Scholar's Advanced Technological System

Chapter 591: Prologue of the Space Race

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

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 controllable fusion project, is in charge of the moon mission?!]

[Lu Zhou: Our next journey is in the sea of stars!]

[Lu Zhou accidentally revealed secrets!]

[Chief Designer Lu said that the moon landing will be for him?!]

Lu Zhou: “???”

Didn’t I tell them I’m not the chief designer?

Do these reporters not listen to people speak?

Xu Yuanming noticed Lu Zhou’s stiff face and smiled as he said, “Our journalists are optimistic, it’s good.”

Positive energy rumors are good, right?

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 place has good food. I often came here when I was still studying here. It’s been so many years, but the flavor hasn’t changed.”

Lu Zhou: “...”

This change of topic is too abrupt.

However, since he is the one treating me to this meal, I’ll let it go...

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 the laboratory 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 playing around with its new toy in his laboratory.

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 become the key to solving the manned moon landing 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 black car with the erected red flag. 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 underground laboratory.

When he walked into the laboratory, his entire body froze.

The f*ck?

Bumblebee?

...

After the Chinese manned moon landing 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 particular, 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 Alpha company 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 controllable 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 Alpha company 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 plan to establish a permanent scientific research station on the moon in order to explore the helium-3 reserves on the moon.

It was widely speculated that this was paving the way for the second generation of controllable fusion technology. However, Professor Richter knew how difficult it was to achieve helium-3 fusion. He knew that these speculations regarding China were nothing but bragging.

“No, I’m not worried about the second generation controllable 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 successful ignition of the STAR-2 demonstration reactor at the beginning of the year, the United States also quickly launched its own national controllable 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 dollars in funding.

For this newly launched demonstration reactor project, Tri Alpha had successfully defeated its competitor, 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 dollars in revenue for his company. This would bring him more than US$100 million in market capitalization growth on the Nasdaq.

However, now that China suddenly announced its moon landing 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 two large-scale scientific research projects without compromising.

The United States didn’t want to fall behind, both in terms of controllable 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 plasma heating components...

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.

“Plasma engine...”

He muttered something and gradually became excited.

“Plasma 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, controllable fusion, it works perfectly! We can combine 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 controllable fusion problem, yet you’re planning on miniaturizing a reactor and using it as a plasma 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!”

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