Super technology leader

Since mankind invented the rocket, people have not been satisfied with the rocket's capacity. They have always wanted more capacity, and the rocket has become bigger and bigger.

From the rocket that trucks can pull away from the beginning to the Saturn V, which dominates the rocket field for a long time, humans have embarked on the path of worshiping giant spectacles.

In fact, Saturn V is not the largest rocket designed by Meriken. In the rocket design drawings of the crazy space race era, there are rockets that are more violent than Saturn V.

This behemoth is 150 meters high and 23 meters in diameter. The huge Saturn V is dwarfed by it. When placed together, they look like a strong man and a malnourished child.

Its name is "Hailong".

The capacity of the Hailong rocket has reached an astonishing 550 tons in a single round orbit of 566 kilometers, which is about four times that of the Saturn V super-heavy rocket.

With a huge carrying capacity, there is a huge take-off weight. Therefore, the Sea Dragon rocket with a take-off weight of about 18,000 tons has become the super rocket with the largest mass and capacity among all rockets with complete design demonstrations.

After being refueled, the super weight of 18,000 tons cannot even be allowed to stand upright on land, so it must be built horizontally by a shipyard like a submarine.

The huge propellant storage tank inside it can provide buoyancy for the rocket, allowing it to float on the water and be towed by a tug to the launch site, which is a calm sea.

Its first-stage engine nozzle is equipped with an oversized ballast water tank, which can stand up in the sea after being filled with water.

The first stage of the Hailong rocket ignites directly in the sea. After a bunch of marine life is killed, the first stage will send the second stage out of the water, and then the four small engines on the outer wall of the second stage rocket will ignite and stabilize the rocket vertically until the entire rocket body Get out of the water.

Even though it is so huge, it looks cumbersome, but in fact, compared with the Saturn V, which is thrown away after use, it also has a recyclable system that slows down the inflatable airbag.

The first-stage rocket uses a spherical fuel tank, which can be embedded in the second-stage engine nozzle to save space. After being separated from the second-stage rocket body, the inflatable airbag will be opened to slow down.

Its second-stage rocket engine actually does not have a dedicated nozzle. After the first-stage rocket is separated, the "rocket body" that wraps the first-stage rocket is the nozzle.

The body of the arrow expands outwards and expands into a bell mouth, which is the engine nozzle.

When the second stage rocket is finished, it will use the commonly used blunt design of the manned reentry capsule to resist the heat when it re-enters the atmosphere, and after it re-enters the atmosphere, it will deploy the inflatable airbag to slow down.

The recovery of the first-stage rocket and the second-stage rocket are splashed into the sea, then towed by a boat back to the rocket factory for repair, and finally reused.

At that time, its design team believed that a substantial increase in the rocket load was only the icing on the cake, and the reuse of rocket bodies was the most important factor in reducing launch costs.

From current perspectives, this idea is correct.

By the way, Hailong also has a way to reduce costs, that is, it does not need to build a special launch tower, because it can't stand up after it is built, and it saves this part of the funds by launching directly in the sea.

but……

Regardless of the fact that the Hailong Rocket is so ridiculous, you think it is so advanced, but in fact it is really stupid and thick, and it can be made with the technology of the time.

After refueling, its weight will reach 18,000 tons, but its first-stage rocket does not use multiple engines to pile up the thrust, it only uses one engine.

Therefore, the characteristic of the Hailong rocket is that the engine nozzle is larger than the fuel tank, which is very huge!

This engine eliminates almost all the consideration of the word "efficiency". The single engine of the first stage of the Hailong Rocket has a thrust of close to 36,000 tons by simply increasing the thrust by "volume stacking"!!

Its frantic thrust is 50 times more powerful than the F-1 engine used in the first stage of Saturn V!

The second-stage single-engine thrust also reached 6,400 tons, which is 60 times that of the J-2 engine used in the second-stage Saturn V!

However, because of the extremely simple engine structure, it has huge thrust and extremely waste of fuel.

Note that it is not use, but waste.

Therefore, it will weigh 18,000 tons after it is filled with fuel, and part of the fuel here is for its "waste" use.

Fortunately, its estimated R&D and launch costs are very attractive.

At that time, the transportation price per kilogram was about 67 US dollars, which is equivalent to about 575 US dollars per kilogram now.

This is very attractive data. After all, the ultimate transportation price target of the Falcon recovery rocket developed by Ma Yilong is only US$1411 per kilogram.

In fact, the attractive price per kilogram of the Sea Dragon rocket is calculated based on 240 launches.

But even according to the original plan of the space shuttle, the Sea Dragon rocket is launched once a month, which is also a 20-year launch estimate.

However, during the space race, there is no project that requires such frequent launches. The only possible approach is to carry out space station construction and Mars exploration missions at the same time. However, it is obviously impossible for Meriken Space Agency to have the funds to carry out these two projects at the same time. .

Even after Meriken was caught in the quagmire of the rainforest war, even the Apollo 18 and 19 manned lunar landing missions were cancelled, and there was no capital to invest in Mars exploration missions.

Similarly, there is no similar demand for commercial launches. Even the most massive satellite sent by humans into the geosynchronous orbit weighs only a few tons, and its hundreds of tons of super-capacity cannot be used at all.

Later, people calculated that if the Sea Dragon rocket was significantly reduced to four launches per year, its price would soar to 5,776 US dollars per kilogram, which is approximately equal to the current 46,000 US dollars.

This price is outrageous. You have to know that the freight per kilogram calculated when the space shuttle was retired was only 18,000 US dollars, which is more than twice that.

One of the reasons for the retiring of the space shuttle is that the price not only did not decrease as expected, but became increasingly expensive.

The Sea Dragon Rocket is more expensive than it, how does it work?

In fact, the Hailong Rocket's demonstration team also ignored another factor that was originally controllable, which is fuel cost.

Although launching at sea can save operating costs for the construction and construction of auxiliary buildings, it also means that there is no large storage tank for fuel and oxidant.

Moreover, the thermal conductivity of water is much greater than that of air, so the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen of the Hailong rocket cannot be refilled at the dock, or it will almost evaporate when dragged to the launch site.

The fuel tank of the Hailong rocket does not have any high-level insulation devices, so everything is kept simple.

In addition, liquid hydrogen is not an easy-to-transport fuel. In the age of the demonstration of Hailong technology, the technology of specialized liquid hydrogen carriers was not yet mature, so the only solution at the time was to electrolyze seawater "in-situ" to generate liquid hydrogen and liquid at the launch site. oxygen.

But that method is extremely time-consuming, and also extremely energy-intensive. Normal ships simply cannot supply that much energy.

Therefore, the technical team also admitted that if the Hailong rocket wanted to launch, it had to keep up with a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier for assistance, because only the nuclear reactor of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier could provide enough energy to complete the production of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in a reasonable time.

This……

This design of giving up fuel utilization and pursuing the ultimate thrust, although the original recovery system was used, it still happened to be the "seven inches" of the Sea Dragon rocket. Coupled with various factors, the Sea Dragon rocket ended up staying in On the paper design.

Even if it is a super giant.

Even from the design point of view, it can really fly.