“China will build a large-scale electric vehicle factory in Shanghai, will Tesla enter the game?”
"The news is confirmed! Musk said: Thank you for the opportunity provided by China's officials. Tesla will try its best to promote the development of China's new energy industry and spread advanced design concepts."
"There may be a larger deal behind the Shanghai factory involving SpaceX?"
"Exchanging heavy rocket technology for new energy market opportunities? Is it a profit or a loss?"
"SpaceX news: Will cooperate with China in the field of LITV technology!"
News of the cooperation between SpaceX and China was quickly made public. After all, in an "open" market environment like the United States, it is basically difficult to hide news that can affect the stock price.
The relevant departments in China don't care about this - I have only heard of people who have to keep their own technology secret from others, but I have never heard of people who have to keep technology secret from others.
If that's the case, it's called stealing, not changing.
However, while officials are advancing the plan step by step, public opinion has erupted with many doubts about the content of this transaction.
The core point is, is it worth cutting off a large part of the new energy vehicle market in exchange for LITV technology?
The market for new energy vehicles is huge as can be seen with the naked eye. After all, even if superconducting materials are not considered, almost unlimited nuclear fusion power alone is enough to subvert traditional industries.
What is LITV in comparison?
Ordinary people may only know that this is a technology that can improve rocket transportation capacity, but no one can tell how much it can be improved and what changes it can bring to the world.
——
In fact, even if they are not ordinary people, some technical personnel in related fields are not optimistic about LITV.
On the forum, discussions about this technology have progressed to an extremely professional level.
"LITV technology is actually more like a method to improve the engine's thrust deflection capability. Its core is not in the direction of solid-liquid conversion - of course, I do not deny that this technology has a great impact on solid-liquid conversion. There are certain inspirations, and there are many similar technology modules, but the problem is that it is not that simple to actually implement the application.”
"Even if we can get SpaceX's technology, at most we can solve the problem of liquid propulsion vector control. How to solve the overall complexity? How to solve the liquid supply and storage system? How to solve the efficiency of the additional load of the equipment?"
"I have had some exchanges with SpaceX before, and as far as I know, these problems have not been resolved so far."
"So from the perspective of astronauts, I think we still suffered a loss in this exchange."
After the netizen whose avatar was a space cat posted this post, other people in the forum quickly followed up, and their words were much more intense than those of the space cat.
"It's not a relatively big loss, it's a huge loss."
"LITV itself is a trap technology. Otherwise, SpaceX would not have suddenly marginalized this project after five years of development and turned to research on rocket recovery technology."
"It is not a question of whether it is feasible or not. Of course, objectively speaking, as long as you are willing to spend money, this thing can definitely be built."
"However, from a technical perspective, its marginal benefit is less than its marginal cost. Frankly speaking, this thing makes no sense."
"If the domestic new energy market is really used in exchange for LITV, I think the official is really stupid. But the problem is, I think the official can't be that stupid at all."
"So, there is a high probability that this is just a smokescreen. Who knows what kind of deal is behind it."
This comment provides netizens with a brand new perspective, and thinking from this perspective, things seem to become less difficult to understand.
Yes, LITV is indeed worthless, but in exchange, is it really just the technology itself?
Perhaps, there is a bigger chess piece behind it that has not been dug out.
Of course, if you think about it carefully, even if you exclude LITV and only look at the so-called Shanghai factory, it is actually far less of a loss than some people subconsciously think.
With Tesla’s aggressive entry into China, can it really take away much of the market?
Perhaps, it is more like a catfish that was actively released in order to stir up the water.
After all, although the core technologies of electric vehicles are indeed batteries and motors, this does not mean that it is enough for a vehicle to move and run.
In the final analysis, it is a commodity, and commodities have to cater to the market, and at this point, Tesla does a good job
As a result, the wind direction immediately reversed.
The so-called "big flag theory" gradually spread, and even Musk, who was far away in the United States, saw these comments.
