[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil":3,"chapter-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-605":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","You were told to build a tractor, but you're building a rocket?",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1306212,1735,"Chapter 605 - 593 Tow Truck","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-605",605,"\u003Cp>The fuel tank the base currently uses to transport fuel to the Black Rabbit Space Station is actually not much different from the rocket body—in appearance, they are even identical.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It is launched using the New Yuan No. 3, using a 7-meter diameter design, only with a few more small engines for attitude adjustment compared to a normal rocket’s second stage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, its production cost really isn’t low, the liquid hydrogen container is inherently expensive. Being able to carry nearly 120 tons of fuel, the cost for a single resupply mission is about 500 million RMB, including the rocket launch costs of more than 300 million RMB. Yet, there’s no room for further cost reduction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Within United Mining’s procurement price, the quote is 1.2 billion RMB. On the surface, it would take 12 billion RMB for just 10 launches, and even United Mining’s funds can’t withstand such expenditure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Black Rabbit Space Station’s fuel tank can store 240 tons of fuel, meaning it would cost 2.4 billion RMB to fill it up completely. The Chapter 9 uses about 90 tons for a single refueling, averaging the fuel cost for each refuel at 960 million RMB.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A fully fueled Chapter 9 can carry a payload of 160 tons downstream and return to the space station. If it only carries a payload of 40 tons for descent, then it could refuel after every three missions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For the financially robust United Mining, this operating cost is still bearable. It even saves possibly 90% compared to traditional astronaut landings. However, considering the frequency of missions, it still takes up a significant portion of the costs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Ju naturally thought of reusing the fuel tanks, but this would require them to be larger, capable of pushing themselves to the Moon to transfer fuel and then fly back to Earth. Controlling the total mass at around 1000 tons would already be extremely impressive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Able to re-enter the atmosphere, able to refuel, this is frickin’ Starship!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So maybe the fuel transportation mission should be outsourced to SpaceX... Of course, that’s impossible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not to mention they don’t know when they will succeed and the two sides are on opposing ends. Even if outsourced, Lin Ju didn’t believe the cost would be lower than 500 million RMB. That’s also about 143 million US dollars. Even if Starship were successful, it surely couldn’t be priced any lower than that.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"What are you thinking about?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Academician She’s voice interrupted his thoughts, and Lin Ju realized that more than ten minutes had passed, and Chapter 9 had already entered the second stage of descent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Nothing much, just...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He shared his thoughts with Academician She, who pondered for a moment before saying:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Then just like Dawn One, add a nuclear engine to it for traveling between low Earth orbit and lunar orbit. We’ll just manage to launch the fuel to low Earth orbit, which will lower the cost of the rockets. Not counting research and development design and the actual cost depreciation, it’s pretty close to within 500 million.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That’s... a possibility, but nuclear engines are still expensive... Manufacture and launch of a nuclear engine would also cost twenty to thirty billion RMB, the cost still can’t be spread out, it won’t work.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Academician She couldn’t come up with a better idea for the moment after all, sending over a hundred tons of material from Earth to the Moon could never be an insignificant feat; even the lowest costs could not be made trivial.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Both found themselves at an impasse. Finally, Academician She spoke again:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Actually, 1.2 billion is quite good. We’ve managed to compress the cost to this extent; it’s beyond NACA’s reach. For them to do the same thing, even with their new stainless steel SL-X, it’s going to cost more than 1 billion US dollars. You need to learn to be content.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Content with what?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Both turned their heads only to see Zhong Cheng passing by, with Shen Zuozhou taking over his coordination command work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Academician She relayed their earlier discussion to him, and then Zhong Cheng also joined the brainstorming.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>About a minute later, he raised his head to start his analysis:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"1.2 billion RMB is already very low. The New Yuan No. 3 rocket can be reused, and now the launch costs have been reduced to the limit. So, the main problem is that we absolutely cannot use it for launching because that certainly wouldn’t bring the cost down. We must control it within 300 million RMB.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That means we use a rocket with the payload capacity of New Yuan-2 for the launch.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Ju voiced his subtext; the Aerospace Development Committee’s internal minimum quote for New Yuan-2 is 350 million RMB.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhong Cheng: \"Right, that’s the way. But its recycling payload is only 45 tons, and at most it could deliver 40 tons of fuel.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"But that would be pointless, to launch 120 tons of fuel to low Earth orbit with its rocket would still cost 1 billion RMB, and then to send it to the Moon would be more expensive than using New Yuan No. 3.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Academician She promptly expressed opposition; the New Yuan No. 3 rocket might actually be the most cost-effective rocket domestically. Although the single cost is high, its large capacity is advantageous, the more payload, the better the cost-effectiveness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The topic once again went silent, as if reaching a dead end.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Launching objects from Earth to space is extremely expensive, and rocket payload capacity has already been squeezed to the limit with hardly any room left for breakthroughs.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Ju shook his head; he felt he was perhaps being too greedy. The current outcome was already quite good, and it wasn’t necessary to ask for more.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But just then, Zhong Cheng spoke up again:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Then we still use New Yuan No. 3. A 120-ton payload is too little. If we plan according to its low Earth orbit capacity of 270 tons and assume we can send 255 tons of fuel to space, the fuel unit price would immediately drop by 50%.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"What about the middle part? The A100 is not cheap and also requires time, not much cost can be spread over it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If we still use the hydrolox engine to push it over there, the fuel consumption would be too much.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"We’d still use a nuclear engine, there’s no other way.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhong Cheng looked at Lin Ju, then presented his own idea:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"But we don’t make new ones, we use existing nuclear engines to propel it.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Existing ones...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Academician She suddenly thought of the Dawn No.1 Ferry, launched just last month, and quickly caught on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Use Dawn One to push the fuel tank. It can push it, but... at most, its speed would be on par with the Apollo spacecraft, a three-day trip. Counting the fuel transfer time, a round trip would take roughly 10 days.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"That’s true, but we don’t use Dawn One; we use Dawn Two.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhong Cheng: \"Dawn Two is a cargo spacecraft, and it can handle at least 12 tons of goods at a time, right? With a 10-day cycle as a standard, performing simultaneous fuel and material supply missions, that’s about the right frequency. We can disregard the cost since we are going to build it anyway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, the same delivery of 120 tons of fuel will cost us only... 700 million RMB. It doesn’t matter if the fuel tanks are single-use, even if we recover them, the savings are minimal.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"But the most important thing is we don’t need to invest in research and development costs anymore; everything is ready. We just need to speed up the construction of Dawn Two a bit.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lin Ju’s thoughts also suddenly cleared, and he even thought about the Storm, that spaceplane with nuclear power would play a similar role in the future, dedicated to transporting large cargo. It could take off from Earth and also accept material transfers in orbit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If nothing unexpected happens, Storm will probably not need to return to Earth again.\u003C\u002Fp>",1337,"2026-06-05T18:21:12.932Z",1,"novelbin.me","6870b9d993a82ac46536f4f976e8dfdd2fcf77688db3c82409ceafc7843a1e9c","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-606","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-604",804,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fyou-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-cover.jpg"]