.

After we conducted research with our colleagues from the Space Research Institute, we suggested that we explore the plan, which is divided into three steps.”

Xiao Qiang talked in front of the multi-functional conference room of Universal Company.

He held a flashlight-like instrument in his hand, and the red light spots shot out from the front moved on the projection screen, indicating the focus. This is a hand-held teaching stick, and the button on the grip can also be used as a mouse.

The conference room was silent, listening to his commentary quietly.

There are more than 100 people here, including generals of assembly, Director Zhou of the Science and Technology Commission, researchers of the Space Research Institute, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and dozens of discipline leaders of Universal Corporation.

"The first step is that we will manufacture the permanent scientific space station on the ground and use space planes to transport it to outer space for the final assembly. In order to complete this step, we will build millions of relevant parts and specific manufacturing blueprints. We are working with the Space Research Institute for a final discussion, and we will submit specific plans no later than two months.

In order to send so many equipment into space, we expect to carry out more than 500 ground-to-air shuttle flights. From the current perspective, due to the service life of the aerospace engine and the alloy materials used to manufacture the engines, the construction of the space station is not yet met in the short term.

According to the news obtained by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the country will devote its main energy to material research, and it is expected to build three new materials research institutes and eleven special alloy factories, with a total investment of more than 12 billion yuan.

Even so, it may take seven or eight years to develop qualified alloy materials and supply aerospace aircraft engines to produce them."

The president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences stood up, pushed the eyes on the bridge of his nose, coughed, took over his speech and said, "I will add: Although our first step of the plan must rely on high-quality alloy formulas for implementation. But this does not mean that we will wait until the alloy formula is developed before starting work.

The construction project of the space station is an extremely complex interdisciplinary comprehensive project, which involves multiple disciplines such as machinery, electronics, computers, artificial intelligence, etc. Before the materials can be fully supplied, we must conduct research and trial production of the functional modules related to the space station, and continuously improve the safety and maintenance of their functions, and minimize their costs.

In addition, everyone knows the cost of aerospace planes. The price of each ship is as high as 4 billion US dollars!

Comrades, it’s $4 billion!

Before we successfully developed alloy materials, I think our main job was to try to adopt new technologies and new manufacturing processes to reduce the manufacturing cost of aerospace planes.

Our ultimate goal is not to build one or two aerospace planes. In order to develop space resources, we need ten, dozens, or even hundreds of aerospace planes!”

"Director Liang is right!" Xiao Qiang agreed after he sat down, "The purpose of our space exploration is not to show off, nor to inspire people. Developing space resources for humans is our ultimate goal.

To this end, the space station will shoulder our mission to move towards the space advance base.

After considering the power of the space station, we will expand a solar film with a size of five square kilometers in space.

Although the photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar films is not as high as that of concentrated solar energy sheets, it is because of its lightness. It is made on the ground. It is sent into space with a space plane and can be used with support.

However, solar energy is affected by the earth's rotation and the moon's occlusion and cannot provide electricity for 24 hours. Therefore, we also need to transport high-power batteries to the space station, and some of the electricity is supplied by liquid hydrogen batteries. However, liquid can only be sent from the ground to space, which is too high, so it mainly depends on batteries to provide electricity.

The liquid hydrogen sent into space will actually be used as fuel supply for spacecraft.

This involves the second step of our planned space exploration, the development of interstellar aircraft."

Interstellar aircraft is our main tool for exploring planets in the solar system. It will be a small space aircraft that collects scientific exploration, mineral analysis, and atmospheric environment analysis.

Its starting base is the permanent space station we built in the first step.

Usually, it docks on the side of the space station, connects with the space station, and can also serve as a small laboratory. When conducting star-level exploration, it will receive fuel supply from the space station. The resistance in space is very small, so the fuel consumption to arrive at the planet is not large. However, the planets in the solar system, except for the dense atmosphere of Venus, the atmospheric pressure reaches 92 times the atmospheric pressure of the earth, and the atmosphere of other planets is not dense, so that the planets do not need to consume too much fuel when they rise and fall.

At the same time, without the influence of the dense atmosphere, the design of the aircraft does not require too much atmospheric flight appearance design. The aircraft adopts a spherical shape with the greatest resistance, which can resist greater impact forces, resist sudden meteorite impacts, and save materials more.

Our temporary goal is to develop and utilize lunar resources. Using small interstellar vehicles will be able to easily shuttle and travel between the space station and the moon.

The construction period of the second step is not long. It is roughly estimated that two years is enough.

The third step is to establish a foothold on the moon.

Since a large number of equipment can be built on Earth, sent to the space station by spacecraft, and sent to the moon by interstellar aircraft. Therefore, the cycle of building large bases on the moon usually takes decades, and we only need less than five years to build it.

