It's normal to develop some black technology in the future, right?

Chapter 356: Strait of Malacca between the Earth and the Moon

"Celestia? That's not an easy target to mine." Chen Yuanguang replied when he heard Lin Jia telling him interesting stories.

Even after four hundred years, when all the mining of Psyche was completed, the mining of the asteroid belt where Psyche was located continued.

"Is Psyche our ultimate goal? I see many science bloggers on Weibo discussing this topic.

They believe that if Light Armor Aerospace can complete the mining of Psyche in this century, it will be a success. "Lin Jia asked curiously.

In Guangjia Aerospace's internal planning sequence, the completion time node for space mining is before 2030.

Before 2030, Guangjia Aerospace will capture 9000 asteroids retrieved from approximately 12 near-Earth asteroids and decompose them in the space station.

These 12 asteroids are all located around the Lagrange points of the Earth-Sun system, about 100 million kilometers away from the Earth, which is much closer than the distance between the Earth and Mars.

However, Psyche had never appeared in the plans of Guangjia Aerospace in the past. Lin Jia was well aware of the value of this asteroid and how difficult it was to mine.

The distance between the Earth and Mars fluctuates between 7800 million kilometers and 4 million kilometers, and as part of the Martian asteroid belt, Psyche is about 5 million kilometers away from the Earth.

The difficulty of mining at this distance is much greater than that of the asteroids selected by Light Armor Aerospace.

"I don't think it will take that long. The concept of this century is too far away. It will definitely be done before 2050." Chen Yuanguang is very confident.

It won’t take a century.

If the mining of Psyche can be completed before 2050, the value system of the entire Earth will have to be reconstructed.

Chen Yuanguang didn't know whether there was more gold on Psyche than the total known gold on Earth as the Chinese self-media said, but there was no doubt that most of Psyche was made up of iron and nickel. With a weight in the trillions, even the iron and nickel would be enough to make the Earth's resources worthless.

Lin Jia was surprised but not surprised. The outside world's estimates were just the outside world's estimates. This guy Chen Yuanguang always did amazing things.

Light armor aerospace has not stopped since 2027, and it is almost in a completely non-stop state.

After the Light Armor successfully entered the preset position, the next step was to launch the second module to dock with the core module.

In the past, module docking like this required astronauts to complete it, but in a sense this was entirely for the sake of safety and was a design from the past.

In the design of the Light Armor, docking is the most basic part, and fully automatic docking does not require any human intervention at all.

The main reason is that the spacecraft has not arrived yet.

In the past, when spacecraft went into outer space to perform missions, they only went as far as 1400 kilometers.

After the Dragon spacecraft reached an altitude of 1400 kilometers from the earth, SpaceX specially tweeted: "Achievement unlocked - apogee 1400.7 kilometers."

Reaching 1400 kilometers is an achievement worth celebrating for SpaceX. If it launches to Lagrange point 32 at 1 kilometers and places it at an aviation gate, it will be a great achievement.

Both the International Space Station and China's Tiangong are only 32 kilometers away from the Earth, while the Light Armor is kilometers away.

The unit directly changed from one hundred to ten thousand.

Flying that far is no problem. There are many satellites in history that are tens of billions of kilometers away. For example, Huygens was able to fly to the Titan region.

The difficulty is that you have to go safely and come back safely.

Compared with 400 kilometers, the risk of facing various meteorites at a distance of 32 kilometers is obviously much higher, and there is an automatic avoidance capability during the flight.

In addition, the unmanned docking of the spacecraft with the core module of the Light Armor after it enters the predetermined location is also a problem.

In the past, only the Dragon spacecraft had accomplished unmanned docking of spacecraft; China's Shenzhou spacecraft still required human operation.

"The module launched this time is very important. It is one of the important reasons why the entire Light Armor is different from other space stations."

For this launch, Guangjia specially invited internal colleagues to come and give explanations.

Because Lin Jia found that the effect of the first live broadcast with the mic closed was too poor. Most of the audience could not understand what it meant or how significant it was.

