Homo sapiens

July 15th, the first year of Xinghe.

Europa.

City of Munich.

Conde von Markus, the administrator of the Europa Space Development Agency, who is the host, is receiving Bill, the head of the space agency of the Free Association.

In addition to Bill, there were also members of the Free Association, many people related to the aerospace industry, and many entrepreneurs also arrived.

This kind of thing is naturally indispensable for the Space Exploration Company, the main force in the aerospace industry of the Free Association. Musk even went to Munich in person.

Musk glanced at Blue Origin President Duke Jin who was sitting aside: "Brother, you don't think this cooperation negotiation will be successful, do you?"

"Mr. Musk really likes to joke." Jin Duke replied with a smile, obviously he didn't want to answer this topic.

Musk showed a hint of cynicism: "The photo was all smiles, but it's a pity that Bill's idea is too naive."

At this time, on the stage, the leaders of Europa Space Agency, Free Association Space Agency, Lucia Space Department and other four parties were smiling and holding hands under the media spotlight, as if we were all one family.

Those who didn't know it thought they were close partners.

However, in the past few years, they were still at odds.

It can only be said that the pressure brought by Homo Sapiens Company has forced these guys to put aside some of their previous unpleasantness and focus on the future.

The four people on the stage, Bill and Conde, dealt with the questions from the news media reporters in a formulaic manner.

But Musk in the audience already looked impatient.

He then focused on Koichi Sato, the president of Japan's Fuji Heavy Industries: "Does Fuji Heavy Industries also have an aerospace industry?"

Facing his own son, Sato Koichi was very respectful and nodded slightly: "Mr. Musk, our company has recently acquired part of the aerospace industry."

"What's worth acquiring about that garbage? You might as well invest in my space exploration company." Musk half-joked.

"Haha... We are just looking at the bargains, and those companies have some relatively unique technologies, such as the Dalin Group's super high-rise construction technology..."

Musk raised his eyebrows: "Dalin Group? Is that the company that plans to build a space elevator?"

Sato Koichi showed an embarrassed smile: "Yes, but this project is too difficult, and our company has no money to continue investing."

"Now that the length of carbon nanotubes is only half a meter, there is really no need for you to continue investing." Musk said with a look of disgust.

Sato Koichi smiled bitterly.

It is indeed difficult to realize a space elevator at this stage, otherwise the Homo sapiens company would not give up making a fuss about the space elevator project. Although the homo sapiens company still has three research institutes doing related research work, there is no investment at this stage. Plans to build a space elevator.

In this regard, Sato Koichi, who acquired the Obayashi Group Co., Ltd., has the most say. After inspecting the Obayashi Group's space elevator project, he immediately axed this pure money-losing product.

The reason why space elevators are said to be money-losing products is mainly due to three aspects.

The first problem is that the amount of work is huge. Let alone Japan, which is living a dry life now, even the broken ship America with a few pounds of nails still cannot handle the huge amount of work of the space elevator.

The second problem is the issue of cable materials. Currently, the only material suitable for space elevator cables is carbon nanotubes.

Theoretically, the strength requirement of space elevator cables is 90P, while carbon nanotubes can reach 200-800P.

However, the ideal is very full and the reality is very skinny.

Among the major forces, the one with the strongest carbon nanotube processing technology can only process carbon nanotubes half a meter in length.

The length of carbon nanotubes for a space elevator needs to be more than 36,000 kilometers.

0.5 meters: 36,000 kilometers.

This cannot be said to be hopeless, I can only say that the possibility is close to zero.

Even the Homo sapiens company with biosynthesis technology and its affiliated carbon nanotube laboratory can only synthesize carbon nanotubes with a length of 120 to 150 meters, a distance of 36,000 kilometers, which is still four orders of magnitude.

The third problem is corrosion aging.

This problem further raises the difficulty of building a space elevator to another level.

Sato Koichi previously reviewed the relevant test reports of the Obayashi group and discovered this fatal problem, that is, the service life of carbon nanotubes in outer space is less than two years.

Dalin's group once took advantage of Japan's experimental opportunities on the International Space Station to send some carbon nanotubes to the International Space Station for a two-year exposure experiment.

The results were very unsatisfactory. After two years of exposure experiments in low-Earth orbit, the carbon chains in the carbon nanotubes were corroded by oxygen atoms and were riddled with holes, and their strength dropped to worse than ordinary nylon ropes.

This is also a related laboratory of Homo sapiens. When synthesizing carbon nanotubes and graphene films, they encountered difficulties. The affinity of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen causes the carbon chain to be easily destroyed.

Although the low-Earth orbit is empty, in fact it still belongs to the atmosphere-the extension of the thermosphere, in which there are a large number of oxygen atoms and hydrogen atoms floating around.

And carbon nanotubes easily combine with oxygen atoms, so there is almost no solution to this problem.

What's more, there are various cosmic rays, high-energy neutrons, solar storms, etc. in outer space, which will severely damage the carbon chain.

Unless the cables of the space elevator can be replaced once a year, or a method can be found to resist aging.

After discussing with a group of engineers and researchers, Sato Koichi gave up decisively. It was okay to use PPT to defraud investment in this project, but if it were to be carried out as planned, even 10,000 Fuji Heavy Industries would not be able to carry it.

…

After dealing with the news media.

This time, cooperation negotiations finally entered the stage of closed-door meetings.

There were a total of 362 participants from the core aerospace agencies of the four major powers, plus 27 affiliated aerospace agencies, and 53 important aerospace-related companies.

Bill spoke first: "Everyone, Homo Sapiens has recently deployed a large number of satellites in outer space and built a space city. If we don't work together, we may not have our share in the solar system in the future."

"Cooperation can be considered, but how to distribute it specifically? If it's still the same as before, you'd better play by yourself!" Alexander Piyankovsky, the head of the Lucia Space Department, asked rudely.

Conde quickly came out to smooth things over: "We should indeed discuss the specific distribution, but cooperation is better than developing alone."

Bill stated his distribution plan: "My plan is 4:3:2:1. Free Association 4, Europa Association 2, Lucia 1, and the remaining 3 are for..."

"Haha, why don't you eat them all? Then why don't you just play by yourself?" Alexander Piyankovsky stared at Bill and said nothing.

Musk in the audience shrugged, turned to other business leaders and joked: "Look, this is it? Are you still cooperating?"

The others were silent. Obviously their company was not as important as the Space Exploration Company, and talking nonsense could easily get into trouble.

The gods are fighting on the stage, and they can just watch the show below.

The four parties argued with each other for more than two hours, but still could not reach an agreement. Apparently America's bad record in the past caused the other three parties to have serious doubts about this cooperation.

The scope of cooperation, the investment in financial resources and manpower, the location of the space base, the distribution of results, how to manage it, etc.

There are huge differences on these issues.

The rabble is the rabble.

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