SpecaX attaches great importance to the development of Starship, and the thrust of 33 Raptor Generation engines is undoubtedly the second in the world, and if the combustion chamber is pressurized, it may be able to achieve more than 7,000 tons of thrust, which is on par with the Xinyuan-3 rocket.

But in addition to engine development for the Raptor series, SpecaX also intends to try new tracks.

"Hello, I'm Wayne."

"Nice to meet you, Wayne."

Musk and his close partner Tom Mueller met with a young white man, who was neither humble nor arrogant, and apparently from a large background.

Wayne: "I'm sure you already know what we're here for. ”

Elon Musk: "You're DARPA and the Defense Planning and Research Agency. ”

DRAPA, a private company controlled by almost the military power of the Hexagon, openly researches nuclear propulsion technology.

Originally, the nuclear-powered engine of the FATS program was intended to be handed over to DARPA, but in the end, NACA preemptively formed JFT, and DARPA became a co-researcher of JFT, responsible for the design and production of components for the nuclear thermal engine.

This was not a small order, but DARPA was not satisfied, and with the constant stimulation of the Storm to the Air Force, they took the initiative to come up with a new plan for the Department of Defense.

Wayne: "The military is currently being led by the nose, and the Space Shuttle has completed all its missions in the thirty years from 1981 to 2011, and it is only a pursuit of SSTO in itself, but in fact the technology is far inferior, both practical and economical.

It would be right to start the nuclear-powered vehicle program, but the nuclear-powered space shuttle is ridiculous, especially pulling all the old stuff out of the museum, and we need something bigger, heavier, and more expensive good. ”

Tom Mueller immediately knew what the other side wanted to do.

"StarShip, Starship has you covered."

Wayne: "Yes, it has a mass of nearly a thousand tons, ten times that of the Endeavour, and we can put more, bigger nuclear engines on it, and we can install unimaginable superweapons, at least hundreds of tons of payload, right?" ”

Musk nodded hurriedly, the most commendable thing about Starship's second-stage orbit scheme is the mass of orbit, but there is definitely no load of several hundred tons, and the overall mass of the final is definitely below 300 tons, and it would be good to have a load of 150 tons.

But how can you say frustrating words at this time, and besides, starships can also be upgraded!

"This is no problem at all, and the starship is not expensive, even if it is the final official version, it only needs to be half of the heat insulation tile, and the manufacturing cost will not exceed 200 million US dollars, but it needs more than a thousand tons of thrust to enter orbit, can the nuclear engine have this data?"

Wayne: "One is enough." ”

"I've seen your lunar and Martian programs, and it's really troublesome and difficult to refuel multiple times, but if it's a nuclear engine, you only need to fill up your fuel in low-earth orbit to easily make interstellar travel.

DARPA is willing to fund Starship, and if you agree, it will launch a bill next month, and the total R&D cost of Starship is now less than $3 billion, right? Any sub-project of DARPA can exceed this number. ”

This is almost a hint that the forces behind DARPA are not short of money at all, in fact, as a rookie supported by NACA, SpecaX is very unpopular with the old military-industrial complex, but if it stands with DARPA, it is with the big names in the Hexagon.

They can bring an unimaginable budget, and while they will take some in return, it's still enough for SpecaX.

……

"There are too few people, not enough, at least 10 B+s, preferably A-level or above researchers."

Ye Changsi flipped through a pile of rough paper under the light, which was not much thinner than the "Introduction to Radiation Propulsion Technology", and Cheng Nankai next to him was in a similar situation.

"Introduction to Radiation Propulsion Technology" has been scanned into PDFs and printed in several copies, but now they are only allowed in the basement, and these things are so important.

Two atomic technologists spent three days in the basement with five assistants, and basically finished the book.

This in-house journal from the future is very valuable, and the first part of the introduction and the final collection of related papers are the most important, revealing to the two what a truly feasible and efficient nuclear fusion method will look like in the future, especially the most important theoretical part, which completes the final piece of the puzzle in the field of fusion.

One of the most powerful is the "Yu Qian formula", the world line does not yet exist Academician Yu Qian is a real talent, actually using the weak interaction force to solve the problem of uncontrolled plasma when fusion occurs, making it difficult to carry out continuous reactions, and making the unity of the four forces in nature (strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force, gravitational force) has taken a big step, which can be ranked with Einstein, Bohr and others.

As for the second and third parts, there are three types of fusion propulsion technologies: plasma propulsion, radiation propulsion, and electric propulsion.

Plasma propulsion is similar to fission engine, both of which heat the working fluid (water, hydrogen, methane and other molecules) into plasma and eject it at high speed, but the fusion engine can provide tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of temperatures, and the speed of injection is larger, and the molecular weight of the fuel that can be used is larger.

This kind of technology has a well-developed theory and a lot of prior experience, but the disadvantage is that the fuel consumption is fast and it is not possible to carry out interstellar travel;

Electric propulsion is actually a Hall thruster, that is, a nuclear fusion device used to generate electricity, and then use an electromagnetic field to accelerate the ions to ultra-high speed and throw them out, which is the ultra-high power electric propulsion of nuclear power, the specific impulse is very high, it can reach more than 100,000 seconds, consumes very little fuel, the thrust is small, and it has the potential for interstellar travel, but the disadvantage is that the acceleration is slower, and the requirements for accelerating the working fluid are also relatively high;

Radiation propulsion technology is divided into two kinds, one is passive radiation propulsion, the spacecraft/probe is equipped with a receiver similar to a light sail, and then irradiated by a super-large radiation excitation device in the solar system, with lasers, α particles, etc. as the power transmission medium, without the need for additional propulsion medium, the specific impulse has more than 100 times the upper limit of electric propulsion;

The second is active radiation propulsion, that is, the thrusters on the spacecraft produce radiation propulsion, which is also the most ideal spacecraft configuration, which can theoretically reach the speed of sub-light speed, which is comparable to the dream spaceship.

Plasma propulsion and electric propulsion are both technologies that have been mastered by mankind, and it is not complicated to apply fusion technology on their basis, but what about radiation propulsion...... According to the conjecture of the original author Zhao Zongyao, it should be put into practical use within about two hundred years.

For 200 years, because radiation propulsion was so ideal, although the specific impulse of the propulsion medium without the need for acceleration with photons or α particles was unimaginably high, the practical difficulties were also very high.

Photons have no mass but do produce light pressure, humans have done solar sail propulsion experiments, and α particles are certainly fine, but the problem is that both of these things are so low in mass that they are almost negligible, and if you follow the original momentum formula, the thrust obtained by existing means may not even be as good as electric thrusters.

(End of chapter)