Chapter 105 - 101: Forward Space Station_1

After deciding to initiate the nuclear plan, New Yuan Aeronautics officially began formulating a moon landing scheme.

Seven or eight engineers along with Lin Ju stayed in a dimly lit small room, brainstorming together.

First of all, what do you need to prepare for landing on the Moon?

First, you have to complete at least one unmanned lunar exploration by launching a satellite that reaches or brushes past the Moon’s orbit to find a suitable landing site.

Second, communication relay satellites are needed, especially when missions on the far side of the Moon are required, because nothing can be transmitted back to Earth when facing away. Therefore, satellites in lunar orbit for relaying are a must;

These relay satellites could be launched in advance or sent together with the lunar spacecraft later on.

Third, the lander, return spacecraft, and lunar module; in the past, these were combined and launched to lunar orbit by a huge rocket, like in the Apollo program and the former Union’s planned N1 rocket lunar missions.

However, following the internal formal proposal of the lunar mission, New Yuan’s engineers thought more comprehensively and produced two versions of tentative lunar landing drafts:

The first scenario assumes that NAPE will not be available on time and is more conservative.

A New Yuan-2A rocket, that is, the CBC-configured New Yuan-2 with a lunar transfer orbit capability of 50 tonnes, would send a large module to Moon orbit to serve as a space station.

Then, the intermediate second-stage rocket is eliminated, and a large space shuttle is attached to the side to carry out the moon landing.

Create an H2 type large space shuttle, approximately 74 meters in length, with an empty weight of 85 tonnes, a maximum takeoff weight of 132 tonnes, equipped with three A100 nuclear thermal engines, 12 tonnes of methane, capable of carrying 5 crew members, and a service module and crew cabin combined offering 70 cubic meters of space. They also planned a conventional version of the methane engine, which apart from not being suitable for long-distance travel, has similar specifications and is dedicated to low-Earth orbit missions.

The H2 can first perform an unmanned mission to send 35 tonnes of payload to the Moon, including a lunar vehicle, living quarters, and a nuclear power station; the second manned mission will transport 5 astronauts. After docking with the space station, four of the astronauts will land on the Moon using the 30-tonne lander, complete their tasks, and then ascend back to lunar orbit, where the ascender docks with the space station, waiting for reuse.

Afterward, the five astronauts return to Earth aboard the space shuttle, perfect.

The second scenario assumes NAPE is successfully developed as planned.

Build the planetary spacecraft XN90, powered by 6 NAPE engines, taking the initial ’X’ from New Yuan, ’N’ for atomic power, and the number indicates an empty weight of about 90 tonnes; it launches from the ground to space, then refuels at the space station in Earth orbit and heads to the Moon, lands, takes off back to Earth orbit, refuels at the space station, and lands on the surface of the Earth.

The XN90 can also carry 5 astronauts, integrating the return module, orbital module, lunar lander, and ascender all in one.

Landing and taking off would be like something out of a Star Wars film, shooting flames as it flies towards the cosmos, with a science fiction level of MAX.

However, although the two plans are quite different, both could make use of the lunar space station, as well as the unmanned lunar bases constructed in advance.

Guo Shen planned the preliminary preparations that New Yuan could do right now:

Firstly, launch two satellites into lunar orbit; one to explore the far side of the Moon for possible sources of water, and another to act as a communication satellite to maintain uninterrupted contact.

Once a water source is found, use New Yuan-2 or New Yuan No. 3 to build the base, with power stations, living quarters, spaceship landing field, and fuel stations capable of synthesizing methane.

Then comes the lunar space station, providing living space and fuel replenishment in orbit; the fuel station on the Moon’s surface can send up methane with an unmanned, reusable liquid oxygen-methane fuel ascender whenever needed.

Also, the construction of a Near-Earth Space Station will commence. It can operate jointly with the Tiangong Space Station or independently.

Both H2 and XN90 would benefit from these facilities.

All the above tasks would require five to six launches of rockets like the New Yuan-2A or New Yuan No. 3, plus the space stations and more, with initial investments amounting to 8 billion yuan (internal pricing, not publicized).

And the cost of H2 or XN90 would be between 20 to 40 billion yuan per craft, very expensive indeed.

The NAPE and A100 nuclear propulsion plans are estimated to cost around 30 billion yuan, setting a preliminary budget of 400 billion yuan for the entire lunar mission.

Did you think that was all? Think again.

Regarding the Near-Earth Space Station, Androff proposed a new concept.

The "March" large centrifugal space station, with a rotation radius of 60 meters, rotating at 2 rounds per minute to generate 0.28G of gravity.

The space station consists of two vertical 14-meter diameter core modules and a node module in the middle as the center of rotation, from which six radiating cabins extend outwards, connecting to the chambers in the outer ring.

