Chapter 370 - 362: Eve_1

On April 27, in a drizzle, Storm was carefully hoisted and attached upright to the central core stage of the New Yuan-2A rocket, with the assistance of a crane.

Since both the rocket and the space shuttle are too large to be brought into the assembly building, this process had to be public, and the outside world finally captured images of the combustion chambers of the three A100 engines.

Compared to the conventional rocket engine combustors, the A100’s combustors are also massive bell-shaped nozzles, but their surfaces have many protrusions making them appear rough, and the tail is significantly bulged compared to the H2M, seemingly with movable structures.

"The A100 engines will generate tremendous accumulated heat, most of which can be concentrated on the nozzle. There are many fine tubes distributed on the outer wall of the nozzle that allow liquid hydrogen to flow through and carry away heat during operation.

Another portion of the heat can only be dissipated by the expansion-style heat sinks at the tail exposed to the vacuum, totaling more than 100 square meters of exposure area across six sides, so one must be careful to prevent collisions when docking with the space station."

Xie Liaofu, the chief designer of Storm, was giving a brief introduction to the layout of the nuclear section to several experts from the academy, who nodded repeatedly.

They were now beneath the launch tower, shielded by the shadow of the assembled body.

All three A100 engines had withstood the test of extended duration firings, and radiation was concentrated at the rear of the nozzle, so it remained quite safe inside the space shuttle during operation.

When returning to the atmosphere, they would still use a gliding landing without starting the engines, but the landing of Storm still required special caution.

The three nozzles, after operating in space, would also become contaminated with radiation from the reactor core. Most of the radiation could be dispersed by releasing stored liquid nitrogen before entering the atmosphere, with the remainder reduced to just below threshold levels.

However, it was still slightly higher than normal standards, so the landing site of Storm would be a semi-enclosed airport on the grasslands. Immediately after landing, the runway would be washed with foam, and ground crew in chemical protection suits would cover the three combustion chambers with protective caps, then cleanse the entire space shuttle. Astronauts could only come out at least an hour later.

After all, the radiation levels were right at the upper limit of human tolerance. Proceeding with the normal landing process would be irresponsible. After such a thorough cleansing, the levels would be almost very low.

Therefore, H2N’s landing maintenance process was somewhat cumbersome, but everyone agreed it was completely acceptable given its advanced performance, which truly deserved such treatment.

The multitude of nuclear scientists at the academy was continuously developing new research projects around the A100, full of curiosity about its technical mysteries.

However, the A100 was independently developed by New Yuan, so they could only speculate to analyze its internal structure.

Lin Ju tried to get them to sign technology consulting contracts, but without success. Otherwise, amongst these elderly, there definitely would have been a few Level As; many were giants who had come up from an era of total poverty and still hadn’t retired from work.

Xie Liaofu and Cheng Nankai were in Qiongzhou; they both had to keep a constant watch on Storm, all three of its reactors were operational!

The reactors required extremely demanding conditions to start and stop; the final design of Storm dictated a lifetime without refueling, with the entire craft and its reactors to be decommissioned together—once started, they would not stop.

Currently, the three reactors were running at low power. A set of cooling equipment standing next to the launch pad was connected to the interior of the space shuttle, leading the heat out through an external mechanism. Tiny evaporative towers were emitting billowing white smoke.

This was also the reason why the outside immediately confirmed that Storm had nuclear engines onboard. Now, the international community was closely watching the performance of the first nuclear-powered flying vehicle.

"The A100 has already succeeded; how about your other project? Isn’t the Sait-style combined engine close as well?"

91-year-old Academician Yu spoke clearly. He had retired from front-line work to serve as a consultant and had renewed interest in researching nuclear heat propulsion because of the advent of the A100.

The Sait-style combined engine he referred to was the NPAE, the sodium-cooled reactor for nuclear thermal-ion-gas spike combined propulsion engines. The academy was aware of this project.

The NPAE and the A100 were on two different tracks, their technology paths not the same, obviously designed for SSTO, Single Stage to Orbit.

