Galactic Tech Empire

Chapter 354 New Airship

Johnson, the chairman of the Outer Space Committee, and Rhine von Groot, the representative of the Hans family of the Western Space Agency, had no choice but to fly to Dongtang overnight.

the other side.

Huang Haojie is in the airship research institute these days, and he is developing a new airship.

Since the hydrogen airbag airship has almost reached its limit, among the airships manufactured by the Airship Research Institute, the highest airship that can fly is the ring-shaped airship A-14, which can fly to an altitude of about 63 kilometers.

When this limit is reached, it is very difficult to lift, and the height can only be increased by reducing the payload.

However, the airship has reached an altitude of 63 kilometers, and its payload is less than 15 tons. If the payload is reduced, the airship will be useless.

According to the estimates of the Airship Research Institute, reducing the payload to about 10 tons can increase the altitude to about 72-74 kilometers above sea level.

"Boss, we have made a ring-shaped airship according to your instructions. All the materials and equipment are made of the lightest materials. Even the batteries of the airship use the most powerful batteries of Raytheon Group (3214 watt-hours per hour) kg), and gave up the solar power generation film." Xia Tian, ​​the director of the Airship Research Institute, quickly introduced it to Huang Haojie.

Huang Haojie was quite satisfied with this summer when he replaced Wang Tu as the director of the airship research institute.

"How much is the dead weight of the airship reduced?"

"About 21%." Xia Tian answered quickly.

"21%, how high can this airship fly if it carries a 10-ton payload?"

Xia Tian thought for a while and replied: "I estimate that it can reach a height of 85-87 kilometers."

"Is that so? Then you arrange someone to test it, and then report the data." Huang Haojie ordered.

"Okay, I'll do it right away."

In the summer, Huang Haojie went to arrange the airship test. Huang Haojie checked the situation of the ring-shaped airship A-17. Although the height has been increased, the cost has soared.

The cost of an ordinary ring-shaped airship is about 1500-3000 million Martian coins, but the cost of this new airship is as high as 1.3 million Martian coins.

After all, many materials need to be light and high-strength, plus other requirements, the cost of these materials is enough, and the soaring cost is inevitable.

However, even if it reaches an altitude of 85-87 kilometers, it still does not meet Huang Haojie's requirements. He wants the circular airship to reach the Karmen Line at an altitude of about 100 kilometers.

If the airship can do it, there is no need for the space station to pull the magnetic vacuum cable, because the space station needs to pull the magnetic vacuum cable, and the height requirement of the space station is very high.

At least thousands of kilometers of magnetic vacuum cables must be made. Such a long magnetic vacuum cable is not only very difficult to manufacture, but also requires a huge amount of electrical energy to activate the vacuum state. Doing so will not be worth the candle.

If the airship could be maintained close to the Karman line, then such a long magnetic vacuum cable would not be needed.

From 60 kilometers above sea level to the Karman line, the length is about 40 kilometers, and the magnetic vacuum cable plus the room temperature superconductor cable weighs about 4.7 tons per kilometer, and 40 tons at 188 kilometers.

The altitude is 60-87 kilometers, the middle distance is 27 kilometers, the cable weight is about 127 tons, and the average payload of the new airship is 12.5 tons.

For this distance alone, 11 airships are needed.

However, the height of the airship has reached the Karman line, and it is not known whether there is 1 ton of payload left. In these cases, they need to wait for the data of the new airship to be tested in the summer before they can proceed to the next step of calculation.

However, Huang Haojie is still thinking of ways to increase the payload of the airship, using hydrogen airbags as the buoyancy of the airship, which has been developed by Yinhe Technology to the extreme.

Summer is back.

"Boss, I've made arrangements."

"Then let's go to the laboratory!" Huang Haojie said.

"Yes, the materials and equipment that the boss ordered before are ready." Xia Tian hurriedly led the way.

Come to the laboratory.

The materials and equipment that Huang Haojie had ordered them to prepare had already been prepared.

Magnetic vacuum film, laser welding AB gel, laser welding equipment, vacuum degree testing equipment... These equipment and materials have been neatly arranged in the laboratory, waiting for Huang Haojie to do experiments.

After putting on the protective clothing, he took out a magnetic vacuum film, which had been made into a balloon in advance, but at this time there was no electromagnetic excitation, so it did not become a vacuum ball.

With the help of Xia Tian and others, a vacuum ball soon appeared in the laboratory.

"Use gel spraying equipment to spray gel on this vacuum ball." Huang Haojie ordered.

"Okay." A researcher hastened to use gel spraying equipment to evenly spray the mixed gel on the vacuum ball.

Huang Haojie continued to order: "Perform laser welding."

The researchers immediately carried out laser welding on the vacuum ball, and under the laser irradiation, the mixed gel quickly solidified.

After a while, the laser-welded hybrid gel was fully formed. Huang Haojie waved his hand: "Stop the vacuum excitation, and then take out the magnetic vacuum film and wires."

The researchers had made relevant experimental designs before, and quickly took out the magnetic vacuum film and wires inside the gel balls.

As for the gel ball that lost the connection of the wire, because there is no fixer, the gel ball quickly flies upwards. Fortunately, there is a ceiling blocking it, otherwise the gel ball does not know where to fly.

Obviously Huang Haojie had anticipated this situation in advance, and welded four pull rings to the gel ball during welding.

The researcher used a hook to hook the pull ring, and then pulled the gel vacuum ball off.

"Boss, I didn't expect it to be possible." Xia Tian said as he looked at the transparent gel vacuum ball that shone slightly blue.

Huang Haojie touched the gel ball: "Test the strength, hardness and other conditions of the gel ball to see if there are any weaknesses."

"Okay." A group of researchers hurriedly started.

Huang Haojie just wants to use vacuum bags to replace hydrogen air bags as the buoyancy of airships. Why can vacuum provide buoyancy? In fact, buoyancy is caused by the difference in material density.

Among the gases known in the world at present, there is no gas with a density less than hydrogen.

Since there is no less dense gas, let the gas disappear completely, and replace the hydrogen with a vacuum.

The density difference between air and hydrogen is 120, and the density difference between air and vacuum is 129, so the buoyancy of vacuum is about 107.5% of hydrogen.

After more than five hours, the sun had already set in the west.

Xia Tian excitedly ran over with a test report and said, "Boss, the test result of the gel ball is perfect and meets expectations."

After receiving the report, he flipped through it and put it aside. He was not surprised by the result. After all, the hybrid gel can be used as a repair material for spaceships in the parallel time and space—the interstellar era. The strength and airtightness must be able to resist the vacuum. of.

The test data in the report shows that the buoyancy of the gel ball has indeed reached 107.5% of that of the hydrogen air bag.

If gel vacuum balls are used instead of hydrogen airbags, the overall buoyancy of the airship will increase by about 7.5%.

This 7.5% increase in buoyancy is crucial for raising the airship to near the Karman line.

However, the gel vacuum ball is not without its weaknesses, that is, once the height is fixed, it is difficult to adjust the height, and it may not come down once it goes up.

(End of this chapter)