Beneath Deep Space

Li Wu took a long breath and calmed down. The excitement and tension in his mind began to disappear little by little, replaced by calmness. At this moment, girlfriends, soldiers, professors, nuclear bombs, etc. all disappeared from his mind. Now, he only has work in his eyes.

This is just a slightly complicated job, just do it as usual and complete it, that's it.

The helium-3 bomb is more complex than ordinary hydrogen bombs. It adopts a three-layer ring structure. The innermost layer is the atomic bomb, which is the one transported by the two soldiers; the middle layer is deuterium and tritium, which are the main materials of the hydrogen bomb. ;The outermost layer is helium-3.

In Professor Ding Yidong's design, the innermost atomic bomb detonates first, generating a high temperature of more than 50 million degrees and igniting the outer layer of hydrogen bombs. Immediately afterwards, the high temperature of 100 million degrees generated by the detonation of the hydrogen bomb ignited the outermost helium-3 layer.

Compared with hydrogen bombs, helium-3 nuclear bombs actually only have an extra outermost helium-3 layer, but don't underestimate this extra layer. Its technical difficulty has increased several times.

Why? First, helium-3 is usually in a gaseous state. Although it can be compressed into a liquid state under high pressure, it needs a large refrigeration device to store it for a long time. This is too troublesome. A small nuclear bomb certainly cannot be equipped with such a thing. of.

Moreover, helium is an inert gas and basically does not react chemically with anything. How can it be converted into a solid state?

Professor Ding Yidong has been studying for ten years and finally solved this problem, which is the physical adsorption method. He invented an activated nanocarbon that can absorb large amounts of helium-3 gas at low temperatures. When it returns to normal temperature, the adsorbed gas will not be released.

Ok, this problem is solved. Although it can be explained clearly in one sentence, it took ten years of effort.

Secondly, there is another engineering difficulty, because the explosive power of the atomic bomb is so strong that it can destroy the entire device in an instant. This requires that the time for the hydrogen bomb to ignite helium-3 must be very, very short.

To put it simply, the atomic bomb ignites the hydrogen bomb, and the hydrogen bomb ignites the helium-3. The design is very good, but in practice it is extremely difficult. Often, the entire helium-3 layer is blown away by the atomic bomb before the hydrogen bomb ignites the helium-3.

Of course, it is possible that only part of the helium-3 was ignited, but such a result would still be a failure for everyone.

In order to solve this problem, Professor Ding Yidong conducted detailed calculations. The inside of the nuclear bomb is simply a three-ring structure. In fact, it is very complicated. The purpose is to allow the helium-3 layer to be ignited as quickly as possible. Furthermore, the thickness of the deuterium-tritium layer must be controlled within an appropriate range so that the deuterium-tritium layer and the helium-3 layer come into contact within the first moment of the explosion.

They designed a piece of iron paper only 20 nanometers thick to isolate the deuterium and tritium layer from the helium-3 layer. As long as this layer of iron paper is punctured by force after the atomic bomb explodes, the helium-3 can quickly Enters the deuterium and tritium layer and is ignited. Of course, there must be an anti-vibration design inside, and the iron paper will not be broken due to ordinary vibrations.

But this makes the engineering very difficult. First, the quality of the deuterium-tritium layer must be strictly controlled, preferably at the microgram level. Second, during the production process, the pressure of the helium-3 layer is slightly higher than that of the deuterium-tritium layer. The tritium layer should be a little bigger, but not too big. Otherwise, once the iron paper is broken, everything will be mixed together, causing the experiment to fail.

Therefore, Professor Ding Yidong was very nervous. He only had one chance, and if he failed, he would never have another chance. He wanted to go up to help, but he also knew that going up would definitely be a disservice, so he could only wait helplessly behind.

The same goes for several other people. They did a lot of work, but they could only watch the last step. If the same machine is made by different people, the final results will definitely be different. Just like in the same factory, the products made by workers in different shifts will have different yields. There must be good and bad products.

