Chapter 244: Fight for the chance of only 1%

This time, Guangjia Aerospace sent people to America in order to find ways to gain benefits.

Get as much information as you can about Blue Origin's BE-4.

Guangjia Aerospace never expected Blue Origin to sell its engine technology. Even if Blue Origin was willing to sell it, the White House would not allow it.

I'm not that stupid yet.

Anyone who dares to do this will be killed in the street.

"BE-4 has never failed, it is very successful." Blue Origin engineers obviously couldn't bear it.

Unlike SpaceX, Blue Origin's research and development mechanism is more similar to that of the China National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Both must ensure that everything is foolproof on paper and conduct a large number of ground tests before launching.

Zhou Jin raised his eyebrows: "Oh really?

I remember seeing a BE-4 explosion video on Youtube two years ago.

There was no launch, an explosion occurred at the base."

"That can't be considered a failure. It's still in the ground verification process. Our official launches have never failed, and we have successfully achieved the expected goals every time." The other party also began to become impatient.

Because in his opinion, Zhou Jin was just making trouble and trying every possible way to get information about BE-4.

“No, no, no, BE-4 completed all the preliminary preparations in 2017, but you said it was still doing ground verification two years ago in 2023?
Can I understand that if we allow for explosions in every plan we make, we will be able to achieve our intended goals every time?

Then I think the Pathfinder 1 rocket we delivered to Blue Origin will not have any risk of failure to deliver, because it will definitely meet our "expectations" for it. " Zhou Jin emphasized the last "expectation", expressing his contempt for Blue Origin's insincerity.

Lies don't hurt, truth is the knife.

The fact is that Blue Origin is seriously behind schedule in rocket development. Originally, Blue Origin's self-developed New Glenn, equipped with the BE-4 engine, was scheduled to be launched in early 2020.

As a result, it was not until last year that the launch was completed.

The engineers looked at each other in bewilderment, and then the person in charge stepped forward and said, “You only told part of the truth.

It's not the whole picture.

At the beginning, BE-4 was only for internal use within Blue Origin, and we did complete all verifications under the circumstances at that time.

But later Blue Origin received orders from NASA and the Department of Defense.

Their new Vulcan Centaur rocket will be powered by Blue Origin's BE-4 engine.

We will then have to conduct new tests and verifications based on new requirements, which is a long process.”

These are all public information. The Department of Defense and NASA have high hopes for the Vulcan Centaur, hoping that it can not only help NASA realize its dream of returning to the moon, but also take on some military launch functions.

It is precisely because of this that Zhou Jin is particularly interested in BE-4, or rather, Light Armor Aerospace is very interested in it. Apart from BE-4, there is nothing else in the entire Blue Origin that Light Armor Aerospace covets.

"So how do you avoid the self-pressurization phenomenon caused by using liquid helium during the design and subsequent production testing process?"

Of course, what they are most concerned about is not the design concept of BE-4. The design concept is everywhere on the Internet. What they need is the synthesis path of some special alloys and the data during the testing process.

The former can help them improve the upper limit of the engine. Some good design ideas that were not practical in the past due to material limitations can now be used after breakthroughs in materials.

The latter can help them avoid some detours.

If we can get the synthesis path of special alloy materials, it will not only be used by Guangjia Aerospace, but also by China. It will also be of great benefit to the engine design of China's bombers.

The military purpose will not be stated openly. Our discussion is purely commercial, but it does not mean that both parties are unclear about it. This is well known.

The technology that Blue Origin obtains from Light Armor Aerospace will be fed back to NASA and the Department of Defense. Similarly, the information that Light Armor Aerospace obtains from Blue Origin will definitely be synchronized with the relevant parties in China.

"Keeping liquid propellant tanks pressurized is one of the most common components of rocket technology, but it's also one of the most difficult."

Pressurizing liquid propellants is not difficult in itself, and this matter has been studied very thoroughly during the space race between America and Russia in the past.

The difficulty lies in the fact that the technical solution is already very mature, and even the slightest optimization is very difficult. It is one of the unknown but extremely important engineering challenges in the field of rocket technology.

The best known method uses an inert gas, typically helium, to accomplish this pressurization process.

