Chapter 925: Guests from Afar
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Caron_
Although it was called an elevator, the base of this elevator was much wider than a high-rise. However, with a length of more than 30,000 kilometers, the vertically suspended elevator was just like a noodle.
Travelling with Celestial Trade’s frigate, Jiang Chen boarded the base station of the space elevator.
Shortly after he boarded, a group of people walked in his direction.
“We succeeded!”
When Jiang Chen first saw Kelvin when he returned to the modern world, the arrogant middle-aged man was as excited as a child, holding his hand and not letting go.
Jiang Chen, on the contrary, seemed calmer. Compared with the excitement of witnessing the birth of a spectacle, the excitement of leaving his name in history, he felt this was a wish coming true and he felt relieved for the distant future.
“Yes, we succeeded.”
After letting go of Kelvin’s hand, Jiang Chen looked up at the space elevator and suddenly gazed at the technical director who was standing next to Kelvin.
“If I want to engrave a line at the bottom of the space elevator, what kind of pen should I use?”
The technical director took a moment to process this then said, “The laser welding torch should be good.”
“Help me get the laser welding torch.”
Although he didn’t know what the president was doing, the technical director eyed the engineer next to them. Soon, a five pound laser torch was handed to Jiang Chen. After he took it in his hand, he weighed it to test its feel. Kelvin and the technical director were impressed by the scene.
To be able to hold a five or six-pound welding torch in his hand like this, the President’s strength was much greater than they thought.
Standing next to the space elevator, Jiang Chen pressed the switch of the welding torch and engraved a line of words on the titanium shell.
Taking two steps back, Jiang Chen looked at the line he engraved and nodded with satisfaction.
“I know we can solve the next problem because we’ve already solved all the problems that existed before.” Kelvin read the sentence with a perplexed expression, he then looked at Jiang Chen, “Is there any deeper meaning to this sentence?”
“There’s none. This is just for memory’s sake.” Jiang Chen laughed, turned off the welding torch, and threw the welding torch back to the engineer. “Take me to see the inside of the elevator.”
Walking into the interior of the space elevator, Jiang Chen used the engineering holographic concept blueprint displayed by Kelvin to view a panorama of the entire space elevator track and its operating mechanism. There was a total of six passenger tracks, three of which were upwards and three were downwards. The carriages changed tracks after reaching the terminal.
Because of the one-way unidirectional design, multiple carriages could travel at the same speed on one track. It was foreseeable that space activities would surely be quite frequent in the distant future. People could take space elevators to outer space and the elevators could even be as convenient as high-speed trains today.
The kind of design took traffic congestion in the future into consideration.
After the visit, Jiang Chen enjoyed lunch with the senior officials of the Space Launch Center in the cafeteria of the offshore platform. At the dinner table, Jiang Chen asked Kelvin about the progress of the asteroid capture project.
“The work of landing and weaving the nets went very smoothly, but the progress of the orbital change work is slower than expected.” Kelvin put his fork down and said bleakly, “Although the supercomputing center calculated the orbit of the asteroid, maintaining the speed and orbit of the asteroid at the same time still remains difficult with our current technical means. Each acceleration of the rocket is quite critical. With even one wrong step, everything has to be recalculated.”
“And Bennu didn’t leave us with too much. In the middle of January, the asteroid will be farther and farther away from us. If we want to catch it again, we have to wait six years,” the project lead next to Kelvin interrupted.
Jiang Chen expected many difficulties with this project. He was able to bring back advanced technical data from the apocalypse, but he couldn’t help these scientists digest these century-defining technologies. Even in the 22nd century, asteroid mining was a frontier discipline.
“Deploy explosives on the asteroid to ensure that if it suddenly loses control, we can at least blow it up before it enters the atmosphere.”
“We’re already doing that,” Kelvin said earnestly. “We deployed 2.5 tons of TNT equivalent explosives on the Bennu asteroid. If there are any errors in the orbit change and the rocket thruster won’t have enough fuel to force it to leave the gravitational pull of Earth, we can detonate it into meteorite fragments as it approaches the dissipative layer.”
After lunch, Jiang Chen arrived at the Space Launch Center along with Kelvin.
The launch site originally used to launch rockets was idle after the completion of the space elevator. Transport ships between Earth and Moon were already designed and were now in the experimental phase. Currently, to send supplies to the lunar colony, Celestial Trade’s No.4 second stage rocket would be sent to the geosynchronous orbit with the space elevator before it would accelerate toward the moon.
Since the first stage rocket and the fuel used to travel into outer space would be preserved, the cost of returning to the Moon would be cut by 60%. Celestial Trade was studying the feasibility of expanding the scale of the lunar colony. If the plan was finally put into action, Celestial Trade planned to send 100 more colonists to the moon.
When Jiang Chen inspected the colonial base of the Moon, his wristwatch began to buzz.
He picked up the phone and Xia Shiyu’s voice entered his ear.
“Our guests are here.”
“Oh? Are they from Hua or Russia? Or are they from the Capital?” Jiang Chen asked pleasantly.
“It’s our guests from Hua. They’ve already landed. The Minister of Commerce and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have already gone to the airport. The purpose of the other party is very clear—they want to talk to us about the space elevator.”
Jiang Chen opened a holographic screen and looked at the time. It was already five in the afternoon.
“Since they came from a long way away, let them rest for a day. Did they make arrangements?”
“They’ve already booked rooms at the Heart of the Sea and are now on their way to the hotel,” Xia Shiyu replied.
“Sounds good.”
After finishing, Jiang Chen hung up the phone and set his sights on Kelvin.
“Has the nuclear fusion generators been sent to the lunar colony?”
“Yes, they’re in the newly built power station. One of the nuclear fusion generators has already been put into use, replacing solar energy to supply power to the lunar colony. To meet the needs of nuclear power plants, we need to build a heavy water plant to produce the deuterium needed for fusion reactions. ”
“Let’s set this aside for now. I need you to prepare a report for me before tomorrow afternoon.”
“Report? What report?” Kelvin looked at Jiang Chen with confusion.
“The transportation costs of using the space elevator. I need you and your team to make an accurate assessment. We’ll use it in tomorrow’s negotiations.”