Will the out-of-control servitor meet the cosmic cat?

There seems to be something wrong with this cat alliance.

Volume Four Industry and Power: Chapter 273 Inertial Constraints!

Just when these Lupus prisoners were in a daze at the standard of food that seemed to be available only to at least a first officer, Hong also began to look at their delicious meals.

"The material used for this boat is really good."

Looking at the Great Rupert Truth-class capital ship being fixed into the dock by engineering ships on the screen, Stewart propped his chin and said, "This structure, this reinforced beam, and this heavy armor are definitely strong against kinetic energy bombs."

"That's true."

Hong also agrees with this - although the Great Ruper Country likes to stack materials when they encounter problems, it will indeed give it a disadvantage in many technologies, but this does not mean that they really only know how to stack materials without thinking .

After all, it is also an interstellar civilization. Even if the materials are piled up, they are piled up with technical materials. Judging from the preliminary test on the way Hong dragged them back to Hong Kong, the design and materials of these armors are very exquisite, and they will definitely not be ashamed. They have been working on kinetic energy bombs for thousands of years.

With a main gun with superior firepower, a powerful engine, and solid armor, it has almost all the elements a warship needs. Hong believes that in those battlefields in the past, these powerful warships must be like indestructible fortresses. The enemy brings endless fear.

But this time, they met an opponent who didn't speak martial arts.

"Is Red going to imitate their plasma cannon?"

"I can't rule out this possibility." Red crossed her arms, her tail gently swaying behind her back, "Although I can't fight at medium and long distances, and the cost-effectiveness of being the main force is average, I think it's pretty good for a bodyguard." good."

"That's true."

Stuart nodded: "If we had dozens of such warships during the Battle of Katus, we wouldn't let the opponent's warships that have been crippled to the point of being crippled persist for so long."

"Yes, that's what I thought."

The plasma gunship has a very remarkable feature, because its working method is that the reactor is directly connected to the gun chamber, and it directly accelerates and pushes the plasma through a method similar to a small nuclear explosion. Very large, and at the same time an advantage that laser and electromagnetic gunships can never achieve.

It has low cooling requirements.

During the entire firing process, most of the heat was taken away by the plasma cluster and plasma fired by the main gun, and a large part of the heat that could not be taken away was in the reactor and could be directly guided into the reactor. To heat the propellant that is about to be ejected by the engine, only the remaining heat after passing through these two roadblocks is the waste heat that they need to rely on the reserve working fluid or heat sink to deal with.

This makes the heat dissipation requirements of the plasma gunship much lower than those of the exhausted laser ship and the slightly better electromagnetic gunship. That's enough to hit a hundred and eighty rounds—that's why a defeated soldier beaten like that can cause so much damage.

To deal with these warships, just smashing the shallow layer is also very effective. Whether it is the immediate auxiliary equipment off the assembly line, the sight ability and aiming accuracy are greatly reduced, or the waste heat is gradually accumulated until it cannot be fired. The attack is very useful.

But if you really want the opponent to immediately lose the ability to fight and lose the threat to the fleet as quickly as possible, then it still depends on the truly powerful penetrating hard kill.

If the nuclear bombs that can be intercepted are removed, then obviously, the plasma cannon becomes their best choice.

The premise is that they can decipher the mysteries of these giant plasma cannons in the Great Ruper Country.

Especially those superconducting magnets.

"It's not too late."

Looking at these fully fixed battleships, Hong rubbed her little hands excitedly.

"Let's start dismantling."

...

It has to be said that the Great Rupert Kingdom is still an old interstellar empire with rich heritage after all.

Even if it does not pay much attention to independent scientific research, many problems are solved by relatively rough stacking, and it does not pay attention to the development of more sophisticated and efficient new technologies.

But they can't stand their foundation!

The interstellar era, which lasted for a full 3000 years, endowed them with an extremely deep scientific research pool. Almost every major research direction has a large number of branches and technical reserves-and this is something that the Cat League does not have.

No matter how powerful the cat alliance is, no matter how efficient and advanced the scientific research system is, it will not change that they are a civilization that has only entered the interstellar era for less than 700 years.

Even, because of the fact that Jeffrey was more crotch back then, except for some special directions, most of the other technologies of the Cat League were inherited from Hong’s same-family body, and the technology of the same-family body was inherited. Catus——so if the line of Catus-homogeneity-cat alliance is regarded as "orthodox", then after excluding the weak AI period of more than 800 years, their real interstellar era is only 400 years Only about a year.

