The rise of nanometers

The engineering ship arrived at the waters near Baker Island early because it did not have much load.

The specific location of the ground station of the Jianmu Plan is extending southward from the south beach of Baker Island, which obviously requires land reclamation.

Due to its experience in building the Nansha Space City, the Federation's technology accumulation for the construction of large-scale offshore projects has been quite mature.

However, there is a rigid requirement for the ground station of the Jianmu Plan, that is, it must adopt an integrated building. At the same time, the building must be connected to the underground bedrock to form sufficient stability and weight.

After all, the combined weight of the cable and the synchronous orbiting space station is very staggering.

Based on the density of silicene-supercarbon nanotubes and the diameter of the cable of 3.2 centimeters, the average weight of the cable per kilometer is about 5.6 tons.

The total length of the cable is 35,786 kilometers, and it is still two cables, one up and one down. From this, it can be calculated that the total weight of the cable is 400,000 tons. Adding the 50,000 to 65,000 tons of the geosynchronous orbiting space station, the total weight reaches 450,000 to 465,400 tons. Ton.

The pulling force generated by such a huge weight must be stabilized by a sufficiently large ground counterweight. Otherwise, as soon as the space elevator starts operating, the ground station may be pulled directly into the air, causing an irreversible disaster.

Therefore, the scale of the Baker Island ground station will reach an area of ​​30 square kilometers and an altitude of 3.5 kilometers.

On the one hand, such a huge ground station can provide billions of tons of counterweight, and coupled with the connection to bedrock, it will further improve the stability of the counterweight.

On the other hand, huge buildings can also be used as supporting facilities.

After measuring the location, 30 engineering ships began preliminary construction. They needed to drill holes into the rock formations on the seabed to a depth of 1,500 to 3,000 meters.

Then pipes, rock-forming agents, and a wire network made of silicene-super carbon nanotubes are implanted into the borehole to form a ground pillar connecting the bedrock.

After the construction of the ground pillars is completed, land reclamation and island building can be carried out on the basis of the ground pillars, and some underground buildings can be built at the same time.

These buildings must be connected to the ground pillars to ensure that they are in a unified state, rather than being superficially attached but not actually connected at all.

The last step is to build the Babel Tower to complete this behemoth with a height of 3.5 kilometers.

The construction of the ground station has been completed, and the geosynchronous orbit space station and cables are estimated to be almost completed.

Huang Xiuyuan and a group of engineers estimated the progress of the project based on the current productivity and found that the construction plan could be completed in about three years.

As for the transportation capacity of the space elevator, according to the preliminary designed cable diameter, it is estimated that it can pull about 300 tons at a time.

That is, the total weight of the elevator car should be about 300 tons.

Although this weight is very small, it is actually the weight of one carriage. One cable cannot only pull one carriage at a time.

According to calculations, as long as the positions between the carriages are adjusted, one carriage can be installed every 500 kilometers on average. With a cable length of 35,786 kilometers, more than 70 carriages can be installed.

The maximum transportation volume equivalent to a single cable is about 21,000 tons.

This is a single line, and the other cable is transported downwards, which is also about 21,000 tons.

However, considering that several intermediate space stations need to be installed in the middle, at least a low-Earth orbit space station and a mid-level orbit space station must be built, which may require sacrificing part of the transportation capacity.

The total transportation capacity finally designed should be about 18,000 tons per line.

The speed of the carriages is not very fast. The cruising speed is 5 kilometers per second. This is why each carriage is spaced 500 kilometers apart, so that in the event of an emergency, 100 seconds of emergency time can be left.

At this speed, if a carriage wants to go from the ground station to the synchronous station, it will take 7157 seconds, or 119 minutes, in the fastest case.

At the end of the day, 12 trips can be made in theory.

Considering the actual situation, it can run about 10 times a day, which is almost the limit. In other words, the total transportation volume of the space elevator in a day is up to about 180,000 tons.

180,000 tons per day. Compared with the current launch vehicle, the load is basically increased by two orders of magnitude.

If the launch vehicle is compared to a small truck, then the space elevator will be equivalent to railway transportation. The gap between the two is very huge.

On Blue Star, where it is impossible to build a mass projector, the space elevator is the current best solution and a good way for ordinary people to enter outer space.

After all, ordinary people have not received professional training. Unless they undergo human body modification, it will be difficult for them to adapt to the strong acceleration of a spacecraft.

The space elevator can accelerate slowly, and there is no need to increase the speed all at once.

Although the Federation's anti-load cabin technology has become more and more mature, it has a fatal shortcoming, which is that the human body must be modified and some auxiliary equipment must be installed.

This is also the professional symbol of current astronauts. There are obvious control valves on the surface of the body.

Although such an obvious transformation is not unacceptable to many people, it is just like getting earrings or nose rings.

However, many people say they cannot accept it, so another supplementary plan must be considered to allow as many people as possible to participate in the cause of space development.

Huang Xiuyuan set up the temporary ground station headquarters of the Jianmu Project on the north side of Baker Island. Standing on the highest peak of the island, you can clearly see the ships on the sea on the south side.

At this time, those large transport ships had already carried a large amount of raw materials and parts and arrived at the south side of Baker Island.

As much as 3.74 million tons of raw materials and parts are enough for the engineering team to quickly build a floating island group on the sea.

The so-called floating island group is actually a temporary sea base specially designed to facilitate sea construction.

The function of the floating island group is mainly to serve as a temporary dock, warehouse, living area, and construction site through a temporary foothold.

In addition, you can add some floating island modules with specific functions as needed, such as power stations, processing plants, offshore farms, agricultural factories, airports and defense modules.

With the arrival of the nuclear fusion power generation ship Endeavor, energy for the floating island group is no longer a problem.

After the seawater desalination module of the floating island is spliced ​​together, various modules of the living area are followed, including staff dormitories, restaurants, sports fields, entertainment areas, relatives’ guest houses, and daily supplies warehouses.

This is the hard power of the Federation.

Within a week, a floating island group covering an area of ​​5 square kilometers can be built on the sea without any foundation, which can accommodate up to 15,000 people to live and work here.

Coupled with the land area of ​​Baker Island itself, the Federation quickly completed the initial transformation here, and the first batch of 8,237 employees began to work according to their respective duties.

A week later, the transport ships left one after another and returned to Australia to transport the next batch of materials.

A large airport has been built on the west side of the floating island, which can accommodate the takeoff and landing of large transport aircraft.

Huang Xiuyuan is also busy these days discussing the ground station, synchronization station, cables and vans with other project leaders.

Having a preliminary plan doesn't mean you can sit back and relax.

Technology is advancing all the time. If there are better alternative materials or alternative technologies, they need to follow up and modify them in time to avoid unnecessary waste.

Huang Xiuyuan is busy with the space elevator.

Others have not stopped. For example, Xie Qing’s team is conducting the electric field synthesis of new materials on the moon; Lu Xuedong, Zhang Jingjian and others are busy with the research and development of carbon-based chips.

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