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

Around the 1910s, the space agency roughly planned the future development process of the moon.

The first is the early unmanned exploration, that is, the "Chang'e" series. From the Chang'e 1 to 8 missions, scientific research, exploration and sampling of the moon were carried out. Missions 9 and 10 will be carried out around 2025 to start the construction of lunar scientific research. The preliminary facilities of the station.

According to the original plan, the space agency would organize a manned moon landing at this time, which would coincide with the completed Chang'e Project.

Now that "Chang'e" and "Shuguang" are being carried out in parallel, the subsequent "Chang'e" series will compress the detection projects to mainly cooperate with the construction of scientific research stations.

Both radicals and conservatives have the same view on this.

The main disagreement is over whether to plan a moon landing in advance. They have been debating from top to bottom for more than half a month, but now that the rocket is ready to be launched, it must be completely decided.

Radicals believe that although the Dawn project does not have as many launches as the Apollo project, its technology has made great progress and the landers have already made an actual landing, so there is no need to conduct a moon orbiting operation at all;

Conservatives mainly seek stability and believe that Aramco has already gained an advantage. It would be too risky to land on the moon in the first manned flight of Chang 10. The best they can do is to replicate Shuguang 2 to bring back some lunar soil.

Both sides were having a heated exchange until Lin Ju walked into the room, and the people who supported the moon landing cheered up. Then came Academician She, and the conservatives also found their backbone.

Although in theory the big boss in the conference room has the highest decision-making power, Academician She is the designated chief engineer of the Dawn Project, and he still has to convince the latter.

After Lin Ju took his seat, he did not express his opinion directly, but took a drink of water before asking:

"Whether the Shuguang-3 spacecraft lands on the moon or not, it is definitely in optimal condition. I want to know if they want to land on the moon, what are their specific tasks?"

An expert from the Fifth Academy answered him: "Two lunar rovers and four types of scientific research equipment have been placed in the landing module. If we land on the moon, in addition to the symbolic process, we will bring these equipment up and return with some samples. The lander remains there to provide power and navigation for future scientific research stations."

Obviously, the first moon landing is to "get first". Go and get back quickly to avoid increasing risks.

Lin Ju nodded: "Everyone, first of all, I want to say that Xinyuan will officially start the construction of the lunar rare metal smelting base next month, and will implement a route to transport finished metals from the moon in batches back to the earth in the next two years;

The first batch of two lunar space station modules have been manufactured and are expected to be launched in early July. "

As he spoke, he passed the prepared documents to everyone's hands, with detailed instructions on them.

The "Wutu" lunar orbital space station consists of a functional module that provides power and stores fuel, and a residential module. Both are large modules with a diameter of 6 meters. The latter also has a docking port that can expand three large modules and Two Dawn ships docked.

The weights are 18 tons and 52 tons respectively. The No. 2 rocket and the No. 3 rocket have been prepared at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and will be launched soon.

Lin Ju clearly expressed his attitude in this way: If Shuguang-3 does not land on the moon, the two modules will waste half a year of their life.

"Black Rabbit" is also a project contracted by the Aerospace Development Commission. The space agency pays half of the cost for joint operation, so it can be regarded as its own thing.

However, what had a greater impact on the people present was the sentence about starting the moon mining work. From the moon landing to batch mining, the span is too big!

The focus of the topic suddenly shifted from Shuguang-3 to Xinyuan's lunar development plan. Academician She looked at the situation on site and made eye contact with the boss.

Vice Chairman Lin is known for his skill in "forcing the palace" indirectly, and the effect seems to be very good.

Think again about the subtle hints made by your superiors when they talked about the moon landing... Forget it, everyone now believes that the moon landing is a must-win, and they will be scolded if they delay it any longer.

…

"Really want to do it?"

After the meeting, a few people from the development committee stayed and held a small meeting.

Although Lin Ju revealed his intention to develop the moon in Beijing half a month ago and even discussed it with a number of private aerospace companies, the boss did not expect it to happen so soon.

"You know how capable we are. From sending equipment to bringing things back, the specific plan is basically in place.

From the perspective of landing on the moon, we only have the means to land on the ground, but we are already making preparations. "

"Reusable?"

"It is reusable and has the ability to carry at least 15 tons of payload up and down. There are three versions for cargo transportation, fuel transportation and manning."

MTV can only be considered a small thing for Xinyuan. The boss believes that development can be completed in a few months at most, and it can even be put into service before the end of the year.

Coupled with the nuclear-powered space shuttle and the lunar-orbiting space station, this system is much more valuable than traditional rocket construction. In particular, the space shuttle's atmospheric return and downward transportation capability is exactly what traditional means lack.

So, what to do in the smelting stage?

Because rare earths have different characteristics from very precious metals, smelting requires not only high-temperature electric furnaces, but also a considerable amount of supporting chemical raw materials and other facilities. Even with an extremely low output of 100 tons per year, the volume and quality of the equipment required are very troublesome.

Are we going to find another way to develop a new technology, or are we going to work hard to create a miracle and send it up with a giant rocket?

Regarding this issue, Lin Ju had already prepared an extremely weakened laser smelting satellite research feasibility report.

The 170-ton monster provided by the system is too terrifying. It can support a converter with a daily output of 800 to 1,000 tons of crude steel. It is far from being used now.

In order to reduce the research pressure and cost of the base, the light source power of the smelting satellite that is actually ready to be put into use is 1MW and the overall mass is about 30 tons.

Used together are two 30t steel-making furnaces, with a maximum annual output of 10,000 tons.

The global demand for rare metals is limited, and the transportation capacity is also limited. A few hundred tons per year will not exceed a thousand tons at most. The remaining production capacity is intended to be used to produce construction steel.

The output of 10,000 tons of steel is worthless on earth, even an earthen blast furnace is much more powerful than this.

But even if only one thousand tons of steel are smelted a year on the moon, it is still too rich for base construction.

Academician She looked at the planned production date: around 2019.

"Good guys, Harbin Institute of Technology's 3D printing lunar soil construction technology can be stopped. With 10,000 tons of steel, the lunar buildings can just use steel as the shell."

Boss: "Not to mention an annual output of 10,000 tons, even a hundred tons is enough. It can be used to build bases, build railways, and build a lunar city.

But do you know how to make steel in space? Especially this laser smelting satellite, 1MW light source, high-power reactor,

Not to mention two years, five years is enough to solve these problems. "

Lin Ju calmly took out his tablet and called up a paper.

"On the feasibility of using gaseous plasma as a reflector to improve laser directivity and focusing accuracy (Ye Changsi)"

"We are really not very good at laser technology, but we have made a little breakthrough in other technologies."