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

Ye Changsi can understand Wu Yunfeng's mood. In fact, most scientific researchers are like this. Sometimes the only thing that limits them is the times.

TEPA untied Wu Yunfeng's biggest knot. He turned around and faced the setting sun and opened his hands:

"Long live high energy physics!"

After shouting this sentence, he felt very happy. He closed his eyes and felt the last afterglow of the sun, which was surprisingly warm.

Ye Changsi stood behind him for a long time, until the sun was almost completely set, and then he stood side by side with him and asked softly:

"The difficulty with TEPA does not lie in technology. There are no obvious technical barriers between 10 teraelectron volts and 10 tera electron volts. It is impossible for the Institute of High Energy to use your precious brainpower to build experimental machines."

Wu Yunfeng, who had just soothed his mood, stiffened. This was of course true.

There is little need for high-energy institutes to manufacture accelerators, so they can only wait until TEPA is completed, which is no different from now.

At the world conference, scientists planned the construction period of TEPA to be ten years, with completion in 2028, another 2 to 5 years for commissioning, and being put into use before 2033.

In the past ten years, the Institute of High Energy Physics and scientists around the world who wanted to use TEPA could only wait, or use the LHC to try to dig something out, that's all.

"Perhaps...this is the regret of people like us."

Wu Yunfeng finally said this, and then looked at Ye Changsi with a wry smile:

"You are different from us. Xinyuan has a lot to do. Will the moon, Mars, and Jupiter spacecraft be launched in 2030? I really envy you."

"That may be true, but there are many difficulties involved. Do you know what is the biggest problem in space for us?"

Wu Yunfeng frowned and thought for a while. After rejecting several answers in his mind, he expressed his guess:

"Distance, or time."

Ye Changsi nodded heavily, then looked straight ahead and said quickly in a low voice:

“Quantum communication does not use quantum encryption, but quantum entanglement synchronous communication.

We have some preparations, you know. "

Because of his status, Wu Yunfeng was unable to use the mobile phone issued by the base. Now after listening to Ye Changsi's words, he thought for a few seconds and finally understood what was going on.

For a moment, disappointment and excitement were expressed on his face at the same time: he was very happy that the fog of quantum synchronous communication had been cleared away, but he was even more emotional about TEPA - it would be great if the system could directly provide a unified theory, it must have it!

"You mean... you want me, no, the entire Institute of High Energy Physics to participate in quantum communication?"

"Yes, although what we have now is still very small, it is enough to serve as a stepping stone. In ten years, with the participation of the entire Institute of High Energy Physics, we will definitely be able to master this technology. Its significance is no less than that of TEPA, or even higher. "

"And the Institute of High Energy will also have practical application outputs, and it will no longer be a place that just throws money away."

Wu Yunfeng said this to himself. The practical application output has always been a pain point for the Institute of High Energy. If there can be definite results, of course we must seize the opportunity.

"What are you going to do over there?"

Ye Changsi: "I will find an opportunity to publish an internal reference paper, and then you can lead some people to do some private work through our TEPA cooperation. I estimate that a feasible demonstration experiment can be done in a year or two at most, and then it will be converted into a cooperation immediately. project, let’s get it done together.”

Wu Yunfeng: "Just call me on paper when you go home tonight. I'm very interested in it."

…

Florida.

More than two months have passed since the second failure of the Starship. SpecaX has worked overtime under tremendous pressure to improve the B10 booster and SN20.

But it mainly revolves around the B10 booster. The second-level starship spacecraft is a payload transport vehicle that can travel multiple times. It will also carry people in the future. The design work is very troublesome, and it has not yet been tested into orbit.

The first-stage booster is different. As long as it is successful, the upper stage can be installed at will. For example, the "Centaur VI" being developed by General Dynamics is equipped with three RL-10C high-performance hydrogen and oxygen engines, combined with an overweight booster. It can send 180 tons of payload into low-Earth orbit.

The combination is a giant rocket with a take-off mass of more than 4,500 tons and a thrust of more than 6,000 tons, and the first stage can be recycled - it is very cheap even if it is not recycled.

NACA is now in urgent need of usable giant rockets. As long as the first-stage booster completes all its missions and separates this time, NACA will order 5 rockets at once no matter what the starship is like.

There are currently three in stock in Musk's starship factory, and each one is priced at only US$250 million, and five of them are only US$1.25 billion!

Even adding the very expensive "Centaur VI" upper stage worth 170 million, a complete rocket only costs 420 million U.S. dollars. It has achieved the original SLS plan goal. This is the real SLS!

Moreover, NACA is also very aware that the current mass-produced "Raptor V1" engine costs a whopping US$2 million, and 33 engines only cost more than 60 million. SpecaX can definitely make sufficient profits.

For comparison, Boeing's third SLS is currently costing US$2.5 billion. The comparison is simply terrible.

In particular, the production of starship boosters is very fast, and it is no problem to deliver a rigorously tested first stage in one month.

With it, NACA can compete strongly with the other side of the sea. NACA can still fire a rocket that costs less than 500 million US dollars a month!

Now this highly anticipated starship assembly III stands on the launch pad. All preparations have been completed and it is only waiting for a launch order.

However, there is no sign of Lao Ma in the control room this time. He is still in Washington.

The starship is the same with or without him, but what Washington is discussing is an extremely important project-the aerospace plane.

After Tengyun's first flight, members of Congress were the first to get angry. Some of them were so angry that they roared unwillingly: Those members invested in Virgin Galactic to develop a "space plane" suborbital. The tourist one.

Virgin Galactic originally positioned itself as a low-end market with ticket prices of only US$250,000. As a result, the emergence of the true aerospace plane annihilated the company and completely blocked its business development direction.

Blue Origin, which also assists in suborbital operations, is okay. The Bezos family can afford it and has a lot of business. It is too miserable for a small company like this.

Moreover, after Tengyun came out, those projects that claimed to be "aerospace planes" no longer dared to bear this name. Tengyun directly defined the standard of "aerospace planes are single-stage orbits", and latecomers were not allowed to Just bragging.

This time, Congress took the initiative to immediately build an aerospace aircraft that is more suitable for Yankees' physiques. It must have something full of science fiction, and shamelessly named the project "SSTO".

Although SpecaX does not have aviation technology reserves, it is Aramco’s number one aerospace company and is naturally included in the tender.