The military-industrial scientific research system of the academic master.

Chapter 1280 Space Immigration Test Base?

In fact, when Chang Haonan first said that he was ready to go further based on Mr. Qian's research, Zhou Pingjian was shocked but also a little confused.

But the second sentence that followed immediately made him react:

"Boltzmann equation..."

Zhou Pingjian repeated it in a low voice.

If this topic had not been brought up suddenly, he would have almost forgotten that the person in front of him was also a man who was proficient in both theory and engineering.

Even more so, if it were an outsider who didn’t know the inside story, Chang Haonan’s most famous achievement would probably be winning the first Fields Medal for a Chinese a few years ago…

After all, after that, the other party shifted its focus back to model development, and to some extent disappeared from the public eye.

Now that he is back in action, he is bound to stir up some waves again.

Once a breakthrough is made in the research on the kinetic theory of rarefied gases, it will be of great significance to manned space engineering.

For the time being, at least it can make the spacecraft more controllable during its re-entry into the atmosphere, with more precise landing point and attitude.

If we look at it from a long-term perspective, the atmosphere on the surface of many exoplanets is only a few percent of the Earth's atmosphere or even lower. On these planets, even close-to-Earth flights fall within the scope of rarefied gas dynamics research...

For a moment, Zhou Pingjian's thoughts were completely free, and he began to think about how he should use his positional advantage to follow up immediately after Chang Haonan's research made a breakthrough -

As for the research projects behind this field, any one of them that can be actually implemented will have an influence at the level of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.

The National Science and Technology Progress Award is the key to opening the doors of the two academies and ascending to the level of academician.

As the chief designer of the manned space program, it is only a matter of time before Zhou is awarded the title of academician.

But he is not yet 50 years old this year, and he has so many students under him. He can't just sit there and wait to take over, right?

Now that the opportunity is right in front of us, it is impossible to say that I have no idea at all.

However, Zhou Pingjian's sudden look of lowering his head in deep thought after mumbling something made Chang Haonan on the opposite side misunderstand.

"Old Zhou, do you have any ideas?"

He thought that the former had suddenly come up with some inspiration.

"Oh... not really."

Zhou Pingjian came back to his senses and quickly waved his hands to deny it.

He is an engineer by profession, and his understanding of pure theoretical research such as the Boltzmann equation is basically limited to the application level. He is indeed incapable of giving useful suggestions:

"I just suddenly thought of some things about the project, and I plan to have a good chat with a few students after I go back... After all, after the success of this mission, our external environment in the aerospace field can be said to be completely new, so many of the plans that were decided in the past will have to be changed..."

Chang Haonan had been thinking about near-space detection and didn't pay much attention to the slight weirdness in the other party's tone.

I just heard the other party talking about manned space flight, so I just followed the topic:

"I estimate that at the latest when Tiangong-1 enters orbit and successfully docks, some countries will start to contact you... The number of places for the International Space Station is limited. As long as the channels for foreign exchanges remain unobstructed, no one will reject another possibility..."

On this timeline, due to the increase in resource investment in the aerospace field and the rapid progress in research levels in various fields, the Tiangong-1 project was brought forward to be launched almost simultaneously with Shenzhou VII, and now it has taken shape.

Although its scale and complexity cannot be compared with the International Space Station, as a verification spacecraft for long-term in-orbit residence, its basic functions are relatively complete.

Of course, the reason why Chang Haonan was so confident was largely because in his previous life, the European Space Agency had reached an agreement with China to send personnel to the Chinese space station, and even sent candidates to participate in China's astronaut training.

It was only due to the sudden change in the international situation that it was forced to come to nothing.

However, Zhou Pingjian, from the perspective of 2006, could not be so optimistic:

"After all, there are others who have set a good example in the space station. Even if we speed up our pace, in the eyes of outsiders, we can only be an alternative option that cannot go to the International Space Station... If we really want to maintain our voice in the international aerospace field, then I think we still have to make a splash like we did this time!"

Hearing this, Chang Haonan's eyes changed slightly when he looked at the other party.

After working together for several months, Lao Zhou always left him the impression of being relatively conservative.

