Chapter 322 - 315 Preliminary Demonstration of the Scientific Expedition Station_1

"When will the manned Moon landing take place? I’ll say it again, don’t rush. You have to eat one bite at a time, walk step by step.

Our ascender’s manned life-support system part has not been completely finalized, and it would be irresponsible to the astronauts’ lives and to the people’s eager expectations if we only spend four or five months on development. Some young comrades are always thinking about achieving everything in one step, which is unacceptable in aerospace.

Manned Moon landing is a massive project..."

Old aerospace Academician She, with spittle flying, explained to the researchers attending the expanded meeting why they chose the fourth rocket for the Moon landing, while Lin Ju, with his head tilted, was talking to Chief Designer Wu Wenren, who had been deeply involved in the design of the CZ-10 rocket and the Dawn Spaceship.

"Chief Wu, our Dawn III isn’t really going to be loaded with only half the fuel, right?"

Wu Wenren: "That won’t happen, the fuel will be loaded to capacity, but we will not carry out a real manned Moon landing."

"What if the astronauts want to do it?"

Wu Wenren: "It will be locked down remotely, they won’t be able to do it..."

Lin Ju: "..."

Alright, the Chief Designer himself admitted that we can’t expect a manned Moon landing this year.

Wu Wenren was always rather taciturn. After answering Lin Ju’s question, he turned his head back silently. By this time, Academician She had calmed the adventurous spirit of the young comrades and started discussing the construction plan for the Lunar Scientific Research Station/Base.

The Kuom Impact Crater Lunar Scientific Research Station, also known as Cold Palace No.1 Base, was proposed in early 2016, to be jointly constructed by China, Russia, France, and Italy. However, now everyone tacitly only discusses the parts they will build independently.

Academician She: "...The core of the Scientific Investigation Station is first and foremost the living cabin. There are currently two proposals: one is to establish a living area composed of one or more single living cabins weighing 10 to 20 tons, capable of providing at least 15 cubic meters of space; the other is the movable Moon Base we have in mind, weighing around 15 tons, both capable of supporting three people’s lives, which in plain terms, is like a little RV on the Moon.

I see that the comrades are more inclined towards a fixed base, but there are also two proposals for fixed bases: direct deployment and digging caves for placement...

..."

When the Dawn 2 (which is now officially referred to as the first flight of the CZ-10 as the Dawn I mission) sent back clear images from just 15 kilometers above the lunar surface, the space agency felt very close to the Moon, and the construction of the Lunar Scientific Research Station/Base naturally entered the actual planning stage.

The significant discovery at the Kuom Impact Crater only increased this urgency.

The Aerospace Development Committee is now collecting proposals from various institutes and private enterprises, requiring them to base their designs on research/in-service rockets, which naturally includes Xinyuan.

Xinyuan Company submitted relatively fewer contents in their proposal because it’s all based on the carrying capacity of the New Yuan-2B. To descend from lunar orbit to the lunar surface consumes 70% to 80% of the fuel, and Xie Liaofu believes that the maximum weight the New Yuan-2A and its compatible lander can deliver to the lunar surface is 6 tons.

Therefore, when calling for proposals, he directly submitted a bunch of designs for mining to storing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, showing no interest in the other parts.

Xinyuan’s main focus is now on the unmanned base’s fuel production and the orbital fuel transfer system construction because only in this way can large-scale, low-cost Moon orbit-Moon surface transportation be achieved.

For example, in the plan formulated by Xie Liaofu, placing four 6-ton liquid hydrogen and oxygen production devices could produce approximately 43 kilograms of liquid hydrogen daily, thus obtaining 4.3 tons of liquid hydrogen in 100 days.

Adding the simultaneously produced liquid oxygen equals 38.83 tons of liquid oxygen/hydrogen fuel. Employing zero-evaporation storage technology to preserve 36 tons over 100 days shouldn’t be a problem.

Assuming the creation of a special MTV (Moon Travel Vehicle) with a dry weight of less than 4.5 tons, every refill with 36 tons of fuel would make the takeoff weight around 40 tons.

Taking off from the Moon’s surface to dock with the Lunar Orbital Station consumes about 13 tons of fuel, after which the remaining fuel in the tanks is transferred to the Lunar Orbital Station for storage, leaving 8 to 9 tons of fuel for the return to the Moon’s surface.

Each "refueling" mission delivers about 14 tons of fuel to the Lunar Orbital Station, enough to fully fill a tank of an H2N spacecraft.

For one supply mission, accumulating fuel for 100 days and including maintenance, it would be no problem to transport over 40 tons of fuel to the Moon orbit three times a year.

If it’s for Moon landers used for lunar landing, then a manned MTV is developed, with a dry weight of 4.5 tons leaving a payload of 2.5 tons for personnel and equipment to descend. Taking off and landing once would consume about 23 tons of fuel, which would nearly require 60 days to accumulate.

In other words, just four fuel production devices can ensure the production of fuel from the Moon’s surface, which can provide fuel for six reusable landers every year.

If one intends to maintain one Moon landing per year using reusable landers from the Moon orbit and lunar fuel, 250 days of operation of a single device would suffice, with the remaining 100 days’ output of liquid hydrogen and oxygen used by the Scientific Investigation Station.

The entire system requires at least one ice excavator/transporter, an ice crusher/pure water production machine, an electrolysis hydrogen and oxygen preparation machine, five compression equipment, a storage module capable of handling 50 tons, and three universal nuclear power cars with a power generation capacity of 40 KW each.

To establish a basic fuel extraction-storage system, at least eight New Yuan-2B (three-stage configuration) launch missions are necessary, with just the total rocket launch costs quoted at 3.5 billion yuan.

The equipment’s quoted price from Xinyuan starts at a package deal of 4.5 billion yuan for 8 units including the lander. Xinyuan’s total construction cost starts at a minimum of 8 billion yuan, with manufacturing costs accounting for 20% and the overall cost covering about 30%, still yielding a considerable profit.

Although starting the entire plan at a steep price of 8.5 billion yuan (equivalent to 78% of the construction costs for the first two phases of Tiangong Space Station in this dimension, and the total budget of the original timeline’s Tiangong Space Station), the prospects it can offer are quite promising. The money one would have to spend, slightly more than 8 billion yuan, is not too exorbitant.

So when Academician She presented Xie Liaofu’s unmanned Moon surface fuel production proposal, the researchers in attendance thought about it for a while and found it quite reasonable, believing the feasibility of the plan is very high without considering current demands, and its expandability was quite good.

However, there were also many other excellent proposals. Since it was an early-stage justification meeting, all sorts of wild and imaginative ideas could be brought up for discussion, as providing inspiration and thought avenues are also beneficial.

Lin Ju witnessed the novel brainstorming from all sectors, some of which were unconventional, some were purely beautiful concepts, but indeed many could undergo further research.

After the meeting, the manned habitation part remained controversial, but the unmanned preliminary work achieved basic consensus:

Launch a Short-distance Lunar Surface Mobile Laboratory, to carry out small-scale explorations;

Launch a Lunar Soil 3D Printer, to study on-site construction;

Launch a boring machine for excavating caves, in order to provide micro-meteorite/radiation protection for critical cabins and living quarters;

Launch a large solar power array capable of generating over 500KW.