Chapter 3084 We want more people to realize their dream of flying
Hearing Qin Xinghe's laughter on the phone, Wu Hao smiled at Zhang Jun opposite him, and then said in a gentle tone: "Of course, in addition to performing this kind of uplink and downlink cargo transportation, as well as on-orbit inspection and maintenance of space orbits,
In addition to work, this multi-purpose orbiter will also be used to transport people in and out of space in the future."
Oh, after hearing Wu Hao's words, Qin Xinghe immediately became interested, and he smiled and said: "Let me just say, this multi-purpose orbiter that you have spent so much effort to build cannot be used for this purpose.
, this is not in line with your usual style."
Hearing Qin Xinghe's teasing, Wu Hao suddenly had black lines on his face, but he still smiled and introduced: "Currently, we mainly rely on spacecraft to travel to and from space. Cargo spaceships are needed to transport goods, and cargo ships are needed to transport people.
Human spaceship.
Of course, there are also some spacecraft that can transport both cargo and people. For example, the Dragon spacecraft built by Musk and our Walker spacecraft. They can be used to carry both cargo and people.
Although universalization has been achieved, there is actually a big difference between the manned model and the cargo model of the Dragon spacecraft or our Walker spacecraft in the crew cabin and its cargo compartment.
For example, in order to be able to carry more cargo, the freight warehouse has renovated the original manned warehouse and dismantled some of the facilities, equipment and systems that were originally used to carry people and ensure the safety of personnel, thereby maximizing the increase in capacity.
space, reduce weight, and improve cargo loading and transportation capabilities.
After all, it is only used to transport goods, not people. Naturally, there is no need for facilities, equipment and systems to ensure the safety of people's rides and lives.
Therefore, even if it is a kind of spaceship, it is divided into two models, cargo and passenger respectively. Because of the cost, it will not change under normal circumstances.
After all, modifying the cabin structure, facilities and equipment also requires time, energy and capital costs, so save what you can.
In addition, these two spacecrafts have one thing in common compared to other traditional spacecrafts, that is, the crew cabins of these two spacecrafts are also their cargo compartments, and the return capsules can be recycled and reused.
Therefore, in this way, the corresponding cost of the spacecraft can be greatly reduced, thereby saving the cost of a single mission.
But in our opinion, even the adoption of this crew cabin recyclable and reusable technology, including the launch vehicle recyclable and reusable technology, has greatly reduced the cost of a single manned or cargo spacecraft launch mission.
But the overall launch cost is still too expensive, including the cost of the rocket and the cost of launching the spacecraft still cannot meet our expectations.
This is because even though the core first-stage rocket, booster, and fairing of the launch vehicle can be recycled and reused, there are still two-stage rockets in the entire transport rocket that cannot be recycled and reused.
In terms of spacecraft, the crew module, which is also the cargo compartment, can be recycled and reused, but the orbital resource module cannot.
This means that when we carry out a single cargo spacecraft or manned spacecraft launch mission, we will consume the core and secondary rocket of a launch vehicle and the orbital resource bin of the spacecraft.
The combination of the two is a relatively high expense, which seriously limits cost reduction.
Although using this method and technology, we have reduced the cost of launching manned and cargo spacecraft to a level that was previously unimaginable.
But in our opinion, this cost is still too high to be widely used. Therefore, if we want more people to enter space, and if we want to make human space exploration and universe development a reality, we must reduce this cost.
The cost makes it affordable for more people.
So we are thinking about whether we can further reduce the launch cost of this spacecraft and reduce its cost, so that we can meet the needs of more people and let more people realize their dream of flying into space.
If we want to reduce costs, from now on, it is basically impossible to do other parts, so we can only start with the orbital resource warehouse of the two-stage rocket and spacecraft. After all, they occupy a relatively high launch cost, but they are
It is still not possible to recycle the reused parts.
So, we have our Jianmu-2 special experimental launch vehicle.
At present, the Jianmu-2 special experimental launch vehicle has been successfully developed and tested, and has successfully carried out several launch missions. It has performed very well. This makes it the first in the world that can be fully recovered and reused.
The launch vehicle is also the first fully recovered and reusable launch vehicle that can be put into commercial launches.
So relying on this technology, we can indeed reduce the cost of the launch vehicle to a minimum level. Logically speaking, the orbital resource warehouse of the spacecraft can also do the same. Anyway, the technology is similar.
However, we are still not satisfied, because even with the adoption of this recycling technology, the cost has been reduced a lot, but it still cannot meet our requirements.
Then we are looking at whether we can reduce the cost of launching. At this time, we focus on a link that we often overlook, and that is the landing link.
Although recyclable and reusable technology is adopted, these launched rocket stages and the entire spacecraft can be landed again and reused. However, the entire landing process also requires expenses. After all, the recovery of these spacecrafts is also a work.
It’s a time-consuming and labor-intensive process, and it’s not cheap either.
So we are thinking about how to simplify and compress the cost of landing and recycling, and the most direct and effective way is to reduce the number of recycling times. In this way, the cost of recycling will be reduced.
In addition, our technical experts have paid attention to the resource return capsule of the second-stage rocket and the spacecraft, and are thinking about whether the two can be combined into one, so that only one rocket body and one set of propulsion can be used.
The engine and a control system are installed. In this way, wouldn't it be possible to save almost half of the cost.
Coupled with the inspiration of Musk's starship plan, we designed a spacecraft called Civic Starship, which directly integrates the secondary spacecraft and the spacecraft, so that it can orbit into space and can achieve
Return to the atmosphere and land, making it recyclable and reusable.
However, this starship solution is not without its shortcomings, that is, it is too bulky and consumes too much fuel. Not only during the ascent phase, but also during the descent phase, a large amount of fuel is still needed for deceleration. As a result, not only
The fuel required has greatly increased, the cost has skyrocketed, and its fuel consumes a large amount of its own weight, thus greatly reducing its carrying capacity."
