Chapter 767 - 734 3D Printing_2

Xie Liaofu, still not quite accustomed to gravity, sat in his wheelchair and could hardly contain himself after looking at the illustrations in the technical brief.

When Lin Ju verbally told them about the single-stage printer that could process 140-meter lengths, Xie Liaofu’s first reaction was to wonder just how huge this 3D printer must be.

meters, even with a semi-open processing setup, one piece of equipment would fill an entire workshop, and then create dozens of tons of stuff? How complex would such a large device be?

However, the reality was beyond imagination, because the FTZ 0140 couldn’t even be installed on the ground!

FTZ 0140 itself was more like a spacecraft, approximately 60 meters in length, with a width and a height of around 15 meters each, resembling a massive block of Lego. When printing, it needed to deploy mechanical arms to print oversized parts in space!

The so-called welding equipment was a smaller spacecraft, just over 10 meters in length, with several clamps at the front that could secure the welding pieces, and then the spacecraft would move in close to perform the welding.

One large and one small, these two spacecraft required 10 and 3 operators, respectively, to work together on the space operations!

In the zero-gravity of space, the printed parts are not affected by gravity and do not need to release stress. They are solid and reliable, with a precision that is lower than one could imagine, achieving an error margin of just 0.2 mm on the lowest scale of 140 meters.

This level of precision could certainly be said to be unrivaled globally, excessively fine for a large spacecraft’s keel; it reached the requirements of experimental equipment, absurdly precise.

"20 silk, that can almost be considered deviation caused by stress release. After that, just a fine polish is needed, and it’s practically perfect."

Ye Changsi imagined this nearly undetectable range of error in his mind and suddenly thought of something and said,

"What does the data say? Hongxian Hao? Year 4705 of the Huangdi Era, is this when Yuan Shikai was successfully enthroned, and he’s been stable for over 90 years?"

Lin Ju, "Not just Old Yuan, Fuzhou Shipyard has taken their business to space. With such low processing errors, how high must the requirements for the ships they build be, and how large are the dimensions?"

Cheng Nankai, "At least seventy or eighty thousand tons! Let me think... that’s actually possible. If its design speed is above one-tenth of one percent, or one-thousandth of the speed of light, the spaceship has to withstand enormous stress from the thruster.

Modern integrated shipbuilding methods are not strong enough, we need to use specially sturdy materials to construct the skeleton, and return to the traditional approach with the rest of the parts hanging on the framework.

If that’s the case, then the materials used in the FTZ 0140 are very interesting; with strength so terrifyingly high, traditional casting and forging simply cannot produce such a large segment, 3D printing is the only way."

The world that provided the technology was just a minor episode for the scientists, who quickly immersed themselves back into the technical parameters of the printer. It was Lin Ju, however, who delved deeper into thought.

It seemed that this world line was an imperial timeline; Beiyang was not overthrown but seemed to have developed quite well. The old enterprises of the Qing dynasty not only preserved their heritage but also grew stronger, which showed how absurdly different this world line was.

Then... the world line he was in, perhaps the original world didn’t have extraterrestrial civilization relics, and it was this variable that led to the great deviation?

Or maybe, other world lines also had their own "variables" that changed history at different points?

Why could the System arbitrarily extract technology or even real objects from other world lines, and could there come a day when the technology of New Yuan would also be offered to other world lines?

What was the purpose of doing so, do parallel universes truly exist, and is it possible for them to intersect?

Lin Ju fell into deep contemplation, his thoughts growing increasingly profound.

...

The Times: "The Chinese People have completely transformed the perception of space travel that relies on the composition of rockets."

Agence France-Presse: "Expert: Enterprise might have utilized advanced anti-gravity propulsion technology."

BBC: "Nuclear reactor only 1000 meters from civilians! Allowing nuclear-powered aircraft is contempt for human rights."

Edo News: "Opposes Chinese space vehicles releasing nuclear pollution into the atmosphere."

