Bright Sword starts with the grenade flat.

Chapter 284 Solar sail spacecraft

Because of this, although small fission reactors have been successfully applied to spacecraft, research on controllable fusion has never stopped.

After Liu Xiu received Fu Jianming's feasibility report on colonizing Proxima Centauri, he saw in it a very novel spacecraft that was different from conventional spaceships to complete the plan to colonize Proxima Centauri.

In this plan to colonize Proxima Centauri, there was no plan for a wandering blue star or a planetary engine. After all, this wandering blue star plan was proposed by Liu Xin in 2018.

However, Fu Jianming's report proposed using a solar sail spacecraft as the primary spacecraft to colonize Proxima Centauri.

Yes, the spacecraft mentioned in Fu Jianming's Proxima Centauri colonization report is the solar sail spacecraft.

The solar sail spacecraft is a spacecraft that has been demonstrated for a long time. It uses the light pressure emitted by stars to accelerate, and can even use lasers to accelerate when necessary.

This reminded Liu Xiu of the science fiction movie, the Covenant in Alien and Covenant, which also uses a huge solar sail to charge for flight.

This thing uses a huge solar sail for charging and can also use a huge solar sail for light pressure acceleration.

After reading through the thick report on the feasibility of colonizing Proxima Centauri, the focus of this report is the solar sail spacecraft.

After Liu Xiu put down the report, he said to Fu Jianming:

"The solar sail spacecraft is a very interesting idea! Can you tell me more about it?"

Fu Jianming heard Liu Xiu's words and said:

"Regarding the Proxima Centauri colonization plan, the best spacecraft is the solar sail spacecraft. It uses the light pressure of the sun to continuously accelerate the spacecraft. It is expected to add up to five percent or more of the speed of light, so that it can It will take more than a hundred years to reach Proxima Centauri, and after reaching Proxima Centauri, the light pressure of Proxima Centauri can be used to slow down the spacecraft, just like accelerating it! This is much more powerful than the thrust of chemical rockets! "

After Liu Xiu heard what Fu Jianming said, he simulated the solar sail spacecraft in his mind and found that it still made sense in theory.

Moreover, the speed of this light sail spacecraft is much faster than the speed of the Blue Star in the Flow Blue Star Project. After all, the speed of the Flow Blue Star can only reach five thousandths, which is ten times its speed, and it takes six more Hundreds of years to speed up and slow down.

But then Liu Xiuze asked:
"Then you haven't considered that such a large light sail is difficult to build!"

However, what Liu Xiu didn't expect was that Fu Jianming seemed to have already thought about it and said confidently:

"The light sail material of the light sail spacecraft can be made of gold. Gold has very good ductility, and it is also very easy to make a smooth plane to reflect sunlight and form light pressure. Terrence passed it in his laboratory After many experiments, we finally developed a process for making solar sails from gold! With this process, the thickness of the solar sail can be as low as 0.1 micron!”

Liu Xiu calculated that one cubic meter of gold could produce a solar sail of ten million square meters, or ten square kilometers, and the weight of one cubic meter of gold was only 19.3 tons.

Of course, the farther the solar light sail is from the sun, the light shining on the light sail will become weaker and weaker, so the thrust generated will become smaller and smaller.

The light pressure thrust generated per square kilometer in the Blue Star orbit can reach nine newtons of thrust. In this way, even a solar sail made of one cubic gold can only provide a thrust of 90 Newtons!
Therefore, Liu Xiu thought about it carefully and realized that although the light sail power could be put into practice in principle, it was still somewhat unreliable in practice. So Liu Xiu thought about it and said to Fu Jianming:
"Let's do this! We can start building an experimental light sail spacecraft now, and wait until the next Mars respite period to conduct experiments and see how effective it is!"

Fu Jianming was also very happy after hearing Liu Xiu's words, because he finally had investment, which meant that his plan became feasible.

However, in subsequent discussions, Liu Xiu only agreed to Fu Jianming using one ton of gold to build a ten-square-kilometer light-sail spacecraft for experiments.

Fu Jianming was already very satisfied with Liu Xiu's request.

In the plan discussed by Liu Xiu and Fu Jianming, the rocket will first send the light sail spacecraft into the blue star orbit until it leaves the blue star orbit, and then open the solar light sail to let the thrust generated by the light sail accelerate it to see how long it will take before it reaches Mars. , to what extent can the solar sail spacecraft accelerate, and whether it can meet its requirements for colonizing Proxima Centauri.

Liu Xiu looked at the execution document of the light sail spaceship signed with his name and sighed in his heart. Sure enough, after reaching a certain status, the money is no longer money.

You must know that Liu Xiu approved the use of one ton of gold to build a light sail spacecraft. Not to mention other things, this ton of gold alone is worth hundreds of millions. This does not include the cost of construction and the cost of transporting it to space.

It will require at least five to one billion in funding to complete Fu Jianming's light sail spacecraft plan.

Of course, Fu Jianming, as one of the proposers of the light sail spaceship project, naturally became one of the main designers of this sailing ship.

As time passed and soon during the Mars window period in 2003, the light sail spacecraft led by Fu Jianming also successfully launched into space and successfully left the Blue Star orbit. Then it unfolded the solar sail and entered the spacecraft using sunlight. The light pressure is the energy that accelerates the flight mode.

What Liu Xiu didn't expect was that not long before the light sail spacecraft accelerated, a solar storm caused by a solar coronal ejection easily tore apart the fragile solar light sail.

This time the light sail spacecraft experiment ended up in vain, but fortunately, this light sail spacecraft was only an experimental ship, so there was no one on board.

It's just a pity that the billions spent on this experiment were wasted.

"Please, just try again! This time it was just an accident. Such solar storms cannot happen every year!"

Liu Xiu looked at Fu Jianming's request, but in the end he could only wave his hands and said:
"You are right. Such a solar storm cannot happen every year, but even if it happens once every ten years, can your light sail spacecraft fly out of the solar system within ten years? Although a solar sail made of 0.1 micron is very light, But it’s also very fragile and can’t stand a little bit of interference!”

In fact, one thing Liu Xiu didn't say is that according to the Chronicles of the Wandering Blue Star that Liu Xiu has read, there will be a super strong solar storm that will hit the entire solar system in 2026. On the Blue Star, Fifty percent of civilian electronic equipment will be destroyed, and 40% of power transmission lines will be disrupted.

Therefore, the light sail spacecraft is actually a dead end. There is no way to use the light sail spacecraft to escape from the solar system, because the closer to the helium flash explosion, the more frequent solar storms will be. There is no way to use the light sail spacecraft to escape from the blue star.

Fu Jianming listened to Liu Xiu's explanation, but his tone was very firm and he understood that the Light Sail Plan would not work at all. Liu Xiu looked at Fu Jianming's somewhat disappointed look and decided to arrange Fu Jianming according to the original history.

(End of this chapter)