Chapter 656 - 640: The Plasma Mirror

To put it bluntly, China’s aerospace industry already had a preliminary universal and standardized prototype.

How important this is has been proven countless times in history.

Take for example the tank development systems of the Union and the West; the biggest difference lies in the degree of universalization and standardization of parts.

If the West needs a new tank, designers will search the market for mature engines, gearboxes, and various other parts, combining them and then optimizing and designing in depth.

Union tank designers, however, first set the basic technical requirements for the tanks, and then demand various machine factories to provide parts that meet the standards. If there are none, they have to start special research and development projects.

Although bespoke production has the advantage of creating products with superior overall performance that meet technical requirements well, the downside is that it’s too expensive. Each subsystem factory has to build production lines for these technical specifications. With no other users, low output naturally means extremely high costs.

Furthermore, due to small inventory and low universality, spare parts prices are also higher, and maintenance requires special training; the entire military has to adapt to the new equipment.

In contrast, the Western design philosophy is completely different. Mature subsystems might be more reliable and somewhat cheaper, but they can’t fit the requirements 100%. The final design will inevitably require compromises, either in weight or by lowering certain technical specifications.

The advantage is that the subsystems are universal; various equipment can be interchanged, making maintenance easier, spare parts are plentiful and cheaper, and the military can get to grips with them more quickly.

It’s a choice between performance priority with higher overall investment, or a bit of patching up that is compatible with most existing systems and costs less.

Space industry isn’t about fighting wars; it doesn’t matter if equipment is slightly overweight, larger in volume, or consumes more power. What’s needed is to scale up and quickly move away from being small and refined.

With an increasingly mature industrial chain to rely on, the days of aerospace engineering projects taking years of research will be gone forever. There will be ready-made subsystems everywhere, eliminating the need to invest vast sums in specialized R&D.

However, in fact, this was already reflected last year. Several private space companies made rockets with off-the-shelf engines and recycling systems, not only with low costs and short cycles but also achieving a remarkably high success rate, which is already considered a successful case.

Although only one T7 arrived this time, the ground crew could assemble two more at any time; they were just waiting for feedback from the astronauts to make improvements.

The abundance of new equipment put pressure on the four astronauts, but luckily they all had assistants to help.

Next to the landing site at Yushu Base, four humanoid robots had already returned to the surface from the cave.

Compared to the delicate human astronauts who need electricity to function, these robots could work for 16 hours per session, nearly four to five times the efficiency of the humans. With their help, it was possible to set up the living module before the Spring Festival for a peaceful celebration.

...

Level B Base.

Two C810s landed one after the other on the base runway. One brought the head leadership of the Aerospace Development Committee, while the other carried five technical experts and three officers with stars gleaming on their shoulders.

All of them had serious expressions, but their eyes were filled with shock, nervousness, confusion, and excitement.

In contrast stood Lin Ju, who stepped onto the ground and hugged the air to prove his joy of returning "home," all the while contentedly looking at the C810 on the tarmac.

After America finally lifted restrictions on supersonic flight, the previously subtle suppression in the country vanished. Orders for the C810 surged in both countries, with 110 already signed and an intention for up to 230.

Besides many wealthy individuals wanting to experience supersonic travel, there were also airlines. After communicating with Star Airlines, they requested an increase in the number of seats; Androff managed to convert the staggered rows into two equal rows increasing the capacity to 16 passengers, with only minor structural modifications.

The C810 can also fly over 5000 kilometers; that’s beyond the range of most regional jets and accommodates the majority of travel needs. And there are people who chase after such efficiency!

Six hours of travel time reduced to two, two hours cut down to 30 minutes. You could buy a cup of coffee before taking off and still find it hot upon arrival; that’s less time than it takes to cross a big city by bus.

If it wasn’t for Boeing and Rom secretly resisting and preparing to develop competing models, Androff estimated that America could have taken orders for over 500 aircraft.

Just from the supersonic passenger jet business alone, Star Airlines is confident it can deliver profits of over 10 billion to the base this year. Once the C1000 and Yizhou Base begin production, the aviation industry will become the base’s largest cash cow.

Seeing Lin Ju looking at the plane with a silly smile, Zhong Cheng couldn’t help but put his arm around his shoulder—an exceedingly rare gesture for him.

"Brother, come show us around quickly. You got all of us here with just one word."

"Ah... okay, okay, follow me."

Lin Ju then summoned everyone to ride the on-site electric cars, taking them to a rather secluded warehouse.

At the door stood four security guards who thoroughly checked everyone and demanded a security screening of their belongings before finally opening the warehouse door.

After entering and opening two more large doors, they finally saw their destination:

In the middle of the dark and enclosed tall warehouse sat a hexagonal pillar with a maximum diameter of about 4.5 meters and a length of about 15 meters resting on a special platform, surrounded by a dense network of pipes. The front featured a circular opening 2.5 meters in diameter, which gradually narrowed inward in a curving contour until it disappeared from sight.

The bell-shaped narrow duct’s inner lining radiated light in all directions, almost too dazzling to look at, but the observant ones noticed that the outer part of the circle was as smooth as a mirror and reflected everything around it, with a visibly high emissivity.

Five engineers were also present in the warehouse. One of them, upon seeing the crowd’s entry, promptly plugged the opening with a red cloth-wrapped stopper, then gestured for everyone to stay behind the white line drawn on the floor.

The technical expert who was about to step forward embarrassingly retracted his foot, but still looked at everything in front of him with eager eyes, filled with the kind of reverence unique to researchers when faced with advanced technology.

Lin Ju finally cleared his throat and stepped forward, proudly introducing:

"Director Zhong may not be aware, but the others should know. Back in June, I shared with you a conjecture about a research project. Eight months later, we’ve made it a reality."

"No, I remember. It was the one that President Ye wrote, right?"

Before taking over, Zhong Cheng had meticulously reviewed virtually all relevant event documentation, with a particular emphasis on technology.

"You talked about manipulating gaseous plasma, reflecting a specific laser at 100% at certain frequencies, and extracting energy from the plasma. With multiple reflections that continuously boost energy levels, ultimately, the power of the laser source is increased by hundreds of times, right?"