Chapter 522 - 511 Becoming Regular_1

Director Robert had only relaxed for a few days when he felt an immense pressure on his shoulders again.

He was entitled to know the insider details of the bidding for the Yu Shu No. 1 Base’s blasting project, though the specific price was still under negotiation.

With Luo Rode’s bid setting the precedent, the other parties also knew how to quote, and they all made their offers:

France proposed the same as the UK, five slots plus five million US dollars for nuclear bombs; Russia only wanted slots, not money, seven bombs for seven people; our side demanded ten slots with a total bid of ten million US dollars for hydrogen bombs.

The negotiation process was not exactly pleasant, only the France People seemed to have reached some tacit agreement, while Russia and America were still slowly grinding, but as nations capable of training their own astronauts, they were all already picking personnel for emergency training.

No matter how many slots are eventually agreed upon, anyway, Robert thought that even if there were only five people, it was a huge gain, as these slots would span the entire blasting mission’s early, middle, and late phases, requiring at least two landing missions. The vast amount of experience gleaned was invaluable and would save a lot of money in the future.

The core demand insisted upon by the Presidential Palace was actually quite simple: America must get the best deal. We’re offering nine nuclear bombs and have even cooperated with you additionally one time, the UK’s offer is insufficient.

John was intent on regaining both the respect and financial advantage previously lost, in this collaboration, and NACA was actively planning how to derive benefits from the project.

For instance, wouldn’t it be reasonable to build a separate facility on the Moon for the secrecy of storing hydrogen bombs? The astronauts guarding them would need a temporary base, right? And surely a set of data measurement equipment was required... In short, there were many ways to sneak in some extras, which might be useful in the future.

While planning these details, Robert was also pondering: where did the Aerospace Development Committee get the confidence to send so many people to the Moon repeatedly?

The puzzle was almost solved now, but it made him feel even worse.

Because on September 25th, the Aerospace Development Committee announced that a ground ignition test of a segmented solid rocket booster with a thrust of 2800 tons had been conducted at the Xinyuan Launch Site.

A single 2800-ton thrust solid rocket booster!

The SRB used by SLS only had a little over 1500 tons of thrust, almost doubling that.

Looking at the test footage released, the diameter of the S2800 booster, 35% wider than the SRB, was both long and stout, a colossus over 70 meters tall in itself a heavy-lift rocket. When ignited, the entire camera frame shook continuously, and the use of the phrase "earth-shaking" was by no means an exaggeration; even the ground thrust of Saturn V was only 3400 tons!

With boosters of this caliber, what kind of core stage would they pair with, and what size rocket would they comprise?

Sure enough, the Aerospace Development Committee then announced the specific data for the next-generation super heavy-lift launch vehicle—the CZ-18:

With a diameter of 18 meters and a height of over 210 meters, four solid rocket boosters giving a thrust of 11200 tons, the core stage equipped with 39 YF-96 (H280) liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen engines, each with a sea-level thrust of 280 tons, for a total takeoff thrust of 22000 tons, with a takeoff mass exceeding 15000 tons, using a sea-launch approach.

Attentive observers had already noticed that the data for the CZ-18 was very similar to that of the previously mentioned New Yuan No. 4. In fact, it was the Aerospace Development Committee "officializing" this model, listing for the first time a rocket from a private rocket company in the "Long March" series, which would become an active rocket in the official sequence.

As a super rocket second in size only to the conceptual "Sea Dragon" from the 60s, the CZ-18 had three configurations: basic, type A, and type B. The basic configuration had a low Earth orbit lift capacity of 550 tons, comparable to the Sea Dragon, while type A—the configuration aimed for the initial Moon mission—had a low Earth orbit lift capacity of 800 tons, capable of sending a 360-ton payload directly to the Moon.

When Robert saw these news, he even suspected that he was being pranked, but the simultaneous announcement of the development of the CZ-9 rocket by the space agency confirmed its completion. It features a 12-meter diameter core stage with a maximum thrust exceeding 10,000 tons, capable of delivering a 400-ton payload to low Earth orbit.

Just as he considered personally flying over to question these peers about why they were creating such monsters, the Aerospace Development Committee also provided a reason for building the super rocket: the "Chapter 9" lunar lander, whose specific data was not detailed, but with a maximum launch mass of up to 350 tons, it could transport over 200 tons of payload to the Moon in one go.

The "Chapter 9" spacecraft, according to descriptions, could carry large payloads between low Earth orbit, the Moon, and its surface for prolonged periods, becoming the absolute main force for future lunar missions, yet no appearance or specific size parameters had been disclosed.

However, considering the carrying capacity of over 200 tons and the requirement for an 18-meter diameter rocket for launching, its size is likely quite considerable.

This also meant that Chinese people’s landers had evolved directly from the Apollo mission’s modular approach to a large spacecraft, akin only to the lunar version of Starship in capability, and its service would definitely not start later than the lunar variant of Starship.

Starship was indeed a good project, and although it overall had poor high orbit carrying capacity, its versatility and cost-effectiveness were quite excellent, yet it hadn’t completed a single successful test launch...

Two months had passed since the second flight of Starship, and Musk had prepared a third launch with the B10 booster and SN20 spacecraft, skipping the versions that were consumed during ground testing, which demonstrated that SpaceX maintained their iteration speed from the Falcon 8 program.

However, the mere thought of the CZ-9 and CZ-18 rockets gave Robert a headache. Even if he wasn’t sure the other side would produce these monsters, he knew he couldn’t fall behind in the propaganda race.

But what could he use to match the capabilities of a super rocket with a launch mass of 15,000 tons?

...

Capital.

More than half a month had passed since the public discussions had started about building a new giant accelerator, and the topic had spread from the Institute of High Energy to the entire world.

At first, there were only a few vague statements, but as time went on, the vision for the new accelerator began to take a clearer shape. "TEPA" had already started to appear in official media, and related data and construction locations were gradually becoming articulate.

Also heating up in the media were three important figures: Frank Yang, Wu Yunfeng, and Lin Ju.

Last year, the former two had trended on social media:

On September 4, 2016, in response to the CEPC plan proposed by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Academy of Sciences, since 2012, Frank Yang published the article "China Should Not Build a Super Large Collider Today," insisting on the opposition’s view; on September 5, Wu Yunfeng immediately responded with the article "China Should Build a Large Collider Today."

Although the CEPC initially proposed a budget of "only" 30 billion yuan, the Institute of High Energy also simultaneously proposed the SQCC (Proton-Proton Collider), which is to build an electron-positron collider before constructing a 70-kilometer circumference proton collider, the latter with a budget of 700 billion yuan, making the total slightly less than that of TEPA by 100 billion yuan.

Moreover, CEPC was expected to start in 2021 and be operational by 2035, with SQCC starting in 2030 and operational by 2050, with less investment needed due to the extended timeline. TEPA, with a target completion within ten years, would surely see a significant rise in costs.

So TEPA’s planned budget of 110 billion yuan was quickly refuted, and the upper management ordered the Academy of Sciences to recalculate. The new budget estimates ranged from 140 to 170 billion yuan.

The media’s previous exaggeration of a 200 billion yuan investment turned out to be more than just talk!