Four hundred versus three thousand, what a huge gap!

No matter how advanced their scientific research system is, no matter how strong Hong's overall planning and research capabilities are, since its establishment more than 70 years ago, Maomeng has been promoting cutting-edge technology while making up for missed lessons, and has successfully made up key areas to the level it should be However, due to the short period of time, in terms of overall background, the Cat League is still inferior to normal civilizations of the same level.

Especially when comparing it with the Great Rupert Kingdom, an old empire with a large business, a large population, and a long history, the gap in its foundation is even more obvious.

But that's okay.

Since my background is not enough, but your background is very enough.

Then I just steal all your background, wouldn't it be fine?

Although there are not many things that can be learned in reverse engineering, the fact that one can learn all the knowledge of the other party by dismantling the device only exists in the imagination of laymen.

But I can't stand Hong's technique!

Under her extremely powerful research and overall planning capabilities, the scientists of the Cat League are learning the cutting-edge weapon technology of the Great Rupert Kingdom from the wreckage of this huge fleet at a fairly good speed and efficiency, while supplementing the background of the Cat League. on the missing.

Although it took only two months, it was far from enough for them to study all the mysteries of these battleships, and it could even be said that they had just begun, but their results were still quite gratifying.

Among them, the engine has made the most progress—through the research on the fusion engine of the Truth-class battleship, Hong has learned a lot of knowledge and technology to improve the operating efficiency of the engine, and has begun to apply it to the next-generation engine under design , a big step towards their goal of "faster" warships.

Bigger, faster, stronger.

This is the core goal of their warship upgrade this time, or in other words, the core goal they want to achieve every time a warship is upgraded, or even every time civilization progresses.

From the first bonfire on the prairie to the space battleship of Chipin Xinghe, people are always looking forward to making themselves stronger-in individuals, this desire is manifested in the pursuit of smarter minds and stronger bodies. Body.

In civilization, this desire is manifested in the pursuit of the expansion of its own influence, the admiration of advanced technology, and the desire to conquer nature.

Intelligent creatures have never been content with the status quo, otherwise, millions of years ago, their ancestors should not have tried to destroy the natural stones that had been weathered by wind and rain, and polished them into some strange shapes. shape.

They are indeed strong.

But they still want to be stronger.

Bigger, faster, stronger.

"Good day, audience friends. What you are seeing now is the preparation site for the inertial confinement fusion experimental ship of our alliance. You can see that the engineering ships are already disconnecting it from the external magnetic mirror engine. The final preparations The work is expected to be completed within half an hour, and this launch..."

Amidst the reports of various TV stations and other civilized reporters, as far as the eye can see, a giant spaceship with a rather strange appearance is quietly docking above the orbit of Kawei.

It has a silver-white appearance, four huge spherical working fluid storage tanks, and an engine nozzle that is unusually huge compared to conventional warships—even if it is kilometer-long, it can carry eight main battleships at high speed at the same time. The size of the single engine nozzle of the Yuanyu ferry is not as large as the huge spaceship in front of it.

All kinds of engineering ships and robots are quickly shuttling around it, constantly dismantling various equipment and connections, like small fish cleaning the skin of big fish, and it can be clearly seen It turns out that the demolition work is nearing completion.

Apparently, it's about to set sail.

This is a technology that Maomeng has been working on since it mastered fusion, or even before it mastered fusion—although it spent most of its life studying under the name of controlled fusion Some other things that are less controllable, but this does not change its long history almost as long as the most classic magnetic confinement fusion.

Hong once tried to put it on the ship, but due to the lack of technology at that time, not only the manufacturing and operating costs were very high, but the reliability was poor, and the effect was also very general, and the cost-effectiveness ratio was seriously insufficient. The technical update on the engine, that is, the advent of the engine they are currently using on the 30-ton single pusher, so it finally withdrew from the official installation, and was unified by the magnetic mirror engine.

However, even though it has the experience of failing to quit after being installed, Hong has never disliked it, and is still willing to invest a lot of energy and cost to study this technology, and tirelessly strive for its high performance requirements. .

Finally, the hard work paid off.

It's time to reap the fruits of success.

Looking at this huge spaceship that looks like a hill, and then looking at the huge engine behind it that represents the painstaking efforts of countless Cat League scientists, Hong thought of many, many things.

In fact, the scientific research results this time have some special meanings for her and her cubs—this is the first breakthrough so far, the most critical breakthrough made by her cubs important research projects.

