Super Copy of Great Power Technology

"For those who are interested in rockets, aerospace, and lunar exploration, you can click to follow and turn on the live broadcast reminder. This way, when I start the live broadcast tomorrow, you will be the first to receive the prompt message sent by the system. Okay, that's all for today, good night, everyone." Having said that, Du Qingqing decisively exited the live broadcast background, turned off the camera and laptop, and ended the broadcast.

After returning to the villa, Du Qingqing was still full of energy. She took Qiao Ruida to the back garden, sat on a bench, ate mooncakes and admired the moon, and spent the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th to the fullest. After eating a box of mooncakes, Du Qingqing snuggled into Qiao Ruida's arms on the pretext of the cold weather. The two of them admired the moon and talked about some private things until the night was late and the moon was in the west. Then they returned to the room to sleep.

The next day, Qiao Ruida and Du Qingqing woke up late as expected. When they opened their eyes, it was already ten o'clock in the morning. Fortunately, the rocket launch test was in the afternoon, so they could get up now and start the live broadcast. The two hurriedly got dressed and got up, had breakfast and lunch, and drove with various live broadcast equipment to the vicinity of the No. 2 rocket launch tower. The clock had already pointed to eleven o'clock. The loudspeaker on site was broadcasting, "Three-hour countdown, staff members, please take your positions and conduct the last check before launch. Repeat, staff members, please take your positions and conduct the last check before the rocket launch."

The No. 140 rocket launch tower is an astonishing 4000 meters high, more than twice as high as the No. 120 launch tower. However, the cross-sectional area of ​​the No. rocket launch tower is much smaller than that of the No. launch tower. This is because the diameter and volume of the Star Rocket are too large to have an external rotating platform. Since there is no rotating platform, the launch tower was simply simplified appropriately, which makes the No. rocket launch tower look quite slender, standing there like a straight stick, and it must rely on several inclined cables to be fixed and not fall over. Right next to this slender rocket launch tower stands a behemoth weighing more than tons and more than meters high. That is today's protagonist, the super-heavy carrier rocket Star Rocket.

Du Qingqing set up the tripod and camera, looked up at the top of the rocket, and couldn't help but sigh: "This carrier rocket looks so tall and big. Judging from the height, it must be more than 100 meters, right?"

"Yes, the height of the complete star rocket is exactly 120 meters, and its take-off weight exceeds 4000 tons. Its carrying capacity is second only to the legendary U.S. rocket Saturn V." Qiao Ruida inserted the video signal cable into the broadcasting equipment and spoke while turning it on for debugging.

"I heard that the cost of the Saturn V was as high as 1.87 million US dollars. That was 1.87 million US dollars in the s, which is equivalent to more than billion US dollars today. Mr. Qiao, the cost of your rocket won't be that high, right?"

The person who asked the question was a male cameraman wearing sunglasses and a CCTV vest. He should be a member of the CCTV news filming team. Qiao Ruida and his team were currently on the roof of a two-story building, about one thousand meters away from the No. 2 rocket launch tower. It was the best position to film the rocket launch, and safety could be guaranteed. This was also the media area designated by Ruida Aerospace. Dozens of media reporters and filming teams from home and abroad gathered on the roof of this two hundred square meters building. It was very lively. Qiao Ruida was also a well-known public figure, and the other party was a practitioner in the news industry, so it was not surprising that he recognized him.

"The cost of our star rocket is certainly not that high. We, Ruida Aerospace, are only a private aerospace company that has just been established for a year. We are not as wealthy as NASA. From the beginning of product design, we require to save costs as much as possible. For the outer shell material, we chose inexpensive stainless steel, the cheapest liquid oxygen and methane as fuel, and the engine uses the mature product Tianque series engine, which adopts a parallel mode to achieve a large thrust. However, the size of the star rocket is there, and no matter how much we save, the production cost will exceed 100 million US dollars. Fortunately, our star rocket can be recycled and used many times, and the cost is barely acceptable after the cost is shared." Ruida Aerospace did not arrange commentators in the media area, so Qiao Ruida had to temporarily act as a commentator to answer everyone's questions.

