Chapter 632 - 617: Crossing Boundaries

Level B Base.

Xie Liaofu scrolled through his mouse, and different colors of images flickered on the computer screen.

Xiao Okada stood behind him, occasionally asking him to pause, then continued browsing.

Although there was no progress in the recent exchange with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), they successfully freeloaded the exploration data of Titan from the "Cassini" spacecraft and its daughter probe "Huygens," which was transmitted directly to the base’s computers.

As Saturn’s largest moon with an atmosphere, Titan was a primary target for Cassini’s observations, and Xiao Okada had thought there would be many valuable findings. However, the reality was somewhat disappointing.

After all, Cassini was a probe from the ’90s, not specifically dedicated to Titan, so while the data it collected was valuable, it wasn’t as high as imagined.

Most of the results were very rough and could not serve as a reference standard. It was still necessary to launch a comprehensive specialized explorer like "Departing Fire" and landers capable of extensive surface exploration.

"These things are somewhat helpful for astronomy, but they are too insignificant for us."

Xie Liaofu flipped to the last image, shaking his head repeatedly. His original plan was to obtain basic geographical information and then directly launch powerful rovers based on the environment but the reality required a simple precursor probe to "scout" the terrain, in effect wasting 13 months.

"Yes, getting the IAU to fund our plan might not work either."

Xiao Okada also furrowed his brows. The IAU had no intention of manned landings on Titan; they were more interested in the celestial bodies themselves and hoped to visit all four giant planets and their moons in one breath with nuclear-powered probes, rather than focusing on a specific target — a significant difference.

"Then we’ll do it ourselves. Strictly speaking, most of the challenges of landing on Titan can be well resolved; technology is not the barrier."

Xie Liaofu had long thought of a rough way on how to land on Titan. Travel would certainly require the March spacecraft; it was a nuclear-powered artificial gravity spaceship, able to reach any destination provided it had enough fuel and supplies.

There were two types of landing craft. Thanks to Titan’s 1.5 times denser atmosphere and gravity similar to the Moon’s, theoretically, both a nuclear-powered space plane and the XN90 spacecraft could be used, but considering that the former required a runway, the XN90 was more convenient.

Of course, besides these two, a large amount of logistical supplies and exploration auxiliary equipment was needed. But in the end, the most troublesome were still funds and a convincing reason.

The March spacecraft was currently in a "public-private partnership" state, and such significant actions needed approval from the Aerospace Development Committee. Whether the plan to land on Titan was led by the government or by New Yuan, a plausible reason had to be given.

Could they just say outright that Titan had aliens?

Fortunately, they had several years to come up with this reason, so for now, the only issue left was funding.

However, the possibility of obtaining a large amount of funds on Earth with little or no cost was slim, and only space might possess huge opportunities yet to be discovered.

Xiao Okada couldn’t help thinking about the "Changsi" probe, which was still on its way to Lingxi Star. If they could really find a massive amount of gold there, even buying into the hype with stocks could reap a substantial sum of money.

...

As the vanguard squad was returning to lunar orbit, Dawn No.1 Ferry was already setting off again from Earth’s orbit, carrying three payload specialists toward the Moon.

Since it was not fully loaded, its flight speed was a bit faster than normal, but the passengers on board could not feel the subtle differences brought by the nuclear engine.

The sole nuclear expert, Jamie, contemplated the propulsion source of the spaceship beneath him, Luo Luo had put in a lot of effort to analyze the A100 engine and attempted to replicate it, only to find it was impossible to do so.

The specific impulse of the A100 was approaching the theoretical limit and was utterly unachievable in reality, Luo Luo, even with the most optimistic forecast, estimated that the performance of a similar product he could produce would be about only 25% of the A100’s, and in terms of volume and mass, it was completely uncontrollably inferior.

They even seriously doubted whether this was at all a fission engine, but no matter what, the A100 had not only proven its performance with practical actions but had also been mass-produced in large quantities.

Nuclear engines had far more potential than super nuclear bombs, and one of UK’s main objectives in forming good relations recently was to try to acquire some of the A100 technology, or at the very least, buy two finished products as a fallback.

However, the Aerospace Development Committee was strictly secretive about the A100, and apart from the published specifications, nothing else could be obtained.

Jamie was experiencing such a close encounter with the nuclear engine, dubbed an engineering marvel, for the first time, and he focused all his thoughts on it.

Meanwhile, Yang Xinjun and his assistant were also busy, not forgetting their work even during space travel, and they were even discussing improvements via email with others on the ground.

This was mainly because United Mining, or rather New Yuan, had again made a request—to include speed as a criterion in the two construction scenarios, fortunately, both teams were experienced in handling mid-project requirements from the client without any complaints and proceeded to research according to the revised demands.

On the other hand, Jamie could not possibly dismantle the spaceship to study the engine and soon gave up trying, choosing instead to join in the discussion with Yang Xinjun and his assistant.

"...Yang, what kind of vehicle weight are you planning for the highway to accommodate?"

"Four hundred to five hundred tons, maybe even a thousand tons is possible."

This answer left Jamie somewhat in disbelief, and he curiously asked why.

Yang Xinjun said, "The main issue is wear and tear unless we build sealed railway pipelines or achieve breakthroughs in other areas, we must consider the rapid deterioration of machinery in harsh environments and strive to reduce the working hours to increase efficiency.

A few hundred tons of mass isn’t much on the Moon, and the pressure on the roads is limited, actually not requiring as high a pressure resistance standard as Earth’s highways."

Jamie: "So... it’s mainly about solving the moon dust problem, if a sufficiently heavy road roller runs over it, the effect would be enough, am I right?"

Yang Xinjun: "To some extent... almost, but the Moon soil is too loose, just relying on the roller of a road roller won’t meet the requirements, this is only a very ideal design."

Jamie said nothing but nodded, then stared at the construction route diagram drawn by Yang Xinjun several times. After pondering for a while, he circled an area around the highway with his finger, then his finger stopped on the largest mountain range in the vicinity.

"If the bedrock here is solid enough, we can dig a shallow, diffusion-type cavity horizontally in the mountain, then detonate a hydrogen bomb inside.

As long as the calculations are proper and the shape of the cavity is adjusted, we can direct and evenly release the thermal radiation from the nuclear detonation to this area, directly heating and fusing the top few meters of Moon soil together.

At least judging by the elemental composition listed here, in my experience, it is highly likely to succeed. In doing so, you’d directly get an extremely vast and solid plain, with no need to construct a highway."

"..."