Chapter 611 - 599: Around the Stars

"Mr. President, the experts say it can’t be done."

John had just sat down at his desk when Sullivan brought him some terribly bad news.

The B61 nuclear bombs had already arrived at the base of the Pacific Fleet, and the USS Wyoming, an Ohio-class submarine, was already at the pier waiting for its missile warheads to be retrofitted; everything was going smoothly.

Adjusting the yield was easy, and the 1.6 million tons of yield had barely received congressional approval.

However, at this point, The International Atomic Energy Agency raised objections.

The reason for the opposition was that the yield was too large, exceeding the safety value set for the control area of 1.3 million tons by about 23%.

This wasn’t to say that a large yield would damage the facilities in the control area—those were all strong fortresses capable of directly withstanding yields of tens of millions of tons; the main issue was the electromagnetic pulse.

Edo isn’t far from Fukushima, with a straight-line distance of less than 250 kilometers, firmly within the coverage of a hydrogen bomb with a yield of a million tons.

The last Russian 1.25 million ton-yield bomb should have also affected Edo but because it was a subsurface explosion and didn’t spread far in the atmosphere, it still caused substantial damage and downtime to electronic equipment within a 30-kilometer range.

America’s bomb was to be an airburst operation; all its power would be fully unleashed in the atmosphere, and the electromagnetic pulse would definitely affect Edo.

That’s a major city with a population of over 37 million, surrounded by a large number of industries and internet bases, and several large airports.

If Edo experienced a widespread power outage or Internet disruption, it would last at least 40 minutes, causing incalculable losses. It would significantly disrupt the functioning of the international community, and it wasn’t just a problem for the Island Country.

The unanimous opinion of all the experts at The International Atomic Energy Agency was that the yield should be no more than 1.3 million tons, and the blast height should preferably not exceed 7 kilometers. Only then could it possibly minimize the impact on densely populated and industrial areas, and if possible, the yield should be kept below 900,000 tons.

"No, 900,000 tons is absurd."

John vehemently shook his head at the suggestion—wouldn’t that just concede the number one spot to Russia?

"What do our experts say?"

"Uh... they say the IAEA’s judgment is correct, sir. We really have to consider these impacts. Edo is the world’s largest population city, and if it falls into chaos, it would put us in a very unfavorable position."

In Sullivan’s view, the outcome was quite clear; there was no way they could disregard the world’s disapproval and disrupt the lives of nearly forty million people. Wasn’t that nearly equivalent to actually using nuclear weapons to attack?

The stepping stone given by the IAEA was borderline acceptable; 1.3 million tons was still 50,000 tons more than 1.25 million tons. The yields of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" put together were not even close to that.

"Damn it! It’s all the Russians’ fault for not keeping their word!"

John strongly suspected that Russia knew about this in advance, which is why they detonated a bomb with just that yield.

But as things stood, he had no choice; Congress would also have to accept the outcome.

"Alright, later on, bring in McMaster, Kelly...all of them. We must explain our difficulties to the legislators."

"Yes, sir." Sullivan nodded and then added:

"There’s one more thing: the Artemis III mission is about to be conducted. Please prepare for the live TV broadcast ahead of time; Robert guarantees that this time there will be absolutely no failures."

The mere mention of aerospace immediately soured John’s mood, and his face darkened:

"What about the gravitational spaceship he promised me? The...Gravity Dragon, why haven’t any astronauts taken it for a spin yet?"

"They’re planning to make some optimizations again, as you know. These things are unprecedented. You see, China’s March has been completed for quite some time and is still in testing. The Gravity Dragon is the same."

"I hope so, but I still need it to start spinning, and it’s only this small!"

John expressed his dissatisfaction by making a tiny gesture with his index finger and thumb, imitating the furious gesture of Korea, and then spread his hands wide:

"Musk says he will use Starship to build a rotating space station that weighs just as much. It doesn’t matter whether it spins horizontally or vertically; in any case, we need a large contraption that can spin!"

...

"Huanxing Laboratory?"

Zhong Cheng looked at the project book given to him by Lin Ju with surprise and quickly flipped through its contents.

After a while, he put down the folder, his face full of curiosity:

"Was the Gravitational Wave Observatory Ye Changsi’s idea, and you helped him to expand it?"

"Ye Changsi is the vice president. He manages all major and minor matters; I trust him."

Lin Ju showed no displeasure on his face. After all, with Ye Changsi’s caliber, even working at the base was considered underutilizing his skills.

"Building a large integrated science center has always been our plan. The Gravitational Wave Observatory is just an added part of it, and it’s a good thing.

Moreover, the layout of Huanxing Laboratory is completely different from traditional laboratories. We are moving a large amount of scientific research facilities to space. Huanxing Laboratory, it’s apt, right?"

"Then why not call it Xinghuan Laboratory?"

"That trademark has already been registered."

"..."

Zhong Cheng turned back to flip through the folder again, muttering as he read:

"Gravitational waves, lasers, quantum optics, space medicine, materials manufacturing...these are all cutting-edge research. The scale is not small, and if it’s implemented as space modules, the cost of the equipment will be very high.

Do you know how much the budget for the Xuntian Telescope has increased to now? 9.4 billion. That’s not just a habitat module on the March that can be mass-produced for a few hundred million."

"That’s not a problem. Huanxing Laboratory is just a phrase. The space part is just for creating research environments for some necessary fields; the main body is still on Earth."

"I see..."

Zhong Cheng pondered for a moment, then made up his mind:

"The Aerospace Development Committee will support the construction of the Xinghuan Laboratory. The Academy of Sciences also said they could collaborate, right? Let’s talk to them again to see how much support we can pull in. Let’s officially start after April next year!"

"Thank you, Director Zhong!"

A smile spread across Lin Ju’s face. This relieved some of the funding and technical pressure on building the research center.

The role of the Aerospace Development Committee was becoming increasingly prominent, somewhat like the transformation of NACA.

Previously when there was only the space agency, tasks were assigned from the top, and the space agency would then focus on overcoming technology to complete them.

The current Aerospace Development Committee is responsible for formulating plans, then allowing the space agency and private enterprises to bid and allocate tasks. It also invests in and provides technical support for promising projects but does not dictate terms or demand direct profits.

This model conveniently uses national advantage resources to aid the comprehensive development of the entire Aerospace field, but this presupposes that the private aerospace entities are truly capable of substantial work and significantly eases the budgetary pressure originally on the space agency.

However, compared to NACA, the Aerospace Development Committee still controls a space agency with research and manufacturing capabilities, while NACA mainly relied on contractors. There are obvious differences in this regard.