Chapter 198 This is Wright!

Brussels' first interest has never been Europe, but America.

There are so many puppets in Brussels that even though the European Space Agency is in Paris, they still have a hard time dealing with space affairs.

"I can't understand what she means. Our cooperation with China is fruitful. After this cooperation, we will successfully have a complete module, just like America and Russia. We can use this module freely and let astronauts perform various tasks in space.

This is not only a major step forward for France in the space industry, but also a victory for the entire Europe.

France is the largest sponsor of Europe's space program. We will continue to actively provide services to European countries in the new space station project, and we also welcome European countries to join our space station program."

If you look at the budget of the European Space Agency, you will find that France ranks first. They are the largest sponsor of Europe's space industry.

In the past, Europe's only heavy rocket launch capability was France's Ariane 5 rocket.

Now that Ariane 5 has been retired, if it weren't for Pathfinder , the whole of Europe would lose its heavy rocket launch capability.

In this context, the European Commission did not think about quickly promoting the development of Ariane 6. Instead, it thought it was a good thing because it could hand over all of Galileo's remaining satellite launch projects to SpaceX.

This incident also made France very angry. The European Commission directly put the matter on the table and stated it openly, which was indeed a bit too disrespectful.

After the news was passed back to China, the leaders of Pengcheng were both helpless and angry. Originally, Guangjia Aerospace had already placed its R&D center in Pengcheng, and Chen Yuanguang was also in Pengcheng. The headquarters in Shenhai was only in name only, and the actual headquarters was in Pengcheng.

In the end, they were forcibly moved out of Pengcheng and returned to Shenhai.

The large order signed by Guangjia Aerospace clearly shows the potential of the commercial aerospace sector, and that this potential is gradually being realized. In the future, the market surrounding commercial aerospace will be at least worth hundreds of billions of yuan, and it will be an authentic high-end manufacturing industry.

If Guangjia Aerospace was still in Pengcheng, they would be able to write a sentence in the city development plan without any burden, that they would build Pengcheng into a highland in the field of aerospace.

Now everything is gone, and all the political achievements have gone to Shenhai.

Even this $50 billion order is enough for Shenhai to write about it in its year-end summary.

"It's incredible that Europe is going to build its own space station." Constantine complained while browsing the news.

The International Space Station also has internet access, and the latency is a bit high, but at least browsing the news is not a problem.

When the interference from space rays is not strong, you don't even have to wait for the image to load.

Andre, floating next to him, said, "It's not Europe, it's France."

Constantine said: "Is not France Europe?
Maybe you will be on duty at the French space station in the future.

It's really cheap. You can buy a complete cabin for only 50 billion US dollars. I think our country should not do any research and development on its own, but buy it directly from the Chinese. "

Andre said: "France is certainly not Europe."

The Danes do not share this view.

In the eyes of the Russians, France, the only country without federal garrisons and where Napoleon's iron hoof is still fresh in people's memory, is undoubtedly the representative of Europe.

"Maybe." Constantine was noncommittal.

Andre said: "The price of the Chinese space station, if the overall package price of construction, launch and commissioning is only 50 billion US dollars, I think the European Space Agency can place an order directly.

After all, it took us five years and tens of billions of euros to develop something, and we still have to spend 20 billion euros to ask SpaceX to help us send it up.”

Generally speaking, the launch of a space station is very complicated and requires assembly after multiple launches to build a complete module.

Europe currently does not have this launch capability, but SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft can, but it is so expensive that the total price for nine launches is as high as $9 billion.

Therefore, in their view, even a price of US$50 billion is too cheap.

If the two astronauts knew that the price had to be discounted by 4%, they would think that the Chinese were doing charity.

“I read in Le Figaro that it should include the launch.

The Chinese have made great progress in science and technology, while Russia has not only stagnated, but is even regressing." Constantine's tone was full of helplessness.

"There are only two countries in the world competing, right?" said Andre.

Constantine obviously disagreed with Andre's words: "No, we haven't given up either, and France doesn't seem to be reconciled to its current position."

Andre didn't dwell on this topic too much, and changed the subject: "Don't you think Wright Chen's appeal is somewhat amazing?
Wright Chen had no experience in building a space station, but France had no doubts about paying $50 billion to buy a space station from them.

Not only did France have no doubts, but most of the world's media did not have any doubts about whether Wright Chen could complete the delivery.

It's incredible how much attention has been focused on the offer, the impact, the American reaction.

Even before SpaceX's success, public opinion was full of doubts.

In my opinion, the construction difficulty of the space station will not be much less than the starship currently being built by SpaceX.

While Starship had many doubts about its success, Wright's space station did not."

Constantine nodded: “You are right, this is Wright’s influence.

No one thought he would fail until he failed.

After all, compared with Wright, Musk's halo seems not enough.

I saw someone on Twitter questioning whether Wright could build a space station, and the comment with the most likes was, "This is Wright!"

For Chen Yuanguang, after the completion of Guangjia Aerospace's launch mission, their launch mission this year will be successfully completed.

The usage data of the human hibernation equipment on the International Space Station will be transmitted back to them synchronously, and he can also use this data to adjust the human hibernation equipment.

As for sending human hibernation equipment to China's space station, Guangjia Aerospace plans to do so in the first quarter of next year.

"Our last task this year is to complete the preliminary design of the space station.

Let me take charge of this project.

Because it is too complicated, and we don’t seem to have found any engineers or researchers with experience in building space stations.” Chen Yuanguang said at a meeting of middle and senior management within Guangjia Aerospace.

China has only just made breakthroughs in space station technology, and the relevant personnel are the core backbone of China's aerospace industry. They are so irreplaceable that they cannot be poached at all.