She did not rely on any specialness brought by her own identity, but completely relied on her superb knowledge and extraordinary talent to bring a major breakthrough in the real sense to Maomeng, which would not have been possible without her.

Although after Hong recognized and corrected her mistakes, today's cubs are no longer as worried about gains and losses as before, and they don't even think about the so-called "to prove their unique value, so that Hong can do it even from pure interests." No angle can be separated from them."

But this does not mean that they are not interested in providing Hong with a huge amount of help that only they can do—as Zai Zai, who would not want to provide their own meager help to Hong? Power, let Hong recognize their abilities?

What's more, they are also Maomeng members themselves, how could they be unhappy when their efforts can contribute to the popularity, the Maomeng, and even the whole world they know?

"All the modules of the experimental ship are ready, the sailing permit has been obtained, and all restrictions have been lifted."

Listening to the announcement echoing in the main control room, Hong returned her attention to the giant inertial confinement fusion experiment ship in the distance.

There is no longer any hesitation.

Looking at the expectant eyes of the people around, Hong took a deep breath, and then said loudly.

"Engine, fire!"

With an order, in the depths of the complex and deep engine, a small projectile with a diameter of only about one millimeter passed through layers of pipes and equipment, and was finally transported into a huge metal chamber.

The moment it reaches the center point of the entire chamber, the ultra-high-power lasers all over the entire chamber start to work, converting the power provided by another small fusion reactor dedicated to power generation into a powerful laser beam, which is accurate at almost the same time. Hit this small, spherical target pellet made of deuterium, tritium and other auxiliary materials.

In an instant, under the terrifying energy output of the lasers, the surface of this tiny target ball turned into a mass of ultra-high-temperature and high-pressure plasma with a temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius. Discoloration——With such powerful energy and temperature, the target material on the outer layer of the target pellet immediately began to eject outward at a super-high speed, trying to scatter towards the huge space of the reaction chamber.

However, the engine doesn't care about these materials trying to escape the reaction zone.

It is concerned with those targets that remain in place.

Under the extremely synchronous and exquisite control of the laser, the energy acts on the entire surface of the target ball very uniformly, which makes the super high recoil pressure be applied while the surface target materials are splashing out, allowing the target to The rest of the material of the ball moves centripetally at an extremely fast speed, forming a strong center-focused shock wave, which compresses everything inside hundreds of times toward the center of the ball, and its density is even as high as nearly a kilogram per cubic centimeter. The resulting high temperature is calculated in billions of degrees Celsius.

Although all of this can only last for a very short time, after much less than 10 minus 9th power seconds, these plasmas that are forcibly compressed together by the super-strong laser will fall apart under the terrifying internal energy, but these have nothing to do critical.

Because the fusion was done long before they parted.

Engine, lit.

Picture: "Inertial Confinement Fusion Experiment Ship", Location: "Images/1656528144-100214443-108975623.jpg"

PS: The resolution after the limit of 500kb is not good, this kind of picture still has to be used on the computer to see the full-screen large picture.

Volume IV Industry and Power: Chapter 274 in ? v I two tons of magnets

With that dazzling light over Catus, the world changed.

The advent of this truly practical inertial constraint engine not only marks the most critical step in this field, but also tells the world that they have challenged themselves again.

Because this is the Catus Alliance, and even among all their known civilizations, the first fusion engine that can achieve an acceleration of 11.8m/s? on the experimental ship, which is the acceleration of gravity of Catus.

In other words, if it is just a purely theoretical calculation, ideally, as long as the engine is improved and reduced in weight, it can take off directly from the surface of Catus into orbit.

Although this is really just a purely ideal situation, let’s not talk about how to use the inertial engine in the atmospheric environment. Besides, this data was measured on an experimental ship. There are almost only the necessary equipment and loads to maintain the engine’s operation, and the mass is relatively low. A real battleship is much lighter.

In fact, they may not be able to build a space battleship that can take off directly from the surface in the next few hundred years-this can also be found from the records of several known ancient civilizations.

After all, even if they are as powerful as them, their space warships are all honestly built in space. For this reason, they would rather build a space elevator with a huge investment than build a super super warship with a thrust-to-weight ratio that can take off directly on the spot. engine.

But how to put it, it will not be reborn and will not be rebuilt, but this does not affect them as a milestone number-a milestone that represents that they have surpassed their parent star with a fusion engine.

This is the power of inertial constraints.

For now, the fusion engine mainly used by Cat League is a structure called "magnetic mirror".

