising fast, and was embarrassed to be codenamed "Lightning".

The AAF's military leaders were already dissatisfied, so Michael Carey had the strong support of the AAF this time, and it was through a combination of internal and external efforts that he approved the FATS plan in Congress with great efficiency.

However, although the FATS plan is prepared to reduce costs by using retired space shuttles, NACA is still unable to take a start.

Due to the weakness that lasted for more than two decades, NACA spent considerable energy advancing the Artemis program.

Even Aramco, in its heyday, when a worker could feed a family of five and buy a car to travel, and its industrial manufacturing capacity was the highest in the world, the moon landing program and the space shuttle were also in order, one by one.

Now having the moon landing and two space shuttle programs at the same time, the pressure is actually quite great for NACA.

However, the pressure of NACA has paid off, and on the other side of the ocean, there are some people who are scolding their mothers.

……

"His grandmother's, nuclear-powered space shuttle with laser cannons? This dog-day Ami guy really dared to think about it, I didn't even expect it! ”

Even through the thick wooden door, you can still hear the voice of the superior.

When Congress first approved the FATS program, the space agency was still holding on, and felt that the project was just one of many unreliable and fanciful plans of the AAF, and did not take it seriously.

But when it was heard that NACA was going to use the Kennedy Space Center as a relic for Aramco elementary school students next month to make patriotic education, and that the 25-year-old object was pulled back out to be picked up and repurposed, and it was going to be rebuilt for nuclear power, the space agency realized that something was wrong.

Ami, you're really!

Then the domestic secret services reacted with an assessment of the FATS program.

Why use a nuclear-powered space shuttle with a laser cannon instead of a satellite?

The Space Shuttle has a number of advantages:

First, it is easy to maintain, can return to the atmosphere for manufacturers to upgrade, and the 100-ton body can provide a considerable load, and a satellite platform weighing tens of tons of the same class is not cheap;

Second, flexible, the nuclear-powered space shuttle can maneuver in space on its own fuel, and if it is a nuclear engine like the A100, it can even hide on the moon, which large satellites can't do;

Frequent and rapid orbit changes of large satellites are fuel-intensive, and if they are also equipped with nuclear reactors or engines, it will be too costly.

However, it is not impossible for us to fly around in the sky and attack targets with lasers, that is, the "Snow Bird" near space vehicle that has passed the halfway point of the design process.

The Snow Bird can fly to a height of more than 50,000 meters, that is, more than 50 kilometers, and has basically detached itself from the thickest atmosphere, and the attenuation of laser weapons is not much, and it is also possible to attack satellites.

Although it is not like the space shuttle, which can carry more than 20 to 30 tons of lasers, 12 tons is not small, and in any case, the intra-atmosphere vehicle must be cheaper than the space shuttle.

Not only will the cost be cheaper, but the maintenance will also be cheaper and the time will be shorter.

Even if the Snowbird is inferior to the FATS, the cost of building and maintaining one FATS is enough to maintain the same 10 Snowbirds, even if it is five, then the military would prefer the latter.

However, the military also thinks that although the snow bird is not bad, the FATS is really good and looks quite ideal.

What's more, Aramco's FATS has just started, but Huaguo's FATS and H2 space shuttle have already begun prototype testing.

If H2 is used as the carrier aircraft to also engage in Huaguo's FATS, will it be able to save a lot of R&D costs and only need to solve the problem of lasers, but also because H2 has a higher progress and more advanced technology, and entered service earlier than Aramco?

Once the idea was born, I couldn't stop it, so I reported it to the authorities.

In the end, the Third Academy of the Space Agency got the project, and the project code name: "Ghost Bird".

A nuclear-powered space shuttle with a high-energy laser can keep two or three astronauts in space for at least 40 days, and as long as they are silent, they will not have the means to find a spacecraft in the vastness of space that can maneuver over a wide range of near-infinite energy.

When the enemy was scared, he used the laser to instantly destroy the enemy's spacecraft, so he gave the project code name in advance: Ghost Bird, and the internal engineering code name 909 project.

The core of the 909 project is not a laser weighing tens of tons, but a basic carrier aircraft, so the Third Academy hopes that the latter will provide customized H2 empty aircraft and cooperate with the transformation.

And the budget requested by the military for Project 909 is...... 50 billion, initially.

(End of chapter)