Chapter 240: Soaring Clouds

"First, a single-stage orbital vehicle needs to go through atmospheric ablation. If the thermal insulation layer is not properly handled, the single maintenance cost will be several times higher. For example, H1 and H2 are free of replacement for life, and the maintenance cost of the thermal insulation layer per unit area is less than one-thirtieth of that of H1, which is almost negligible;

Therefore, the goal of reducing the single flight cost to 1 million can be solved by the thermal insulation layer, which is the second key issue."

Shelev spoke coherently and confidently, with clear pronunciation and clear ideas, which made people feel a sense of trust unnaturally, which surprised others.

This confidence and calmness cannot be faked without years of leadership experience and strong technical strength.

If Lin Ju knew what they were thinking, he would definitely laugh out loud. Just kidding, Lao Ke deals with marshals and generals every day, and even confronted Brezhnev. If he is not confident, who is confident?

And Shelev has his own unique personality charm, which can be clearly felt in getting along with him.

Everyone nodded in agreement with his first conclusion. The thermal insulation technology developed by Xinyuan for H2 is quite advanced. Although it is expensive, it has been spread out to a very low level in 100 flight missions.

"Second, fuel. Hydrogen-oxygen engines cannot be used. They are too expensive and too heavy. Kerosene engines also have high maintenance costs, so they must be clean. Methane is easier to store and burns fully without producing residues. Methane must be used;

But traditional methane engines cannot work. Use aerospike engines. They can change their working state to adapt to the atmosphere and vacuum, and can also provide higher specific impulse. Moreover, find a way to combine aerospike engines and ramjet engines together, all using methane fuel, and further reduce weight."

Academician She:!

"This, this is probably..."

The other aerospace experts also found it difficult to accept. Aviation and aerospace are mostly interoperable. They were even more surprised that they could understand Shelev's ideas.

For flights within the atmosphere, methane can theoretically replace aviation kerosene, and its calorific value is even higher than the latter. Experiments have been conducted in the world to apply methane to jet engines.

But for airplanes, methane needs to be stored in pressure containers, which is heavier and more troublesome than kerosene, so its development is limited.

Shelev not only wants to unify the fuel, but also integrate the ramjet engine, jet engine, and aeroponic rocket engine together?

In this way, the overall design and weight can definitely be simplified and reduced, but the difficulty... the new technology to be broken through is beyond imagination.

Shelev did not respond to the doubts, but directly took out a notebook from his pocket, took out a pencil and drew some simple lines on a blank page:

"I think everyone knows how to combine ramjet engines and jet engines. The design of WCR09 can be used. The combustion chamber of the aeroponic engine is placed at the tail nozzle of the combined engine.

We use a ring-shaped aeroponic engine and add a spindle in the middle of the circular nozzle, which will not affect the workmanship in the atmosphere too much. Then we will find a way to make the core engine of the turbojet part as part of the aeroponic engine, so that the mass of the combined engine is controlled at about 3 tons, and the aeroponic engine can generate more than 15 tons of thrust when working."

As a scientist trained by the alliance, Shelev's drawing skills make people have to admire him. Several experts passed the notebook around and had a new understanding of this young man.

Such a Shelyov is indeed worthy of his high position.

After a while, an expert from the Third Academy sighed:

"It's too complicated and difficult. The aviation part is a big problem. In addition, the annular air-spike engine is actually still basically in the theoretical state. The previous verification machine worked very unstably. It is much more complicated than the bell-shaped nozzle, and it is dead heavy? The air-spike engine has many small nozzles. It needs to be simple and durable. This is not a small problem."

Academician She crossed his hands and was obviously thinking seriously: "However, one engine and one fuel can indeed achieve a terrible low price. There are many ways to enter orbit with a single stage, but this is indeed the cheapest, really cheap."

Shelyov took the notebook again, and a large delta-wing aircraft appeared on the paper in a few seconds.

"The maximum take-off weight is 200 tons, with 10 new combined engines. When accelerating to Mach 10, the aeroponic engine can be started. It can carry 20 passengers or 2 pilots and about 3 tons of bulk cargo. The mass in orbit is about 50 tons, and it can carry 3 tons of payload. Such a spacecraft is enough to realize cheap space personnel transportation services."

The experts calculated in their minds that the final mass in orbit reached 25% of the take-off weight. This load factor is frighteningly high. The 10 engines must work for at least 240 seconds in the aeroponic engine state. Each engine consumes less than 55 kilograms of fuel per second while outputting 25 tons of thrust. This places high demands on the aeroponic engine. The specific impulse of the methane engine must be increased to an astonishing level, and the specific impulse may even be close to that of the hydrogen-oxygen engine!

Although the 200-ton mass is ultimately left for humans or cargo, it still cannot cover up the superiority of this design: cheap, too cheap.

The thoroughly cheap means of entering space may even reduce the cost of entering space to less than 100,000 for the first time.

What a tempting prospect, just thinking about it makes people extremely shocked.

Boss: "It will take at least three years for this kind of engine to be put into practical use."

Serev and Lin Ju made eye contact. The latter understood the situation and directly created a new task in the system panel. After a brief shock, he slightly raised a finger towards Serev.

Serev: "Give us 10 billion, and Xinyuan will solve this problem within a year."

"..."

Everyone looked at the boss, who coughed dryly and winked at Academician She.

Academician She secretly cursed, Ten billion? With so much money, as long as it is a theoretically feasible thing, the space agency can't come up with it?

So he said: "Ten billion spent on engine technology is not too much, but WCR09 is already a mature technology, so it shouldn't take so much money to solve the air tip part, right?

Xinyuan is confident that it can be solved within one year. Does it already have some technical reserves? "

The boss then remembered that the Xinyuan air-end engine must have a foundation, and NAPE can be regarded as an air-end engine, unlike the space agency that started from scratch.

But you can’t be so big-mouthed like a lion!

At this time, Lin Ju, who had been hiding in silence, finally stood up and interjected:

"10 billion is the total research and development cost of our entire system. If the space agency jointly promotes the aerospace aircraft program with us, half of the funding for the engine will be 4 billion yuan. As for aircraft research and development, it all depends on how much the country provides. Xinyuan will join as a contractor. ”

In fact, what he just wanted to say was 1 billion. The system research institute's task only invested 1 million and the progress increased by 2%. Because Xinyuan, an aerospace engine and aerospace engine, has considerable technical reserves, it is not difficult. Serev just asked for 10 billion. It's really scary.

Academician She: "Then, this will become the final version of the Tengyun plan. The freight will be handed over to others, but in terms of transporting people, this is it."

Serev: "Let me be the chief engineer. In 2018, the Tengyun Project will take off."