"Mr. Qiao, I heard that your rocket launch test will send a probe to the moon. Is this true?" A blonde foreign lady, speaking fluent Mandarin, asked her question.

"Yes, the news you heard is correct. To be more precise, the rocket is carrying a lunar exploration spacecraft, which has multiple detectors installed inside, a lunar soil collection vehicle, and a deployable lunar soil analysis and extraction plant. After the lunar exploration spacecraft successfully lands on the moon, we will release the lunar soil collection vehicle to collect lunar soil in batches and send it to the extraction plant to try to analyze the lunar soil composition and extract useful things such as helium-3, ilmenite, rare earth elements, etc."

Qiao Ruida rarely appeared in front of the media, and the number of times he accepted interviews was even fewer. Seeing that the opportunity was rare, a reporter handed the microphone to Qiao Ruida and asked, "According to the information I have learned, Ruida Group recently established a new Ruida New Energy Company, and invested hundreds of billions to start building a controlled nuclear fusion experimental reactor not far from Ruida Space City. Now they are going to launch a lunar exploration spacecraft to collect helium-3 on the moon, and helium-3 is the most ideal nuclear fusion fuel in the legend. Mr. Qiao, are you going to handle the entire process from fuel mining to controlled fusion to power generation?"

Qiao Ruida was not afraid of the microphone and the camera. He cleared his throat and talked freely, "I have this idea. As we all know, since the invention of the generator in the late 18th century, thermal power generation has always been the main power supply. Even though hydropower, wind power, solar power generation, and nuclear power (fission) have made great progress later, the dominant position of thermal power generation has never been shaken. Now more than 1 years have passed, and it is time for a complete change in the power generation model. In my opinion, controlled nuclear fusion power generation is the most ideal power generation method to replace thermal power. Fusion power generation has too many advantages over thermal power generation. First of all, there are sufficient resources. Deuterium and tritium on the earth and helium- on the moon can be used as fusion fuel. As long as the extraction technology meets the standards, the quantity is almost endless. Secondly, it is energy-intensive and pollution-free. Nuclear fusion can be said to be the most advanced energy generation method mastered by humans, with a very high energy density. Ideally, kg of helium- fusion can generate thousands of megawatt-hours of electricity. Moreover, nuclear fusion does not produce carbon dioxide or nuclear waste, which is quite environmentally friendly."

"Mr. Qiao, does what you said mean that your Ruida Group has already mastered the key technology to achieve controlled nuclear fusion and can light up the light of fusion in the near future?"

"I didn't say that. This is all your conjecture. Our Ruida Group does have several key technologies, including a room-temperature superconductor, but controlled nuclear fusion is too difficult. The theory seems simple, but the engineering implementation is quite complicated. Before the light of fusion is truly lit, no one dares to boast that they have mastered controlled nuclear fusion."

"Mr. Qiao, can you tell us more about that room-temperature superconductor? How come we haven't received any news about such a significant scientific achievement?"

"The room-temperature superconductor I'm talking about is an iron alloy that our Reda Research Institute recently synthesized. It's still in the confidentiality stage, so it's not convenient to reveal too many details."

...For the next half an hour, this media area was like a press conference. Qiao Ruida answered more than a dozen questions from reporters. It was not until the colleagues from the logistics department brought lunch boxes to these reporters and media people that they were busy eating and let Qiao Ruida go.

Qiao Ruida and Du Qingqing had just had breakfast and were not hungry yet, so they did not take their lunch boxes. Du Qingqing set up three camera positions and released two drones in half an hour. The five video signals shot by these drones plus one video signal transferred from the flight control center of the Aerospace City were all connected to a laptop computer, and then the director software was used to select and switch among the five signals and push the stream to the live broadcast room to ensure the live broadcast effect.

At 12 noon, Du Qingqing started broadcasting on the official live broadcast room of Ruida Group and Kuaipai platform at the same time. Since last night, several software under Ruida Group have promoted today's live broadcast. Kuaipai platform also made a live broadcast preview in advance, so the moment the live broadcast room was opened, more than 100,000 people poured in, and as time went by, the number of people in the live broadcast room continued to rise. What surprised Qiao Ruida was that the number of people online in the live broadcast room of Kuaipai platform actually exceeded that of the official live broadcast room of Ruida Group. It seems that Kuaipai software has really become popular, with a large number of users, and it has already reached some of the skills of Douyin in the previous life.