In the NASA office, he smiled and said to Nelson while paddling the tablet in his hand:
"These Chinese netizens are really interesting. They have probably won too many times and have developed some kind of inertia?"
"It was obviously just a simple business transaction, but it was made as if we were deceived."
"In fact, the benefits we gain from entering the Chinese market far exceed their imagination."
After hearing his words, Nelson shook his head helplessly.
He actually does not agree with Tesla's deep integration with China, because once this factory is completed, at least 50% of Tesla's profits will be locked in it.
As a politician, he understands better than Musk that in many cases, what can influence the direction of a company is not equity, but "control."
After all Tesla’s chips are invested in China’s gambling table, will Musk have any other choice?
Yes, you may keep winning, and you may keep getting what you call "profits", but what if these benefits cannot be taken off the gambling table?
Then what it represents is just a nice-looking number.
However, he had no way to tell Musk this.
The position has changed - NASA is no longer the sponsor, and it no longer has the power to "suggest".
So, instead of picking up Musk's topic, he asked:
"So is LITV technology really meaningless? Is it possible that they can really develop practical technology based on cooperation and achieve leapfrog development of aerospace technology?"
"How is it possible that LITV technology is a dead end?"
Musk shook his head mockingly and continued:
"In fact, all countries are engaged in LITV. After all, its potential is indeed great."
"However, projects launched at the same time as SpaceX have basically died."
"The reason is simple: we have reached the end of the road."
"But China has not yet - their aerospace technology is more than 20 years behind ours, so they naively think that we can't do it just because we are not good enough."
"They are just toddlers who can't listen to adults' advice."
"But that's good news for us, isn't it?"
"The more mistakes they make, the greater our chances are. If we can land on the moon before them, maybe we can get back everything we lost before."
"Indeed."
Nelson nodded heavily.
In fact, at this stage, the competition between the two sides on the matter of "landing on the moon" has long been no longer a pure technical dispute, but has been endowed with additional symbolic meaning.
This is a "bodybuilding competition" with the moon as the stage. Those countries that are still wavering and hesitant are waiting for the results of the competition, and this result will determine their final choice of camp.
China, which has mastered new technologies, or the United States, which has laid a solid foundation in the old era?
Nelson suddenly felt that the situation in front of him seemed familiar.
In that cold war, the two poles of the world were also competing to fly into space.
It seems a bit ironic that the ever-changing things on the ground are determined by the bright moon in the sky that never changes.
He sighed and continued to ask:
"No matter what, this is the limit of what we can do."
"We can no longer hinder China's technological development through other means, but can only accelerate the process of returning to the moon as soon as possible."
"Remember, we have to put people up there, we have to have a base on the moon."
"Only when we do this will we truly win."
"I know."
Musk replied:
"The Artemis program will be carried out simultaneously with the return to the moon program, and equipment and personnel will land at the same time."
"After arriving on the moon, the first batch of 'explorers' will immediately begin to build a living base to achieve long-term stationing on the moon. In fact, I am very curious if the Chinese discover that a simple manned moon landing plan has actually transformed into What kind of expression would they have if they heard about the moon base construction plan?"
After Nelson thought for a moment, he suddenly smiled and said:
"They probably won't show any expression because at that time, the most they can do is complete the launch of Chang'e 3."
"They are still not on the same level as us, so they can only applaud us?"
The two looked at each other and smiled, tacitly ending the topic.
Musk looked out the window, where a giant rocket far larger than any previous spacecraft was already under construction.
According to the plan, it will launch its first expedition in about 6 months.
And at that time, it was also the time when my "space journey" began to become a reality.
Chang'an, inside the solid-liquid conversion engine project laboratory.
Li Bingzhong looked at the latest technical document he had obtained, and his brows furrowed with the word "Sichuan".
Opposite him, Rowan also had a bitter look on his face. He kept shaking his head and said:
"The technical documents shared by SpaceX are of much better quality than we expected, but the results are a bit less optimistic."
