[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil":3,"chapter-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-243":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","You were told to build a tractor, but you're building a rocket?",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1305846,1735,"Chapter 243 - 237 Overtaking on a Bend_1","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-243",243,"\u003Cp>\"Mark, Mark, take a look at this plan and analyze its feasibility.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Oh shit! Although it looks a bit weird, it seems actually pretty good, much simpler than the centrifugal space station.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Claire submitted specaX’s plan for others to assess, the initial reaction was to wonder what the hell it was, but upon closer consideration, it seemed surprisingly reliable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Musk’s plan, this gravity system based on ropes is called the \"Flexible gravity device (FGD)\" whereas New Yuan’s ring-shaped gravity device is referred to as the \"Hard gravity device (HGD).\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Compared to HGD, the greatest advantage of FGD is that it doesn’t require frequent launches; only two spacecraft are needed to generate gravity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is great news for the Aerospace industry in America, which lacks gigantic reusable rockets like New Yuan-2A and New Yuan No. 3, and it’s also very flexible to use, as it can be separated at any time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If, indeed, two Starships were used for a Mars landing, the biggest issue in the plan would only be getting the Starships into orbit, as the centrifugal part is easy to solve.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although intuition might raise concerns about the ropes breaking, this is actually the easiest problem to address; engineers at NACA could now think of dozens of ways to ensure its reliability.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For HGD, the centrifugal cabin sections must either be able to connect with the central axis or connect between the cabin sections themselves, and both methods present a problem: to achieve greater gravity, the difficulty increases exponentially with the radius, so a space station like the Forward Space Station with a 120-meter radius and a mass of 1500 tons is enough, but a space station with a diameter of 200 meters would need at least 4000 tons.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>FGD is different; for artificial gravity devices, the rule that the number of rotations per minute for the regular life of personnel should not exceed 2 ensures that a low gravity of 0.3G requires a radius of at least 60 meters, which solves the issue of the mass of the space station.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even with two 10-ton cabin sections, 1G of gravity can be easily obtained.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, FGD was not an original idea from Musk; the Mars Society had actually suggested it years ago when dreaming up the Mars Direct plan, but no one had seriously considered implementing it in reality.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, it appears to be a good way to overtake on the inside track.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>NACA first shared this idea with Lockheed Martin, which was responsible for the re-entry cabin part of the Orion spacecraft, and they responded the next day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lockheed Martin indicated that the technology was simple and could be applied by adding a rope device between the docking parts of the Orion spacecraft’s re-entry cabin and service module, capable of extending up to 120 meters and spinning around the center to generate 0.25G of gravity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If progress is sufficient, it could even be used in the Artemis program for landing on the Moon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for Ma’s Starship landing on Mars plan, Lockheed’s response was more ambiguous, expressing that the heavy mass of the Starships is unreliable, and if it really were to be flung out, that would indeed be a problem; it would be better to use traditional spacecraft, each side weighing 200 tons, separating the crew section from the power section, with a total mass of about 400 tons—neither too big nor too small, just right.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Claire hummed and hawed her way through the conversation, how could she not understand Lockheed’s thoughts? Isn’t their aim to prevent specaX’s Starship from succeeding?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>NACA isn’t having it, these established contractors all have exorbitant demands, but how could they be as accommodating as the emerging businesses like Blue Origin and specaX?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, NACA was the one to nurture specaX and Blue Origin from the very beginning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Back then, the \"Constellation\" program under Little Bush was massive in scale, including projects like the \"Ares\" rocket series and Orion spacecraft, even grander than the Artemis program.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the Constellation program ended, these projects did not just come to a halt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Orion spacecraft had already been developed at that time, with Lockheed Martin engineering the return capsule and Europe (primarily Airbus) engineering the service module.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The liquid oxygen and methane engine that was originally used in the Orion spacecraft was researched by OPI Company in Huntsville, Alabama, considering the production of fuel on Mars and the Moon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the Constellation program ended, NACA could no longer bear the exorbitant quotes from the old contractors and transferred the technology of the liquid oxygen and methane engine to two companies: Blue Origin and SpaceX.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So why are the main engines of these two companies, the BE series and the Raptor, both methane engines? There’s a traceable lineage and connection.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Within the \"God of War\" series of rockets, the five-stage SRB solid rocket of the God of War One Rocket had flown once, and its rocket body and solid rocket recovery technology were passed to SpaceX, which became the technological foundation for the Falcon 9’s rocket body and certain recovery technologies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, speaking of vertical rocket recovery, that was something Union worked on towards the end of its time, and one can imagine where the personnel involved ended up after the war.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides the initial Falcon 1, SpaceX received substantial support from NACA for the Falcon 9’s rocket body and recovery technology, and it proved to be very effective; the entire Falcon 9 program didn’t cost as much in total as the God of War One program did in one month...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Using a space shuttle booster as a first-stage rocket for the God of War One, the launch cost was as expensive as that of the SLS rocket; you can imagine just how excessive those contractors were.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>NACA engineer Mike Hokachak even went to the launch site to give on-site guidance after a SpaceX explosion, and\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>afterward, SpaceX never encountered related problems again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the Starship was different; this was a program SpaceX wanted to push forward on its own. For a 9-meter class rocket and spacecraft, it obviously wasn’t so easy; Musk likely wanted to attract NACA’s interest through the Mars program to obtain support similar to that which Falcon 9 received.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the Artemis program had settled on using Blue Origin’s \"Blue Moon\" lander, Ma didn’t lessen his pitch for the Starship, but NACA remained hesitant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Firstly, in terms of high-thrust methane engines, Blue Origin’s BE-4 had ongoing issues, and it was hard to say just how reliable the Raptor really was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To launch the Starship spacecraft into space, the super heavy booster would need to install 29 Raptor 1 engines in a triple-ring layout of 1+8+20; with so many engines, NACA felt the same trepidation as Union did when viewing the N1—they were scared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The tragedy of the N1 was a stark reminder, and Claire also had reservations about letting NACA step into this deep pit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Technically, she believed that half a century of human progress in technology should be able to overcome issues with control computers and excessive vibration, especially after the successful launch of New Yuan No. 3 with 19 engines, and the CZ-10 with 10 engines and 20 combustion chambers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the Starship... this was different from reusing some mature technologies in the Falcon 9—it required a considerable amount of new development investment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, a decision was soon made for her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When the 220-ton central section of the Forward Space Station floated in low Earth orbit, it was the congressmen who went mad first. They felt immense pressure from the significant progress of the Forward Space Station and were deeply fearful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since it was not a military-purpose spacecraft, they could not sanction it on various grounds. So, after much difficulty and despite having already spent over a hundred billion US dollars on space endeavors this year, Congress gritted its teeth and approved a new plan:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>NACA needed to start research on artificial gravity spacecraft.\u003C\u002Fp>",1328,"2026-06-05T18:20:54.444Z",1,"novelbin.me","581c9fe19e8120c40b9071304797512fa462822cb05c47f655f49cdc3182374c","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-244","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-242",804,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fyou-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-cover.jpg"]