The reason why it is called a magnetic mirror is that the shape of this fusion reactor is different from the classic ring. It is cylindrical, and at the same time, it is an open structure at both ends of the "tube"-yes, it is the same as inertial confinement , is also an open reactor.

In fact, in terms of propulsion efficiency, the configurations that can be used are basically open, while closed reactors have a large advantage in power generation efficiency-for now, among all known fusion reactor configurations , the ones with the highest power generation efficiency are not those fancy reactors that use a variety of Zentraedi technologies that may not be mastered in a few hundred years, but the most classic ones that most civilizations have mastered. the first reactor.

A closed steady-state magnetic confinement reactor headed by a stellarator.

Although the magnetic mirror also uses magnetic confinement, it is open, so even if it has a fairly good, tokamak, which is obviously a closed magnetic confinement reactor, will shout invincible steady-state operation capability , its power generation efficiency is also not as good as that of a closed reactor, which is why Hong usually installs one or two large stellarator reactors on a capital ship with high power consumption.

In order to feed those big consumers of electricity, Hong has put in a lot of effort.

In addition, due to the special barrel shape of the magnetic mirror engine, which relies on strong magnetic fields to restrict the plasma in it from escaping through the openings at the front and rear ends, this kind of reactor will face a natural problem-magnetic flux leakage.

Although by placing stronger magnetic fields at both ends, known as "magnetic mirrors", the reactor can ensure that most of its plasma can be confined in the reaction zone, so as to ensure the normal operation of the fusion process, but After all, this is not a completely reliable closed confinement, and they still cannot avoid a considerable amount of fusion fuel escaping from both ends, resulting in a series of problems of incomplete reaction and reduced efficiency.

This is also the reason why its power generation efficiency cannot be compared with that of a closed reactor in principle-how can it be better than someone who keeps the fuel inside and burns it when you leak fuel while fusion is running?

But it is precisely because of this inherent and unavoidable problem from the root that, on the one hand, its power generation efficiency is beaten by a group of closed or even semi-closed reactors, and on the other hand, it also makes it dark By mistake, it has created its lofty status in the propulsion engine, allowing this strange barrel-shaped design with transparent head and tail to enter thousands of households, and it has become the only designated fusion engine carried by more than 99% of the spaceships of Cat League.

The reason is simple, since this kind of engine will inevitably have magnetic flux leakage, and it is known that these leaked fusion fuels are born with super high speed (otherwise they would not be able to break out of the strong magnetic field blockade)...

So, isn't this a propeller that is too suitable?

Therefore, the engine designers deliberately made the strength of the magnetic mirror of this engine into a structure with one end strong and the other end weak, and at the same time let the weak end face outward, so that the plasma that was about to leak would spontaneously flow toward the The direction in which the magnetic field is weaker is ejected.

And because it directly injects fusion fuel, there is no need for any middleman to make a difference in the middle, so that its specific impulse can be increased very easily.

Even for the sake of engineering difficulty and acceleration, they have to mix a large amount of working fluid in it to increase the thrust at the cost of reducing the specific impulse, which is far stronger than the traditional propulsion method that relies entirely on the working fluid to absorb the heat of the reactor Lots and lots.

What's more perfect is that, unlike a closed reactor, if you want to overload the power, you must greatly increase the flow rate of the working fluid to absorb the accumulated waste heat, so as to ensure that the reactor will not melt down due to overheating, and at the same time, it must be limited by the magnetic field upper limit situation.

The magnetic mirror reactor does not need to worry about the large accumulation of waste heat, but also can increase the power and thrust very easily. It only needs to simply add more fusion fuel to it, and there is no need to worry too much about exceeding the upper limit of the magnetic field constraint.

The reason is simple, the magnetic mirror is an open reactor, the way it stops the plasma from being ejected from the port is by a strong magnetic field, if they add more fusion fuel into it, the fusion process becomes faster and more violent, So much so that it exceeds the existing confinement capacity of the reactor, those plasmas that exceed the confinement capacity will only do one thing——

Squirt from the port.

Because the closed reactor is completely closed, once the reaction rate is increased, the increased energy will be fully applied to the reactor itself, resulting in the need for more working fluid to absorb the accumulated heat and prevent meltdown.

At the same time, because of the closure, once the plasma exceeds the confinement of the magnetic field, the escaping plasma will easily destroy the inner wall of the reactor like a hot knife cutting butter, resulting in a significant drop in work efficiency, or even damage to the reactor. to immediate shutdown.

But what does this have to do with my magnetic mirror?

What?Too many calories?