Chapter 511 - 500 Ten Percent_1

B-level Base.

The modified ARJ21 landed on the runway, now this jet was being used as a cargo plane, inside was loaded with samples brought back by Storm as well as some souvenirs.

Storm still landed at the northern airport used to decontaminate its radiation, and all 7 astronauts were in the Capital waiting to receive their glory, the two Abe astronauts were even urgently requested to be brought back to their home country by the Abe Space Agency.

The Skylight II mission officially ended with the landing of Storm yesterday, the next Skylight III mission will have to wait for about four more months.

Next, Storm will join the other two spacecraft to fully engage in the construction of the Forward Space Station.

Among the team helping the ARJ21 unload, there was a group of people whose clothing was clearly different from others, adorned with the logo of Xin’an, and even the current boss, Chen Jun, was present.

Now he was wearing a one-piece work suit without any pretense, checking several metal boxes that had been unloaded from the cargo hold.

The inscription on the box in front of him read, "Ascent phase - B face no. 5".

After the astronauts of Skylight II completed their landing mission, although the ascender was abandoned, before that, two astronauts exited and dismantled 17 alloy plates from the polyhedral exterior of the ascender to be packed.

These were materials for the Xin’an Automobile "XCX Moon commemorative limited edition", including boards taken from the lander, totaling over 200 kilograms in weight. They would become part of 19 limited edition sports cars, priced uniformly at 19.99 million yuan, and had been fully reserved as soon as the price was announced.

Moreover, some remaining materials would be made into small souvenirs for car owners to draw for free, as one of the many marketing strategies undertaken around the Moon.

The launch event held on the Moon for XCX was not cheap; with a guiding price ranging from 0.79 to 1.29 million yuan, it garnered an impressive first-day sales volume with its unique advantages and successfully established brand value.

was not the era when domestic cars started to force joint ventures to give up the mid-end and seize the high-end. It wasn’t easy to secure a foothold in the high-end car market with this move.

Chen Jun personally supervised each part of the lander being loaded and secured onto trucks before he ran back to the base’s office area to find the current top administrator, Ye Changsi.

"Director Ye, take a look at this."

Ye Changsi picked up the gray-black chip that Chen Jun had placed on the desk, examined it in his hand, and asked:

"A wafer? It looks like it has been cut, from Yellow River Semiconductor?"

"No," Chen Jun shook his head:

"It’s Huawei, they designed it, SinoCore International manufactured it.

This is a 90nm silicon carbide chip, using ternary circuits, not binary simulated, natively ternary, used in the manufacturing of high-power intelligent IGBTs. It can also be paired with battery group charge and discharge management, reducing the cost of the electric control system and corresponding time, and increasing reliability."

"Oh?"

Ye Changsi immediately became interested, knowing that the semiconductor industry in the country was striving hard with ternary technology, but he hadn’t expected it to progress to the point of producing finalized products.

Although Yellow River Semiconductor had taken away much of the ternary technology, it did not provide anything related to silicon carbide chips, and it was truly not easy for the country to quickly advance to this stage.

"That’s great news, how long has it been? Just over a year, tsk, no shortage of talents here."

However, Chen Jun’s expression fell:

"It’s good news for the macro environment, but not for us.

They also plan to produce cars, and their ambition is very big. They intend to tackle intelligent driving and motor electronic control parts, outsource the car body, and become the Qualcomm of the automotive world, dominating the future car market with the three major components.

And they’ve also started working covertly to guard against us, if they develop for a while longer, they’ll catch up to Xin’an."

Ye Changsi: "That’s your problem, Xin’an decides its own business strategy."

Chen Jun: "Director Ye, we contribute so much profit to the base every year to support aerospace; you can’t just say to be independent now, right?"

"..."

Ye Changsi: "Spill it, what are you eyeing this time?"

"Battery cells, we need our own high-performance battery cell technology. Yellow River Semiconductor assists us with the electronics, but that’s not enough. We need materials too. Doesn’t the base have a new type of rocket body material?"

