In the eyes of outsiders, Wu Hao and the others are indeed very stingy, but for them, especially those engaged in technology, cost control is often one of the most important factors that determine the success of a project.
No matter what technology or product, it is inseparable from cost control. The key to deciding whether to continue to develop this technology is actually cost control, that is, capital investment. Whether the funds you have prepared can support this technology
If too much money is invested in research and development, resulting in high costs, then it will be difficult for the products to be competitive in the market.
Therefore, cost control of related technology research and development projects has always been the focus of Wu Hao and others. This is especially true in the field of aerospace technology.
The aerospace field is a high-tech industry with high investment, high risks and high returns. The initial investment is very huge. Therefore, cost control must be particularly strict. Otherwise, funds will not be fully utilized and no matter how much investment is made, it will be in vain.
Moreover, investments in this field generally need to last for many years before they will gradually bear fruit. Therefore, the early stage greatly tests the affordability of enterprises. This is a technology- and capital-intensive industry. The development of technology depends entirely on capital investment, and there is no
Funding is absolutely impossible. Therefore, Wu Hao and the others have been prepared for a protracted war from the beginning, and are naturally relatively strict in terms of funding and cost management.
In addition, for their commercial aerospace projects, the most important thing about commercial aerospace is cost control. If the research and development costs are too high, then the market competitiveness of their aerospace products will not be strong, and they will have no competitive advantage compared to the government and other companies.
In addition to strictly controlling R&D investment costs, they must also control the cost of the product itself. This is why they vigorously develop retractable aerospace products, such as retractable and reusable rockets, fairings, and reusable spacecraft return capsules.
etc.
Take this time the Walker manned spacecraft as an example. The Walker manned spacecraft is divided into two parts, namely the return capsule and the service module. The service module is not recyclable and is mainly responsible for the power of the spacecraft.
part and the energy and resource supply part. When the return capsule returns to Earth, the service module will detach from it, then slowly descend, and finally fall into the atmosphere and burn up.
The return capsule that carries astronauts can also be called the crew cabin and is reusable. Most new spacecraft can now do this. Through modular design, the return capsule can land and undergo relevant maintenance before proceeding to the next mission.
The same is true for the return capsule of Wu Hao's Walker 2. Their outer surface uses a removable modular insulation layer, which is also sprayed with their new insulation material. Under normal circumstances, it can be repaired without maintenance.
After only supervised maintenance, it can be repeated for a second manned space mission.
After inspection and maintenance, it can be reused more than ten times. In this way, the cost of the spacecraft amortized to a single mission will be reduced a lot. This is also a major competitive advantage of their spacecraft, through low prices.
Obtaining some transportation lists of space personnel and materials will also prepare for the next step of developing private space tourism projects.
Low-cost launch technology and low-cost space shuttle technology are the development trends in the field of aerospace technology in the future. Therefore, major aerospace technology companies in various countries are currently engaged in research in this area, and have already achieved very good results.
Who would have thought that the launch cost of a single satellite has dropped from tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands per kilogram to thousands of dollars per kilogram today, which was unimaginable in the past.
At present, some companies have said that they will work hard to reduce the transportation cost of rockets to less than one thousand US dollars. If this is realized, it will undoubtedly further reduce the cost of space travel, and in this way, it will attract more countries
Join with companies to share space dividends.
The reduction in rocket launch costs will also further promote the further reduction in the cost of manned spacecraft, which is different from before. In addition to some official missions, more of the markets currently targeted by commercial aerospace are actually among the private sector.
There are only a few wealthy people among the private sector who spend huge amounts of money to achieve a space trip. Therefore, if commercial manned spaceflight wants to develop, it must further reduce costs, thereby reducing the cost of space travel. Only in this way will more tourists be attracted.
Go on experiential travel.
This is what Wu Hao and the others have to do. On the one hand, they are chasing those colleagues who have already run ahead of them, and on the other hand, they are also moving forward with these colleagues.
Although everyone's time to enter space is long and short, this is not the focus of everyone's attention. What everyone is focused on is to see who can control costs first, thereby seizing this huge market with broad prospects.
It is precisely because of this consideration that, in addition to the conventional manned space projects of the major aerospace giants, some companies have taken a different approach and have not chosen to develop conventional manned space technology projects that are costly. Instead, they have developed technical difficulties and
Lower-cost suborbital space tourism projects.
Suborbital generally refers to the airspace between 20 kilometers and 100 kilometers above the ground, between the highest flight altitude of existing aircraft and the lowest orbital altitude of satellites. It is also called near space or the air-space transition zone.
This height space mainly includes the stratosphere region, the mesosphere region and part of the ionosphere region. Therefore, this region does not belong to the aviation category, nor does it belong to the aerospace category.
Officially because of this, it has great development prospects for intelligence collection, reconnaissance and surveillance, communication support, air-to-ground operations, space tourism, etc.
Let’s not talk about the previous items, let’s talk about the space tourism project. This is one of the main development directions targeted by major aerospace technology companies. They will send tourists to an altitude of about 100 kilometers through rockets or airborne spacecrafts.
The flight lasts for ten or dozens of minutes, and then returns to Earth.
Why is it controlled at 100 kilometers? Because this altitude is exactly the von Karman line. The so-called von Karman line is currently recognized by most as the dividing line between outer space and the earth's atmosphere. And at this altitude, people can basically
Being in a microgravity environment is what we call the feeling of weightlessness.
The main space tourism project promoted by these commercial airlines to tourists is to travel into space and experience weightlessness.
Compared with other feelings in space, weightlessness is obviously the most felt and one of the characteristics of space, so it has also become a marketing gimmick for these commercial suborbital tourism space companies.