<h4>Chapter 591: Prologue of the Space Race</h4>
<strong>Trantor: </strong>Henyee Trantions <strong>Editor: </strong>Henyee Trantions
Lu Zhou was sitting in a restaurant near the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He looked at his phone while waiting for his food to arrive, and he had a somewhat unnatural look on his face.
[Shocked! Professor Lu, the chief designer of the controble fusion project, is in charge of the moon mission?!]
[Lu Zhou: Our next journey is in the sea of stars!]
[Lu Zhou identally revealed secrets!]
[Chief Designer Lu said that the moonnding will be for him?!]
Lu Zhou: “???”
<i>Didn’t I tell them I’m not the chief designer?</i>
<i>Do these reporters not listen to people speak?</i>
Xu Yuanming noticed Lu Zhou’s stiff face and smiled as he said, “Our journalists are optimistic, it’s good.”
<i>Positive energy rumors are good, right?</i>
Lu Zhou put down his phone and looked at the braised pork and beans on the table. He sighed and said, “You’re really a troublemaker.”
“Let’s stop talking, eat. This pork won’t taste as good when it’s cold.” Xu Yuanming pretended like he didn’t hear anything. He picked up the chopsticks and smiled as he said, “This ce has good food. I often came here when I was still studying here. It’s been so many years, but the vor hasn’t changed.”
Lu Zhou: “...”
<i>This change of topic is too abrupt.</i>
<i>However, since he is the one treating me to this meal, I’ll let it go...</i>
After Lu Zhou finished dinner, he bid farewell to Xu Yuanming. He then got in his car.
“Send me to the train station.”
Wang Peng was driving the car, and he asked, “We’re going back to Jinling?”
Lu Zhou: “Yeah, I’ve been away from theboratory for too long, I’m worried.”
Wang Peng smiled and said, “Aren’t you on a holiday? Why are you so busy?”
Lu Zhou smiled and didn’t say anything.
He obviously wouldn’t say that he was not worried about some experiment and that he was actually worried about an artificial retard ying around with its new toy in hisboratory.
Of course, even if it wasn’t for Xiao Ai’s shenanigans, it was time for him to go back.
The secrets of Debris No.3 were still sitting there, waiting for him to explore.
If it went well, it might be the key to solving the manned moonnding project...
Lu Zhou arrived at the train station and got on the next train from Beijing to Jinling. After a couple of hours, he got off at the Jinling Southern train station.
Lu Zhou sat in his ck car with the erected red g. He didn’t ask Wang Peng to send him home. Instead, he went to the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
Because a lot of the experiments needed to be monitored 24/7, the institute never closed its doors.
After Lu Zhou told Wang Peng to head off, he walked into the main institute building alone. He walked past the metal alloy door at the end of the second floor underground sample library and headed toward the third floor undergroundboratory.
When he walked into theboratory, his entire body froze.
<i>The f*ck?</i>
<i>Bumblebee?</i>
...
After the Chinese manned moonnding project was reignited, not only did the three government policies cause a sensation in the domestic media, but it also attracted a lot of attention around the world.
In particr, the British Daily Mail reported the news with a rather intriguing headline.
[China Wants to Go on the Moon! Is This a Prologue for a New Space Race?!]
Inside the Tri Alphapany building...
Benderbauer sat in the office of the chief technology officer. He read the newspaper in his hand and frowned.
After a while, he murmured, “This isn’t good news.”
“They’re still a long way from a second-generation controble fusion, you don’t have to worry at all.”
That was Professor Burton Richter, particle physics expert at Stanford University in Palo Alto. In addition to his role as a professor, he was also a member of the advisory board of the Tri Alphapany as well as the winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Physics.
He was well informed of this matter. However, he didn’t read it from the Daily Mail.
Just a few hours ago, China announced a set of specific measures to implement the manned moon mission. China announced its n to establish a permanent scientific research station on the moon in order to explore the helium-3 reserves on the moon.
It was widely spected that this was paving the way for the second generation of controble fusion technology. However, Professor Richter knew how difficult it was to achieve helium-3 fusion. He knew that these spections regarding China were nothing but bragging.
“No, I’m not worried about the second generation controble fusion reactor.” Benderbauer put down the newspaper in his hand and leaned back against his chair. He pinched his forehead and said, “I’m worried about the Congressional Budget Office...”
After China announced the sessful ignition of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor at the beginning of the year, the United States also quicklyunched its own national controble fusion project. A giant demonstration reactor was going to be built between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Just for the first phase of the project, the US government had allocated tens of billions of dors in funding.
For this newlyunched demonstration reactor project, Tri Alpha had sessfully defeated itspetitor, General Atomics, and obtained orders for the reactor heating parts. This was due to their excellent heating performance of their field-reversed configuration.
If everything went well, this contract would bring in hundreds of millions of dors in revenue for hispany. This would bring him more than US$100 million in market capitalization growth on the Nasdaq.
However, now that China suddenly announced its moonnding project, and it even announced a strategy for the exploration of the moon’s resources, this would undoubtedly impact the demonstration reactor project in California.
After all, there was a limitation to scientific research funding. There wasn’t a single country on Earth that could conduct tworge-scale scientific research projects withoutpromising.
The United States didn’t want to fall behind, both in terms of controble fusion and in terms of space exploration.
It was foreseeable that once the United States was drawn into this space race, Congress would almost certainly re-examine the budgets for the existing research projects. To ensure NASA had plenty of resources, they might cut down their funding on some less urgent projects.
For example, they might cut down on the costs of sma heatingponents...
The demonstration reactor project might even be postponed.
This was obviously bad news for Benderbauer.
He could imagine the people of NASA cheering once their budget was increased.
NASA didn’t have to worry about its budget anymore. The country on the other side of the Pacific Ocean gave them an excuse for more funding.
While Benderbauer was flipping through the newspaper, his hands suddenly froze.
His eyes locked onto Lu Zhou’s interview in the newspaper.
“sma engine...”
He muttered something and gradually became excited.
“sma engine! That’s it!”
Benderbauer threw away the newspaper and stood up from his office chair. He paced around his office as he said excitedly, “Ion thruster, controble fusion, it works perfectly! We canbine these two projects together!”
At the very least, he would be able to create a PowerPoint presentation to convince people.
“Sir, I’m not discouraging you but...” Burton Richter looked at him with a weird expression and said, “We haven’t even solved the controble fusion problem, yet you’re nning on miniaturizing a reactor and using it as a sma thruster.”
Benderbauer stopped and looked at Professor Richter.
“My dear Professor Richter, of course I know you have to make the cake before you can eat it.
“But before we make the cake, we have to make people believe that we can do it!
“This is the most important thing!”