.Chapter 3: The strength of a great country

The most popular thing is the manned moon rocket launched on January 15th.

Since the "Shenzhou 5", manned space flight engineering has always been one of the most important things that Chinese people pay attention to and are one of the most iconic things.

Compared with previous aerospace projects, manned lunar landing projects have attracted more attention.

In 2017, China launched the permanent space station project, and planned to build a permanent space station that can accommodate twelve astronauts to work at the same time, has scientific research and scientific investigation capabilities, and has the ability to support deep space aerospace capabilities by 2035.

The construction of the space station was very smooth. By 2029, five main space cabins had been installed, and the first batch of astronauts entered the space station in 2024. In the following five years, twelve batches of astronauts entered the space station, including eight scientists.

For Chinese people, the space station project is no longer very attractive.

Although in 2025, after the country introduced relevant policies to open commercial aerospace, several companies have begun to engage in related work, claiming that they can carry out "space tourism" projects before 2035, the cost is definitely not low, and the per capita cost is definitely more than 20 million yuan, far exceeding the economic strength of ordinary people. Only the rich people who like to take risks will be moved by it.

For ordinary people, manned projects are undoubtedly more attractive.

Even if it is just a topic of conversation after dinner or even spiritual food, the people are willing to see this more symbolic aerospace project become a reality.

In fact, from the very beginning, manned moon landing was not a government project.

It’s not that the government doesn’t want to do it, but that it can’t afford so much money.

When the project was launched, the government played a leading role, with commercial applications as the purpose, that is, the government only provided policy and technical support, whether manned landing on the moon can be achieved, and whether it can establish a permanent resource mining base on the moon as imagined, must be determined by commercial investment.

Perhaps, this is the fundamental reason why the people support the manned lunar landing project.

Since the government does not pay, there is naturally no problem of spending large amounts of taxes for the "face-saving project", and jobs can be increased through commercial operations.

According to incomplete statistics, by the end of 2029, projects related to manned lunar landing projects had provided 1.2 million jobs, with the annual economic benefits generated by more than 450 billion yuan, and at least 1,800 enterprises in the aircraft benefited from it.

People will naturally support things that are beneficial.

More importantly, manned moon landing is not a separate space project, but is closely related to a major energy project that is enough to change the face of China's economy.

This is a controlled fusion nuclear power plant.

At the end of 2029, China officially released the first technical document related to a controllable fusion nuclear reactor, claiming that it had solved the most important technical problems and was expected to be referred to as the first experimental controlled fusion nuclear reactor in 2032 and meet commercial standards in 2035.

The so-called commercial standard is acceptable in terms of price.

To put it bluntly, the efficiency ratio of a controllable fusion nuclear power plant must reach the level of other power plants, and it is best to exceed other power plants.

In this way, the supply of raw materials becomes crucial.

According to the technical data officially released by China, the first generation of controlled fusion nuclear power plants use not deuterium and tritium, nor ordinary hydrogen elements, but helium elements that can undergo nuclear fusion under lower temperatures and pressures and are easier to control the fusion speed.

To be precise, it is the helium isotope helium 3.

Now, the problem arises.

Helium 3 on the earth is very rare, and even if there are, it mainly comes from the auxiliary products of fission nuclear reactors. If helium 3 is produced by fission nuclear reactors, it is not economically feasible. It is better to directly build more fission nuclear power plants and switch to a fusion nuclear power plant, which is completely redundant.

The manned lunar landing project is directly related to the mining of helium 3 on the moon.

On the moon, there is almost endless helium 3.

According to some scientists, the helium 3 on the moon is enough for humans to use for 10 million years, and it is very rich and easy to carry out industrial mining.

The key is that mining bases must be established on the moon.

Driven by economic interests, landing on the moon naturally became a hot topic.

In the eyes of ordinary people, if they can land on the moon and mine the helium 3 resources on the moon, they won’t have to worry about electricity. If they can reduce the construction cost of controllable fusion nuclear power plants through technical means, they may be able to use electricity for free in the future.

Of course, before that, you must first land on the moon.

On January 15, 2030, the CZ-6 super launch vehicle sent the first part of the manned lunar spacecraft, the lunar orbit vehicle, into the Earth's low-Earth orbit.

This is just the beginning.

In the next three months, the CZ-6 will conduct three more launches, sending the other three modules into low-Earth orbit, and assemble into a manned lunar rocket with a total mass of 150 tons. If everything goes well, the manned lunar rocket will reach orbit around the moon seven days later, and at the latest to complete the feat of lunar landing on April 20.

