The human city, which covers a total area of approximately 2.1 million square meters, is divided into three phases. After the completion of the three phases of the project, there will be a total of 2,000 houses. Based on the average two people living in a house, it can accommodate about 4,000 people.
Comprehensive bases No. 1, 2 and 3 can also carry thousands of people. It can even be said that the number of residences is no longer a limit at all. Because the construction of human cities has clearly shown that human civilization at this moment has the ability to quickly build residences anytime and anywhere.
Then, the biggest bottleneck currently restricting the development of civilization is population.
Countless times, officials in charge of industry came to Zhao Changxing to complain and strongly requested that more industrial people be allocated to industrial zones. The heads of various government departments will also come to Zhao Changxing from time to time and strongly request to add more manpower to their departments. And the reasons were so good that Zhao Changxing couldn't refute them, because those things were real.
The XX production line that could have been put into operation cannot be put on because of lack of people. The XX products that could have been produced cannot be produced because of the lack of people. Factories and equipment that could have been built cannot be built because of the lack of people. These things are real obstacles to the development of civilization.
Even the agricultural department responsible for the planting base and livestock base, and the education department responsible for the Fire spacecraft are strongly requesting to allocate more people.
The graduation season, which occurs every six months, is the most important day for all government departments. Because every time this time, 100 adult graduates will leave the Spark spacecraft and can be replenished in the human base. But Zhao Changxing has always been very strict about this matter. Regarding the allocation of these 100 people, he never looked at how miserable the department head complained, but only looked at whether a certain department could persist.
Are you saying that there are too few people and too much work and you can’t hold on? I'm sorry, it doesn't count if you say you can't persist, it only counts if I say it. If I say you can still persist, you can persist. I think you still have a lot of potential to tap this year. I won’t add the 100 people to your department for this graduation season.
Really can't hold on anymore? Oh, let’s see, I really can’t hold on anymore… Then add one more person to your department. One person is enough and we can hold on.
Since the establishment of human government, the distribution of adults has been such a process.
But this is only a last resort. The population growth rate is too low and there is really no way.
Now, Zhao Changxing finally wants to concentrate on solving this problem. The main reason why we decided to solve it now is that the level of industrial capability represented by the successful construction of the human city gave Zhao Changxing the confidence.
I don't know how many people cried with joy when they heard that Zhao Changxing finally decided to solve this matter. At this meeting, all participants came to participate with the fullest enthusiasm.
"The main obstacle is the limited capacity of the Spark spacecraft. This limits our population growth rate, which can only be 100 people every six months at most."
No matter how many children people can give birth to naturally, under the iron law that "minors can only stay in the Fire spacecraft in a gravity environment equivalent to that of the Earth", this upper limit cannot be broken under any circumstances. Because there are too many people, the Spark spacecraft cannot accommodate them.
"Then, we have two plans. One is to expand the capacity of the Spark spacecraft, and the other is to build a second nurturing base in space."
This nurturing base for minors must be established in space. Because only in a space environment, the base can create a gravity environment equivalent to that of the earth in the form of rotation. At the same time, because it only serves as a nurturing base, its construction difficulty will also be reduced linearly.
It doesn't even need a propulsion engine. Because of the special environment of Sedna, once an object launched into space has an orbiting speed, its speed will basically not decay, and it can continue to orbit and never fall down.
"A nurturing base with a population equivalent to that of the Spark spaceship would have to be at least 500 meters long and have a total mass of several million tons if calculated based on five circles. This far exceeds our existing projects. ability."
No matter how low the gravity of Sedna is, transporting millions of tons of materials into space is an impossible task at this stage. What's more, this has not yet taken into account specific construction issues, such as whether existing technology can achieve the construction of such a huge space base.
"The plan to build a second breeding base is not feasible. Then, the only plan is to expand the capacity of the Spark spacecraft. Extend its main axis and build more circles on the extended axis."
Zhao Changxing looked at the head of the industrial department. The person in charge of the industrial department immediately stated: "As long as the problem of material transportation can be solved, there is no technical difficulty in extending the main axis and adding circles to the main axis."
The fusion reactor equipped on the Spark spacecraft still has a large margin, and people do not need to consider energy issues. The extension shaft is connected to the main shaft, and there is no need to consider the issue of rotation. It is not difficult to just extend the main shaft and build some shells with radiation protection, heat preservation and impact resistance.
"How much materials are needed to expand the spaceship of the Spark?"
The Director of Industry quickly calculated and replied: "On average, adding a new circle requires 35,000 tons of materials. It can accommodate 700 minors."
