Chapter 455: Stretched to the limit
NASA headquarters.
Director Bill was looking at an expedited report that had just been submitted.
At this time, other NASA executives and Elon Musk, chairman of Space Exploration Corporation, were also in his office.
Musk, who happened to come to NASA headquarters to discuss something today, did not expect to encounter such a thing.
He looked at the report in Bill's hand with surprise: "Oh my god... 100 meters long? 10 meters in diameter? This thing is really big!"
"In terms of volume, it is about 5 to 6 times the size of the Falcon Heavy." Rant, head of NASA's Almighty project, scratched his hair as he spoke.
Bill put down the documents in his hand, a serious look on his face: "Is this the purpose of the space base in the north of Mada Island?"
Lant is more professional than the half-baked Director Bill: "I remember a company in Maple Leaf Country proposed a similar concept, but I didn't expect that Sapiens could actually realize this idea."
"According to the radar detection data, when the spacecraft left the pipe, its speed reached the first cosmic speed of 7.8 kilometers per second. Obviously, the power of this spacecraft is very strong!" another technical director analyzed.
Musk reminded: "Gentlemen! Shouldn't you be worried that Sapiens will seize orbital resources and land on the moon and Mars first?"
All of the NASA management present immediately fell silent.
NASA's research funding only increased slightly last year.
However, the good times did not last long. Since the Homo Sapiens company has been making trouble this year, NASA's funding has dropped again.
The main reason for this situation is that the landlords have no surplus food.
America's economy continues to deteriorate. On the one hand, it has to replace old plastic products inside and invest a large amount of money in West Asia; on the other hand, a new round of economic crisis has just broken out.
Coupled with the severe decline in America's global trade, the dollar's status as a global currency is no longer secure.
There is another more important reason, which is that America had projects that needed more money at that time, which squeezed out investment in the aerospace industry.
That is life sciences and biochips, as well as the military industry.
At this stage, the importance of the aerospace industry is obviously not as great as that of life sciences, biochips, and military industry.
The gentlemen on the board of directors of the City on the Hill no longer have the ambition they had during the Apollo moon landing, nor do they have the strong capital they had back then.
The limited funds forced them to make trade-offs.
The aerospace industry is one of the parts that was abandoned.
Now the order given by the City on the Hill Board of Directors to NASA is to do more theoretical research, write more PPTs, and at the same time spend the money on the most needed and practical aerospace projects.
For example, a new type of surveillance satellite that can defend against gamma rays is NASA's recent key project.
As for returning to the moon, building a new international space station, and colonizing Mars, the Council did not approve funding for NASA. It only encouraged private companies like Space Exploration Corporation to invest in space stations, landings on the moon and Mars, and the like.
Without money, major private enterprises are also finding it difficult.
This is also why Musk specifically came to NASA headquarters to discuss future cooperation issues. Now, SpaceX has almost taken over all of NASA's launch missions in the next three years with its low cost.
NASA, which is facing financial difficulties, also has to be thrifty. Bill now does not want to give projects to companies like General Electric, Blue Origin, and Boeing, which are leaking their projects.
After thinking for a while, Bill asked Joseph Brooks, the head of the Space Development Office:
"Joseph, if we want to build a similar device, how much would it cost?"
Joseph Brooks calculated silently in his mind for a while and gave a more conservative figure: "At least 200 billion."
"200 billion?" Bill's face was tangled in everything.
“……” Musk on the side was also shocked by this number.
Even though Musk has been the world's richest man for several years, that is only based on stock valuation. He definitely does not have that much cash and fixed assets.
Joseph Brooks explained helplessly: "200 billion is just a conservative estimate. Building high towers and underground facilities will require at least 30 billion. The research and development and manufacturing of airships and vacuum hoses will also require about 20 billion..."
"In addition, the research and development and manufacturing of the spacecraft itself, as well as whether there are other facilities within the entire system, are still unknown..."
After listening to Joseph Brooks' analysis, Bill's face became even darker.
Fortunately, they didn't know that the underground ring pipeline of the Dandelion project was 300 kilometers long, otherwise this giant vacuum pipeline with a diameter of 30 meters alone would make NASA completely despair.
Taking the 5.8-meter-diameter tunnel commonly used in North America as an example , the current minimum construction cost is US$500 million per kilometer.
Even if we don't take into account the difference in pipeline materials, based on the difference in pipe wall area between the two, according to America's engineering estimates, the cost per kilometer will definitely be more than US$5 billion.
300 kilometers would cost at least 1.5 trillion.
This does not include the electromagnetic acceleration track, power supply system, etc.
Even if NASA's funding was increased a hundred times, it probably still wouldn't be enough.
Obviously Bill has not yet realized the huge gap between the two sides.
I thought if Homo Sapiens Company could do it, then NAS A could do it too.
However, Sapiens has various low-cost production technologies, as well as very cheap raw materials and an operating system that maximizes internal resource utilization.
These are things NASA doesn't have.
Bill was not giving up. He gritted his teeth and ordered, "Let the company in Maple Leaf Country that has similar technology do some research and see if they can come up with a low-cost solution."
Joseph Brooks could only nod helplessly: "OK, I will contact that company as soon as possible."
Musk was not optimistic about this project. He suggested in a sarcastic tone: "Bill, $200 billion can launch thousands of Falcon Heavy missiles. Why waste money on this? The board will not agree to this project. You should think more about cooperating with SpaceX!"
"Elon, your idea is wrong. If we can successfully replicate this project, we will be able to enter outer space at a low cost in the future." Bill did not listen to Musk.
"But NASA has no money!" Musk reminded.
"Uh..." Bill felt a little embarrassed.
NASA’s funding is indeed much less now, and without money, it cannot carry out such a large-scale project.
The problem of funding shortage is actually a difficult problem that all major aerospace agencies are facing today.
At the current stage, the aerospace industry is a very difficult industry to make a profit. Apart from satellite navigation, satellite communications, weather forecasting, and telemetry, which can barely make some money, other projects are basically losing money but gaining publicity.
For example, space station projects, manned moon landings, the Hubble telescope , Mars exploration, etc., these projects cannot make money in a short period of time.
Therefore, the aerospace industry is actually one of the barometers of a region's economy.
Regions with poor economies certainly cannot engage in various cutting-edge scientific research aerospace projects, but instead should consider more practical projects such as navigation, communications, telemetry and monitoring satellites.
NASA is a typical example.
NASA is not the only agency that is worried about space funding. The aerospace departments of the Europa Consortium, Lucia and other forces are also troubled by this.
Seeing Sapiens launch spacecraft weighing thousands of tons into outer space at one time, those space agencies were really envious.