When the live broadcast started, the first thing that appeared in the camera was the Star-Rocket super-heavy carrier rocket standing tall next to the launch tower. The Star-Rocket, painted all black, shone brightly under the sunlight. In terms of appearance alone, it was absolutely better than any other rocket. Seeing this scene, the audience was filled with emotion, and dense barrages of comments appeared in the live broadcast room in an instant.

"Opening lightning strike, this is a launch vehicle, it's too big!"

"Without a suitable reference, it is difficult to determine how tall and thick the rocket is."

"The diameter of this carrier rocket is about the same as the launch tower next to it. It is estimated to be at least nine meters."

"If the diameter of this rocket is really nine meters, it will be the world's number one, even surpassing the Saturn V, which was once the rocket king of the United States."

"The Saturn V has long been a swan song. Even if the Americans found the blueprints, it would be difficult to produce it. Now, Ruida Aerospace has actually made a launch vehicle comparable to the Saturn V. It's really amazing."

"I remember that Ruida Aerospace has mastered rocket recovery technology. Will this super-heavy rocket also support recovery?"

"It must be very difficult to recover such a heavy rocket. I am afraid that it will lose control halfway through recovery and fall directly to the ground. Such a huge object will cause too much damage if it falls to the ground. We should try our best to avoid this."

"I just want to know how much carrying capacity this big thing has. It won't be inferior to the Saturn V developed last century, right?"

"Hey, the show has been on for several minutes, why hasn't our anchor Qing Qing appeared yet?"

Du Qingqing took out her makeup box, touched up her makeup in front of the mirror, and then stood in front of the camera, smiling and saying, "Good afternoon, everyone who is watching the live broadcast. I am very happy to see you again. You can see the huge carrier rocket behind me. It is a super-heavy carrier rocket developed by Ruida Aerospace, code-named Star Arrow. The main body of the Star Arrow consists of a first-stage super-heavy booster and a second-stage space booster. The overall height is 120 meters, the diameter is 9 meters, the take-off mass is 5000 tons, the take-off thrust is 7400 tons, and both stages are reusable. It is the largest rocket ever. The design goals of the Star Arrow include full reusability, the ability to launch vertically, recover vertically, and re-launch again within a few hours after launch and recovery. In addition, the Star Arrow has a carrying capacity of 100 tons for the Earth-Moon transfer orbit, which can be sent to the moon, Mars or other distant destinations, or to fly around the earth. The research and development and application of the Star Arrow are aimed at achieving space exploration goals such as manned lunar landing and going to Mars.

This test launch is the first time that the Star Rocket has done an overall flight test. Before this launch, the Star Rocket had done multiple rounds of tests, including a first-stage ignition jump test, a first-stage 19-kilometer flight recovery test, a second-stage ignition test, and an overall simulation test, all of which achieved perfect test results. However, there are still many uncertainties in this whole-rocket flight test, especially since the number of parallel engines in the first stage of the rocket has reached an astonishing , and any accidents are possible.

In the history of human spaceflight, a similar multi-engine parallel rocket has appeared once, that is, the former Soviet Union's N-1 rocket, which was designed to target the United States' Saturn V. However, the Soviet Space Agency at that time did not master the technology of large-thrust rocket engines. In order to achieve a thrust similar to that of Saturn V, it could only adopt a multi-engine parallel solution. So Soviet rocket designers connected 1 NK-30 engines in parallel on the first stage of the N-15 rocket (11 more than the Star Rocket), eight NK-15V engines in parallel on the second stage rocket, and four NK-21 engines in parallel on the third stage rocket. Because the ignition and control technology of that era was quite backward, the reliability of so many engines in parallel was quite poor. Students who are familiar with the history of spaceflight must know that the results of the N-1 rocket were not very good. After several launches, they all failed due to engine failures in the first or second stage. In the end, the moon landing plan was completely abandoned. "(End of this chapter)