To transport 35,000 tons of materials into space, even on Sedna, is still a big project for people at this moment. Besides, there will definitely not be just one new circle added. That doesn't make much sense.
Zhao Changxing pondered: "Can a space elevator be built now?"
Building a space elevator on Sedna is countless times easier than building it on Earth. The reason is that Sedna is too small and its gravity is too low.
If a space elevator were to be built on Earth, its length would have to be at least 40,000 kilometers, and the material strength requirements would be extremely high. But here on Sedna, the length of the space elevator is about 5,000 kilometers. As for the material strength, carbon nanotubes can meet the requirements.
The head of the industrial department smiled bitterly: "Now we can only create carbon nanotubes in the laboratory, and we are still far from large-scale manufacturing."
"Is the electromagnetic gun okay?"
The surface escape velocity of Sedna is about 500 meters per second. Then, through electromagnetic acceleration technology, the relevant materials can be directly accelerated to a speed of more than 500 meters per second, and then they can be launched directly into orbit. In this way, the purpose of transporting large amounts of materials into space can be achieved.
"Our technology, ahem, is still a little behind."
"Does it have to be shipped one by one via spaceship?"
Zhao Changxing was in trouble.
This is obviously unrealistic.
At this stage, the Falcon 1 and 2 spacecraft are the only bridges between the Spark spacecraft and the human base on the surface. In order to transport enough food and clothing for the more than 3,000 minors in the Spark spacecraft, the two spacecraft have been busy all the time, and they really can't squeeze out more transportation capacity.
Thinking of these two spaceships, Zhao Changxing thought of another problem, or hidden danger.
It has to be said that the quality of the two Falcon spacecraft produced by the entire human civilization, striving for excellence and regardless of cost, is really astonishing to people at this moment. Up to now, they have been working intensively for more than a hundred years without a single major failure.
But... with only these two Falcon spacecraft, the connection between the Spark spacecraft and the ground base is still too fragile. Once a Falcon spacecraft malfunctions, people will immediately be dumbfounded. If both ships malfunction, the problem will be even greater.
"Let's just solve this hidden danger." Zhao Changxing felt furious and tapped his fingers on the table, and the government officials immediately returned to silence.
"If the space elevator doesn't work, or the electromagnetic gun doesn't work, then build a spaceship. If the fusion-powered ion thruster spacecraft doesn't work, then build a chemical fuel spacecraft."
The so-called chemical fuel spacecraft is just like the rockets launched by people on the earth many years ago. It generates a large amount of gas through the combustion of chemical fuels such as liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, methane liquid oxygen, and paraben, and ejects it from the bottom to obtain power. That kind of thing.
It's still because Sedna is too small and the gravity is too low. The difficulty of building a chemical-fueled spacecraft is also only one tenth of that on Earth at most.
People looked at each other.
"Isn't this a space shuttle?"
"That's right. It's just a space shuttle that can take off on its own without rocket launch. If ten are not enough, build a hundred. If a hundred are not enough, build a thousand. Even if the ants move, they have to transport the building materials up to me. "
Zhao Changxing was already furious. In any case, the problem of too slow population growth must be addressed.
In today's era, the population is too small so the level of industrialization cannot continue to increase rapidly. If the level of industrialization cannot be improved rapidly, it is impossible to build a larger space nurturing base and increase the population growth rate. These two things have almost become an entangled knot. . And it seems that chemical fuel spacecraft is the only tool that can untie this knot.
The head of the industrial department was full of confidence: "Leader, don't worry, I will do preliminary research right away."
He had no reason not to be confident about this plan.
Although everyone knows that industrial capabilities are still at a low level at the moment, on Sedna, you can jump to a height of several hundred meters with just two kicks, and you can make a pistol and shoot bullets into orbit. , there’s no reason why we can’t even build a chemical-fueled spaceship, right?
But the development of things once again exceeded people's expectations. Less than two months after the head of the industrial department confidently accepted the task, he once again found Zhao Changxing with a grimace.
"Leader, it turns out that our technology really can't even build a chemical fuel spacecraft."
"Our material technology is still not up to standard and we cannot produce qualified materials. The pressure and temperature in the combustion chamber of a chemical fuel engine are too high, and any of our existing materials will deform in that environment..."
Zhao Changxing seemed to be in disbelief. He was stunned for a moment, looked at the person in charge of the industrial department, and repeated the sentence: "Can't even build a chemical fuel spaceship?"