I didn't expect that he had such a grand ambition...

Chang Haonan was just about to make a joke when a flash of lightning suddenly occurred to his mind -

As early as the time of soil modification and construction of relay communication constellation, he had a vague idea of ​​landing on Mars.

But this matter was indeed too far away, so apart from asking the Firefly No. 1 detector to obtain some special data, he never took any more specific action.

But now that Zhou Pingjian has taken the initiative to bring this up, he can leave the other party with something to think about:

"Speaking of something that no one else can do...Mr. Zhou, I actually have an immature idea."

Chang Haonan deliberately chose to address the other party by his position so that what he would say next would not sound like a joke.

"Well... it's just idle talk. Academician Chang, just say whatever you think..."

Zhou Pingjian acted as if he had seen all sorts of situations.

In this case, Chang Haonan no longer hides it:

"I'm wondering, after the long-term manned space station in low-Earth orbit is verified, is it possible for us to consider building an experimental space immigration transit base at a location farther away from the Earth?"

"Cough cough cough-"

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The topic was so jumpy that it was beyond Zhou Pingjian's expectations. He was choked for a long time before he managed to catch his breath.

"Space migration?"

He stared at Chang Haonan's face for a while, and finally confirmed that the other party was serious.

But not only in the three-step strategy of manned space flight, even in future plans, this program has never been mentioned.

"Oh... Of course immigration is a gimmick. Its main functions are to verify the ability of human beings to survive in outer space for a long time, and to serve as a starting point or transit station for traveling to extraterrestrial bodies such as the moon or Mars, greatly reducing the requirements for a single transport capacity."

Having said that, Chang Haonan paused for a moment, allowing the other party to digest what he had said, and then continued to explain:

"You know, the gravitational and atmospheric perturbations in low-Earth orbit are very serious, and the Earth's shadow is long and frequent, which is actually not suitable for long-term operation of spacecraft... On the contrary, orbits farther away are easier to maintain. Although it is inevitable that the cost of transporting personnel and materials will be higher during the construction process, considering that the operation consumes less energy, the maintenance cost after completion will not be particularly exaggerated..."

"Etc., etc……"

The time Chang Haonan had just left was obviously not enough, so Zhou Pingjian quickly reached out and stopped him from continuing:

"Academician Chang, what you meant just now is that in order to minimize gravitational and atmospheric perturbations, we also need to obtain longer and more continuous sunshine time..."

Chang Haonan nodded.

"That means, this space...space immigration test base cannot be built in low-Earth orbit, nor can it be built in geosynchronous orbit or lunar orbit?"

Zhou Pingjian had come to his senses by now.

He has realized that the other party's ideas may be bolder than he had previously thought.

"That's right..."

Chang Haonan continued to nod:

"Besides the two factors of perturbation and sunshine time, the speed increment required for geosynchronous orbit transportation is at an inflection point, and even compared with farther space, it does not have a particularly significant advantage. As for the lunar orbit... it did not meet the requirements of being a deep space exploration transit station from the beginning."

After all, Zhou Pingjian was an experienced veteran in the aerospace industry. He was so shocked that he lost his ability to think for a short period of time.

Now, after a period of buffering, I finally understood what Chang Haonan meant:

"The remaining feasible options are probably only the Earth-Moon Lagrange point..."

Chang Haonan smiled as if to say "you still understand me" and added:

"Strictly speaking, it is point L4."

As he spoke, he pulled out a piece of paper from his briefcase and drew a simple diagram:

"In the Earth-Moon gravitational system, the L4 point is an absolute equilibrium point with stable oscillations. Even considering the influence of other celestial bodies such as the Sun, the stability here is much higher than other positions... Of course, the L4 point of the Sun-Earth system may be better, but it may not be feasible in the short term..."

"Anyway, I have calculated before. If we construct a quasi-periodic orbit near the actual L4 point orbit and set the initial position deviation and initial velocity deviation to 10^-6, then we only need to perform power control every less than five days. The total energy consumption for orbit maintenance calculated based on a five-year position period can be reduced to 0.3m/s, which is almost negligible..."