Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 110 No Reference

The unit efficiency is doubled, which means that the speed that originally required two units of fuel can now be achieved with only one unit of fuel.

If calculated based on nuclear fission fuel, that is, uranium 235 or plutonium 239, the increase is actually not that much. It is just a reduction from 200KG to 100KG. The mass difference of only 100KG does not matter much.

But for chemical fuels, the improvement is huge.

This means a reduction from 10 tons to 5 tons, or even from 20 tons to 10 tons!

If 5 or even 10 tons of fuel were saved, how much more ammunition could be carried? Or even if the fuel was not reduced, how much would the endurance be improved if the original amount of fuel was still carried?
However, even though the improvement was so huge, Li Qingsong was still somewhat dissatisfied.

The reason is simple: the existing miniaturized nuclear fission propulsion module is still too heavy.

A mass of more than 200 tons!
It can barely be used on Venus-class battleships, but cannot be used on Mercury-class battleships.

In Li Qingsong's vision, the propulsion module used on the Mercury-class battleship, the nuclear fission reactor, the internal combustion engine, and the secondary pressurization system, should have a total mass of no more than 15 tons, so that it can be considered of practical significance.

This means that Li Qingsong has to reduce its weight by another 245 tons on the existing basis, a weight reduction of up to 94%!

This seems like an impossible task.

only……

If the human world can do it, why can't I?

Li Qingsong clearly remembered that the small spacecraft manufactured in the human world used that kind of propulsion technology!
Before the disappearance of the human world, the total population was approximately 10 billion. Among this 10 billion population, how many researchers were there?
It is estimated to be around 9000 million.

This is also the result of the human world attaching great importance to scientific research.

At this moment, the total number of clones under his command who were dedicated to scientific research was approximately 3000 million. In addition, even those clones engaged in industrial production could temporarily utilize their brainpower.

Furthermore, how many communication barriers and conflicts of interest exist among scientific researchers in the human world?
The scientific research capabilities of his 3000 million scientific research clones are at least ten times that of the 9000 million scientific researchers in the entire human world.

Yes, that's right. Ever since Li Qingsong's maximum number of consciousness connections skyrocketed from 1000 million to 1 million, Li Qingsong's scientific research and industrial strength have left the human world with a population of tens of billions far behind.

My only disadvantage at the moment is that the time is too short and the accumulation is insufficient.

But it doesn’t matter. Lack of accumulation can be compensated with higher quality and quantity.

Whatever technology the human world can master, I can definitely master too!
Therefore, with sufficient resources in such a huge industrial system, Li Qingsong controlled the clones under his command and once again launched scientific research projects that were almost cost-effective and involved almost every discipline.

Time and again, these costly experiments were carried out without delay. After all, the Jovian system was extremely resource-rich. Even if the Jovian system couldn't supply them, there was still the entire solar system.

Need numerical simulations? Scientific computing? Supercomputing?
Let’s build 100 of them first!
Anyway, the "human society" today, which is made up of clones, has no other consumption except for its own extremely limited survival needs, so it is just right to invest the large amount of surplus resources in the industrial society into scientific research.

Under such circumstances, it only took Li Qingsong ten years to make another breakthrough.

The nuclear fission propulsion system suitable for Mercury-class battleships has finally been created!

The total mass is only 14 tons, and the comprehensive fuel utilization rate has increased by another 20% compared to the previous generation! In Li Qingsong's memory, the most advanced small fission thrusters in the human world, and even the thrusters used in the original Deep Space spacecraft, have only this much technical content and comprehensive performance, or even slightly inferior.

This means that, at least in terms of thrusters, he has caught up with or slightly surpassed the human world.

But this is still not the end, Li Qingsong still plans to strive for higher peaks.

He hopes to miniaturize the fission thruster enough to be used in interstellar missiles!

The total mass of an interstellar missile is only a few hundred kilograms, and the largest is only two or three tons.

It is so small that it can only use chemical fuels.

And… once an interstellar missile uses fission propulsion, to what extent will its acceleration and penetration capabilities skyrocket? And to what extent will its maneuverability increase?
Overall, how strong will its combat effectiveness be?

To shrink the entire fission thruster to only a few hundred kilograms, or even less than a hundred kilograms, really seems like a fantasy.

Li Qingsong didn't know whether such a thing was even possible. After all, he no longer had any reference samples, just like the huge controversy in the human world about whether it was even possible to create an atomic bomb.

But it doesn’t matter. Let’s study it first. What if it works?
The tremendous development of propulsion technology and the significant improvement in overall efficiency have greatly changed Li Qingsong's existing space transportation pattern.

Amidst the huge industrial productivity, the most advanced fission propulsion system has rapidly developed into several different models, suitable for spacecraft of various sizes, and has been quickly and widely used.

As a result, Li Qingsong's consumption of chemical fuels decreased visibly.

Last year, Li Qingsong consumed a total of about 10.6 billion tons of chemical fuels.

Since fission power plants are now the main energy source for power generation, these chemical fuels are basically consumed by spacecraft transportation.

But this year, with the widespread use of fission propulsion, chemical fuel use has dropped sharply to just 6.2 million tons.

By next year, it is estimated to drop by more than 50% to less than 3 million tons.

This meant that a large amount of industrial power and transportation capacity was saved. On the other hand, Li Qingsong's industrial strength was further enhanced.

At this time, Mercury-class and Venus-class battleships using new fission propulsion systems had also been built. However, Li Qingsong did not immediately use Wukong AI to conduct large-scale combat drills again.

The reason is simple. At this moment, the warships have only reached the top level in the human world in terms of propulsion, but all other aspects are still far behind.

Such a deformed warship exercise does not truly reflect the battlefield situation. The data they generate is not only unhelpful to Wukong AI, but also harmful.

As the AI that Li Qingsong values most besides the Jade Emperor AI, he cannot tolerate such a thing happening.

"It's time to develop a warship whose entire system can reach or even surpass the top level of humanity!"

(End of this chapter)