Chapter 308 - 301 Proposal_1

Eamon’s current situation was not looking good.

The Dream Chaser’s second manned launch, which was also the debut mission to take over the ISS launch task, ended embarrassingly, and it happened on the second day of John’s tenure, triggering a series of chain reactions.

If there were no space race and no presence of New Yuan, a minor issue in a manned launch would merely lead to an internal investigation and not cause much impact.

However, in the current climate, the main participants and managers involved in the Dream Chaser project faced severe accountability and public pressure.

The day after Dream Chaser landed, the streets of Washington saw crowds holding banners and placards.

"Keep them alive!"

"NO RACE NO RISK"

"It was a murder!"

"We need a big shuttle!"

"..."

The gathering crowd was diverse, as the nine crew members came from several European countries, and they bore most of the launch costs of Dream Chaser.

Including Russia, most ISS member countries demanded accountability for the failure. The latter took the opportunity to mock Dream Chaser for cutting corners and to brag about how sturdy and reliable their Alliance Spaceship was.

John did not explicitly call for the punishment of the Dream Chaser research team; instead, he focused on the lack of attention to the astronauts’ safety and called a bunch of people into his office for a furious reprimand.

Afterward, he locked himself in his office alone, and even through the door, Pio could hear the roaring inside.

"These so-called elites, they take the money, our money, I paid so much in taxes, and it’s always billions of US Dollars, and then this is how they treat the taxpayers!"

Cautiously, Pio knocked on the door, and after a long wait, he heard a "come in" before opening the door just a crack. By that time, John had calmed down, but he was still standing with his hands on his hips complaining:

"I was just getting ready to accomplish something, and these vermin start hindering me from leading America toward revival. Maybe hiring a bunch of Indian engineers would be more useful than them.

You know, the whole world must be laughing at us right now."

Pio’s eyes wandered, "That’s right, boss, our European allies simply don’t have the capability to send people into space. America has to take care of them even during the Moon landing; they should be grateful for NACA’s contributions instead of kicking us when we’re down."

John nodded vigorously, "Yes, exactly, they’re parasites, our allies are dragging us down, receiving benefits without gratitude, this can’t go on.

Uh... and the Aerospace Development Committee, they must have been ready to mock us with their space shuttles all along, they’re questioning America’s space strength! We provided them with orders, capital, and technology, but in return, we got this kind of response."

John grew angrier as he spoke, a surge of passion rising to his head, and then, as something came to mind, he turned and pulled out a thin stack of papers, a proposal he had hesitated over for a long time.

Now he clenched it in his hand, narrowed his eyes, and said slowly:

"They have only achieved some insignificant success, don’t think that they can replace the greatness of America, we, we are the only ones, God bless America!"

Pio watched nervously as he glanced at the proposal in John’s hand, guessing what he was about to do.

Although reason told him that the best thing to do at the moment was to calm the boss down, the words he had ready to speak were swallowed back down.

Compared to an annoying rationalist, a sycophantic villain gained more favor from the boss.

"Boss, you’re right, we need to show our strength, let the world understand that we are still the unstoppable enforcers of order."

John: "I know many people want this proposal to pass, so I’ll grant their wish. I have the courage, we fear nothing, let them feel our dissatisfaction!"

...

"Nuclear fusion?"

Lin Ju couldn’t help but frown.

Controlled nuclear fusion... He wasn’t quite sure about it.

In the past, he had tried to initiate a new nuclear fusion research project at the System Research Institute, but after investing twenty million, the progress bar remained at zero...

The progress displayed by the system’s tasks is not even; initially, it’s generally theoretical and feasibility studies, the middle phase involves principle transformation, and the final phase is the specific technical research and development work.

The amount of money spent on a task is related to several factors: the knowledge, technology, personnel quantity, and level owned by the base. The more comprehensive the preparation in the early phase, the easier the progress of the task.

The situation where there is no progress in the theoretical research can only mean one thing: the base lacks theories supporting controlled fusion technology...

Alternatively, it means that the current mainstream approaches of magnetic confinement and inertial confinement cannot accomplish the manufacture of controlled fusion devices.

Magnetic confinement refers to tokamak devices; the international collaboration’s ITER, the Joint European Torus (JET), and the independently developed EAST by the nation are all of this type.

There are also two other methods: inertial confinement and gravitational confinement.

Inertial confinement had earlier research, America’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) is for inertial confinement fusion.

Inertial and magnetic confinement are both considered to be the most likely means of achieving controlled fusion in the future, but clearly, the current public theories are extremely imperfect in the eyes of the System Research Institute, requiring significant funding to push forth the preliminary theoretical research.

As for the unconventional gravitational confinement? This method is indeed viable; the sun operates like this, relying on the cumulative force of gravity to compel the fusion of hydrogen nuclei while emitting a strong neutron flux. However, it is a method humans will not likely achieve in hundreds of years.

We must not fail to mention the characteristics of fusion materials here, as there are currently three design types for nuclear fusion:

Fusion of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium: relatively easy, where one deuterium and one tritium fuse to form a helium-4 atom and emit three neutrons;

Deuterium and helium-3 fusion: produces helium-4 (i.e., helium with four neutrons), and may emit a small number of neutrons;

Helium-3 and helium-3 fusion: creates four helium atoms and two hydrogen atoms, with all neutrons accounted for and no neutron emission.

These are respectively known as the first, second, and third-generation nuclear fusion.

Neutron fluxes are highly penetrating and can cause severe harm to the human body; currently, all countries are trying the simplest deuterium and tritium fusion experiments.

The issue is that deuterium and tritium are extremely rare on Earth, only producible in small quantities by specialized nuclear reactors, and measured in grams, making them highly precious.

Preciousness aside, tritium also has a critical use: the gas boosting core of third-generation hydrogen bombs.

The first-generation hydrogen bombs used atomic bombs as triggers to detonate liquid tritium, being bulky, cumbersome to maintain, and weighing between several tons to dozens of tons, nearly lacking any practical value; the second-generation hydrogen bombs use atomic bombs to detonate lithium deuteride, with weight manageable between 2 to 3 tons, suited for actual combat.

The third-generation hydrogen bombs make use of a tritium-based gas boosting core to replace atomic bombs as the trigger, greatly reducing the mass of the hydrogen bomb, achieving yields of hundreds of kilotons at a mass of 100 kilograms, which is the latest technology.

The problem is that the gas boosting core’s tritium needs to be replaced every three or four years, otherwise it will become ineffective due to tritium’s decay, highlighting tritium’s value even more, and making it completely impractical for commercial fusion.

Whether it’s the second-generation deuterium-helium-3 or the third-generation helium-3 fusion, both require the abundant helium-3 available on the Moon, which is why the development of the Moon is considered a necessity for human nuclear fusion.

No matter which path New Yuan chooses, it implies an investment of tens or even hundreds of billions. Unless they go straight to helium-3 fusion, the preparation of deuterium and tritium fuel alone in the early stages would be torturous.