The rise of nanometers

Belle Isle.

The Jianmu Ladder, which was officially put into operation, has become very busy at this time.

In the waiting hall of the manned flight, 60 tourists who planned to travel to the moon, wearing simple space suits, were sitting in the hall chatting.

Compared with launch vehicles that have too strong acceleration and require a lot of requirements, the requirements for passengers during the transportation process of the space elevator have been significantly lowered.

This downward adjustment will help expand the scale of human access to outer space.

After the Jianmu Ladder was officially put into operation, in less than half a year, the federal population in the Lunar Zone increased from the previous 24,000 to 57,000.

In the future, the population of the moon, Venus and other space cities will usher in a wave of explosive growth.

Of course, this requires other supporting facilities to achieve predetermined indicators, such as pseudo-gravity technology, which must be further developed and improved.

In addition, the manufacturing technology of artificial food must also keep up with the development needs as soon as possible.

In fact, the federal artificial food technology has made a lot of progress in 2021, such as the direct synthesis of starch, fat, and protein from carbon dioxide, which are all developing rapidly.

From the fact that wood can be synthesized efficiently, we can know that the Federation's technology in this area is actually at the forefront.

Just considering the flavor and some trace ingredients, it has not yet been mass-produced on a large scale and is currently only in the laboratory stage.

The waiting tourists soon heard the announcement.

[Dear passengers, the flight from Bell Island to Jianmu Space Station will take off in 30 minutes. Please proceed to the boarding channel in an orderly manner...]

[Dear...]

After three broadcasts, the staff also appeared in front of the tourists: "Dear passengers, please come with me."

After a while, a group of people came to the elevator cabin. Although the safety of the elevator cabin was higher than that of the launch vehicle, the aerospace design department did not seek convenience, but prepared all safety measures.

All passengers sit in the passenger seat one by one according to the tickets they purchased. In fact, this seat is an emergency escape cabin. If an emergency occurs, the intelligent system will quickly eject the escape cabin.

For emergencies, there are four staff members in the elevator cabin who will accompany passengers to the Jianmu Space Station.

Thirty minutes passed quickly.

The passenger elevator cabin is transported to the cable hanger, and then electromagnetic acceleration is started. The 3.5-kilometer electromagnetic acceleration channel quickly ejects the elevator cabin up.

This speed is enough to allow the elevator cabin to fly to an altitude of 50 kilometers.

After entering an altitude of 40 kilometers above sea level, the rocket engine of the elevator cabin started, spitting out light red flames, and continued to lift the elevator cabin upwards.

The space elevator in its implementation stage is not yet the best design, but the materials do not meet the requirements, so relatively conservative solutions can only be adopted.

According to the idea of ​​some researchers, they plan to design a lifting solution similar to that of an elevator, which uses two other cables to pull the elevator cabin up and down.

If it can reach that level, the space elevator's requirements for passengers will be further reduced, and it will be no different from taking an elevator.

It's just that the material requirements are a bit high. After all, this model requires the other two cables to be thin and light enough.

After all, the cable is too heavy, and when the motor pulls it up, a large part of the power needs to be wasted on the dead weight of the cable. This is not worth the gain, so it is better to continue using the current solution.

According to calculations, to implement this solution, the diameter of the cable must not be larger than 0.2 mm and it must be able to withstand tens of thousands of tons of tension.

This requirement requires the strength of existing materials to be increased by about 13 times.

However, it is not that it cannot be reduced. The transportation distance of the elevator cable can be divided into several sections through a segmentation plan.

In this way, the total weight of the elevator cabin and lifting cables can be controlled at around a few thousand tons, and the strength requirements for the cable materials only need to be 2.3 to 2.8 times the current level.

Moreover, this solution also has the advantage of segmenting the journey and setting up stops along the way, such as low-Earth orbit space stations, mid-orbit space stations, and the like.

Now we can only wait for the materials to meet the requirements before we can upgrade the space elevator.

Time flew by.

Three and a half hours later, the elevator cabin arrived at the Jianmu Space Station in the Blue Star synchronous orbit.

As soon as the elevator cabin arrived, it was pulled to the loading and unloading area by a special unloading system. The staff was the first to unfasten their seat belts and check the physical condition of the passengers.

After confirming that all passengers were in good health, one of the staff members said with a smile: "Welcome to Jianmu Space Station, everyone."

A group of tourists also chatted excitedly.

They were soon taken down the elevator cabin. Since the travel package purchased was a half-month tour, the group could stay at the Jianmu Space Station for a day or two before boarding the spacecraft to Guanghan Palace City on the moon.

Due to the need to bear counterweight, the Jianmu Space Station is more compact and sturdier than other space stations, and the internal space is also used to assist the operation of the space elevator.

Currently, there are about 220 to 240 permanent employees at the Jianmu Space Station.

Regarding the arrival of tourists, this aspect of work is not their responsibility, but the responsibility of the Space Tourism Bureau.

Among the auxiliary modules of the Jianmu Space Station, there is a space-themed hotel specially prepared for tourists, which can accommodate 500 to 600 tourists at the same time.

In the hotel, there are 15 employees arranged by the Space Tourism Bureau. They are mainly engaged in hotel service work, such as cleaning, catering, emergency medical treatment, management, etc.

The four tour guides who accompanied the group also checked in at the hotel with their respective teams.

In fact, due to the restrictions on various supplies during space tourism, tourists basically do not bring personal belongings. Their clothes and daily necessities are all provided by the Space Tourism Bureau.

They plan to stay in Jianmu for a day and a half before taking the spacecraft to the moon, which is 340,000 kilometers away, tomorrow afternoon.

Wang Shaoqing, from Chang'an, was dragged to the hotel's stargazing platform by several friends after washing up in the hotel.

In fact, space tourism is relatively boring. Generally, it only involves visiting facilities, watching the stars through astronomical telescopes, and experiencing the state of weightlessness.

Then there are some interesting experiments in space, such as the phenomenon of metal cold welding, the manufacturing of foam items, and hyperspherical spheres.

Going to Guanghan Palace on the Moon means museums, space farms, outdoor driving, and souvenir shopping.

Now Guanghan Palace has specially explored some gem mines, processed some safe gems into souvenirs, and sold them to tourists.

The price is not high, usually a dozen credits per piece.

Of course, to say that space tourism is boring is actually because many people in the federation were in Versailles, specifically complaining about it on the Internet.

In fact, for people who have never been to outer space, entering outer space for the first time is a huge shock and a sublimation of their horizons.

At least Wang Shaoqing and others participated in space tourism for the first time. Standing under a huge astronomical telescope, they looked at the composite starry sky on the monitor page and felt very small.

More than two hours later, they saw the sunrise again. Looking at the sun from outer space, it was just a red ball of light.

Coupled with the blue star on the side, the openness and deepness will make people indescribably indescribable.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)