Chapter 212 - 206 Project 909_1

July 20, Thursday.

America’s Senate passed the Pentagon’s proposal to launch research into the future nuclear-powered space platform, also known as the FATS project. Several companies, including NACA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Company, Bell Labs, and Northrop Grumman, were involved.

The acronym FATS just happens to be the plural form of the word "fat," hence the FATS project is also known as the "Fat Man" project.

The first batch of the FATS budget would invest 3 billion US Dollars, its content being to first build a nuclear-powered engine that was fuel-efficient with a huge power generation capacity, and then to modify a space shuttle for testing.

That’s right, modify. A newly-built space shuttle would be more advanced and complex, demanding more time to construct, at least three years.

Now that H2 has already completed its maiden flight, in order to catch up on progress and save on budget, Michael Kelly proposed that the retired Endeavour be heavily modified to create the first nuclear-powered space shuttle within 18 months.

Endeavour’s last flight was in May 2011, and it’s only been sitting for five years, preserved fairly well. After assessment, NACA also believed that if a thorough overhaul and upgrade were conducted, not just Endeavour, but the remaining two shuttles, Discovery and Atlantis Number, were also in good condition and could be commissioned again.

Thus, the FATS project also listed the remaining two shuttles as backup options, which could be restarted at the appropriate time, starting with small-scale repairs.

The happiest about the FATS project was Boeing, because whether it was the STS program or now FATS, the space shuttles were built by them, which was absolutely a business they could eat from for thirty years.

NACA then began sifting through its own vast archives again. In the last century, they had initiated the "ROVER" and "NERVA" projects to research nuclear thermal rocket engines, producing eight types of engines with considerable documentation, theoretically possessing the richest reserve of experience in the world.

Speaking frankly about nuclear engine technology, only the Union used to be able to wrestle with NACA. Looking at the world now, NACA is first, and others would be embarrassed to even claim second place because NACA is too far ahead in this field.

Fission nuclear projects and heavy pollution are inseparable; only last century did America seize the initiative, taking advantage of a round of ever-stricter nuclear pollution restrictions that had not yet formed, to conduct countless nuclear tests with its head start.

Although the initial investment for the FATS project was much smaller than that for the Artemis project, it should not be generalized.

FATS was a Pentagon initiative; those military chiefs are far more influential than scientists, and if they truly want a project to succeed, the level of support will definitely reach unexpected magnitudes.

Since the 90s, the AAF was continuously suppressed, F22 production stopped after a little over a hundred units, and the manufacturers of parts for the B2 bomber had to shut down, to the point where they had to dig through archives for documentation. For the sake of "affordability," the AAF was forced to collaborate with the NAVY on the JSF Joint Fighter program, resulting in the F35 that didn’t even cruise as fast as the Tu-160, yet shamelessly named "Lightning."

The AAF chiefs had long been dissatisfied, so this time Michael Kelly received strong support from the AAF. Combining internal and external forces, FATS was approved by Congress with extreme efficiency.

However, even though the initial phase of the FATS project intended to cut costs by utilizing retired space shuttles, NACA was still stretched thin.

After over two decades of decline, NACA had expended considerable effort on pushing the Artemis project forward.

Even in its heyday when a worker could support a family of five, buy a car, travel, and the industrial manufacturing capability was second to none in America, the Moon landing project and the space shuttle program were sequenced—one at a time.

Now, conducting the Moon landing and two space shuttle programs simultaneously was a tremendous pressure for NACA.

But NACA’s immense pressure came with results. Across the ocean, some people were cursing up a storm.

...

"Damn it, nuclear-powered space shuttles armed with laser cannons? These damn Americans really dare to dream big; I hadn’t even thought about it!"

Even through the thick solid wood door, the voice of the superior could still be heard.

Congress had just passed the FATS program when the space agency was still complacent, believing the project to be just one of AAF’s many fanciful and unreliable plans and didn’t take it seriously.

But when they heard that NACA was planning to refurbish the Endeavour, a 25-year-old relic on display at the Kennedy Space Center for American elementary school students’ patriotic education, and modify it for nuclear power the following month, the space agency sensed something was amiss.

"Are the Americans actually serious?"

Then the domestic secret agencies responded and assessed the FATS program.

Why use a nuclear-powered spacecraft to carry a laser cannon, instead of a satellite?

Spacecraft have many advantages:

First, they’re easy to maintain, able to re-enter the atmosphere for upgrades and retrofits by the manufacturer, and their hundred-ton bodies can provide a substantial payload, which is not cheaper than a satellite platform of a comparable size weighing several dozen tons;

Second, they’re flexible; nuclear-powered spacecraft can maneuver in space using their own fuel, and if it’s an A100 nuclear engine, they can even hide on the Moon. Large satellites can’t do that;

Large satellites use up a lot of fuel when they rapidly and frequently change orbits, and if they were also fitted with nuclear reactors or engines, the cost would simply be too high.

But we do have a vehicle that can fly around in the sky and attack targets with lasers, namely the "Xuehu," a near-space vehicle whose design is already more than halfway complete.

The Xuehu can fly up to over fifty thousand meters, that’s more than fifty kilometers, essentially out of the densest part of the atmosphere, where laser weapons suffer minimal attenuation, making it capable of attacking satellites as well.

Though it can’t carry a twenty to thirty-ton laser like a spacecraft can, a twelve-ton weapon is still significant, and no matter how you look at it, a vehicle that operates within the atmosphere will definitely be cheaper than a spacecraft.

Not only will it be cheaper to build, but it will also be cheaper to maintain and require less time.

Even if the Xuehu is not as capable as FATS, the money to manufacture and maintain one FATS could support an equivalent of ten Xuehus, or even five, the military would still prefer the latter.

However, the military also felt that, while the Xuehu was pretty good, FATS had its advantages and seemed quite ideal.

What’s more important is that while America’s FATS is just starting out, China’s FATS, the H2 spacecraft, has already begun prototype testing.

If China could use the H2 as the platform to develop its version of FATS, wouldn’t it be possible to save a significant amount on research and development costs, only needing to resolve the laser issues, and also because of the H2’s more advanced progress and technology to enter service before America?

Once this idea took hold, it was unstoppable, leading to a report sent up the chain of command.

At last, the third institute of the space agency secured the project, codenamed: "Ghoul Bird."

A nuclear-powered spacecraft equipped with a high-energy laser could at least allow two to three astronauts to maintain a presence in space for 40 days. As long as they maintained radio silence, there would be no way to locate a spacecraft in the vastness of space that could maneuver over a large area with nearly infinite energy.

The enemy would be in constant dread, and the goal was to use the laser to instantaneously destroy the enemy’s spacecraft, appearing and disappearing unpredictably—hence the project received the codename: Ghoul Bird, with the internal engineering code of Project 909.

The core of Project 909 was not the several-dozen-ton laser, but the basic carrier vehicle, so the third institute hoped the latter would provide a customized H2 airframe to work with for modification.

And the military budgeted ... 50 billion US dollars for Project 909, initially.