The Brain Storm Group was caught in an unprecedented fierce debate. Scientists were divided into two factions, and some people supported the space program, hoping to fight with North America until they defeated the arrogant scientific research giant Nasa.

Another group of people realized that the space program was too risky and wanted to dig all the scientific research forces of the entire company and spend countless funds, which would not be worth the cost.

Luo Jia did not express his opinion. He listened carefully to everyone's speeches, and thought quickly in his mind, analyzing everyone's opinions and ideas.

"The big guys are very abnormal today. It's midnight and there is no sign of the meeting ending."

"I heard that there was a dispute because of the space plan. I don't understand the specifics. It seems to be related to the future development direction of the company. The atmosphere in the conference room was very tense. Many big guys rolled up their sleeves and their faces turned red."

"You two are muttering there, hurry up and send the midnight snack. The big guys are all hungry and are waiting to eat wontons."

Not only the staff in the cafeteria were talking, but the entire Xingchen Technology, as well as all its subsidiaries, were looking forward to the headquarters sounding the horn to enter space.

After all, in this team full of male integrity, who doesn’t have the dream of the stars and the sea?

Want to develop space?

Nonsense, straight men have long wanted to be crazy, okay?

However, reason told them that things might not be simple. The brainstorming team held a whole day of meetings, but no news came from the conference room. Obviously something was wrong, which made the bosses unable to make up their minds.

It seemed as if the whole day of analysis and discussion had exhausted everyone's energy. After having a midnight snack, the conference room gradually became quiet.

Everyone looked at Luo Jia. After all, no matter how lively the brainstorming team analyzed, it was ultimately necessary for Luo Jia to make a decision.

To a certain extent, the Brain Storm Group is also Luo Jia’s think tank, responsible for providing various opinions. Luo Jia will make relatively objective and rational choices after comprehensively considering all opinions.

After clearing his throat, Luo Jia knew that she could not drag it down anymore, so she stood up and walked to the podium, with a smile on her face as usual, then knocked on the microphone, and tried to see if the ink pen was written coherently.

After doing this, Luo Jia said in a deep voice: "I have heard everyone's thoughts and opinions, let's talk about mine now."

"The main reason why space projects have such a big dispute is that input and output are not proportional. Wisdom is a resource that is rarer than money. The headquarters software department plus hardware department, 220,000 engineers and scientists have all invested in space plans, plus trillions of dollars in funds, and the final result is likely to be the only way to leave a pair of footprints on the moon, let alone we are not the first one."

After hearing Luo Jia's words, everyone couldn't help but smile bitterly. The first person to eat crabs was the Warrior, but who would remember the second one?

North America has already walked the path of space. Now Xingchen Technology has invested so much manpower and funds. Taking the paths others have taken is not worth it no matter how you look at it. If you spend your energy and funds on other projects, it may be more valuable. It is unreasonable to hang yourself from a tree.

After pausing for a moment, Luo Jia then said, "I understand all your concerns. Now let's think about it from a different perspective."

"Suppose there is a technology that can transport goods to space at a price of no more than two thousand dollars per ton, or even less, is this technology worth developing at all costs?"

After hearing Luo Jia's words, everyone was stunned and could not believe their ears.

From Earth to space, the transportation of goods costs 2,000 US dollars per ton?

How is this possible? It’s a fantasy!

"The freight per ton is only 2,000 US dollars? Can we build a space station!?"

"More than that, if the freight is so low, colonizing the moon and colonizing Mars will all become a reality!"

"Of course we need to build spacecraft and plunder resources. The moon is just a golden egg orbiting the earth. The titanium metal contained in the moon sea basalt alone is at least 100 trillion tons, not to mention the large amount of helium 3 in the lunar soil, which is an important fuel for controlled fusion technology."

"Helium 3 is a good review! Now our way of obtaining energy is Carmen vortex street power generation, but Carmen vortex street power generation can only be used on the earth. Once it leaves the earth, it will fail. If we want spacecraft to fly and fly out of the solar system, we must develop controllable fusion!"

Everyone was excited to discuss it. In fact, the biggest obstacle to the road to the sea of ​​stars is not technology, nor emotion, but cost.

The weight of a large space station or colonizer base is at least tens of thousands of tons. You can't count on the existing rocket technology to launch the base into space little by little, that's until the year of the monkey and horse month.

The cheap space launch technology will change the reality of the useless development of the universe and make the development of the universe profitable.

Only interests are eternal. When a spacecraft filled with precious metal returns with full load, the road to the sea of ​​stars will truly become a great cause that can be developed continuously.

And what do humans rely on to develop space now?

feelings.

