At the current stage of space travel, Li Qingsong is always constrained by an extremely serious problem. Fossil fuels are too inefficient. Because of this, when Li Qingsong was on an expedition to the enemy planet, he had to "throw" a large amount of supplies and fuel from Luoshen to support the warships in battle. When launching the probe to the earth, it was necessary to build a super-giant rocket with a total mass of more than 70,000 tons. Although creating wonders is indeed very fulfilling, behind the sense of accomplishment is more helplessness. If there were any other way, who would want to build such a large rocket? At this moment, facing the huge project of large-scale development of the enemy planet, the spacecraft exchanges between the two planets will be extremely frequent in the future. Although the transportation of bulk basic materials can be solved by "electromagnetic catapult technology", there will inevitably be a lot of other goods and personnel transportation that requires timeliness. It is unacceptable to continue using such inefficient propulsion technology. If this continues, at least 20% of the resources we produce may be wasted on the voyage, which is unacceptable.
I worked so hard to produce these, are we going to waste them? No! However, more advanced propulsion technology cannot be broken through for the time being, and secondary pressurization propulsion technology cannot be mastered, let alone high-speed ion propulsion technology. We can only find ways to continue to optimize existing technology. Fortunately, even the existing chemical fuel propulsion technology still has a lot of room for improvement, and optimization is sufficient for the time being. With the work of tens of thousands of clones advancing technology research, Li Qingsong gradually confirmed one thing. That is, to improve propulsion performance and fuel utilization, we still need to start from the three aspects of material performance, overall structure, and cooling system. The materials used to manufacture thrusters must be able to withstand higher temperatures and greater pressures in order to achieve higher thermal efficiency and thrust. Materials science is about improving propulsion performance by improving basic material properties. The overall structure is improved from a structural perspective. The cooling system improves its performance in terms of durability and reliability. All three aspects are working towards the same goal. The scientific research clones were divided into three large teams and worked day and night. So in the research base, hundreds of test sites were roaring day and night. There are many engines of different shapes, structures, and even strange ones, spraying chemical fuels of various colors all day long, including methane, ethane, formaldehyde, liquid hydrogen, and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine... And so on and so forth, various different fuels take turns to be used. Just for conducting experiments, the fuel consumption of this scientific research base reached tens of thousands of tons per day. To this end, Li Qingsong had to open up a special railway line to transport fuel from various chemical plants, and then turn it into flames and spray it out in the test field. Fortunately, all factories have undergone intelligent transformation and production efficiency has been greatly improved. Otherwise, the loss of this scientific research base would be unbearable. After hundreds of days and nights, and consuming a total of tens of millions of tons of fuel, a new engine with performance that met Li Qingsong's requirements was finally built. It still uses methane and liquid oxygen as fuel. This is because methane has a high calorific value, and secondly, there are sufficient methane reserves on Rosene.
The ubiquitous tholin can be processed to separate methane. New types of spacecraft were also built using new types of engines. This is a Mercury-class battleship. But compared with the previous Mercury-class battleship, it is undoubtedly more powerful. The number of machine guns on it has increased to six, and the number of cannons has increased to four. In addition, it can also carry 12 interstellar missiles. As the number of weapons increases, the ammunition reserves must also increase. The original Mercury-class battleship carried 400,000 bullets when fully loaded, weighing 4 tons. But at this moment, this new Mercury-class battleship can carry million bullets when fully loaded, weighing 12 tons! The number of shells also doubled, bringing the total mass to 6 tons. The same is true for interstellar missiles. The total mass has increased from the original tons to the current tons. In terms of ammunition alone, the total increase was tons! Obviously, more ammunition requires more space and more fuel reserves inside the spacecraft, and the overall volume of the spacecraft must also be larger. But the fact is, it is still the same size as before and has not grown at all. The size has not increased, but the fuel carrying capacity has been reduced from 50 tons to 30 tons at present, so its combat time will obviously be reduced. But the fact is, the combat time of this Mercury-class battleship has not only not decreased, but has increased! Because it is equipped with a new engine! At this moment, with Li Qingsong's order, the clone responsible for controlling this new Mercury-class battleship instantly issued the order to advance. Thus, in the blazing flames, the acceleration of this Mercury-class battleship reached 20 meters per square second. In just a few seconds, it flew to a height of thousands of meters and disappeared directly from the naked eye sight of the clones. Not only has the total range increased, but the maneuverability has also increased! The previous Mercury-class battleships had a maximum acceleration capability of only 12 meters per square second, but now it has been directly increased by 67%! After reaching space, this Mercury-class battleship fully utilized its energy, accelerating and decelerating rapidly, and its engine almost never stopped for a moment, as if it was afraid of having too much fuel. But even so, it took several hours to use up all the fuel. After slowly returning to the Luoshen Star base, a group of clones immediately stepped forward and began to comprehensively check its condition. Finally, Li Qingsong came to a conclusion. The new engine runs great! "Okay, that's good." Li Qingsong's heart was filled with joy. The advancement of a technology always brings about a series of changes, not just one. Just like now, advances in propulsion technology have led to the birth of new types of engines.
The birth of the new engine not only laid the foundation for the subsequent large-scale development of the enemy star, but also greatly enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Mercury-class battleships. More ammunition reserves, greater mobility, and longer combat time. Not only that, the performance of all spacecraft manufactured in the future, whether passenger ships or cargo ships, warships or scientific research ships, will all benefit from the improvement of engine technology. And there was an unexpected surprise with this technological improvement. Li Qingsong's plan for a long time, to launch a large-scale exploration of every high-mass planet in the inner solar system, can finally be implemented. Because of the improvement in propulsion technology, not only spacecraft but also rockets will benefit.