"Materials, are you talking about that new T4 aluminum-lithium alloy?"

"Yes, that’s the one."

Although the base had focused on future nuclear-powered aircraft, traditional technologies were not stagnating, and all those R&D engineers were not being maintained for nothing.

The T4 alloy is one of those developments. After adjusting the proportions of some rare metal additives and the manufacturing process, it reduced the mass by 25% compared to previously used rocket materials, yet the strength increased by a whopping 150%. Overall, it could reduce the mass of the rocket shell by about 35% and cut costs by 15%.

This was not sensitive technology, and Ye Changsi thought it would be fine to provide it:

"T4 is no problem, but is it necessary for cars to use such a strong alloy? Its price is not low for a car."

Chen Jun: "We mainly deal with mid-range and above vehicle models now. Cost control is a minor issue; this material is safer.

We’ve done our calculations; using this material to construct car frames is almost like installing roll cages used in racing cars. We’re about to make the toughest, safest cars on the market."

Ye Changsi: "For the battery technology, I’ll give you 220wh/kg, which we plan to use on high-risk environment robots at the Moon mine. The capacity is already better than what’s available on the market.

But the main thing is safety, extremely safe, able to withstand nearly all imaginable adverse conditions. You probably need this more."

...

On the 27th, the fifth bidding conference of United Mining concluded.

This time it was only half a day. After arguing for days, everyone finally reached some consensus, but the main reason was not about the technical issues; it was because the negotiations on the underlying political interests had been settled.

The five major players had not dabbled with nuclear tests for a long time and each had new ideas they wanted to experiment with.

Everyone was eager to test all types and yields of their own. In particular, large-yield hydrogen bombs started at ten million tons for lunar explosions, but on Earth, this was almost the limit for testing, while in space one could use them without any restraint.

After several initial discussions, when everyone realized they couldn’t agree, they simply went in another direction: to satisfy all parties.

The fifth meeting established the following amounts to be used:

1.5 million ton yield test bombs (provided by the UK);

bombs with a yield of 1.5 million tons each (one from each);

bombs with a yield of 10 million tons (distributed as 3 for America, 5 for Russia, 4 for the UK, 2 for SinoCore, and 2 for Huaxia Nuclear);

bombs with a yield of 15 million tons (provided by Huaxia Nuclear to clear out second-generation warhead stockpiles);

bombs with a yield of 50 million tons (2 from each America and Russia, and one each from the UK, SinoCore, and Huaxia Nuclear);

bombs with a yield of 200 million tons (one from each);

The total contributions from America, Russia, the UK, SinoCore, and Huaxia Nuclear were in the ratio of 11:9:7:6:5 respectively.

A total of 38 hydrogen bombs with a combined yield of 15.925 billion tons were to be used, which is about 10% of humanity’s total nuclear arsenal yield of approximately 150 billion tons, as reported by last year’s public statistics from international organizations. This was almost ready to support United Mining in the development of their mining fields.

Ten billion tons of that is thanks to Russia’s insistence on testing super-large-yield hydrogen bombs and making a direct proposal for 200 million ton-yield hydrogen bombs.

This persistence sparked tremendous interest among everyone in the power of hundred-million-ton-yield hydrogen bombs. Eventually, America suggested they might as well decide to each try one to see the limits of fusion bombs.

However, the 200 million ton super hydrogen bombs were still in an uncertain state and required further negotiation by the parties depending on the situation. The tentative agreement was for 5.925 billion tons yield, but that was enough.

After all, the combined yield of more than 2000 human nuclear tests is less than a third of this number. Just making this known would be astonishing enough.

And theoretically speaking, people like Wu Yi, who would normally have the final say, could not utter a word. United Mining could only accept this situation.

So many hydrogen bombs... actually, the sixteen 10 million ton ones were completely adequate. The rest were for others to satisfy their curiosity about using hydrogen bombs in space, and United Mining was left to quietly shoulder this huge responsibility.

But no matter what, there was no need to worry about the mining field issues now.