Chapter 229 Podcast Reaction and Space Station Progress
After Nikolai’s podcast was broadcast, it caused a violent response on the Internet.
The interview in English will be streamlined to a certain extent by the self-media when it is transmitted to China.
After all, there are only a few people who can really read all the interviews in English.
In this era of entertainment to death, there are only a few people who can watch the subtitles to the end.
In Amerikan, netizens’ attention was all focused on Blue Origin’s approach to purchasing space station modules from Light Armor Aerospace.
“The Chinese stole SpaceX’s non-existent space station technology.”
“One day smuggling space stations to the federal government will be more profitable than smuggling new energy vehicles, although the two are the only What they have in common is that they are all made in China. "
"In 2024, the sales volume of the American brand in China will exceed 3 million, while the sales volume of the Chinese brand in the American market will be almost 3 million. Zero. In the near future, we will see that China’s space station sales exceed that of Chinese brand new energy vehicles.”
“We should accuse China’s space station of overcapacity!”
"Don't worry, the White House will tell Americans: I will make sure that none of you know that our technology giants purchased the Chinese space station."
"I went to Shenhai and Guangjia Aerospace earlier this year For confidentiality reasons, there is no logo or any sign in Shenhai's office building. When I passed by, the security personnel around me saw that I was a foreigner and followed me with their eyes.
Guangjia Aerospace was not. The only sign of high-end manufacturing in China. With China’s innovation speed and world-leading manufacturing output, they will not only dwarf the United States, but also dwarf the entire free world.”
The people at the bottom cannot enjoy it. As for China’s high-quality and low-priced new energy vehicles, the commercial aerospace companies of the top tycoons can buy China’s top technological products on a large scale.
Such a fragmented reality has caused dissatisfaction among the people.
It’s no surprise that Bezos was questioned.
This is an excuse, but it is also a real problem.
Amerikan's blockade is showing more and more cracks, most of which are opening from within.
"Wright, nice to meet you."
The white man sitting opposite Chen Yuanguang has gray hair, obvious age spots on his face, and the empty T-shirt on his body makes him look particularly thin.
He came to Chen Yuanguang only after going through numerous security checks.
Chen Yuanguang is in Yanjing at this time. A large number of meetings have been held in Yanjing recently, including the annual academician conference, giving lectures to big guys, and meeting Chris Cummins.
Guangjia Aerospace’s space station project has received widespread attention from the outside world. Before the project was even approved, a large number of contracts were offered to the company. At a price of US$2 billion, these organizations did not even blink an eyelid.
This price, let alone developed countries, can be afforded by even the majority of third world countries.
Let’s not talk about the EU. Under the leadership of the Lion City, ASEAN also wants to buy a space station module from Guangjia Aerospace.
After these news came out, some Chinese netizens joked: "In the future, the United Nations might not be located in New York, but directly located at the Guangjia Space Station. Anyway, every country has a base there, and the great unity of the international community can be realized in the face of advanced productivity. Well, what does it mean to be far ahead?”
But the actual progress is not as good as expected. To be precise, it is far less than expected. There are many reasons. The fundamental reason is that there is no one person in charge of the entire project.
When Chen Yuanguang lives in Mianyang, the efficiency of remote control is very low, especially when it involves a lot of internal and external cooperation.
In addition, Chen Yuanguang's ambition is too great. He wants to build a space station that is very different from the past and has leading technology. This adds to the difficulty.
Therefore, Guangjia Aerospace urgently needed to find a suitable project leader from the outside. Originally, they wanted to recruit one from the China Aerospace Research Institute. Later, the leader of the Aerospace Port came to Chen Yuanguang in person, roughly meaning:
"Stop digging. If we dig any further, we will be hollowed out by Guangjia Aerospace. You have 8,000 people. At least 3,000 of them were plucked from the space port. People who can preside over the construction of the space station project, There are only two or three of us inside. We really can’t let you poach us. Let us go.”
There is no way that the attraction of Guangjia Aerospace is so strong. The treatment and management style are definitely not able to retain people.
Chen Yuanguang didn’t want to break up, so he had to turn his attention abroad. It happened that under the recommendation of Guangjia Aerospace’s internal employees, Chris Cummins became one of the targets.
He was one of the leaders of the construction phase of the International Space Station project and became the co-founder of Nanoracks after retiring from NASA.
Nanoracks is a space startup company and one of the earliest companies to try to commercialize the space industry.
Just one year after its establishment, they built the first laboratory on the International Space Station. Their business covers remote sensing technology, microsatellite and cubesat deployment, space station airlock and space experimental equipment modification, etc.
NanoRacks has a complete commercial outer space scientific research platform on the International Space Station.
Chris single-handedly leads Nanoracks' commercial space laboratory.
To put it simply, people with rich experience in space projects are hard to find.
