Chapter 685 Production Capacity Increases
Just when Zheng Bai and others were busy building artificial earth No. 1.
The headquarters of the Homo sapiens company in the solar system is also not idle.
After more than twenty years of development, new humans have finally made a breakthrough in the manufacturing technology of double neutron materials.
Previously, Sapiens could only produce a few hundred kilograms of di-neutron materials a year. After adopting the new technology, the production capacity increased by dozens of times , and the unit energy consumption decreased by 55%.
At the same time, the scale of production equipment has been compressed from hundreds of kilometers to tens of kilometers.
As the most important colony of the Sapiens Company, the Superstar Colonial Branch received the relevant technical information at the first opportunity.
The Superstar Colony Branch acted very quickly. In less than half a month, it had modified 8 double-neutron material manufacturing machines, which can produce about 8 tons of double-neutron material annually.
The importance of double neutron materials to Sapiens far exceeds that of other materials.
Whether in the energy field, the military field, the engineering construction field resources, or the propulsion field, double neutron materials play an irreplaceable role.
Without double neutron materials, it would be difficult for Sapiens' spacecraft to travel at a speed exceeding 3% of the speed of light.
Now the company's latest spacecraft has a maximum cruising speed of 7.8% of the speed of light.
The core technologies of the new spacecraft are the magnetic field deviation shield made of double neutron materials, the strong magnetic plasma thruster and the strong magnetic nuclear fusion power generation system.
Especially the magnetic field deviation shield, which is very important for spacecraft flying at ultra-high speed.
Without this thing, as long as the spacecraft's travel speed exceeds 2% of the speed of light, the head of the spacecraft will suffer irreparable damage.
During a test, Sapiens replaced the experimental spacecraft's magnetic field shield with ordinary materials. As a result, after the spacecraft's speed exceeded 2% of the speed of light, the head of the spacecraft collided with an asteroid a few centimeters in size, and the head of the spacecraft was broken.
Asteroids with diameters of several centimeters are basically densely distributed throughout the interstellar space. Although from a large spatial scale, the probability of a collision between a spacecraft and a micro-asteroid is not high.
However, when the speed of the spacecraft increases and the flying distance is extended, low-probability events will become inevitable events.
For example, in the previous expeditionary fleet of Homo sapiens, almost all the warships were collided with micro-asteroids during their voyage.
If it weren't for the super magnetic field deflection shield made of double neutron material, the head of the battleship would have been smashed into a hornet's nest long ago.
Why can't the six-clawed people develop a faster spaceship?
The answer is not only because of the poor thruster technology, but also because of the shield technology.
In the Earth era, this is the reason why human airplanes collide with birds, leading to airplane accidents.
Entering the space age, the speed of early spacecraft did not exceed 20 kilometers per second, and their flying range was not far, so the risk of collision with micro-asteroids was very high.
Not to mention that the speed of the spacecraft can reach more than 2% of the speed of light. As long as a collision occurs, an asteroid of a few centimeters in size will be as powerful as hundreds of tons of TNT.
The largest asteroid hit by the expeditionary fleet was about 12 meters in diameter, and its impact force was equivalent to several million tons of TNT.
Without super strong shield technology, this level of impact can directly smash the entire space battleship into pieces.
Why is the maximum speed of the latest version of Sapiens spacecraft stuck at 7.8% of the speed of light?
The reason is that when the speed of a spacecraft exceeds 8% of the speed of light, even the super magnetic field created by double neutron materials cannot completely deflect the micro-asteroids along the way.
Moreover, as the speed of the spacecraft increases, an asteroid with a diameter of several centimeters can produce a destructive force equivalent to hundreds of thousands of tons of TNT after a collision. In addition, if the impact object hits harder, it may instantly penetrate the magnetic field deflection shield.
After all, with the thrusters and power generation systems that Sapiens currently possesses, if continuous acceleration is adopted at all costs, as long as the acceleration time is long enough, the speed of the spacecraft can be increased to about 20% of the speed of light.
But the consequence of doing so is that the spacecraft will become a pile of scrap metal midway.
What’s the point of such speed if the safety of the spacecraft cannot be guaranteed?
That's great. The speed of an intercontinental ballistic missile can reach more than ten Mach, which is much faster than a civil airliner. Why not convert an intercontinental ballistic missile into a transport plane?
It was for this reason that the speed of the spacecraft of the intelligent civilization could not be increased.
The quasi-second-level civilization that defeated the intelligent civilization had a spacecraft that could travel at speeds exceeding 30% of the speed of light, which shows how powerful it is.
Now the company's spacecraft research and development department is trying to develop a more powerful magnetic field deflection shield, but the management, including Li Qingye, are well aware that the magnetic field strength of the double neutron material has reached its limit.
Unless a material with a stronger magnetic field than the double neutron material can be developed, the maximum speed of Sapiens' spacecraft will stop at 7.8% of the speed of light.
Materials are the foundation of technology.
As for the research and development ideas of new materials, Dr. Yuri and others who developed the double neutron materials back then already had some ideas.
That is to study the upgraded version of double-neutron materials, that is, to synthesize neutron materials such as four-neutron and six-neutron.
It’s a pity that the double neutron material was developed by accident, and even the clear theory has not been fully figured out.
As for how to synthesize other neutron materials, various neutron material research institutes can only continue to experiment, hoping to synthesize new neutron materials.
But materials science really depends a bit on luck.
Of course, in addition to luck, to get good materials you also need a financial foundation. Without a large amount of resource investment, even luck will be useless.
For example, for double neutron materials, the resources required for a single Mars Equatorial Circular Particle Collider are astronomical.
The free world that is still struggling to survive on Earth cannot produce experimental equipment of this level even if it goes without food and water for a hundred years.
Without even the experimental equipment, it would be impossible to develop double-neutron materials even with incredible luck.
In the process of scientific and technological development, the threshold will become higher and higher as the technology becomes more advanced.
The gap between level one civilization and level zero civilization is as huge as the difference between heaven and earth. Without special opportunities and united determination, the probability of level zero civilization successfully advancing to level one civilization is only about 0.36%.
This data comes from the intelligent mechanical civilization, which originally counted all the civilizations within the controlled area.
Finally, it was concluded that the probability of a level-zero civilization being promoted to a level-one civilization is only about 0.36%.
In other words, if the Homo Sapiens Company had not emerged, human civilization would most likely continue to linger at the zero-level civilization stage, and then encounter the six-clawed people who came from across the starry sky a few hundred years later.