Since the A100 had been made, NPAE must not be far off, right?

Xie Liaofu: "The Sait-style part is undergoing testing, and the SFR experimental reactor is about to be completed. It will soon be operational."

There was no need to hide the progress of NPAE from the academy, as the construction of reactors required raw materials input, all through Huaxia Nuclear, and the progress could be inferred from the material throughput.

Qingshan Base would first build a permanent 2000MW fast neutron sodium-cooled reactor for verification before starting to prototype the first NPAE model.

Logically, following the base’s replication method, this validation process would not be necessary, but after the successful manufacturing of A100, the base had new ideas and planned some improvements for NPAE. They could reduce the mass from 3.6 tons to 3 tons while increasing the thrust to 20 tons, an overall performance enhancement of about 10%.

Cheng Nankai speculated that A100 and NPAE did not come from the same worldline; the technologies complemented each other perfectly, which was a great benefit.

The improved NPAE installed on the XN90 spacecraft could increase the spacecraft’s maximum takeoff mass (on Earth) to about 100 tons and the payload mass to 25 tons, an increase of 25%.

Academician Yu’s attention shifted back to Storm, contemplating its appearance after retrofitting with NPAE.

NPAE could be started within the atmosphere, and two engines would have greater thrust than three A100s. This means that if Storm’s three A100s were replaced with two NPAEs, it would be entirely feasible to launch from the ground straight into space, achieving an effective payload ratio of over 50% for a single-stage orbit.

Originally, such a concept seemed utterly impossible to the Academy of Sciences, but since A100 had succeeded, NPAE’s success could not be ruled out.

Setting aside the cost, one of these nuclear engines could be used for deep space flights and the other for planetary landings, likely sufficient for the entirety of the 21st century’s space exploration.

...

April 28, the day before the launch of Storm.

On the base’s runway, the yellow-green C832 was towed onto the runway, with throngs of people crowding one side of it.

About half of them were base personnel, with the other half comprising representatives from the supply chain, various levels of government, the military, and the aerospace bureau.

It was still early in the morning, with roughly two hours remaining until the projected first flight time of 9:37 am.

On the morning of September 26, 1980, at 9:37 am, Yun-10 completed its first flight at Capital Airport. 27 years later, the second domestically produced mainline passenger aircraft would ascend to the skies at the same moment.

The weather in Rong City had already begun to warm up, with the morning sending a cool rather than chilly sensation, but the base cafeteria’s food carts still offered hot soy milk and milk.

Since a recent espionage incident, all personnel watching the first flight were not permitted to leave the range of the runway without authorization, so everyone could only wait there, yet no one complained.

Among the crowd, the factory director of 132 Factory, Zhou Lizhong, was discussing the details of C832 with researchers from Shengjing Air Skill Institute.

"...You know, I went into C832’s cockpit a few days ago; it’s completely different from the Boeing series. They’ve transferred the space shuttle concept up there!"

"Space shuttle?"

"Yes, I’ve visited the Resolute before, and the interior layout is almost identical. They say even the flight control system is transplanted. It can complete a fully automatic landing, organized just like operating a space shuttle—large and comfortable, and highly intelligent."

"I’ve never been on a space shuttle. With what you’re saying, I’ll definitely go see it soon. After all, we also produced the tail fin; the requirements for C832’s tail fin are quite high, even higher than the An-1250.

The progress on the New Yuan’s fourth An-1250 seems somewhat slow; it must be the other parts pressing. The tail fins we made have been sitting there for two months, still not shipped out."

Zhou Lizhong: "Higher than An-1250? Impossible, right?"

"The strength requirements are not as high, but the processing technology is a big leap forward. After all, it’s a passenger jet that flies frequently and needs a significant weight reduction, necessitating a brand-new surface treatment process."

Zhou Lizhong: "I really don’t know why a space enterprise would have such strong aviation technology expertise."

"That’s true, it’s hardly anything, Snow... cough, cough, I’m going to get a cup of soy milk."