I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

"Our space shuttle doesn't even have a nuclear engine, but they already have two nuclear vehicles."

As soon as Carey arrived at JFT, he cursed him all over the place, leaving Freeman confused.

"Two? Isn't it a Storm?"

The assistant to the Air Force Intelligence Room who was following him opened his mobile phone. On it was a photo taken outside a B-level base: an An-1250 taking off carrying an H2 without an engine.

"The Glory and the Pioneer are both in Qiongzhou for maintenance and repair, and the Storm is in space, so what does the one that flew out of their base three hours ago do?

Although there are only a few incomplete photos for the time being, the difference between the H2N and H2M airframes can be distinguished. Moreover, this plane is not going to Qiongzhou, but to Shengjing. "

"Sheng Jing?"

Freeman is relatively familiar with China's major scientific research and production institutions, and knows that there is the territory of Shen Fei, the eldest son of the Republic. An H2N was obviously going to be modified for military use.

There is no doubt that the Storm is for civilian use, which can be seen from the fact that it performed the installation task of the Advance on its first flight, but this is not the case for this mysterious H2N.

Carey: "Can you tell me why this H2N is not equipped with an engine?"

Freeman: "It's easy to understand. If you want to install a lot of weapons, you will definitely need to make major changes to the layout of the internal pipelines and cooling systems. Let me see the photos... Yes, it was shipped before it was completed, so the supporting equipment The three A100 engines should also be changed.

Therefore, this space shuttle will never be used for civilian purposes. "

Carey: "So on behalf of the Air Force, I am now putting forward new requirements for NERVA A105, so that it has at least a 10MW power output capability."

"..."

Freeman glanced at the Air Force Intelligence Office assistant behind Carey, who shook his head slightly.

It was clear that Major General Carey knew nothing about technology.

Even if he could make the engine output 10MW of electricity, it would be impossible for the space shuttle to carry such a high-power laser. It is impossible for a laser of this size to achieve this level of power, and the heat dissipation problem is also extremely annoying.

If I guess correctly, Raytheon’s latest laser project is 300 kilowatts? Still a long way to go!

Moreover, using lasers to intercept drones spanning hundreds of kilometers in space is completely different from intercepting drones thousands of meters away on the ground. The requirements for lasers are also very different.

Fortunately, he was also very familiar with the old routines of the Afghan and American military personnel, so he just nodded and agreed, and then he would just shirk it.

Besides, has Boeing’s Endeavor been refurbished? Surely not yet? It is impossible to resume flying in July.

After sending Carey away, Freeman continued to wait for the Air Force and NACA's detection results of the Storm, which would greatly help the development of the NERVA A105.

…

After its launch, the "Storm" disappeared from the media as if it had disappeared. Of course, most of this was the result of deliberate domestic suppression.

There is even less internal image data about Storm. After the seven astronauts docked with Advance, they only sent out pictures of themselves inside the space station. The outside world did not even have a chance to see Storm's pink tail flame.

Now, the domestic public opinion is dominated by C832.

After the C832 made its first flight, it soon received a large wave of orders: 4 from China Eastern Airlines, 4 from China Southern Airlines, 6 from Hainan Airlines, 3 from Xiamen Airlines, and Air China bought 2 more. In addition to the orders for the two special planes, the total number of orders was 21. , this number is quite small.

In comparison, the C919 has only received 18 orders since its first flight. Although it is not bad, the momentum is obviously not very good.

Moreover, the C832 has another advantage over the C919. As a nationally produced passenger aircraft, it can be used as a military aircraft without restrictions.

The military plans to equip six Air Police 1000 early warning aircraft and twelve Kongyou-10 aerial tankers in the next five years, as well as a total of 20 high-tech No. 10 series electronic jammers and air-submarine No. 10 series anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, that is, 18 C832 and 20 C822 modification projects, which will be completed jointly with XAC.

These more than thirty aircraft are just an appetizer. In fact, according to the Air Force's own estimates, the domestic scale will roughly require about 150 to 200 logistics and special aircraft, all of which will be improved from the C822 and C832.

As for the H2N that was shipped out from the base after the Storm's first flight, it was naturally the first aircraft of Project 909, "Great Wall One."

Fengtian, 611.

More than a dozen researchers from the base directed the crane to lift the semi-outfitted Great Wall No. 1 onto a special trailer, and then dragged it into the large transformation workshop that Shen Fei had prepared early.

In addition to engineers from the 611 Institute and Xinyuan Institute, there are also people from the Third Aerospace Institute, the Ninth Institute, the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Precision Machinery, the Beijing Laser Research Institute, and many other institutions.

Here they will jointly carry out the subsequent transformation project of Great Wall 1, turning it into a covert space killer.

The mission of Modu Optical Machinery and Jingcheng Laser is to develop laser weapons that can exert maximum lethality on the Great Wall No. 1 platform.

The weight of the Great Wall One that can be reserved for laser weapons and cooling systems is 50 tons, and the maximum take-off mass is 132 tons. This number is quite generous, but it is really a "gadget" for the Magic Light Machine.

In 1986, they developed "Shenguang No. 1", which was the size of several football fields and could output a trillion watts of power within one billionth of a second. Later, they developed Shenguang No. 2 and No. 3, in 2014 The Shenguang-3, which was just put into use in 2018, can output a peak power of 6 billion kilowatts.

Of course, the size and weight of these big guys cannot be moved into space. The longest working time is a few hundred millionths of a second, which is completely different from the Qianjun Bang No. 1 that can output for one minute.

The goal of the "Shenguang" series is nuclear fusion laser ignition. There are at least hundreds of light sources working at the same time. It only needs to work for a short time. It is obviously not suitable for use as a weapon.

However, since the emergence of "Shenguang No. 1", China's laser technology has ranked first in the world, which has also led to the rapid development of lasers in other fields.

Xinyuan doesn’t know exactly how much power the Great Wall No. 1 laser will be equipped with. This has a lot to do with the combat ideas and targets. Moreover, the prototype has not yet been built...

The laser technology of Project 909 is even more important than the space shuttle. It is considered very fast to be put into use within one year. It is not surprising that it takes two or three years.

Of course, what no one knows is that one of the base engineers sent to assist in the transformation work is from the laser laboratory. At this time, his role is just an ordinary engineer in the ion power generation department, and he is unintentionally listening to the two laser laboratories. Researchers commented on the Great Wall-1 airframe.

"...The attack window can only be opened above the cargo bay. Fortunately, it is wide enough, but heat dissipation is still a bit troublesome."

"Then make a telescopic lens and lift out the heat dissipation part."

"No, no, it's too difficult to control the accuracy. We also have to consider the violent vibrations in the atmosphere when the aircraft takes off and land. The light source must be extremely stable... To be honest, installing lasers on the space shuttle has a great impact on the accuracy. It's a shame that it can be used for extra-atmospheric attacks.

It's better to separate these modules...cough. "