Chapter 475: The Flashing Road
October 5th, the first year of Xinghe.
A spacecraft orbiting the moon - Spark 107.
With the help of the moon's gravitational slingshot, it quickly flies towards the orbit of Mars.
The 2,864-ton Spark 107 spacecraft was flying in deep space about 70,000 kilometers from the moon and 480,000 kilometers from the earth.
At this time, the flying speed of Spark 107 was 8.5 kilometers per second.
Right at this moment.
Spark 107 suddenly adjusted its flight attitude. The nozzle of the methane liquid oxygen engine became the flying head, and the head became the flying tail. The spacecraft temporarily relied on its previous inertia to fly.
After the head became the tail, the new tail began to deform, or to be more precise, the fairing opened.
The fairing unfolds like a flower, forming a cover with a diameter of 20 meters. There is also a special nozzle with a diameter of 9.8 meters in the center of the cover.
After readjusting the direction.
A fist-sized sphere suddenly spewed out from the center of the tail nozzle of Spark 107.
The next second, a blinding light came out of the ball.
In this dark deep sky, a small sun seemed to appear.
In the strong light of the little sun, the speed of Spark 107 suddenly increased significantly.
Next second.
Another little sun began to flicker behind Spark No. 107.
After about a few seconds.
NASA's ground control center.
The satellite responsible for monitoring the direction of the moon suddenly detected a burst of gamma rays and photons, and then on average, gamma rays and strong light signals appeared every 60 seconds or so.
Even without satellite monitoring, many observatories observing the moon at this time can see a series of light spots appearing near the moon through astronomical telescopes.
Then Bill, who was still sleeping, was hurriedly awakened by his subordinates.
Bill, sleepy-eyed, came into the office with an espresso.
"What happened again?" He took a sip of espresso to refresh himself.
Deputy Director Davis said with a troubled look on his face: "The Homo Sapiens Company just carried out a nuclear explosion propulsion."
"Nuclear explosion test? You should have notified the Pentagon instead of waking me up." Bill rubbed his temple speechlessly, then took another sip of espresso.
"The problem is that this nuclear explosion test was conducted in an orbit near the moon."
"Isn't it the moon...?? Wait, where are you saying it is?" Bill's eyes widened.
Davis gritted his teeth and replied, "Lunar orbit."
"Wang Defa?! You said that the Sapiens company was conducting nuclear tests on the moon?" Bill jumped up from his seat.
"To be more precise, they are conducting a nuclear explosion propulsion test. A Spark-type spacecraft of the Sapiens Company is accelerating towards Mars under the propulsion of a nuclear explosion." Davis explained quickly.
"Give me the details!" Bill felt terrible.
Davis took the document from the assistant and handed it to Bill.
Bill flipped through the pages quickly.
A total of 50 micro-nuclear explosions were detected. Calculated based on the 60-second interval between the explosions, the speed of the Spark spacecraft had been increased to about 50 kilometers per second.
Calculated at a speed of 50 kilometers per second, the spacecraft can fly 4.32 million kilometers a day.
At this time, Mars is about 110 million kilometers away from the Earth, and the distance between the two planets is approaching at a speed of 500,000 kilometers per day.
In other words, it would only take about 26 Earth days for the Spark to reach the orbit of Mars.
Of course, Bill knew 26 days was impossible.
The reason is that the speed of Spark is too fast, exceeding the capture limit of Mars' gravity, so Spark must use some time to slow down.
But even so, this speed is already amazing.
NASA has launched three Falcon launch vehicles in a row in the past few days, and all of them were successful, which made many people a little carried away.
Now the Sapiens company is using its hard power to tell the world that your uncle is still your uncle.
Still playing with Rocket?
I've already gone to Mars in a nuclear-powered spacecraft.
Bill took a deep breath and said, "Notify the Pentagon and the Council!"
"I've already notified them." Davis scratched his head.
Bill glanced at the other party meaningfully, then changed the subject: "Then notify the other partners that I need to hold a video conference with the ground connection."
"OK." Feeling somewhat guilty, Davis quickly went to make a phone call.
Although he was a little angry about Davis going beyond him, he knew very well that the Council would not easily change its generals at the last minute. At least in the early stage of the space competition when it was still in the money-burning stage, his position was basically a chore.
What he cared more about at this moment was actually the use of nuclear explosion propulsion by the Homo Sapiens Company.
The pressure from Sapiens Corporation was too great for him. Compared with NASA, the two were not opponents of the same level at all.
There are huge gaps in technology, resources, talent and organization.
This made Bill feel a little frustrated.
Although he hoped to force the board of directors to pay attention to NASA through pressure from Sapiens, it was obvious that the pressure from Sapiens on NASA was about to exceed the limit, which made him not know how to respond and catch up.
Soon, Davis returned again and interrupted his thoughts.
"Director, the secure conference room is ready."
"Then let's go!"
The two arrived at the secure conference room, where several assistants had already opened the video conferencing software.
Conde, president of the Geophysical Association, Matthew Duke, the new head of the Europa Consortium's space agency, and the head of Lucia's space department, have appeared in the video one after another.
The four people participating in the video conference obviously already knew about the lunar orbit.
Conde looked solemn: "The Sapiens company is really scary! They even developed a nuclear-powered spacecraft."
"Now we have to follow up. Although there is no way to build the Daedalus spacecraft, we must have a nuclear-powered spacecraft." Bill clenched his fists.
Conde hesitated: "Bill, wouldn't it be too dangerous to go straight to nuclear power?"
"Then what can you do? If we don't try to catch up, we will never be able to catch up with the development speed of Sapiens. Even if there are risks, I will promote the nuclear-powered launch vehicle project." Bill was very tough.
Lucia's person in charge also nodded: "Nuclear-powered launch vehicles are indeed one of the few effective means for us to compete with the Sapiens company. There are certainly risks, but this is not a reason for us to reject nuclear-powered launch vehicles."
Obviously, faced with this huge pressure and gap, they finally decided to adjust their flexible bottom line.
After a heated discussion, the Earth Union agreed to the proposal to develop a nuclear-powered launch vehicle, but required that it could not be used within the atmosphere and that it would not use a nuclear explosion solution but a nuclear thermal-nuclear power solution.
However, this plan is actually more difficult than the nuclear explosion plan.
The reason why it is difficult is that the key lies in heat dissipation.
The nuclear explosion propulsion scheme does not need to consider the heat dissipation problem .
However, the nuclear thermal and nuclear power solutions must take heat dissipation into consideration. Otherwise, the nuclear batteries or nuclear reactors will inevitably fail to dissipate heat and will melt, causing equipment failures and even the entire spacecraft to be scrapped.
The Homo Sapiens Company has shown them the way, but they are self-righteous.
Without the gold-based electrothermal materials of the Sapiens company, it would be extremely difficult to try nuclear thermal and nuclear power propulsion.
Of course, the nuclear explosion propulsion plan also has its threshold. For example, the nuclear protection material must be able to withstand close-range micro-nuclear explosions, which places very high demands on the materials.