"They have been working on it for 10 years, but they still haven't been able to solve the vector control problem of the liquefaction nozzle. I even have a little suspicion that this document is fake."
Hearing his words, Li Bingzhong sighed.
"The possibility of fraud is low, and their research path can basically be verified from publicly published papers."
"It can be judged that they have indeed tried many different solutions and have indeed made some progress."
"But the thermodynamic effect inside the solid-liquid conversion engine is too complicated. In layman's terms, it is to stuff a syringe needle into the solid gunpowder of the Sky Monkey, and then use the liquid sprayed from the needle to control the gunpowder. The burning rate and even the burning range of the gunpowder must be adjusted.”
"This is not only a very high requirement for the needle material, but also the control accuracy is even more outrageous. A simple algorithm can no longer meet the demand - you see, in 2011, they even tried to introduce an artificial intelligence system to Carry out real-time agile control.”
"But even so, the effect is ridiculously bad."
"No wonder Russian technicians are generally not optimistic about this direction - we really chose the highest mountain to climb."
"Compared with this direction, the organic propulsion direction is much simpler, but unfortunately it cannot be adapted to our fuel selection."
"There's really nothing I can do. It feels like this is a dead end."
"Although it looks like there is a road, there is a stainless steel gate at the end of the road, and we haven't made the key to this gate yet."
Rowan nodded in agreement and then said:
"To solve the problem of liquid injection system control, we first need to have a more sophisticated monitoring instrument. This alone has exceeded the upper limit of current technology."
"In addition, the complexity of the thermodynamic effects of the solid-liquid conversion chamber has almost reached the edge of a 'chaos-like system'. The computing power of current small computers simply cannot support our intelligent control of it."
"And if you want to go to a mainframe, the load becomes a problem."
"Without a mainframe, the data transmission rate is also a threshold that cannot be crossed."
"I asked how could SpaceX turn to rocket recycling at a time when the technology is almost mature - this technology is simply a trap."
"The early stage is full of flowers, one step at a time, but what comes later"
Luo Wen did not continue speaking, but Li Bingzhong had already heard the pessimism in his words.
The two sat facing each other in silence. After a long time, Li Bingzhong finally asked:
"How is the atmosphere in the project team now?"
"No, two technicians from Russia have already announced their withdrawal. They initially thought we were going in the direction of organic solvents, so they chose to join. Of course, they were originally in the field of organic compounds, so their reasons for withdrawing were actually very good. .”
"But objectively speaking, their withdrawal still dealt a blow to the project team. Even our own people's confidence in this technology has declined."
"We urgently need some small results, but here's the problem: SpaceX has already solved all the problems that can be solved in the early stage."
"If it can't be solved, we won't be able to do anything about it in a short period of time."
Li Bingzhong nodded thoughtfully, tapping his fingers on the table rhythmically. After a moment, he said:
"Even if there is no other way, we can't do nothing."
"Since we have chosen this path, our superiors have agreed to it, and even Xinghuo has expressed support, it shows that this path is promising."
"In this way, you first make a list of our current technical barriers."
"The big deal is, let's just do it one by one. I don't believe it. With so many people, can't they even solve one problem?"
"Understood, I'll hand it over to you as soon as possible."
Rowan replied.
At this time, his mind had quickly gone through all the problems that urgently needed to be solved.
There must be at least twenty or thirty of them.
It seems, not that much?
"Not much indeed."
In the Chengdu office, Chen Nian and Li Bingzhong finished reading the documents submitted by SpaceX almost at the same time.
Unlike Li Bingzhong's pessimism, in his heart he was only secretly happy that he had gotten a big deal.
Needless to say, the scientific researchers in the United States really have a lot of skills.
They have done almost everything they can do, and those so-called barriers are actually just because of the limitations of the times and technology, which prevent them from breaking through.
But now, it falls into my own hands
All problems are no longer problems
(End of chapter)
