Homo sapiens.

Chapter 455
NASA headquarters.

Director Bill is looking at an intensified report that has just been reported.

At this time, there were other executives of NASA and Elon Musk, the chairman of Space Exploration Corporation, in his office.

Musk, who just came to NASA headquarters to talk about things today, did not expect to encounter such a thing.

He looked at the report in Bill's hand with a look of surprise: "Oh, Maika... 100 meters in length? 10 meters in diameter? This thing is really big!"

"In terms of volume, it is about 5 to 6 times the size of a heavy-duty Falcon." Rand, the head of NASA's Almita project, scratched his hair while speaking.

Bill put down the document in his hand, with a serious look on his face: "Is this the purpose of the space base in the north of Mada Island?"

Rand is more professional than the half-baked director Bill: "I remember a company in Maple Leaf Country proposed a similar concept, but I didn't expect Homo Sapiens to realize this idea."

"From the data detected by the radar, when the spacecraft left the pipeline, its speed reached the first cosmic speed of 7.8 kilometers per second. Obviously, the power of this spacecraft is very strong!" Another technical director analyzed road.

Musk reminded: "Gentlemen! Shouldn't you be worried that Homo sapiens will usurp orbital resources and land on the moon and Mars first?"

All the NASA management present at once fell silent involuntarily.

Last year, NASA's research funding increased a little.

However, the good times didn't last long. Since Homo sapiens has been doing things non-stop this year, NASA's funding has dropped again.

The reason for this situation is that the landlord's family has no surplus food.

America's economy keeps deteriorating. On the one hand, it needs to replace the old-fashioned plastic products inside, and invest a lot of money in West Asia; on the other hand, it is a new round of economic crisis that just broke out.

Coupled with the serious decline in global trade in America, the US dollar's global currency status is not guaranteed.

In addition, there is another more important reason, that is, at this time, America has projects that require more money, which crowds out investment in the aerospace industry.

That is life sciences and biochips, and the military industry.

The importance of the aerospace industry is obviously not as important as life sciences, biochips, and military industries at this stage.

The gentlemen of the City on the Hill Council no longer have the ambitions of Apollo's moon landing, let alone the strong capital of the past.

With limited funds, they had to make a choice.

The aerospace industry was one of those parts that was left out.

Now the order given to NASA by the City on a Hill Council is to do more theoretical research, write more PPTs, and at the same time spend money on aerospace projects that need the most practicality.

For example, a new type of surveillance satellite that can defend against gamma rays is a recent key project of NASA.

As for returning to the moon, the new International Space Station, Mars colonization, etc., the council did not approve funds for NASA, but only encouraged private companies like space exploration companies to invest in space stations, landing on the moon and Mars, and so on.

Without money, major private companies also find it very difficult.

This is why Musk came to NASA headquarters specifically to discuss the next cooperation issue. Now, with its low cost, the space exploration company will almost take over all NASA's launch missions in the next three years.

NASA, which has financial difficulties, has to be careful. Similar to General Electric, Blue Origin, Boeing and other cheating goods, Bill does not want to give projects to these companies at all.

After thinking for a while, Bill asked Joseph Brooks, the head of the Office of Space Development:
"Joseph, if we want to build a similar device, how much will it cost?"

Joseph Brooks silently calculated in his heart for a while, and said a relatively conservative figure: "At least 2000 billion."

"2000 billion?" Bilton's face was tangled in everything.

"..." Musk on the side was also shocked by this number.

Regardless of the fact that Musk has been the richest man in the world for several years, but that is only based on stock valuation, and he certainly does not have that much cash and fixed assets.

Joseph Brooks explained helplessly: "2000 billion is just a conservative estimate. It takes at least 300 billion to build towers and underground facilities, and about 200 billion is needed to develop and manufacture airships and vacuum hoses..."

"In addition, the development and manufacture of the spacecraft itself, and whether there are other facilities in the entire system, are still unknown..."

After listening to Joseph Brooks' analysis, Bill's face darkened even more.

Fortunately, they don't know that the underground ring pipeline of the Dandelion Project has a length of 300 kilometers. Otherwise, this giant vacuum pipeline with a diameter of 30 meters will make NASA completely desperate.

Taking the 5.8-meter inner diameter tunnel commonly used in North America as an example, the current minimum construction cost is US$5 million per kilometer.

Even if the difference in pipe material is not taken into account, based on the difference in the area of ​​the pipe wall between the two, based on the estimated value of the project in America, the cost per kilometer must reach more than 50 billion US dollars.

300 kilometers will cost at least 1.5 trillion.

This has not yet calculated the electromagnetic acceleration orbit, power supply system and the like.

A hundred times more funding for NASA may not be enough.

Obviously Bill has not realized the huge gap between the two sides.

I thought Homo Sapiens could do it, so could NASA.

However, Homo sapiens has a variety of low-cost production technologies, very cheap raw materials, and an operating system that achieves the ultimate utilization of internal resources.

These are all things NASA does not have.

Bill still didn't give up, he gritted his teeth and ordered: "Let the company with similar technology in Maple Leaf Country study it and see if it can come up with a low-cost solution."

Joseph Brooks could only nod helplessly: "OK, I will contact that company as soon as possible."

Musk is not optimistic about this project. He suggested with some eccentricity: "Bill, 2000 billion can launch thousands of heavy-duty Falcons. Why waste money on this kind of place? The council will not agree to this kind of project. , you should think more about the cooperation with Space Exploration Corporation!"

"Elon, your idea is too wrong. If we can successfully replicate this project, we will be able to enter outer space at a low cost in the future." Bill did not listen to Musk.

"But NASA has no money!" Musk reminded.

"Uh..." Bill felt a little embarrassed.

Now NASA's funds are indeed much less. Without money, such a large-scale project cannot be carried out at all.

The problem of shortage of funds is actually a problem that all space agencies of the current major forces must face.

At this stage, the aerospace industry is a very difficult industry to make a profit. Except for satellite navigation, satellite communication, weather forecast, and telemetry, you can barely make some money, and other projects basically lose money.

For example, the space station project, manned moon landing, Hubble telescope, Mars exploration, etc. These projects cannot make money in a short period of time.

Therefore, the aerospace industry is actually one of the barometers of a regional economy.

Areas with a poor economy definitely have no way to play various cutting-edge scientific research aerospace projects, but to consider more practical projects such as navigation, communication, telemetry and surveillance satellites.

NASA is a typical example.

At this time, the institutions that are having a headache with space funding are not limited to NASA, the space departments of Europa Consortium, Lucia and other forces are all troubled by this.

Seeing Homo sapiens launching several thousand tons of spacecraft into outer space at one time, those space agencies are really envious.

　Thank you for your support (ω｀), please subscribe, collect, monthly and recommendation tickets.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)