"For Falcon 9, they use a carbon fiber composite bottle installed at the bottom of the LOX tank. The cooled helium is circulated through the engine gas generator connection part for heat exchange. After being heated in this link, it enters the liquid oxygen and kerosene storage tanks to ensure smooth pressurization during flight.

The Falcon 9 uses the Soviet Kerolox architecture.”

The engineers at Blue Origin were very cunning. They refused to talk about the technical solution of BE-4 and instead talked about the technical solution of Falcon .

If there is a leak later, it will not be us who leaked it, because the technical solution of Light Armor Aerospace is different from that of Blue Origin.

"According to the information we have received, the Starship uses self-generating augmentation technology, while the Falcon 9 uses purely mechanical valves to do this.

It seems that their starship uses a new self-pressurization technology. "Zhou Jin quickly caught the other party's potential thoughts and revealed a piece of information to the other party.

As SpaceX's latest technology, Starship's specific technical details are rarely exposed to the outside world.

This sentence immediately aroused the interest of Blue Origin engineers: "How did they do it?

Would the savings in helium be achieved by increasing the complexity of the helium pressure system?

"I guess so, otherwise they wouldn't have such a high thrust-to-weight ratio."

After a while of whispering, the engineers of Blue Origin were secretly surprised by the information that they didn't know. However, Guangjia Aerospace, far away in China, knew it. Aren't there only two possibilities?

One is that Guangjia Aerospace and SpaceX maintain a high degree of mutual trust, and the other is that Guangjia Aerospace has people inside SpaceX.

Considering that SpaceX is just like them, and even SpaceX is monitored much more strictly by the American side, they don't think that because of the personal relationship between Musk and Wright, SpaceX will reveal such critical information to Light Armor Aerospace.

"According to our intelligence, SpaceX is using heat monitoring in the heat exchanger to determine the level of helium pressurization.

Since heat exchanger heat varies with engine valve and throughput, you are correct that they do add to the complexity of the pressure system.
Starship uses a regenerative cooling loop around the combustion chamber to heat liquid methane and liquid oxygen into gaseous methane and oxygen to pressurize the associated tanks.

This design idea cannot be used on other kerosene engines because kerosene is not a cryogenic liquid and the same operation on kerosene will not make it boil. "

"Old Zhou, how do you know the design ideas of the starship engine? I don't know anything." Lin Tianmin still remembered Zhou Jin's eloquent performance during the morning communication. He asked curiously after returning to the hotel in the evening.

Zhou Jin said, "I don't know." He said this as if it were a matter of course.

Lin Tianmin was stunned for a moment: "Then those people from Blue Origin you mentioned this morning were stunned.

I have carefully observed that the engineer sitting in the farthest corner has a laptop in his hand and never stops writing down what you are saying. How can they not hear you if you are fooling them?"

Zhou Jin laughed and said, "Haha, you're talking about this. This is a possible design idea for the Raptor engine of the starship that the God of Light mentioned when we were communicating privately.

The God of Light has told us about four types.”

If Lin Tianmin heard this for the first time, he would think that this person was not a human being. But now that he has been working in Guangjia Aerospace for such a long time, he will just think it is normal after hearing it: "Oh."

“I had only been at Light Armor Aerospace for less than half a year at that time, and I was skeptical about the design proposed by the God of Light. Of course, there was no problem from a theoretical perspective.

What about the implementation of the specific plan? There may be no problems, or there may be all problems.

Take the design of the helium cooling system for example. It has very high requirements for the material's corrosion resistance and high temperature resistance. Considering the overall weight, a trade-off must be made between the two.

I asked Blue Origin not only to see their reaction, but also to see whether American's technical reserves in the field of materials are sufficient to realize such a plan.

Now it seems that they really don't have any big problems.

That group of people didn’t raise any questions this morning.”

Zhou Jin’s logic is: Although Blue Origin and SpaceX are different companies, there is a large overlap in their suppliers. If there is a problem with such a plan, Blue Origin will definitely be aware of it.

There can't be any special alloys. The supplier only provides them to SpaceX and not to Blue Origin. You should know that Blue Origin is also a commercial aerospace company deliberately supported by NASA.

In a sense, it can be regarded as a model project set by America for the world.