In the future, a small number of people will be stationed for a long time and a large number of automated equipment production will be adopted.

The mineral deposits are extracted from the top, sent back to the space station through the interstellar aircraft, and then from the space surface.

Some refineries such as iron ore that are not very valuable, will be refined on the moon and used to build large residential areas. This scale will gradually expand as the number of people coming to the moon increases. If a large lunar city with a scale of more than one million people is to be established on the moon, the time span may range from thirty to one hundred years..."

"Wait!" A scientist who listened to Xiao Qiang's explanation raised his hand and said, "There is no atmosphere on the moon, so it has been hit by space meteorites all year round. This is the reason why craters are everywhere on the moon. How can we ensure the safety of people's lives in building a super-large moon city with a scale of more than one million people?"

Xiao Qiang pressed the remote control teaching stick and replaced the demonstration diagram, explaining: "There are two solutions to this problem.

The first is to build a large laser generator. There is no atmosphere on the moon, and the laser's effectiveness is slower than on the earth. Therefore, large lasers can destroy meteorites that may pose a threat to the moon from a long distance. At the same time, hundreds of small lasers can destroy smaller targets, allowing residents of Moon City to have a safe living and working environment.

As for the energy of lasers, we can build controlled nuclear fusion power plants.

The required materials can be extracted in large quantities from the moon, and nuclear fusion power plants are pollution-free and controllable. They are also one of the important strategic resources to solve the earth's energy in the future.

The second method is to dig into the inner layer of the moon. The future Moon City is built inside the moon. On the back of the moon, there are a large number of mountains left by the impact of giant meteorites in ancient times, including many caves. These caves are formed by melting and condensed after extremely high temperatures. The hardness is very high, and the strength is higher than some of our alloy materials. We can build exports widely in these caves to avoid meteorite impacts and block the outlets."

A scientist suddenly said: "We can also combine two methods. First use a large laser to destroy larger meteorites, and then use a small laser to destroy small meteorites. After two layers of interception, the meteorites that fall to the moon are basically no threat. But small meteorites are also terrible. If they really fall into the Moon City, they will definitely penetrate the protective cover, causing property, materials, and casualties. Therefore, building the Moon City underground is the best measure to protect safety."

"Not bad!" A scientist from Universal Corporation also nodded, "Due to its special environmental structure, seismic wave transmission and reduction are very quickly. Through the seismic wave detector set up on the moon in the United States, we found that the moon's earthquakes are not frequent, and they do not exceed magnitude three. It can be seen that it is a relatively appropriate way to build the Moon City underground."

"Going deep underground can also avoid the influence of cosmic rays and solar flares. I also think it is safer to build it underground." Qin Yunqiang is also a supporter of the underground faction.

In fact, the depth of the moon should be said to be under the moon, not underground.

But everyone is used to this way of expression. The meaning of the underground is clear and no one changes his words and expresses it in a more formal way.

Several generals who were assembled discussed with each other and said, "Yes, no one can guarantee that the laser can destroy all meteorites. If there are more meteorites, the laser does not have time to destroy, or the energy is insufficient to destroy the dense meteorite rain, it may cause a fatal blow to Moon City. Built underground, even if a few meteorites escape the destruction of the laser, it cannot cause a fatal blow to Moon City."

Director Zhou also nodded in agreement with their views, but he also had questions: "From Mr. Xiao's explanation, I feel that the main difficulty lies in the manufacturing cost of aerospace planes and engine alloy materials. If these two problems are solved, there should be no important difficulty in establishing a lunar base. But what does Mr. Xiao say that it takes 30 to 100 years to build a large lunar city?"

When he and other generals who were in charge of the assembly, they usually whispered Xiao Xiao to show that everyone was their own people and they called him very intimately.

But at this moment, there are so many people, and they have them in every unit, and they have also changed their name to "Mr. Xiao" to show respect.

Xiao Qiang was bent over and whispering to President Liang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and President He of the Space Research Institute, making changes on the computer, and entering everyone's opinions into the computer's note project as the basis for future discussions.

Hearing Director Zhou’s questions, he stood up straight and opened a demonstration program.

This is a sectional demonstration animation of the moon.

This is a desolate planet, facing the earth, with a large area of ​​shadows. Some of these shadows are moon seas and some are mountains.

But on the back, there are large craters, densely packed with craters, turning the entire back of the moon into a numb face.

According to scientists, the moon sea on the front of the moon is actually a crater, but it is just a very huge crater.

