Beneath Deep Space

"All in all, such a simple and crude solution is much more achievable than controllable nuclear fusion!"

A scientist in front was frothing at the mouth and was trying to persuade Yu Yifeng. A group of people at the back kept discussing, and occasionally jumped out to give some advice.

The whole office is as lively as a vegetable market.

Facing a group of fanatical scientists, Yu Yifeng touched the sweat on his forehead and said with some pain: "How big must the reactor be to be able to eat this million-ton equivalent...deuterium...deuterium bomb?"

Limited by the limitations of nuclear bomb raw materials, small hydrogen bombs are impossible. Only hydrogen or deuterium bombs can be popularized on a large scale, but the yield of this kind of nuclear bomb cannot be reduced, and one million tons is the smallest...

"Besides, our home is still the Noah... It's impossible to keep digging a hole on the planet Knicks, right? Even if we dig a hole, exploding a nuclear bomb with such a high yield will cause an earthquake. What will we do then, dig another one? We won't do it all the time. Stop digging?"

"How to transmit electricity? Do we want humans to abandon the Noah and live on the surface? This is impossible!"

The expert immediately said: "We believe that it is necessary to build a long-term and reliable super-large reactor, which can also be built directly outside Noah."

"The size of the reactor... needs to be calculated in detail."

"Yes, it is necessary!" Professor Ding Yidong shouted from behind: "The bigger the better, the stronger the better!"

The discussion continued for more than an hour. Amidst the "big" and "strong" voices, these mad scientists left and threw the choice problem to Yu Yifeng.

They just gave an idea. As for how to implement it in the future, they still have to carry out detailed calculations and simulations. Anyway, there are quantum computers with super computing power that can simulate very realistically. They will implement this plan as soon as possible to see if it is feasible!

Yu Yifeng shook his head and regained his composure. He carefully sorted out the various information he had just heard.

Such a nuclear explosion reactor is of course not as simple as it sounds...

After all, a nuclear bomb is a nuclear bomb. How easy is it to restrain this vicious beast?

Things like steel and concrete are still not enough when faced with powerful nuclear bombs, especially if they need to be faced for a long time... a long time...

"The equivalent of one million tons is still too big..."

The heat brought by nuclear radiation is so high that it can melt part of the furnace wall in minutes. If each explosion melts some of the furnace wall and accumulates over the years, it will be impossible to generate electricity even if the furnace does not explode...

In order to solve this problem, the simplest way is to add some obstructive gas inside the reactor to make the volume of the reactor larger than the killing radius of the nuclear bomb!

In this way, the nuclear explosion will not be able to explode the reactor wall, which is equivalent to all the energy being swallowed up. After the nuclear bomb explodes, the temperature in the most peripheral area is lower than the melting point of the furnace wall, so the wall will not melt.

"This is a good plan." Yu Yifeng thought to himself, "Use super large projects to reduce the difficulty... You can also use some magnetic fields as shields."

These filled gases can greatly absorb the radiation energy brought by the nuclear bomb and then convert it into high-temperature plasma.

At the same time, the plasma is given high kinetic energy by the nuclear bomb, and will spontaneously and quickly eject from the furnace mouth, directly generating electricity through the corresponding magnetic fluid generator.

In addition, the high-temperature waste heat in the gas can also be used to generate electricity using a heat engine to maximize energy utilization.

Humans are still relatively mature in these technologies.

There is also the problem of nuclear bomb ignition. These "ball-shaped" nuclear bombs need laser ignition... So can certain optical fiber materials be used to conduct laser?

It doesn't cost much to just blow up some optical fibers... Otherwise, it would be too expensive to blow up a laser ignition device every time.

If these measures are really implemented, the reactor can operate stably for a long time.

"The idea is wonderful..." Yu Yifeng couldn't help but smile, and then he immediately frowned.

However, the amount of work...

The amount of work!

Yu Yifeng was already vaguely prepared in his heart. A nuclear bomb with the equivalent of one million tons, placed on the earth, would have a killing radius of 7 kilometers! Therefore, the diameter of the reactor, coupled with the thick furnace walls and complex power generation facilities, is definitely much larger than seven kilometers! Even more than ten kilometers!

The amount of this project is absolutely terrifying. A large boiler with a diameter of ten kilometers, this damn... has greatly surpassed Mount Everest!

A stove taller than Mount Everest!

After just such a simple calculation for a while, Yu Yifeng trembled all over.

After scolding him a few times in his heart, Yu Yifeng suddenly discovered that... Professor Ding Yidong had left a report on the table.

He picked it up and read it directly. There were only six characters written on the title page - "The Daedalus Project"!

This is a nuclear fusion promotion plan that has been proposed in the last century.

This project is not about exploding a nuclear bomb on the outside like the Orion project, but on the inside... also a reactor!

Then the ions inside are restrained by the magnetic field and ejected as power.

Professor Ding Yidong wrote above: "The core bomb composed of deuterium and helium-3 will detonate 250 times per second, and the plasma will be directly discharged from the rocket through a magnetic field, thus generating thrust. As a two-stage rocket, which will accelerate the spacecraft to 12% of the speed of light!”

Yes, 12% of the speed of light!

This internal explosion method will be more efficient than the Orion project, because in the Orion project, most of the explosion energy of the atomic bomb is not projected onto the hull and converted into power.

Of course, Project Daedalus is also more difficult, and there is plenty of room for improvement. However, in the eyes of scientists at the time, it was indeed feasible to a certain extent.

"This plan was proposed in the 1970s. It is more crude than Orion, and it is the only sublight speed spacecraft that can be realized! Of course, because the funds required exceed imagination, it cannot be realized..."

"Human beings, when did they gradually lose their ambitions and gradually immerse themselves in their own beautiful world? All ideas are products of the last century..."

Facing this real case, Yu Yifeng had to sigh.

Reality is more science fiction than science fiction. Human beings living in reality have huge unconscious power hidden in them. The key is a burning heart!

After the Cold War, our passions cooled down, we became more practical, and our thinking was no longer grand.

I don’t know if this is right or wrong...

What we should remember...will always be great dreams like the one we had.

We are not guardians... we are explorers, pioneers!

Our dream has not disappeared yet.

He understood what Professor Ding Yidong meant, or the great dream of a group of great scientists.

"Project Daedalus" and "nuclear bomb blasting to generate electricity" have similar approaches and results, and even...the two can be carried out at the same time! After a nuclear bomb is exploded in the furnace cavity, the high-temperature plasma ejected can be used for both propulsion and power generation.

In other words, such a nuclear fusion reactor itself is the propulsion engine of a spacecraft!

This group of scientists is even crazier than Yu Yifeng imagined. They want to solve the two major problems of "nuclear fusion" and "spacecraft" together through a reactor!

It seems... really good.

Yu Yifeng smiled slightly in his heart: "Is this the crudest version of interstellar civilization?"