Chapter 302 Proposal

Eamonn is not in a good place right now.

The second manned launch of Dream Chaser, which was also the first mission to undertake the ISS launch mission, ended in such an awkward manner on the second day of John's inauguration, causing a series of chain reactions.

If there was no space race and the existence of Xinyuan, then some problems in a manned launch would only be investigated internally and would not have much impact.

However, in today's environment, the main participants and managers of the Dream Chaser project are facing severe accountability and public pressure.

The day after the Dream Chasers landed, crowds of people holding banners and signs appeared on the streets of Washington.

"Keep them alive! (Let them live)"

“NO RACE NO RISK (No competition, no risk)”

"It was a murder! (It was a murder)"

"We need big shuttle! (We need a large space shuttle)"

"..."

The crowd at the rally was diverse, because the nine crew members came from multiple European countries and they borne most of the launch costs of the Dream Chaser.

Most member states of the ISS, including Lucia, demanded accountability for this failure. The latter also did not forget to ridicule the Dream Chasers for cutting corners and promote how sturdy and reliable their Soyuz spacecraft was.

John did not directly demand punishment of the Dream Chaser research team, but focused on the lack of attention to the personal safety of the astronauts and called a bunch of people to the office to scold them bloody.

Then he locked himself in the office alone, and Pio could hear the roar inside through the door.

"These so-called elites, they take money, our money. I paid so much tax in the past, which can easily amount to billions of dollars, and then they treat taxpayers like this!"

Pio knocked on the door cautiously. He heard "come in" for a while and then pushed open a small gap. At this time, John had calmed down, but still complained with his hands on his hips:

"I was just about to start a career when these bugs started to prevent me from leading Aramco to renaissance. Maybe it would be more useful to find a group of Indian engineers than them.

You know what, the whole world must be watching our joke now. "

Pio rolled his eyes: "Yes, boss, our European allies have no ability to send people into space. Ame has to take care of them when landing on the moon. They should understand NACA's efforts and not add insult to injury."

John nodded vigorously: "Yes, that's it. They are worms. Our allies are holding us back. We are not satisfied with getting benefits for nothing. We cannot continue like this.

Well... and the Aerospace Development Commission, they must have planned to use the space shuttle to see the joke. They are questioning Ami's space capabilities! We gave them orders, capital and technology, but what we got in return was this. "

The more John talked, the angrier he became. A rush of blood surged into his head. Suddenly something came to his mind and he pulled out a thin stack of paper. It was a proposal he had hesitated for a long time.

At this moment, he held it in his hand, narrowed his eyes and said slowly:

"They have only achieved a trivial achievement. Don't think that this can replace the great Ami. We, we are the only ones. God bless Ami!"

Pio took a timid glance at the proposal in John's hand and guessed what he was going to do.

Although his reason told him that the most important thing to do at this time was to calm down the boss, he swallowed the words as soon as they reached his lips.

Rather than being an annoying target, the boss is more likely to like him as a flattering villain.

"Boss, you are right. We need to show our strength and let the world know that we are still the irresistible defenders of order."

John: "I know many people want this proposal to pass, so I will give them what they want. I have the courage, we have nothing to fear, let them feel our dissatisfaction!"

…

"Nuclear fusion?"

Lin Ju couldn't help but frown.

This thing about controllable nuclear fusion... he was a little unsure.

He had tried to create a new nuclear fusion research task in the System Research Institute before, but after investing 20 million in it, the progress bar was still zero...

The progress shown in system tasks is not equal. The early stage is generally theory and feasibility research, the mid-term is the transformation of principles, and the later stage is specific technology research and development work.

The amount of funds consumed by a mission is related to the knowledge, technology, number and level of personnel possessed by the base and multiple factors. The more complete the preliminary preparations, the easier it will be to advance the mission.

There is only one possibility for this situation where there is no progress in theoretical research: the base does not have the theory to support controllable nuclear fusion technology...

Another way of thinking is that the current mainstream magnetic confinement and inertial confinement ideas of mankind cannot complete the manufacturing of controllable nuclear fusion devices.

Magnetic confinement is a tokamak, and the internationally cooperating ITER, the European Joint Fusion Experimental Facility (JET) and the nationally independently developed EAST are all of this type.

There are also two methods: inertial constraints and gravitational constraints.

Inertial confinement was also studied in the early stage. Aramco’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) is inertial confinement nuclear fusion.

Both inertial confinement and magnetic confinement are considered to be the most likely controllable nuclear fusion methods to be realized in the future. However, it is obvious that these currently disclosed theories are extremely imperfect in the eyes of the Systems Research Institute, so pre-theoretical research requires huge funding.

As for the side door gravitational confinement? This is definitely feasible. The sun is like this. The principle is to rely on the superposition of gravity to promote hydrogen nuclear fusion and emit a strong neutron flow at the same time. However, it is impossible for humans to achieve this method for hundreds of years.

Here we have to mention the characteristics of fusion materials. There are currently three types of hydrogen nuclear fusion designs:

Fusion of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium: relatively easy, a deuterium and a tritium fuse to generate a helium-4 atom and emit 3 seeds;

Fusion of deuterium and helium-3: generate a helium-4 (i.e. helium with four neutrons), and may also emit a small amount of neutrons;

Fusion of helium-3 and helium-3: generate 4 helium atoms and 2 hydrogen atoms, all neutrons are allocated, and no neutrons are produced.

From top to bottom, they are called the first, second, and third generation nuclear fusion.

Neutron flow has extremely strong penetrating power and can cause serious harm to the human body. Currently, all countries are trying the simplest deuterium and tritium fusion experiments.

The problem is that deuterium and tritium are extremely rare on Earth and can only be produced in small quantities through dedicated nuclear reactors. The output is calculated in grams and is very precious.

It is precious, but tritium also has an important use: the gas-boosted core of the third-generation hydrogen bomb.

The early first-generation hydrogen bomb used an atomic bomb as a nuclear trigger to detonate liquid tritium. It was huge in size and cumbersome to maintain. The weight could reach tens of tons to dozens of tons, and it had almost no practical value. The second-generation hydrogen bomb used an atomic bomb to detonate lithium deuteride, and the weight could be controlled at 2 to 3 tons, which could be used in actual combat.

The third-generation hydrogen bomb needs to use a gas-boosted core made of tritium. It can replace the atomic bomb as a trigger, greatly reducing the mass of the hydrogen bomb, and can achieve hundreds of thousands of tons of equivalent with a mass of 100 kilograms. It is the latest generation of technology.

The problem is that the tritium in the gas-boosted core needs to be replaced every three or four years, otherwise it will fail due to the decay of tritium, which further highlights the preciousness of tritium and it is impossible to use it for commercial fusion.

Whether it is the second-generation deuterium, helium-3 or the third-generation helium-3 fusion, they all require the abundant helium-3 on the moon, which is why it is said that human nuclear fusion must develop the moon.

No matter which path Xinyuan chooses to take, it means tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of investments. Unless it starts with helium-3 fusion, the preparation of deuterium and tritium fuels in the early stage will be enough torment.