Homo sapiens.

Inside Li Qingye's villa.

Sanji Badalleyal has prepared black tea and refreshments.

"I've read the harvest of Di Ting Company, and it's a good job."

Liu Zhifan replied respectfully: "It is the company's technological advantages that can bring such huge gains."

Picking up the teacup, Li Qingye 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 divided into the operation area of ​​the Western Pacific Branch."

Glancing at the holographic earth, Li Qingye nodded.

"The Gilbert Islands, Ellice Islands, and Union Islands can set up a Central Pacific branch to manage these assets."

"Association Islands, Tua Islands, etc., can establish a South Pacific branch to manage the company's assets in this sea area."

"The Mascarene Islands, and other islands in the South Ceylon Ocean, set up a South Ceylon branch in Saint-Denis to manage the company's local assets."

After all, the altitude area of ​​2 meters belongs to the stratosphere with thin air. Weather such as storms, typhoons, and thunderstorms are all unique weather in the troposphere, and the stratosphere does not have such weather.

Transport airship: The economic speed is 300 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport volume is 1.5 tons.

At first glance, it may be very surprising.

Aircraft: The economic speed is 700-900 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport volume is 200 tons.

The length of the earth's equator is 40075 kilometers. At this time, it is not difficult for Homo sapiens to produce vacuum airships with a length of several kilometers. As long as the airships are connected, a railway can be laid on the airships.

The project is called: Circum-Equatorial Railway.

Using this method to go to outer space is safer than taking a launch vehicle, and the comfort is also very high.

Homo sapiens needs a very fast transportation mode with relatively large transportation volume and relatively low transportation costs.

Aircraft and ground effect flight obviously do not have an advantage in terms of transportation volume, and their energy consumption is relatively high.

The engineers of the engineering department plan to adopt the arch bridge scheme to extend the structure upwards.

The technology of the Circum-Equatorial Railway is not tunnel technology or bridge-building technology, but airship technology.

On the one hand, the cost of the vacuum airship is relatively low.

Including other supporting facilities, the total cost of the high-altitude railway platform around the equator is about 2400-2600 billion gold dollars.

According to the principle of the vacuum airship, its maximum flight altitude is about 85 kilometers, and the vacuum buoyancy of the airship is not enough.

"Very good." Li Qingye was very satisfied with the work of the company's management.

Nuclear-powered transport ship: The economic speed is 40 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport capacity is 50 tons.

This cost does not pose much pressure on Homo sapiens.

Ground-effect aircraft: The economic speed is 200-300 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transport capacity is 1500 tons.

The problem lies in the cost performance.

Around the equator?railway?

Similarly, materials entering and exiting the atmosphere can also be very convenient, without considering issues such as atmospheric resistance and friction, let alone worrying about the pull of gravity, causing the spacecraft to lose control.

There is no problem in building railways on land. It is impossible to build railways that can span the Pacific Ocean, the Ceylon Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

A vacuum airship with a length of about 3 kilometers has a vacuum chamber of about 40 billion cubic meters, and the total cost is about 880 million to 960 million gold dollars.

Transport airships have obvious advantages in land transport, and can be compared with sub-vacuum high-speed rail. No matter in terms of transport volume, speed, or energy consumption, there is not much difference between the two.

This is also the reason why they build on the equator, because the angular velocity of the equator is parallel to the equator.

What's more, once it is really mass-produced, the production cost will be further reduced.

Sub-vacuum high-speed rail: The economic speed is 240-360 kilometers per hour, and the maximum transportation volume is 1.5 tons.

However, the engineering department of Homo sapiens proposed this plan because of its special technical background.

This idea is very good, but Li Qingye did not blindly approve of the later ideas.

As long as the equatorial railway is extended to the Karman Line, astronauts can take the elevator directly from the ground to the Karman Line, and then take a spacecraft to outer space at the space port of the Karman Line.

Li Qingye flipped through the latter part of the plan, and found that the engineering department had further plans.

That's right, it's airship technology.

Li Qingye thought for a while, then nodded: "Yes."

Some people may think that this kind of railway is of little value.

Liu Zhifan called up a document, projected it in the air, and explained: "Mr. Chairman, this is a big project we formulated last year. We considered that some areas in the equatorial region did not establish full-power branches, so we put it on hold. , and now I think the time is ripe."

The equatorial railway can also adopt an arch bridge structure to enhance the structural strength and its own supporting force to ensure the Karman line that can extend the entire structure.

These two terms don't match at all. After all, the equatorial region not only has three pieces of land, but also the Pacific Ocean, the Ceylon Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

At present, the ex-factory price of the airships of the Motor Island Branch is 0.0022 to 0.0024 gold dollars per cubic meter.

Even Homo sapiens' tunnel technology is the world's number one, but it can't stand the trenches along the way, and the seabed with an average depth of 4000 meters.

So this plan seems a bit far-fetched.

Li Qingye looked at the content of the projection.

Carmen added: "Recently, we have successfully established a full-fledged branch in the equatorial countries of South America. Coupled with our layout in Africa, the entire equatorial region is currently the company's full-fledged operating area."

The Engineering Division plans to use a vacuum airship to build a high-altitude railway around the equator at a height of 20 kilometers above the equator.

And this railway, because of the buoyancy of the vacuum airship, does not need to build bridge piers, and does not need to worry about bad typhoon weather.

After all, airplanes can be transported quickly, and there is no need to build tracks.

That is, based on the high-altitude railway, gradually increase the scale of the vacuum airship until the airship goes directly to the Karman Line and reaches an altitude of 100 kilometers.

In the high altitude where the air is thin, even vacuum tracks are not needed, the resistance of the air itself is very small, and the train can run at a speed close to the speed of sound.

When the equatorial railway was first conceived, it was considered that the transportation speed of the airship could not compete with the airplane, and the transportation volume could not compete with the large nuclear-powered transport ship, so it could only compete with the sub-vacuum high-speed rail.

"Material strength and weight, can it reach this level?"

The high-altitude railway platform around the equator requires about 13360 vacuum airships with a length of 3 kilometers, and the cost is about 1100-1200 billion gold dollars.

The most cost-effective mode of transportation is nuclear-powered transport ships.

Among the various means of transportation currently owned by Sapiens Corporation.

Among the large number of proposals solicited internally, the high-altitude railway proposal around the equator stood out and became a very suitable proposal.

Liu Zhifan shook his head: "There is no problem with the stratospheric railway, but the materials for the Karman Line platform are not yet available. Materials that meet the strength standards are too heavy; materials that are ultra-light in weight do not meet the standards for strength."

"Is that so?" Li Qingye pondered for a moment.

Although there are no suitable materials at this stage, he still approves of the first stage of the stratospheric railway: "In this case, let's build the stratospheric railway first! For the later upgrade and transformation, we will consider whether to build it after the materials meet the standards. "

"Yes." Liu Zhifan replied excitedly.

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