There is a certain order of hearing and a specialization in the art. They can only believe in Li Wu unconditionally.

Li Wuze didn't have so many thoughts. He was now in a state of no joy and no worries, just focusing on what was in front of him. His hands began to operate, and each piece of work was like a computer program, without any mistakes, and was completed smoothly.

Most of the molds were already produced in the factory, and all he had to do at the end was put the pieces together.

He controlled the electronic arm, first took out the atomic bomb from the black box, and carefully placed it in a fixed position. Of course, the casing of this atomic bomb had long since been peeled off, leaving only a lead shell surrounding it. The half-life of enriched uranium is very long, and the radiation hazard is not very great. A layer of lead shell can basically block it, so no one is shy about it.

One of the two soldiers was Zhao Yao from the special forces. This fat black man was unable to attend the party, but instead was assigned to perform this mission. He must have felt a little unhappy. But now, he didn't dare to make a sound and was extremely nervous. There were indeed bullets in his shot. If these scientists did anything, they would definitely be shot at them.

What he admires in the military is strength and passion, and he is very fond of the latest weapons and equipment. He has to rush to the first test every time, and he can memorize the parameters of any firearms and artillery shells one by one. However, he still felt a strange sense of nervousness when he saw nuclear weapons, the most ferocious weapons in human history.

"We have finally seen the atomic bomb. We will also see the hydrogen bomb and the more powerful helium-3 nuclear weapon." Zhao Yao suddenly felt that this trip was worth it.

As the procedures progressed, the robotic arm operated again and took out some solid compounds glowing with blue light. These were lithium deuteride and lithium tritide, the main materials of hydrogen bombs. Current technology's hydrogen bombs all use solid compounds and no longer use liquid hydrogen.

Historically, the Americans successfully trial-produced the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, using liquid deuterium and tritium as thermonuclear materials. This put a big burden on the hydrogen bomb. Because in order to keep deuterium and tritium in a liquid state, a complex refrigeration system must be provided, so that the first hydrogen bomb weighed 65 tons and could be loaded on a train car.

This loses its practical significance. People call this kind of hydrogen bomb that uses liquid deuterium and tritium as thermonuclear fuel a wet hydrogen bomb.

Later, scientists discovered that lithium-6, an isotope of lithium, is an excellent thermonuclear material. If lithium deuteride-6 and lithium tritide-6 are used as hydrogen bomb materials, not only can thermonuclear reactions be achieved, but the heavy refrigeration system can be eliminated, greatly reducing the size of the hydrogen bomb and achieving miniaturization.

Hydrogen bombs containing a mixture of lithium deuteride and lithium tritide are called dry hydrogen bombs.

Now, what Li Wu wants to make is a dry hydrogen bomb. The steps here are very critical. According to the design requirements, the materials are all quantitative. Of course, the higher the accuracy, the better. It is best to be accurate to 0.1 microgram, which is one ten millionth of a gram.

The best electronic scales today can barely reach this level. It is too difficult to achieve this precision. No matter how hard the average person works, they can only achieve the milligram level (1 gram = 1,000 mg = 1,000,000 micrograms). No matter how shaking their hands are, it is still around a few dozen milligrams. Fluctuations, but Li Wu is different.

His hands are so stable that it is possible to achieve microgram accuracy. It is just a matter of time and patience. The robotic arm kept moving, using extremely thin needles to extract the last few micrograms, but at this time, no one's hands were as flexible as yet. Li Wu immediately went into battle himself and began to extract it manually.

He is constantly trying to enter a mysterious state. This state has often appeared before and is the pinnacle of experience and luck. Sometimes when the state is up, it can be completed all at once.

This may be a matter of practice making perfect, or it may be a personal talent, but it is difficult to explain clearly. Sometimes when I go to the vegetable market to buy vegetables, the pork seller can accurately cut the weight of a piece of meat without relying on an electronic scale, and the accuracy is down to the gram. Li Wu thought that he might also have this kind of talent, but he was obviously countless times more powerful than the meat seller. He could be accurate to micrograms.