In other words, China will not give you the opportunity to poach people.

The Rockets are equally important, but after all, the Rockets have so many years of history and have cultivated a complete team. The talent echelon of each age group is very complete.

Even if someone is poached, there will always be someone new to take his place.

The space station is completely different.

The leaders of each group present breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this.

Because none of them had the confidence to take on such a huge task alone.

They have internally budgeted 100 billion RMB for this project, and the total cost of the project is 100 billion RMB, including the French section. The project is expected to be completed in 2026, so the pressure is huge and everyone has no experience.

If the mission is forced upon him, even 007 probably won't be able to complete it.

Chen Yuanguang took the initiative to assume responsibility, and everyone felt unconditional trust in him. They knew that if they couldn't handle it themselves, Chen Yuanguang would definitely be able to handle it.

“We have previously dismantled some of the space station’s tasks and assigned them to others.

I have also read everyone's plans, project management and project ideas.

I should have seen every one of them.

The idea of ​​building a space station is roughly similar to that of the International Space Station. We first launch a module that provides power, storage space, propulsion and positioning.

Then based on this module, slowly add other modules.

I think this idea is fine because it's been proven, as it was done on the International Space Station forty years ago.

This will also help us test our docking capabilities in space.

The docking capability in space is related to whether the accuracy of the control system and communication system is high enough, which will be beneficial for us to launch and recover mining spacecraft during future space mining.

The most core issue we need to think about now is that the International Space Station has many modules. If we build a space station based on theirs, which modules should we cut off and which modules should we add?

I expect the space station we build this time will become a behemoth over time.

Even like a satellite city in Earth orbit.

Therefore, we must lay a solid enough foundation for it.

My expectation for it is that in the future all cargo transfers and mining transfers in the universe will be carried out in our space station.

We now need to use our imagination to decide what to add and what to take away.

Everyone’s thinking doesn’t need to be limited to the present, but can take a longer-term view.

We can take all of that into account when we think about how technology will evolve over the next thirty years.”

After Chen Yuanguang finished speaking, the researchers at the Guangjia Aerospace Headquarters began to whisper to each other on the other end of the video conference. They were all aerospace practitioners, and they chose this path naturally because they had the ideal of pursuing the stars and the sea.

Now Chen Yuanguang tells everyone that what we are going to build is not just a space station. In the future it will become a city and a window to space mining. What a great cause this is.

We will all be personally involved in this great cause, how can we not be excited.

Having worked with Chen Yuanguang personally, I no longer doubt whether Chen Yuanguang can do it. Instead, I feel that Chen Yuanguang is too modest in many cases.

“God of Light, I think what we need to consider most is energy and computing power.

Ultimately, for future space mining, we will definitely need to rely on robots rather than manual labor.

Japan, which currently has experience in space mining, mines non-metallic asteroids. Even for such asteroids, they obtain some solid matter using methods similar to explosions.

Our mining target is metallic asteroids, so in the short term it is only possible to complete the mining by means of explosions. This also means that we cannot use manual methods and must use robots to perform the work.

This involves the need to have sufficient computing power on the asteroid to command the robot nearby.

There must be enough energy to power the robot.

It is impossible for us to rely on computing power on Earth and provide it remotely to space. Our best option is to deploy computing power on the space station.

Therefore, the modules we need to add are computing power modules and more and larger solar arrays to obtain energy.”

Everyone in Guangjia Aerospace calls him Chen Yuanguang, and there are various names for him, such as Guangshen, Boss, Boss, Mr. Chen, etc. Most employees like to call him Guangshen, but middle-level managers rarely call him that.

“I partially agree with Team Leader Li’s views, but I also partially disagree.

I don't think that space will still have to rely heavily on solar energy to provide energy in the future. As small-scale nuclear fission matures, we can send small-scale nuclear fission energy up there.

Energy is provided by nuclear fission.

The solar matrix is ​​just supplementary.

The power module should consist of nuclear fission energy."

Team leader Li immediately said, "I disagree. As early as the 60s, NASA had a project called SNAP, which hoped to develop a nuclear fission reactor for use in space."

NASA solved the mystery of this project some time ago. They used radioisotope thermoelectric generators to generate heat through the natural decay of radioactive elements.

Over the past few decades, it has provided power for dozens of spacecraft, including America's Curiosity Mars rover, which uses nuclear power.

Judging from the current progress, what we need to do is space mining, not space tourism.

Nuclear fission sounds awesome, but the energy it provides cannot be compared with solar energy at all.

Not to mention that in space, solar energy is more stable and efficient.”

“What Mr. Chen just mentioned is the future, we cannot just consider the current technological status.

Small-scale nuclear fission technology has developed very rapidly in recent years, and the construction of our space station is a process that will last for many years.

It will always be under construction, and I think nuclear fission is the solution, and photovoltaics is just a temporary option.”

Everyone was arguing over the energy issue.

These discussions gave Chen Yuanguang a lot of inspiration, and he realized that they could start research in the field of robotics.

Especially a truly humanoid mining robot.

After the meeting, he approached Lin Jia and said, “You can take a look to see if there are any advanced robotics companies on the market. I think we should acquire a cutting-edge robotics company.

Similar to Boston Dynamics.

Space mining is a bit far away within three to five years, but it does not prevent us from preparing in advance.

We are doing research on robots. We may not be able to mine on asteroids in the short term, but we can complete mining tasks on Earth first.”

After listening to this, Lin Jia said, “That’s no problem.

But I have a question after listening today, that is, since our space station will be a transit station for space mining in the future.

It will grow to the size of a city.

From what I understand, it will be a port in the space navigation age, so isn't it a bit too cheap for them to sell half of the land in this port to France for only 20 billion?"

(End of this chapter)