It is speculated that the moon was hit by an asteroid 3.8 billion years ago. The diameter of the planet is estimated to be about twenty kilometers. After impacting on the moon, it formed a vacant where the moon sea is located. Moreover, the huge impact formed a large area of ​​internal lava eruption, and the continuous volcanic eruption did not completely stop until 2.5 billion years ago. The melting volcanic lava filled the craters and turned into the seemingly flat moon sea today.

The large meteorite behind it was formed by small meteorites that had been impacted by billions of years.

Data sent back by the ground probe set up by the United States on the moon, the moon is now subject to more than 300 meteorite impacts every year. Without the atmosphere to provide protection, the harm caused by meteorite impacts is very great. A meteorite of hundreds of kilograms can form a huge meteorite crater with a radius of two or three kilometers.

Therefore, to establish a base on the moon, first

Avoid meteorite impact.

Large lasers must be built, and large quantities must be built.

Xiao Qiang pointed to the desolate surface of the moon and said: "Many of our scientists have speculated that the cold climate conditions on the moon can leave a large amount of ground water on the moon and exist in the form of ice.

Especially in these craters, there is never sunlight in, and there may be ice."

He pointed to the poles of the moon again: "There are more large craters in these poles. According to statistics, Antarctica has at least 6,000 square kilometers of permanent shadow areas. This also shows that there may be a large amount of ice here. With ice, there will be oxygen supply and extraction..."

"According to the latest detection data, enough people have been found on the South Pole of the Moon!" Director He of the Space Research Institute interjected.

Xiao Qiang smiled and nodded to him to express his gratitude, and then continued: "But this is just our guess after all. We have not conducted a detailed survey of the moon for how many ice cubes there are. Therefore, we cannot obtain accurate data.

As we all know, water is the basis for the survival of carbon-based organisms. Without water, we can send to no matter how many people we can send. It is in vain. We cannot supply a large amount of water to the moon like transporting important resources. And it is sent to it, without the protection of the atmosphere. Sooner or later, water resources will escape from the moon and disappear into space.

If there are a large amount of earth ice, it is only a matter of time before large human cities are established on the moon.

However, if there are only a small amount of ice on the moon. Then, besides building a large production base, which provides strategic important resources like the earth. Or establishing a space shuttle construction factory and building a space exploration forward base, the moon base has not been developed to become an external environmental condition in the area where humans survive.”

"Can we build an atmospheric environment in the form of a closed-door land in the dungeon, just like that biosphere plan?" asked a lieutenant general in charge.

"It's not impossible, but it requires a lot of space." Xiao Qiang said patiently, "To be able to live in the atmosphere of one million people and cultivate large amounts of plants to grow, it requires a very large space. To create such a closed biosphere, the initial materials still need to be provided by the earth. If the materials cannot be obtained locally from the moon, the amount of funds required will be quite huge."

"So, according to the discovery, there are at least enough ice cubes needed for thousands of people to survive on the moon?" The lieutenant general asked afterwards.

Xiao Qiang looked at him and the other generals deeply, then nodded, and said briefly: "Yes."

The Lieutenant General quickly got together with other generals around him and started discussing in a low voice. After a while, he raised his head and said with a smile: "Mr. Xiao, please continue to explain. When the meeting is over, we want to share some views with you in private."

Xiao Qiang smiled at the corner of his mouth, and he had guessed what the other party wanted to say to him.

Maybe I'm sending someone up in advance to seize water resources.

If the water resources on the moon are really limited, then seizing water resources is equivalent to seizing the entire moon. Even if other countries have technology to land on the moon, they do not have a large amount of water resources and can only stare at them.

Even the United States, unless it goes crazy, will not say that it will send millions of tons of water to the moon.

This forces other countries to have to build small advance bases on the moon and send a very small number of people.

In this sense, seizing water resources is equivalent to seizing the entire moon. China only needs to develop a cave in advance and then transport all the ice cubes found to this cave for storage.

This is very easy to achieve!

Xiao Qiang spread his hands: "What I want to say is roughly this. In summary, the most precious thing on the moon is not nuclear fusion materials or ore. The most precious resource is water! If you control the water, you control the moon!

Nowadays, countries with the ability to land on the moon are likely to land on the moon, except for China, the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan. However, no country can land on a large scale within ten to twenty years.

So, we are racing against time.

The core of the space exploration plan we designed is the moon landing project. It can be said that the smooth implementation of the moon landing project means that China's future space exploration competition has won 80%!

ten years!

Within ten years, we must complete the cheap and large-scale production of aerospace planes. It is best to build a large space station in the last year to provide material support for future moon landings.

During this period, we will complete the design and manufacturing of space station construction; launch a space shuttle with a large rocket; manufacture of large-scale detection equipment at the lunar base in the future; construction machinery manufacturing equipment for the ground excavation of the lunar base; and lunar transport systems - lunar surface vehicles and float vehicles are required.
To be continued...