He Xingzhou immediately convened experts to discuss the construction of the Space Elevator.
In the past few days, the expert group has designed a plan for the Space Elevator at the fastest speed.
Chief Engineer Xiao Mao spoke: "Director, this is our current idea."
"The geostationary orbit of Blue Star is as high as 36,000 kilometers. If we want to make a space elevator to transport people and goods, the length-to-width ratio of this elevator will reach an order of magnitude above 10,000:1."
"According to the load-bearing structure design of traditional elevators, no material can withstand such pressure, its own weight will crush itself!"
"So we intend to design a tensile structure, launching a large space station and a massive counterweight into geostationary orbit."
"This space station and counterweight will rotate with Blue Star, using the centrifugal force from Blue Star’s rotation to maintain the main tensile structure."
"In this way, to ensure the entire axis of the Space Elevator points toward the Earth’s center and remains vertical, providing constant tension to the cable, the Space Elevator’s ground projection should be located at the equator, so its ground station also needs to be built on the equator!"
As he spoke, he used a holographic projection to display their design.
In the image, there was a conceptual diagram of a Space Elevator. It had a ground station at the equator, where a tower was built. The tower connected to an elevator cable 38,000 kilometers long, with elevator cars attached in between.
It extended all the way into space, connecting to the space station and counterweight.
After viewing it, He Xingzhou asked, "Are there any issues now?"
"Yes, there are still some problems." Xiao Mao nodded, "First is the issue of site selection."
"The ground station being built on the equator can’t just be placed anywhere."
"The climate in the selected area should meet the requirements of constant wind speeds below level two, no cumulus clouds that might cause thunderstorms, and be far from various pressure belts and monsoon circulations."
"The local geological conditions must be relatively stable to avoid the impact of earthquakes."
"Since ten Space Elevators need to be constructed simultaneously, we’ve conducted an investigation along the equator. Only two land areas are suitable, the rest are oceans, requiring land reclamation!"
"Then reclaim land!" He Xingzhou directly stated, "Let the Xuanwu Army help with land reclamation and island construction!"
"With your words, Director, I’m relieved!" Xiao Mao said.
"Additionally, there are two more issues!"
"First, the material for the cable! For a 36,000-kilometer cable, our current alloys and steels cannot bear such strength! It also needs to have good toughness and conductivity."
"The best choice is carbon nanotubes, this new type of material. It’s a tubular nanometer graphite crystal with extremely high strength, theoretically one hundred times that of steel! It’s also very soft and can be seen as a ’super fiber.’ Its electromagnetic properties, adsorption capability, and other characteristics are excellent enough to meet our cable requirements."
"The current problem is that we can only synthesize it in small quantities in the laboratory, and cannot mass-produce it industrially!"
"Second, we still don’t have a large space station, which means that alongside constructing the Space Elevator, we need to launch the space station and counterweight into geostationary orbit!"
"I understand." He Xingzhou nodded. After some discussion with the expert group, he had a general idea of the challenges in constructing the Space Elevator.
Back in his office, He Xingzhou immediately started tackling these two problems.
"The synthesis and manufacturing of carbon nanotubes require an industrial production process." He Xingzhou opened the Quantum Light Computer and found information about this material.
"Spend 10 energy units to unlock the carbon nanotube synthesis process."
There was also the issue of the large space station.
This is not a problem at all, as humanity has already mastered the nuclear fusion propulsion project and reaction force technology, making it easy to manufacture and launch a large space station.
Just like Bai Ningxiang said, the Blue Star Civilization actually already has the strength of exceeding Level 1.5, but because they have been dealing with the Zerg on Blue Star, they haven’t expanded their capabilities into space yet.
"Let the Interstellar Construction Department launch a large space station."
"That’s still not enough." The large space station can only serve as one endpoint of the Space Elevator; a much larger counterweight is needed.
If we only launch large rocks or iron blocks into geostationary orbit, wouldn’t that be a waste? Moreover, these massive objects would still be affected by Blue Star’s gravity and fall into the atmosphere.
He Xingzhou’s idea was that since a massive counterweight is needed, why not directly build a massive space object!