Chapter 498: Ring the Equator
Inside Li Qingye’s villa.
Sanjibada Leyal has prepared black tea and refreshments.
"I have seen the results of Diting Company. They did a good job."
Liu Zhifan replied respectfully: "It is the company's technological advantages that have brought such huge gains."
Li Qingye picked up the teacup and smiled at the two of them and said, "How do you plan to arrange those islands?"
Liu Zhifan quickly replied: "Mr. Chairman, this is my plan. Considering the location of the Kanak Islands, it can be included in the operating area of the West Pacific Branch."
After taking a look at the holographic earth, Li Qingye nodded.
“As for the Gilbert Islands, the Ellice Islands, and the Union Islands, we can set up a Central Pacific branch to manage these assets.”
“Association Islands, Tua Islands, etc., can set up a South Pacific branch to manage the company’s assets in the waters.”
"For the Mascarene Islands and other South Ceylon Ocean islands, a South Ceylon branch was established on Saint-Denis to manage the company's local assets."
Li Qingye thought about it for a while, then nodded: "Okay."
Carmen added: "We have recently successfully established . Together with our layout in Africa, the entire equatorial region is now the company's fully authorized operating area."
"Very good." Li Qingye was very satisfied with the work of the company's management.
Liu Zhifan pulled out a document, projected it into the air, and explained, "Mr. Chairman, this is a major project we developed last year. We put it on hold because we considered that some areas in the equatorial region did not have fully authorized branches. Now I think the time is ripe."
Li Qingye looked at the content of the projection.
The project is called: Equatorial Railway.
At first glance, it might seem surprising.
Around the equator? Railway?
These two terms don't match at all. After all, there are not only three pieces of land in the equatorial region, but also the Pacific Ocean, the Ceylon Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.
There is no problem in building railways on land, but it is impossible to build railways across the Pacific Ocean, the Ceylon Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Even though the tunnel technology of the Sapiens company is the best in the world, it cannot withstand the trenches along the way and the average depth of the seabed of three to four thousand meters.
So this plan seems a bit far-fetched.
However, the reason why the engineering division of the Zhiren Company proposed this plan was due to special technical background.
The technology used in the Circum-Equatorial Railway is not tunnel technology or bridge-building technology, but airship technology.
That’s right, it’s airship technology.
The Engineering Division plans to use vacuum airships to build a high-altitude railway around the equator at an altitude of 20 kilometers above the equator.
Since this railway relies on the buoyancy of a vacuum airship, it does not require the construction of bridge piers, nor does it need to worry about severe typhoon weather.
After all, the high-altitude area of 20,000 meters belongs to the stratosphere where the air is thin. Weather such as storms, typhoons and thunderstorms are all unique to the troposphere, and there is no such weather in the stratosphere.
At high altitudes where the air is thin, there is no need for a vacuum track. The resistance of the air itself is very small, and the train can run at speeds close to the speed of sound.
The length of the earth's equator is 40,075 kilometers. At this time, it is not difficult for the Sapiens company to produce a vacuum airship of several kilometers in length. As long as the airships are connected, railways can be laid on them.
Some people may think that this kind of railway is not of great value.
After all, airplanes can also provide fast transportation without the need to build tracks.
The problem lies in the price-performance ratio.
Among the various means of transportation currently owned by Homo Sapiens.
Airplane: Economic speed is 700-900 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport capacity is 200 tons.
Ground effect vehicle: The economic speed is 200 to 300 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport capacity is 1,500 tons.
Nuclear-powered transport ship: economic speed is 40 kilometers per hour and maximum transport capacity is 500,000 tons.
Transport airship: economic speed is 300 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport capacity is 15,000 tons.
Sub-vacuum high-speed rail: economic speed is 240-360 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transportation capacity is 15,000 tons.
Airplanes and ground effect flights obviously do not have an advantage in terms of transportation volume, and their energy consumption is relatively high.
The most cost-effective mode of transportation is still nuclear-powered transport ships.
Transport airships have obvious advantages in land transportation and can be on par with sub-vacuum high-speed railways. Whether in terms of transport volume, speed, or energy consumption, there is not much difference between the two.
When the equatorial railway was first conceived, it was taken into consideration that the airship's transportation speed could not compete with airplanes, and its transportation volume could not compete with large nuclear-powered transport ships, so it could only compete with sub-vacuum high-speed railways.
The Sapiens company needs a mode of transportation that is very fast, has a large transport volume, and has relatively low transportation costs.
Among the large number of proposals collected internally, the circum-equatorial high-altitude railway proposal stood out and became a very suitable proposal.
On the one hand, the cost of a vacuum airship is relatively low.
At present, the ex-factory price of airships of the Mada Island Branch is 0.0022 to 0.0024 gold yuan per cubic meter.
A vacuum airship about 3 kilometers in length has a vacuum chamber of about 4 billion cubic meters, and the total cost is about 8.8 million to 9.6 million gold yuan.
A high-altitude railway platform encircling the equator would require approximately 13,360 vacuum airships each three kilometers long, at a cost of around 110 to 120 billion yuan.
What's more, once large-scale production is truly achieved, production costs will drop further.
Including other supporting facilities, the total cost of the circum-equatorial high-altitude railway platform is approximately 240 to 260 billion yuan.
This cost does not pose any pressure to the company.
Li Qingye flipped to the latter part of the plan and discovered that the engineering division had further ideas.
That is to use the high-altitude railway as the basis and gradually increase the scale of the vacuum airship upwards until the airship reaches the Karman line and reaches an altitude of 100 kilometers.
According to the principle of a vacuum airship, its maximum flight altitude is about 85 kilometers. Above that, the vacuum buoyancy of the airship is not enough.
The engineers in the Engineering Division plan to adopt an arch bridge solution to extend the structure upwards.
This is why they built at the equator, because the angular velocity at the equator is parallel to the equator.
The circum-equatorial railway can also adopt an arch bridge structure to enhance the structural strength and its own supporting capacity, ensuring that the entire structure can be extended to the Karman Line.
As long as the equatorial railway is extended to the Karman Line, astronauts will be able to take the elevator directly from the ground to the Karman Line, and then take a spacecraft to outer space at the spaceport on the Karman Line.
Using this method to travel into outer space is safer than riding a launch vehicle, and it is also very comfortable.
Similarly, the transportation of materials into and out of the atmosphere can be very convenient. There is no need to consider issues such as atmospheric resistance and friction, let alone worry about the pull of gravity causing the spacecraft to lose control.
This idea is very good, but Li Qingye did not blindly agree with the later ideas.
“Can the material strength and weight reach this level?”
Liu Zhifan shook his head: "There is no problem with the stratospheric railway, but the current materials for the Kármán Line platform are not up to the standard. The materials that meet the strength standards are too heavy, and the ultra-light materials do not meet the strength standards."
"Is that so?" Li Qingye pondered for a moment.
Although there are no suitable materials at this stage, he still approves of the first phase of the stratospheric railway: "In this case, let's build the stratospheric railway first! Later upgrades and renovations, when the materials meet the standards, we will consider whether to build it."
"Yes." Liu Zhifan replied excitedly.