The only requirement for Chris to take over is to meet Chen Yuanguang first.
After Chen Yuanguang heard this, he felt as if these high-end talents had been poached and made standard when they met him, and he became a cherished animal like a giant panda.
“Hello, Mr. Chris, I saw news about Nanoracks from magazines when I was still in school. At that time, I was still thinking about how great it would be if I could have my own space station one day.
I didn’t expect that more than ten years later, I would actually have the opportunity to have my own space station
and possibly work with the characters I saw in magazines when I was young.”
Chris grinned, and his withered face looked a little ugly when he smiled, "Nanoracks is a failed project." "Why do you say that?
In my impression, Nanoracks should be a very successful commercial aerospace project. "Chen Yuanguang asked curiously.
The reason why Light Armor Aerospace decided that Chris was a suitable candidate after internal evaluation is because Nanoracks' experience is so in line with the requirements of Light Armor Aerospace.
As we all know, The goal of Light Armor is space mining, and the space station will become a transit point for space mining.
Nanoracks is already the commercial space project that has the most consistent goal with the space mining transit station.
They have used the International Space Station to quickly and densely deploy small cube satellites, and once deployed 48 cube satellites at one time.
Space mining also requires the rapid deployment of satellites to capture the movements of small celestial bodies.
They also have working modules outside the space station, which is a rare and valuable experience. After the space station is launched in the future, Light Armor Aerospace will need to intensively deploy robots into outer space to collect data.
You must know that as a world-renowned company, Guangjia Aerospace has never lacked talents. Not everyone who wants to meet Chen Yuanguang will be allowed to do so.
On the list of candidates for Guangjia Aerospace, there are many candidates from Da Mao who have more experience than Chris.
It is precisely because Nanoracks has so many innovations in commercial aerospace that are similar to the needs of space mining that Chris has become the number one target of light armor aerospace.
Chris murmured: "Actually, I had the same idea as you back then, hoping to use the International Space Station to build a true space city.
The International Space Station is just our first The first step is to have its own part on the International Space Station, then expand this part into a complete module, and then let this module operate independently from the International Space Station.
Finally, take time to slowly expand it. Expand into a huge space city
This was what I planned when I decided to join forces with Jeffrey to start Nanoracks.
It's just that we failed, but you still have the possibility of success. "
Chen Yuanguang was very interested after listening: "Why did it fail?
Is it because you have found any insurmountable difficulties in such a plan? "
Chris said: "The reason we failed is that the shareholders behind it felt that the risk was too great.
Because in order to proceed according to such a plan, not only the money earned must be invested, but also new investors must be introduced from the outside.
Ten billion US dollars was just the starting price, and the overall environment was not mature at that time.
Our business faces some competitors. NASA began to personally accept some experimental commissions, and Neon also built an experimental cabin.
Realistic difficulties caused our plan to be shelved without further progress. "
Chris looked very melancholy: "In the current environment, if we want to start it again, tens of billions of dollars of investment will not be enough. What's more important is that Americen's talents in the aerospace field are also shrinking sharply.
SpaceX can barely survive, and there is very little fresh blood overall.
Perhaps only Light Armor Aerospace can realize my dream of building a space city. ”
Chen Yuanguang can understand very well. He studied for a doctorate at MIT in the past and also knows some people. First-class talents study finance and medicine, while Asan and Asians go to study aerospace. This is not an empty talk.< br>
NASA is unwilling to accept Chinese engineers, and Asan can easily create a big trap. The proportion of white engineers is shrinking sharply. This is an almost unsolvable problem.
In the past, NASA had the energy to go deeper. The community has carried out a series of public relations activities to inspire a large number of young people to join the aerospace industry. Now NASA is only thinking about how to outsource orders to commercial aerospace companies.
"Mr. Cross, I believe that we can do this in my lifetime." See the birth of this scene.
Just based on your past resume, I am very satisfied with you.
The only question I have is that if you work for Light Armor Aerospace, you will face unprecedented difficulties when you return to Amerikan in the future. You may want to think about it again. "
Chris said calmly: "This was something I thought about the moment I stepped on the flight. It's not a problem for me.
My wife has passed away, and I am over 70 years old and have only a few years to live. My children have immigrated to England and Kangaroo Country respectively. If I take this job, I think I will I will never go back to Amerikan again. "
"That's good, welcome to join Guangjia Aerospace.
It happens that we rarely meet in real life, and we can talk about some technical issues at once.
Generally, space stations are sent into space one module at a time and then spliced together.
This time, Light Armor Spaceflight plans to use the unique carrying capacity of Pioneer 2 to send multiple modules into space at one time, allowing them to be automatically assembled in orbit.
This results in us having higher requirements on the control system, and our tolerance for errors will be lower. "
"Yes, too many years have passed between now and when we built the space station. We actually don't need to use the logic of the past in the present. ”
(End of this chapter)