The unit efficiency has been doubled, which means that the speed that originally required two units of fuel can now be achieved with only one unit of fuel.
If calculated based on nuclear fission fuel, that is, uranium 235 or plutonium 239, the increase is actually not that much. It is just a reduction from 200KG to 100KG. The mass difference of only 100KG does not matter much.
But for chemical fuels, the improvement is huge.
This means a reduction from 10 tons to 5 tons, or even from 20 tons to 10 tons!
How much more ammunition can be carried if 5 or even 10 tons of fuel are saved? Or even if the fuel is not reduced, how much will the endurance be improved if the original amount of fuel is still carried?
However, even though the improvement was so huge, Li Qingsong was still somewhat dissatisfied.
The reason is simple: the existing miniaturized nuclear fission propulsion module is still too large.
A mass of more than 200 tons!
It can only be used on Venus-class battleships, but cannot be used on Mercury-class battleships.
In Li Qingsong's vision, the propulsion module used on the Mercury-class battleship, the nuclear fission reactor, the internal combustion engine, and the secondary pressurization system, the total mass of the three components added together should not exceed 15 tons, so that it can be considered of practical significance.
This means that Li Qingsong has to reduce its weight by another 245 tons on the existing basis, a weight reduction of up to 94%!
This seems like an impossible task.
only……
If the human world can do it, why can't I?
Li Qingsong clearly remembered that the small spacecraft manufactured in the human world used that kind of propulsion technology!
Before the disappearance of the human world, the total population was about 10 billion. Among these 10 billion people, how many researchers were there?
It is estimated to be around 90 million.
This is also the result of the human world attaching great importance to scientific research.
At this moment, the total number of clones under his command who were engaged in scientific research was about 30 million. In addition, even those clones engaged in industrial production could temporarily use their brain power.
Furthermore, how many communication barriers exist among scientific researchers in the human world? How many academic barriers and conflicts of interest exist?
The combined scientific research capabilities of his 30 million scientific research clones are at least ten times that of the 90 million scientific researchers in the entire human world.
Yes, that's right. Ever since Li Qingsong's maximum number of consciousness connections skyrocketed from 10 million to 100 million, Li Qingsong's scientific research and industrial strength have left the human world with a population of tens of billions far behind.
My only disadvantage at the moment is that the time is too short and the accumulation is insufficient.
But it doesn’t matter. The lack of accumulation can be made up for with higher quality and quantity.
Whatever technology the human world can master, I can definitely master it too!
Therefore, with sufficient resources supplied by such a huge industrial system, Li Qingsong controlled his clones and once again launched scientific research operations that almost ignored costs and involved almost every discipline.
The costly experiments were carried out time and again. Anyway, the resources of the Jupiter system were extremely abundant. Even if the Jupiter system could not supply them, there was still the entire solar system.
Need to do numerical simulation? Need scientific computing? Need supercomputing?
Let’s make 100 of them first!
Anyway, the "human society" today, which is made up of clones, has no other consumption except for its own extremely limited survival needs, so it is just right to invest the large amount of surplus resources in the industrial society into scientific research.
Under such circumstances, it only took Li Qingsong ten years to make another breakthrough.
The nuclear fission propulsion system suitable for Mercury-class battleships has finally been built!
The total mass is only 14 tons, and the comprehensive fuel utilization rate has increased by 20% compared with the previous generation!
In Li Qingsong's memory, the most advanced small fission thrusters in the human world, and even the thrusters used in the original Deep Space spacecraft, have only this much technical content and comprehensive performance, or are even slightly inferior.
This means that, at least in terms of thrusters, they have caught up with or slightly surpassed the human world.
But this is still not the end, Li Qingsong still plans to reach higher peaks.
He hopes to miniaturize the fission thruster enough to be used in interstellar missiles!
The total mass of an interstellar missile is only a few hundred kilograms, and the largest is only two or three tons.
It is so small that it can only use chemical fuels.
And… once an interstellar missile is equipped with a fission propulsion system, to what extent will its acceleration and penetration capability increase? And to what extent will its maneuverability increase?
Overall, how strong will its combat effectiveness be?
To shrink the entire fission thruster to only a few hundred kilograms, or even less than a hundred kilograms, really seems like a fantasy.
Li Qingsong didn't know whether such a thing was possible or not. After all, he no longer had any sample references, just like in the human world at the time, there was a huge controversy over whether it was possible to create an atomic bomb.
But it doesn’t matter, let’s study it first, what if it works?
The great development of propulsion technology has greatly improved the overall efficiency and has greatly changed Li Qingsong's existing space transportation pattern.
Amidst the huge industrial productivity, the most advanced fission propulsion systems quickly developed into several different models, suitable for spacecraft of various sizes, and were quickly put into full use.
As a result, Li Qingsong's consumption of chemical fuels decreased visibly.
Last year, Li Qingsong consumed a total of about billion tons of chemical fuels.
As fission power plants are now the main energy source for power generation, these chemical fuels are basically consumed in spacecraft transportation.
But this year, with the widespread use of fission propulsion, the use of chemical fuels has dropped rapidly to only 620 million tons.
By next year, it is estimated to drop by more than 50% to less than 300 million tons.
This means that a large amount of industrial power and transportation capacity have been saved. On the other hand, Li Qingsong's industrial strength has been further enhanced.
At this moment, Mercury-class battleships and Venus-class battleships using new fission propulsion engines have also been built. However, Li Qingsong did not immediately use Wukong AI to conduct large-scale combat drills again.
The reason is simple. At this moment, the warships have only reached the top level in the human world in terms of propulsion, but are still far behind in all other aspects.
Such a deformed warship exercise does not truly reflect the battlefield situation. The data they generate is not only unhelpful to Wukong AI, but also harmful.
As the AI that Li Qingsong values most besides the Jade Emperor AI, he cannot tolerate such a thing happening.
"It's time to develop a warship whose entire system can reach or even surpass the top level of humanity!"