Blue Origin is not as famous as SpaceX, simply because its management level is not as good as Musk's.

“Welcome to SpaceX.”

Unlike at Blue Origin, where a group of engineers came to entertain them, when they arrived at the SpaceX headquarters building, Musk personally came to greet them.

"I have a very good relationship with Wright. We have a lot in common. I welcome colleagues from the Light Armor Aerospace industry to visit SpaceX for exchanges. I believe we can cooperate in many areas."

Musk was very enthusiastic, so enthusiastic that it made the SpaceX employees watching feel uncomfortable.

"If I didn't know who Wright was, I would have thought Wright was here in person. The boss doesn't look like this at work."

"If Wright came in person, then the people waiting here might not be Musk and us, but the 'staff' in black uniforms."

"That's right. When I get home tonight and upload this video to Reels, there will definitely be a lot of people who like it."

"Of course, there are Light Armor Aerospace and Elon, which are both hot spots."

Reels is a short video application that replaced TK after TK was launched in the American market. It is backed by Facebook and Instagram.

Musk took a group of people from Light Armor Aerospace to visit SpaceX's office and introduced the current progress of the starship. Some of the staff around stood up to take photos and videos with their mobile phones, while others pretended to work.

Lin Tianmin complained to Zhou Jin in Chinese: "Old Ma really values ​​us."

“Of course, even if we don’t consider Lao Ma’s personal relationship with the God of Light, he still has to entertain us well.

After all, Starship is counting on our space station project to make it a huge profit."

There are not so many launch demands in the global commercial space industry. NASA should contact SpaceX for its launch needs, while China should contact the China National Space Administration or Guangjia Aerospace for its launch needs.

There is no possibility of overlap between the two sides.

Even if Blue Origin seeks a deal with Light Armor Aerospace, it is only buying technology, not transportation orders.

The two sides are like small towns that do not interfere with each other, and there is no overlap in trade. This barrier is even more serious than the Internet.

If American Internet companies are willing to abide by Chinese laws and regulations, they can still enter the Chinese market.

But no matter how SpaceX complies with laws and regulations, it cannot get the Chinese market. Not to mention the official Chinese market, even the launch orders from Chinese state-owned enterprises are unlikely to be given to SpaceX.

Therefore, Starship has an ultra-low launch cost and an ultra-large single-launch payload, but there is no market.

Since France bought the Pioneer 1, European orders have also dropped sharply.

The Starship's payback is entirely dependent on the Starlink demand created by SpaceX itself.

Profitability is a long way off.

Can Starlink really replace global network communications and become a mainstream telecommunications service provider? Unrealistic.

Therefore, before humans leave the earth, SpaceX can forget about making huge profits and creating a wealth myth like Tesla.

It was not possible originally, but it became possible after the advent of light armor aerospace.

Guangjia Aerospace's space station plan may involve sending a large number of modules into space.

According to the scale mentioned by Chen Yuanguang in the interview, it is enough for Starship to be launched and operated from now until the next generation of reusable rockets appear.

Therefore, even if he knows that the possibility is one percent, Musk has to try to see if he can get a piece of the pie from the light armor aerospace industry.

After all, on the surface, Guangjia Aerospace’s own Pioneer series of rockets have not yet had a next generation.

Starship still has a very obvious advantage in cost.

"Of course, the advantage of Starship lies in the transportation cost. The transportation cost to low-Earth orbit is as low as two thousand dollars per kilogram.

If we calculate based on the weight of a single module of the space station being 30 tons, the cost of launching the space station module using Starship would be million US dollars.

If you launch a hundred modules, it will only cost $60 billion.” In the conference room after the tour, Musk talked a lot about Starship.

“Think about it, this cost is already low enough, but there is still a lower cost, our goal is to reduce the launch cost to $10 per kilogram.

That means if you launch 100 modules, it only costs $3000 million.”

"Sir, this is the target."

“Yes, this is the goal, but I believe that with the cooperation of Light Armor Aerospace and SpaceX, this goal can be achieved soon.

We provide technology and actual launch capabilities, and Guangjia Aerospace provides orders to help the starship continue to iterate. I estimate that this goal should be achieved in about ten times."

(End of this chapter)