There were four of the first group of lunar landing astronauts, three of whom would land on the moon, and one stayed in the orbital compartment.

This number of people is one more than "Apollo".

In addition to symbolically landing on the moon and planting the Chinese flag, the three lunar astronauts also have to do something very important: stay on the moon for three days, conduct scientific investigations on the landing site on the moon, obtain data on establishing the lunar base, and bring back rock samples for scientists to study.

After completing the first step, the subsequent moon landing will focus on commercial operations.

According to the official news released by China, in 2031 and 2032, we will land on the moon again to conduct field investigations on the other two sites of the lunar base. After completing the preliminary exploration and inspection work, the first set of base construction equipment will be launched in 2034.

Of course, mining Helium 3 is not that easy.

Although all mining equipment is automatically operated and does not require personnel to operate on the site, it is necessary to handle some work that cannot be completed by machines, such as geological investigations, etc. For this reason, before formally exploiting Helium 3, infrastructure for personnel to live and work must be established on the moon. Because transporting materials from the earth to the moon is very expensive, a complete set of industrial infrastructure is also needed. For example, establishing an electrolytic water plant on the moon to provide fuel for the return launch vehicle and providing domestic water for permanent personnel.

The first batch of helium 3 will not be transported back from the moon as early as 2040.

It must be admitted that from the perspective of engineering quantity, this progress is very amazing, and the efficiency of commercial operation is definitely much higher than that of government projects.

As long as it is profitable, businessmen will race against time.

The deep space aerospace project, which was carried out at the same time as the manned moon landing project, also had a more long-lasting impact.

In October 2029, during the fourth official launch of the CZ-6, China's first Mars exploration rocket left the unprecedented Earth and embarked on a long journey to Mars.

As a result, China became the fourth country (region) to conduct Mars exploration.

Before this, the United States, the Soviet Union (Russia) and the European Union launched probes to Mars.

Although it is a little late, China's Mars project is more challenging. After the Mars rocket arrives in Mars orbit, it will place a landing vehicle on each pole and above the equator of Mars to detect the surface of Mars. In addition, the landing vehicle landing at the South Pole of Mars has the ability to take off again. After completing the exploration mission, it will use a rocket to send the collected 100 grams of rock samples to the orbiter, and finally send it back to Earth by the orbiter's return cabin. From then on, the orbiter will become an artificial satellite on Mars and will continue to work for more than ten years.

That's why China's Mars rocket weighs fifty tons

However, it will be at the end of 2030 that the rocket will reach Mars' low-Earth orbit and send back the rock samples in five years.

There is only one purpose for this: whether there are necessary resources on Mars for humans to survive for a long time.

If there are, such as water resources, and there are oxygen-rich compounds that can be decomposed in the rocks, the next step is to establish a colony on Mars.

Of course, this must have happened decades, or even a hundred years later.

It must be admitted that these aerospace projects are big money-burning players and are also important symbols of national strength.

However, in addition to these highly-watched aerospace projects, there is another project that is unknown.

At the end of 2028, the CZ-6 carried out three launches within a month, sending three sets of large-scale deep space detection equipment weighing 50 tons each into low-Earth orbit.

At that time, many people thought this was a space station project in China.

A month later, the Chinese authorities announced that it was not the space compartment that was launched, but the solar detection rocket, that is, China will conduct the first close-range solar detection activity in human history. According to the official announcement of China, this detection activity is mainly to clarify the internal situation of the sun, provide scientific basis for accurately predicting sunspot explosions in the future, and is a standard scientific research.

But is it necessary to launch a solar detection rocket weighing 150 tons for this?

At that time, some American scholars pointed out that China's solar exploration activities serve the military, and some American news media also provided evidence that the main funds of the solar exploration project came from the parties, and the military intelligence department was responsible for handling the flow of funds.

It’s just that it’s meaningful to do this, even the United States’ “Defense Science and Technology Advisory Committee” cannot explain clearly.

The reason is very simple. Compared with the mass of the sun, the solar detection rocket is too insignificant and it is impossible to have any impact on the sun's activities.

Some Western scholars even believe that China's solar exploration activities will inevitably end in failure.

Only a very small number of people, including Mu Haoyang, were outsiders at that time, even the head of state Yi Yuanchao and Premier Li Pingko of the State Council. According to Huang Zhibo's arrangement, they only reported to the head of state and the prime minister after the detection achieved a successful result. If the detection failed, or if Qian Zhongtai's model was proved to be wrong, this is just a scientific exploration that has nothing to do with the military.

What the result will be known in two months...

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Chapter completed!