There are 12 cabins on the outer ring, each a rectangular cuboid with side lengths of 11.8 meters. Six of these cabins are connected to the radiating cabins and are interconnected with each other through circular pipes.

The two large segments on the axis and one connecting node cabin have a total weight of 220 tons, with six connecting passageways 5 meters in diameter, each 43 meters long and weighing 30 tons; each centrifugal cabin is 44 meters long and weighs 90 tons, with each connected environmental pipe weighing 5 tons.

The assembled mass is 220 + 30*6 + 90*12 + 5*12 = 1,540 tons, which can exceed 1,800 tons after adding fuel or supplies.

Out of the 12 centrifugal cabins, 6 are crew cabins offering a combined space of 2,400 square meters, and the other 6 are service cabins for power, fuel, and storage.

Overall, the available living space for the crew amounts to an impressive 32,000 cubic meters.

There are also four large docking ports on the axis, which can accommodate either the XN90 spacecraft or H2/H1 space planes, but there must be two docked on opposite sides for rotational balance.

This will be humanity’s first centrifugal low-gravity space station, and docking two H2 or XN90 craft would push its weight beyond 2,000 tons.

More importantly, a gravity of 0.28G combined with constant exercise is already sufficient to ensure that astronauts do not experience serious physical degradation over a two-year span in space.

And in two years, using nuclear rocket engines, it would be possible to complete the exploration of any planet within the solar system.

By then, the Forward Space Station could increase its mass by no more than 500 tons along the axis, adding propulsion modules that include nuclear engines and fuel.

Of course, the overall budget for the March Space Station is also quite high. Fourteen large segments would require 14 launches on New Yuan No. 3 heavy-lift rockets, the twelve arched pipe connectors would need 6 deliveries via H2, and the six radiating cabins would be grouped in pairs and launched with two New Yuan No. 3 rockets.

Just for the parts alone, there would need to be 16 launches of the New Yuan No. 3 heavy-lift rockets, and an additional 6 launches of the New Yuan-2A heavy-lift rockets to transport the H2, costing a total of 87.8 billion yuan in rocket launch fees.

As for the cabin segments, each of the 6 service cabins would need 500 million, each of the 6 living cabins 80 million, each of the 2 core cabins 80 million, each of the 6 radiating cabins 30 million, and each of the 12 arched pipe connectors 10 million, totaling 39.4 billion yuan.

With two H2 crafts alternating duty and including research and development costs, the price is 4 billion, with each of the 6 flight missions costing 100 million apiece.

So, the total cost of constructing the March Space Station comes to 87.8 + 39.4 + 40 + 6, which is 137 billion yuan.

But this is an ideal state, and accounting for other expenses, the cost is approximately 160 billion yuan.

Actually, Androff had taken the concept of the March Space Station even further, which was to let the centrifuge part rotate while keeping the axial cabin segments stationary, requiring two large slip rings.

This slip ring must simultaneously ensure strength, airtightness, low resistance, signal, and nuclear power exchange, among others; the issues brought about by this one structure are quite complex.

Leaving aside airtightness, just consider the resistance issue. The centrifugal part has a mass of 1,000 tons, and even with very low friction coefficient, it would bring a significant torsional deflection to the axial cabin segment, making it quite a troublesome issue to solve.

Bearings wouldn’t work; Androff’s idea was to use magnetic levitation, creating a high vacuum between the inner and outer rings of the slip ring, and then using magnetic force to levitate it, virtually eliminating resistance.

But airtightness was another significant issue, in addition to the connectors possibly having to withstand acceleration stresses, and so on...

In the end, they simply gave up on this concept, leaving it for the future; for now, they would make do with what they had.

The solution to the docking problem while rotating was rather straightforward: stop spinning during docking.

At a rotation speed of 2 rotations per minute, the highest speed at the end of the spinning March Space Station would only be 13 meters per second, and slowing down wouldn’t take long. It just required the astronauts in the living cabins to tidy up a bit to prevent the loss of gravity from making a mess.

Being a proof-of-concept, this imperfection was tolerable, even if it meant stopping the rotation once every month.

And converting Near-Earth Space Station’s lunar landing plan to the March Space Station meant the budget wasn’t 40 billion but 50 billion yuan.

How much money does Xinyuan Company have in its accounts now? The company could mobilize approximately 14 billion yuan in funds after covering the expenses of the launch site, B-level Base construction, rocket production, and personnel expenses...

Don’t forget, the nuclear propulsion group alone would require 8 billion yuan upfront, with a total planned expense of 30 billion yuan.

Once the final payment from Abe of roughly 5 billion yuan was accounted for, the nuclear propulsion group would still have a shortfall of 11 billion yuan.

All in all, New Yuan Aeronautics must raise at least 39 billion yuan in funds over the next three-plus years...

Lin Ju: "Abe, come over here for a moment."