The Apollo Project, Star Wars Project, and Curiosity Mars rover project in North America are not without benefits, but the benefits are not proportional to costs, spending one trillion dollars to obtain one trillion dollars.

Luo Jia’s idea is very simple. Space projects cannot rely on emotions. They must have the potential to achieve profitability in the future in order to continue to do a great career.

Swish ~

With a big stroke, Luo Jia began to draw sketches on the whiteboard, which was a space elevator, commonly known as a space elevator.

At this moment, the conference room was silent, and thousands of thoughts were in everyone's hearts. They couldn't help but think excitedly that history has finally come to this point. Will the legendary space elevator become a reality in their own hands?

I have to say that Luo Jiazhen has no artistic talent. In his description, the space elevator is like a toothpick inserted on an apple. The bottom is connected to the mainland and the top is a large space station located in a geosynchronous orbit.

After finishing the sketch, Luo Jia held the ink pen and said in a deep voice: "The height is 36,000 kilometers, and it goes directly to the geosynchronous track. As the elevator continues to rise, the internal gravity will gradually decrease. When the cargo reaches the terminal with the elevator, its own speed will be enough to maintain movement around the geosynchronous track. Therefore, the terminal space station of the synchronous track is in a state of complete weightlessness."

"Before introducing the working principle of space elevators, we must clarify one question: is the space elevator a giant tower standing on the ground or a catenary hanging from the track?"

"Clearing this issue is crucial to our future work, because the giant towers are under pressure, while the track catenary is under tension, and the two belong to different mechanical categories."

After a brief pause, Luo Jia said seriously: "There is no doubt that the answer is the latter. Because the critical instability point of the pressure is too low, the space elevator cannot bear its own weight. Our only choice is to build a space station in the geosynchronous orbit, and then hang a conduit with extreme tensile resistance from the space station to connect the earth and the space station."

“Since we chose to let the space elevator with tension rather than pressure, the next question is, the material.”

Swish ~

The red ink pen began to quickly write the derivation formula on the whiteboard, assuming that the internal tension of the space elevator and the change functions of the cross-sectional area with distance are t(x) and a(x) respectively.

Then Newton's second law is applied, dt=-pa(x)g(x)dx.

Wherein, the equivalent acceleration g(x) is the sum of the vectors of gravity acceleration and centrifugal acceleration...

About half an hour passed, and when the complex derivation ended, the brainstorming group was surprised to find that the super-strength carbon fiber, as an auxiliary material for space elevators, met the performance standards.

The Carmen vortex power generation array, which is like a group of demons, is made of super-strength carbon fiber. It has withstood the double test of time and strength and is trustworthy.

You have to ask why the Carmen vortex power generation array does not use stronger graphene materials. It is very simple. When studying Carmen vortex power generation array, the graphene materials have not been developed yet. Besides, the price of graphene materials is relatively expensive than carbon fibers. It is a bit of a waste of money to use them as power generation arrays.

Although graphene has not been able to devote itself to the great energy industry, this time, it can play its unique advantages in the space elevator project.

Since the tensile strength required by the space elevator plan is really abnormal, further optimization of graphene is needed to create graphene nanotubes.

In this way, the material problem of space elevators is solved. Graphene nanotubes are used in the skeleton, auxiliary materials and elevator bodies, and super-strength carbon fibers are used.

"In addition, we also face a problem. The elevator climbs from the ground to a height of 36,000 kilometers, which obviously requires strong power. By the way, we happened to have something called ultrasonic motor. The nickname of ultrasonic motor is called space motor." Luo Jia said with a smile.

After hearing this, the conference room exploded directly. The scientists were so excited that they almost shed tears.

How can that sentence be said? Having skills means doing whatever you want.

Before we knew it, the three key technologies for building space elevators were already on the technology list of Star Technology. Except for graphene nanotubes, the others can be used directly.

Luo Jia reached out to signal everyone to be quiet. Because of the crazy celebration just now, the conference room was too hot at this moment. Luo Jia opened the window and let the cold wind of early spring pour in to help everyone wake up their overheated minds.

"Although we have the key technology to build space elevators, we must be clear that this plan is still full of risks and uncertainties. For example, we need a super Falcon with a cost and capacity of no less than Musk."

"I am not referring to the heavy Falcon that has been successfully launched several times in a row, nor is it Falcon Nine, but Musk's next generation rocket and the Super Falcon that is still in the process of testing."

"With cheap large launch vehicles, we can send the space station into Earth's orbit in batches, and then hang a graphene nanotube from the orbit."

"At that time, the whole world thought that we were launching rockets, but in fact, we were launching elevators."

"The whole world thinks that we are building a space station, but in fact, we are building an elevator."
Chapter completed!