After the docking, the distance was 32 kilometers, but there was not even a splash on the Internet. The discussion on Zhihu was not as high as Musk's $10 billion bet.

Therefore, just one week after the launch in the second week, Lin Jia specially arranged someone to give an explanation.

If the effect is not good, Lin Jia even plans to do it himself.

"I don't know if you have any idea about space stations. In the past, space stations were generally divided into management modules, also known as core modules, which were responsible for managing the entire space station, and astronauts generally lived in the core modules.

Another thing is the experimental cabin, where various scientific research experiments are carried out.

Because Tiangong is relatively small, it only has a core module and an experimental module.

As the International Space Station has a longer history, its components are more complex, such as the cargo hold, which is a place to store things, and the node module, which is specifically used for docking with spacecraft.

If a spacecraft wants to carry goods or people to the space station, it needs to dock with the node module.

There is also an observation cabin, which is specially provided for astronauts to observe the operation of the robotic arm, the spacecraft and look at the earth.

Of course, Tiangong also has these functions, but it does not have so many subdivided modules.

The module we launched this time can be regarded as a port.

It is somewhat similar to the concept of a node module, which is specifically responsible for docking with spacecraft, but it is different from the node module of the International Space Station because it is not just as simple as docking.

The spacecraft will then go into port and complete the installation of the heat shield.”

There was an uproar on the barrage, because there are many professionals who watch this kind of live broadcast.

"Your spacecraft launches without heat shields?"

"Go to the station to complete the installation of the heat shield?"

"Isn't this risk too high? What if the outer shell of the spacecraft can't hold up during the process of leaving the Earth?"

The experts are all raising questions, while the laymen are all bragging.

To those who don't know much about it, isn't this quite advanced? The space station can also serve as a spacecraft assembly station. "Don't worry, we also have a heat shield during the launch process, but I don't know if you know that the requirements for the heat shield during the launch process and the return process are different.

During the launch process, what you are looking for is a fast enough speed to escape the Earth's gravity, so the pointed end will point upward, and then reduce the overall air resistance, so the heat caused by the burning of the atmosphere will be relatively less, and the damage to the heat shield will be smaller.

In the process of returning to Earth, the spacecraft relies on atmospheric resistance to slow down, so it will try every means to increase resistance, which will cause great damage to the heat shield.

I wonder how many of you have watched the live broadcast of the first launch of the Shenzhou-Guangzhou rocket.

Our Yang Gong participated in that live broadcast as a guest. During the launch, he said that our rocket uses a brand-new heat shield structure.

It uses a composite material composed of some sublimation substances, which achieves the heat insulation effect by cooling down after thermal volatilization.

During the launch of these composite materials, the sublimated substances will volatilize due to the heat, and the remaining resin will form a microporous carbonized layer.

If we were only going to low-Earth orbit, that one layer of thermal insulation would be enough, but this time we are going to go all the way to 32 kilometers away, so we have to re-apply the thermal insulation layer when we reach the space station.

As for why we use this material instead of traditional ceramic-fiber composites or phenolic and carbon composites, it is because the composite material we use can be prepared directly on the moon.

The audience in the live broadcast room needs to know that the distance between the Light Armor and the Earth is 32 kilometers, but the distance to the Moon is only 8 kilometers.

China's aerospace industry will begin building a lunar base this year. The moon will be more than just a base. We will begin to utilize lunar resources on a large scale.

Composite materials like this are prepared on the moon and transported back to the Light Armor. All incoming spacecraft can be re-sprayed with a layer of heat shield here.

Don’t you think this is just a port?

The spacecraft from Earth does not need it when entering the moon, because the atmosphere on the moon's surface is very thin, so there is not much need for thermal insulation. But you have to return to Earth. It's not excessive to transit through our place on the way back to Earth, right?
Come to us and apply a layer of heat-insulating material for you. We will charge a labor fee, which is not much. Just a few hundred million dollars is not too much, right? "After the anchor of Light Armor Aerospace finished speaking, the comments were full of "not too much" and "too little".

“I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but NASA’s Orion spacecraft has been experiencing repeated malfunctions of its heat shield.

