Chapter 236 - 230 Xiao Gao, I’ve Got Your Back_1

On August 28, the European Space Agency suddenly released the "Selene" manned Moon landing plan.

This was not a pre-implementation announcement but rather a typical PPT presentation, just the occasional brainstorming followed by some imaginative illustrations to lighten the mood.

The Selene plan was to use the power of the European Space Agency, with the UK and Italy taking the lead in developing the manned spacecraft, and Germany and France in charge of the landers, with a planned implementation around the year 2020.

What was particularly interesting was the rocket. The Selene plan would utilize a new rocket with a novel liquid oxygen kerosene core engine stage bundled with solid rocket boosters, launching the spacecraft and lander to the Moon’s orbit in two phases and then docking to land.

The solid rocket boosters were the same EAP currently used by the Ariane 5, but the core stage rocket was intriguing—where would the engine come from? And, a reusable rocket?

Perhaps to prove their earnestness in drawing up this PPT, the European Space Agency had already proposed a first batch of 10 billion US dollars of funding for the Selene plan, along with a five-year development plan.

Of course, with the ESA’s way of working, a firm decision probably wouldn’t come until the next year, but it still caused a stir in the Euro-American world.

In Europe, it was: Could we old Europeans finally send humans to the Moon without relying on the crude rockets of America?

NACA: Are you paupers thinking of rebelling? If you want to land on the Moon, just tell me. I could just add a couple more slots to the Artemis plan.

As for Badis, who was still working hard within the European Space Agency, Italy had been quite ambitious in recent years, with not a bad industrial strength; it’s just that the ESA had too many members, making everything drag on and become quite troublesome.

In any case, the Aerospace Development Committee said they must wait until the Veneto 1 rocket project was approved before allowing the engines through customs, and to push the Veneto 1 rocket project, Italy couldn’t do it alone...

...

B-level Base, Laser Laboratory.

As a secret laboratory on a par with a nuclear base, the Laser Laboratory didn’t have many people, but they were elusive, and the outside world hardly knew such a financial behemoth existed within the base.

Zhao Xiaowen, the chief person in charge of the laser project, was not always at the base; he would occasionally return to the institute for a visit.

That day, he was browsing the institute intranet’s journals when he came across a very interesting paper:

"A Concept for a Separation-Type Water-Based Rocket Booster"

The core of this paper was an unconventional type of rocket engine: the water rocket engine.

The name "water rocket" should be familiar to many; for example, buy a bottle of Coke, add a few Mentos, drill a hole in the cap, turn it upside down, and then the expanding gas will eject a high-speed stream of water, propelling the Coke bottle several to dozens of meters high.

That’s a water rocket, but the water rocket engine is different.

America’s ARCA company, an aerospace company that always focuses on something a bit odd, had developed a water rocket engine.

Their ground test of the water engine was like this: heat water in a boiler to a boiling frenzy at 250 degrees Celsius, then eject it through the engine nozzle; it’s that simple.

Using water as the ejection mass, the thrust of the water engine was incredibly impressive, with a single engine reaching a thrust of 7,000 tons!

The thrust of the F1 hydrogen-oxygen engine of the Saturn V was only 680 tons, yet ARCA’s water engine achieved ten times the thrust of the F1 with a smaller combustion chamber—isn’t that amazing?

Although the thrust-to-weight ratio reached the peak of rocket engines, the problem was that the specific impulse of the water engine was too low, at only 67 seconds.

The specific impulse was so bad it was depressing, making it almost impossible to use it to escape the Earth’s atmosphere.

There was another problem: ARCA’s idea required the rocket to not only carry the dead weight of several thousand tons of water but also enough high-energy batteries and resistance wires, adding another big chunk of dead weight.

So the water engine... Just look at it and forget it.

However, this graduation thesis written by a senior college student was different as it introduced an innovative idea: the water was not to be heated on the rocket.

Instead, an external heating surface was reserved at the bottom of the rocket equipped with the water engine. The ground would continuously shoot high-energy lasers to generate sustained high temperatures, so the water pumped down by the rocket would burst into a violent boil upon laser heating, generating thrust.

If a water rocket is about 14 meters in diameter and 50 meters tall, it just meets the requirement to hold 7500 tons of water, and a water rocket engine with a thrust of ten thousand tons is installed at the bottom.

The goal of such a water rocket was not to send a spacecraft into space but to attach a conventional rocket of about 1000 tons on top of it and have it transport from the ground to an altitude of 8000 to 10000 meters. Then the conventional rocket on the upper stage would start its engines and continue its journey to space.

Theoretically, this method could significantly reduce the weight and size of the upper stage rocket and save on the high thrust costs needed for the low-altitude ascent phase.

Since the water rocket is very cheap to manufacture — how simple is it to have a combustion chamber withstand 250 degrees Celsius? Ordinary stainless steel works, and the casing just needs to meet strength requirements; the cost is pitifully low, water doesn’t cost money, and the expensive heating parts are ground lasers that almost don’t cost anything.

Of course, Zhao Xiaowen, who had become an expert in the aerospace field, would only find it interesting because, in practice, there was no need for such a setup. The construction of ground-based lasers would be very costly, and the upper stage would still require rockets, so the costs wouldn’t be significantly lower. It would be better to focus on more reusable rockets or develop aero-space planes instead.

But the thesis itself was not lacking in substance; its author’s thinking was forward-looking, and it offered many designs with practical potential, clearly a promising talent.

Such talent could be pulled into the lab early on, destined to achieve great things in the future.

Zhao Xiaowen then immediately started to contact the school to find the student but was shocked to learn that the student was facing expulsion?

That shouldn’t be the case!

He directly called the student’s advisor to find out what was going on and learned that Gao Qitao, the student in question, had really stirred up big trouble.

Gao Qitao’s grades had always been outstanding; he had managed to transfer into the Aerospace Institute during his junior year and maintained his excellence.

As a top student, he didn’t fall behind in other areas either. He graduated from flight school early with fourth-place honors and obtained his independent jet trainer pilot license in July of that year.

Gao Qitao, with his excellent flying skills, had earned many reward flying hours for his outstanding performance, even a generous amount on the "Meteor" trainer aircraft.

To understand, the flying hours on a primary trainer are converted to those on an advanced trainer at a ratio of 24:1, and the latter’s operational cost is very high.

Then, in the last half of the month, Gao Qitao engaged in prohibited low-altitude flight through valleys—a behavior constantly banned by the flight school but generally only carried out by instructors or top students so the punishment was light. Gao Qitao usually never had any trouble.

That day, however, he somehow misread the route, flying into the wrong tributary and into a city’s area, and then he flew through a river bridge’s arch...

Reportedly, the tail was less than 3 meters from the bridge deck, a highly dangerous yet skillful stunt flight, but then the jet trainer was warned by air traffic control to leave New Yuan’s permitted airspace, and both the air force and local city officials came looking for trouble.

There were many city residents already constantly complaining about noise issues, and many used this incident to create a significant fuss. With great difficulty, the city managed to keep things under control and pressured the school to expel the student to quell the residents’ protests.

The air force... The air force also severely criticized Gao Qitao but then told him that joining the air force could lead to a guaranteed placement in military school later, and even claimed he wouldn’t find a job without being a pilot due to having a record.

After hearing everything, Zhao Xiaowen blurted out, "I knew these vultures were always eyeing our students. I’ll look after Gao Qitao! Let’s see who dares to make him leave!"