Chapter 85: Target, Inner Solar System
Supported by the immense power from the electrical grid, a special propellant inside the massive Thrust Device was ionized. Its ions then began accelerating within the coils, eventually reaching incredibly high speeds. They converged into a remarkably bright and thick plume of blue flame that shot out from the rear, creating a spectacular display.
In an instant, the entire massive test facility was bathed in the bright blue light of the flame.
Their exhaust velocity reached as high as 30 kilometers per second! In comparison, the chemical fuel Thrust Devices Li Qingsong currently used had gas exhaust velocities that rarely exceeded 5 kilometers per second.
Obviously, the higher the velocity at which a unit of propellant mass is ejected, the greater the reactive thrust it provides.
Leaping from 5 to 30 kilometers per second meant a six-fold increase in exhaust velocity, which corresponded to a six-fold increase in provided thrust!
If this exhaust velocity could be applied to the current fleet of spaceships, a Warship that once required 30 tons of fuel to meet combat demands would now only need five.
No, in fact—because less fuel would need to be carried, reducing the overall mass—it would take even less than five tons to achieve the same operational capability as a previously fully fueled vessel!
The enormous potential this implied captivated Li Qingsong.
Unfortunately...
Looking at the readouts on the massive Thrust Device, Li Qingsong let out a soft sigh.
Despite the beam of light being so bright and thick, and the display so impressive, the reality was...
It only provided about 0.05 Newtons of thrust.
How much thrust was that?
On Earth, ignoring the effects of air resistance, that amount of thrust could just about support a single sheet of A4 paper.
And not even enough to make the paper rise, just enough to keep it hovering in place, preventing it from falling.
If this massive ion Thrust Device were in the zero-gravity environment of space, this thrust would only provide it with an acceleration of about 0.16 micrometers per second squared.
It would have to accelerate for a full year just to go from a standstill to about 5 meters per second—roughly the speed of a person jogging.
Not to mention, this 300-ton behemoth was only the accelerator itself; it still required an external power supply.
It consumed an average of 1,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity every hour!
All in all, the ion propulsion technology seemed utterly useless, a classic case of a technology with more style than substance.
But Li Qingsong knew this was only the beginning.
It was like when the first trains were built; they couldn’t even outrun a horse. Yet in time, their transport capacity would surpass that of horses countless times over.
So even though ion propulsion technology was completely impractical at the moment, it didn’t matter!
As long as he continued to develop it, iterating generation after generation, it would eventually become practical.
’One step at a time. I’ll just keep researching it for now. It’s not like I plan on making ion propulsion practical anytime soon anyway.’
A more promising technology for near-term application was the secondary-pressurization propulsion system—a technology already mastered by the Human World and used by the Deep Space Spaceship.
Li Qingsong’s current technological roadmap—whether it was optimizing chemical fuel propulsion efficiency, improving material performance, or researching controlled nuclear fission and the miniaturization of fission reactors—was all aimed at achieving this goal.
Once he mastered secondary-pressurization propulsion, its overall efficiency would be far superior to existing chemical propulsion, even if it still couldn’t match ion propulsion. Of that, there was no doubt.
Then, his spaceships would no longer need to haul anywhere from ten to a hundred tons of chemical fuel for every voyage.
Not only that, but the application of secondary-pressurization propulsion would also vastly expand his operational radius.
At that point, he could finally do something he had always wanted to, but never could.
Return to the Inner Solar System!
After all, resources at the edge of the Solar System were far too scarce.
There were only a few dwarf planets—low in mass, small in size, and poor in resources.
Even if he were to begin large-scale exploitation of Enemy God Star now, at his current rate of consumption, its resources would be depleted before long.
Only in the Inner Solar System, with its numerous major planets and abundant materials, could he secure a nearly infinite supply of resources and advance his technology without restraint!
But... returning to the Inner Solar System with existing chemical propulsion was impossible.
At best, it could send small-mass objects there. To transport his fleet, along with its vast material supplies, massive industrial facilities, and tens of millions of Clones, was simply beyond its capabilities.
The reason was simple: the more mass you need to propel, the more chemical fuel you need. But the more fuel you add, the more your total mass increases, which in turn requires even more fuel. This vicious cycle meant that an astronomical amount of chemical fuel would be needed to make the trip.
After a long look at the brilliant star shining in the distant cosmos, Li Qingsong refocused much of his energy on upgrading and iterating the nuclear fission power plants, even as he continued to oversee the optimization of the ion Thrust Device.
「Time passed slowly.」
A veritable ocean of materials flowed in daily from Enemy God Star. On Ceres, tens of millions of Clones toiled day and night. Every factory hummed around the clock, and every research institute and base produced vast quantities of technical data.
In space, hundreds of old Mercury-class Warships engaged in constant mock battles, generating massive amounts of combat data to feed the battle AI running on his supercomputer.
Just then, Li Qingsong felt that the battle AI was finally mature enough to be put into practical use.
’This wasn’t easy,’ Li Qingsong reflected with a sigh. ’It took so much to get here. To generate the data you needed to iterate and optimize yourself, I had to command hundreds of Warships in mock battles for over a decade.
’In those ten-odd years, I burned through over one hundred million tons of fuel alone...’
Li Qingsong had placed high hopes on this battle AI, viewing it as a crucial tool for enhancing his combat capabilities and, more importantly, solving the problem of communication lag.
He wouldn’t have invested such a colossal amount of resources to generate data and train it otherwise.
Now, Li Qingsong planned to put its abilities to the test by having it work alongside him to command a Warship in a real battle simulation.
Several hundred thousand kilometers from Ceres, two fleets drew up into formation.
But after a series of tests, Li Qingsong was met with a result he never would have expected.
"What the hell? How... how is it so terrible? This is... this is far worse than me just controlling the Warship myself and dealing with the communication lag!"
Li Qingsong was utterly stunned.