Chapter 576 - 564: Madness

"Sir She, you should take a rest."

Lin Ju couldn’t find Academician She in the launch area and no one was in the guesthouse; he finally located him in the nearest launch control center.

Ensuring the launch of such a super rocket had almost involved the full energy of the Aerospace Development Committee. Academician She had come several days early and had barely rested since, occasionally removing his glasses to rub his eyes.

"I’ll be right there, I just want to have them reinforce the safety supervision of the fuel ship a bit more. If it explodes, we’ll have wasted this entire half year of work."

What Academician She referred to were the ships carrying liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the CZ-18, which, while not overly heavy for the ships, had an explosive power that was extremely alarming.

If anything accidental happened when they were very close to each other, the resulting force would be no different from that of a nuclear bomb.

The only thing comparable to it was the LNG natural gas transport ship, and the Aerospace Development Committee had also applied for a number of management personnel in this field to assist in coordinating the transfer work.

Wasting half a year was not an exaggeration. That was over a thousand tons of liquid hydrogen fuel. A single SLS launch only required just over 140 tons; ensuring the fuel supply for the CZ-18 was equivalent to 8 SLS launches, which even NACA couldn’t withstand.

To address the immense fuel requirements of the Sea Dragon, which only used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in its second stage, it even chose to produce on the spot. Each launch required the accompaniment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which used its electrical power to electrolyze seawater and gradually replenish fuel.

Right now, Academician She was regretting that if it had not been for the official commissioning of the New Yuan No. 4, the Aerospace Development Committee would not have to take on most of the work. Just launching the CZ-18 was troublesome enough; thinking about planning another launch next year made him feel dizzy.

"Do you need me for something? Speak quickly, I’ll have to go to the site soon."

"Nothing much, just wanted to ask if you could get in touch with the Academy of Sciences. I need a list of domestic laboratory equipment suppliers to purchase some equipment and set up a new lab."

Academician She was not too surprised by Lin Ju’s decision to set up a new laboratory and immediately nodded in agreement.

"Go to Little Chen and have him take care of it for you... By the way, what scale are you planning for the lab?"

"Not too big, just the level of a national laboratory. Can I get it done with thirty to fifty billion?"

...

Nevada, Lincoln County.

NVD035, that was the region code for the desert beneath Dr. Freeman’s feet.

It had once been a nuclear test site, but in the end, it was not used for exploding nuclear bombs but rather as a test field for other nuclear devices and had also tested nuclear engines manufactured by NACA last century.

Even though a set of pollution treatment measures had been established at that time, burying all the radioactive residues deep underground and sealing them with concrete, Dr. Freeman still put on a tight semi-rigid radiation-proof suit before daring to approach the area.

The soldiers accompanying him only wore simple coveralls and donned masks instead of gas masks on their faces, allowing for greater freedom of movement.

About two hundred meters ahead was a solitary ocher building, which was the newly constructed engine test stand.

Beneath its thick shell was a NERVA A105 DRAGON engine, a newly manufactured nuclear engine that the entire JF Test Site team had spent a year developing, based on the prototype from last century.

According to Dr. Freeman’s calculations, the ground thrust of the A105 engine would reach 37 tons, with a specific impulse of 970 seconds, and its vacuum thrust could reach 45 tons, with a specific impulse of 1300 seconds. The overall power exceeded 820MW, surpassing the original targets set for it.

The prototype NERVA A6 engine design was indeed too antiquated, but after extensive optimization by Freeman, not only was performance substantially increased, but weight was reduced by 30%.

More importantly, its safety, although the exhaust of the A105 engine couldn’t be discharged within the atmosphere, it was very clean and safe when not operating. A sophisticated protective mechanism would shut down the reactor rather than cause an explosion upon being triggered, ensuring the safety of the spacecraft to the greatest extent.

The only regret was the maximum sustainable operation time. Freeman’s initial goal was for the A100 to have a continuous operating time of at least 24 hours, but actual design constraints due to vacuum heat dissipation and material endurance continually remained unresolved. The designed maximum operating time for the NERVA A105 was only 8 hours, but in practical application, it was estimated that it would not surpass 4 hours and required a cooling period of over 3 hours to continue operation.

The first A105 prototype was successfully manufactured and tested for ignition a month ago, but due to a test stand malfunction, an explosion occurred. That prototype was tested for a total of less than 300 seconds before being buried.

Fortunately, no radioactive material leaked, but that prototype had to be scrapped. Therefore, for the second prototype, Freeman insisted on inspecting the new test stand in person; however, he ultimately couldn’t enter and could only remotely supervise others from a distance while completing the work.

As the personnel inside began to withdraw, Freeman turned and got into his car to return to the control center 15 kilometers away, where he encountered several unfamiliar visitors.

"Ned Sterling, this is Augustine, we’re from ArcaSpace."

Freeman greeted them and then frowned at the NACA official who had led these strangers in:

"Hey! You know how confidential this place is, these people shouldn’t be here."

The NACA official tried to explain, "ArcaSpace is a fine company, they are..."

"I know where they’re from."

Freeman was actually an avid space enthusiast, and even had a good impression of the modest company Arca.

Although Arca was an American company similar to Virgin Galaxy with foreign funding, founded by Romanians, the company even had a bit of a reputation in the industry for researching on quite peculiar fields.

For example, more than a decade ago, they started working on aerospike engines, and they manufactured the water rocket engine with 7000 tons of thrust and a specific impulse of 67 seconds, which felt somewhat unconventional.

Freeman’s impression of them was more like a group of rich kids tinkering as a hobby, which made him very reluctant to interact with these people.

This attitude caused a bit of embarrassment for the NACA official, but Sterling from ARCA kindly explained:

"ArcaSpace was acquired by Pratt & Whitney two days ago, and now we are a genuine American enterprise, about to undertake a research and development mission mandated by NACA."

Freeman: "And what are you researching exactly?"

Sterling: "Water engines, or to be more precise, steam engines, leveraging the ultra-high temperatures from nuclear reactors to vaporize water sharply and create thrust. Our goal is to build a super engine with a thrust of over 40,000 tons and a specific impulse surpassing 120 seconds.

It is the first stage of the newly designed ’Sea Dragon’ rocket, which will operate up to an altitude of 10 kilometers before being jettisoned, after which the upper stages will deliver a 600-ton payload to low Earth orbit."

Freeman’s first reaction was that NACA had gone mad. The Sea Dragon itself was highly unreliable, and now they were looking to implement even more unreliable water engine technology, which seemed utterly foolish.

But seeing these people already brought into the JF Test Site, he realized that he might also have to join these madmen.