TASS: "Congratulations to China on the immense achievements with their new generation Space Shuttle."

"..."

In the outside world, the landing of the Enterprise had once again caused a widespread sensation, with voices from multiple fields such as technology, environmental protection, aerospace, and humanities expressing their astonishment at the Enterprise.

Although no one captured the final moments of the Enterprise’s landing at New Far Base, there were plenty of low-altitude images of it approaching New Yuan, especially near the hills, where it was just a few hundred meters away at its closest approach, visible to passersby as the massive body of the Enterprise roared past overhead.

At first, netizens from places other than Rong City who saw the videos initially thought it was video effects, since the Enterprise’s flight posture was no different from spaceships in sci-fi movies.

Especially those netizens who knew a bit about it pointed out directly that this method of taking off and landing a space shuttle couldn’t compare to an Aero-Space Plane, claiming that despite looking powerful, the efficiency of an Aero-Space Plane on Earth is the highest.

However, the authenticity of the news was confirmed only when a large number of foreign media started reporting it positively.

Having returned to America only a few days ago, Musk was struck as if by lightning, he opened his phone and scrolled through the images of the Enterprise’s flight time and again, and then went to Tom’s house to find him.

It was 8 o’clock in the morning in America, and Tom Muller was brushing his teeth. He was taken aback when he opened the door to see Musk and then immediately realized what had happened.

"Look at this!"

He took the phone, watched for a while, then decisively threw away his toothbrush to rinse his mouth, put on his glasses in front of the computer, and rapidly searched for all the related information. His expression grew increasingly strange until he finally took off his glasses and threw them onto the table.

"This is impossible!"

Tom, pointing angrily at the blurry video on the screen, said:

"Even their Aero-Space Plane engines don’t have this capability. The A100 simply can’t be used in the atmosphere. In such a limited volume, there’s no technology capable of doing that, none!

If this is real, then it’s negating everything I’ve learned. This shouldn’t be something that exists on Earth!"

Musk rarely saw Tom lose his temper like this, but he could understand; being an engineer himself, Musk of course understood the technological significance of the Enterprise, just not to the same extent.

"Sorry Muller, but this is a fact. I even messaged Lin, and he told me this is XAP’s latest result."

Tom: "What does XAP need this damn thing for? Apart from showboating, I can’t think of any way it’s better than an Aero-Space Plane."

"Lin said, it was developed as a lander for other celestial bodies. Its use on Earth is just incidental."

"Incidental?"

Suddenly, Tom burst out, scrunching his hair into a nest with both hands, looking frenzied, spreading his arms and gnashing his teeth:

"Such a difficult thing is incidental? I can’t even imagine its power source! Elon, we’re lost, with no hope of catching up. I feel like I’m wrestling with inhuman forces. The Starship is just a lump of scrap metal in front of it!

Maybe I’m dreaming right now. Only in dreams would a company be able to make such a devilish thing!"

Seeing Tom’s mental state beginning to waver, Musk quickly stopped him from continuing.

"Hey, we might have a chance to get involved with it too, we might have a chance. This isn’t some devilish contraption, this is also a shuttle made by the Chinese People with machine tools!"

"Chance, what chance?"

"Uh... I’m not entirely sure, but Lin said there’s hope."

Musk remembered the few words Lin Ju had dropped seemingly unintentionally before he left the base, but at the time, he didn’t have the opportunity to ask more, and since returning to his country, he had been pondering on it for days.

"Do you remember what Scott said about both countries opening markets? Lin told me if the timing is right, it could facilitate large-scale space collaboration between the two countries, and contractors like us might be able to enter each other’s space projects.

XAP is about to announce an enormously giant plan. He said if open policies allow, he would hope for my Starship to be part of that plan as a vehicle."

"What plan?"

"Spaceport, or Space City, a super-giant object weighing tens of thousands of tons, so complex that even XAP thinks it couldn’t be done by China alone."