Let me first introduce to you that the Orion spacecraft is responsible for the mission of returning America to the moon, and it is America's hope to return to the moon.

And Orion has experienced repeated heat shield failures over the past five years.

It's not as simple as the heat shield not working. The one in 22 years simply fell off and was gone. This problem has never been solved.

Because Orion needs to increase its initial speed through a second jump during the entire launch process, when it returns to Earth, it needs to first enter the atmosphere and then glide out of the atmosphere at hypersonic speed, and then enter the atmosphere again for a second deceleration.

Think about it, NASA can just use a traditional heat shield, and have the Light Armor spray one before returning to Earth, and we can help you spray another layer of heat shield before you go back, right? "

This time, the barrage is finally full of awesome comments.

What is this called? This is the Strait of Malacca between the earth and the moon. All spaceships that want to go to the moon to pan for gold have to come to the Guangjia to pay a protection fee. This is awesome.

"Isn't it awesome? So the module launched this time is very important. It's the part that makes our Light Armor different from other space stations.

After all, the Light Armor is located in a different position from other space stations, and the responsibilities we bear will be heavier."

All kinds of live broadcast rooms have started to give out gifts, and on TikTok, there is a carnival everywhere.

The colleagues in charge of controlling the scene and lighting in the entire live broadcast room admired him very much. He was worthy of being an employee who had worked at New Oriental and then came to Guangjia Aerospace. He was really good at talking.

“I know everyone is excited, but don’t get excited yet. This is just to provide a port between the Earth and the Moon and provide some services to passing spacecraft.

The spraying of thermal insulation materials mentioned just now is one of the services. For example, do astronauts need to come down to eat something, have a rest, drink some coffee, and look at the moon?
These are all chargeable items.

In addition, there is no atmosphere on the moon, but that does not mean there is no atmosphere on Mars.

In the future, after our space station is launched into the orbit of Mars, will spacecraft from other countries also have to come to our space station for repairs before going to Mars?

We need to spray a thermal insulation layer when we go there, and another one before we return to Earth.

You can imagine the importance of this technology.

Without the port, the Light Armor is just a space station. With the port module, the Light Armor has a further practical significance. "

This not only involves the Strait of Malacca between the Earth and the Moon, but also the desire to control the shipping lanes in the entire solar system.

"Can you please stop providing convenience to other countries? We have the moon all to ourselves."

"I guess NASA will build a space station at L1 after watching this live broadcast."

"Didn't they say that part of the Light Armor was sold to France? Isn't it too late to breach the contract now? It's better to refund the money than to sell the land to France. Isn't the real estate around the port waiting to appreciate in value?"

"Yes, it's a monopoly. You can charge whatever you want. Now that France also has a section, what if they also build a port?"

The Chinese people who like this grand narrative are very happy to hear it. The live broadcast room has been full of comments since the launch. Everyone is starting to think about the huge profits they will make after the monopoly.

“Everyone calm down, this is just a possibility I proposed, and it does not represent the official opinion of Guangjia Aerospace.

Let me talk to you guys about something more formal.

The reason why we have to launch the port first is because we will launch the spacecraft after launching the port.

In the past, SpaceX's Dragon was the only reusable spacecraft on Earth. Others like Shenzhou were all disposable, and even the return capsule could not be reused after returning to Earth.

After China completed its own recyclable spacecraft test in 23 years, it officially entered service before 27 years. In the traditional sense, no spacecraft can meet the requirements of the Light Armor.

Because of the distance, you know? It's too far.

This time, after the docking between the port and the core module is completed, we will launch the spacecraft, complete the launch and unmanned docking, enter the port to complete the spraying of the heat shield, and finally return to Earth.

We need to complete the testing of the entire process.

There are many difficulties here. Just from the process of launching to docking, there are various dangers along the 32-kilometer journey, and whether its active obstacle avoidance function is sensitive enough.

You can imagine that it is easy for you to get into trouble if you drive a few hundred kilometers to return home. But we have to drive 32 kilometers, which means a round trip distance of 64 kilometers.

It is very easy to encounter meteorites before entering the Lagrange point."

(End of this chapter)