The rise of nanometers

October 8th.

In the first week of October, two lunar spacecrafts arrived at the Guanghan Palace base.

However, the two spacecraft did not land in the port area. Instead, they chose to land in an area about 45.6 kilometers southeast of the Guanghan Palace base.

The area where the spacecraft landed is the No. 1 thermal well in Hongwan Plain. It is obviously preparing to build a power station.

Two electrical engineers, Fang Hong and Sun Silu, who had arrived at the Guanghan Palace base before, came to the No. 1 hot well in Hongwan Plain under the leadership of temporary driver Shi Keji.

The two lunar spacecrafts, with a total weight of 182 tons, are divided into eight space capsules. Except for the two power capsules, the remaining six space capsules are functional capsules.

After sending the two people to the side of the spacecraft, Shi Keji did not stop, but increased the switch, increasing the speed of the off-road vehicle to 22 to 26 kilometers per hour, and returned to the main base.

It was now a moonlit night near the base. It took him about two hours to return to the base.

Then he pulled up a lot of special cables and composite pipes made of lead + foamed silicon steel, and drove the off-road vehicle to the No. 1 hot well in Hongwan Plain.

However, his destination was not the No. 1 thermal well in Hongwan Plain. After driving about six kilometers, he saw Li Jianxian under construction.

In fact, the construction is quite simple. You just need to operate a small ditching machine to dig a channel with a depth of 1 meter and a width of 0.4 meters.

Shi Keji's job was to install foamed silicon steel lead pipes and cables, and then bury the pipes.

The cable is laid underground. The reason why it is so troublesome is mainly because of the solar wind, cosmic rays, and static electricity on the lunar surface. The cable is laid directly in the open environment and is easily disturbed.

You must know that this cable is used in industrial areas. Industrial production requires 24-hour power outage, especially in the metallurgy and electrolysis industries. If there is a sudden power outage, production equipment will malfunction and products will be scrapped.

Therefore, this cable uses lead composite pipes and underground laying solutions to ensure the stability of power supply.

Guanghan Palace Base estimates that it will take one month to complete the laying of this 45-kilometer cable. If it were not for the relatively small number of manpower and equipment, the laying of the cable could be completed faster by using multiple sections of construction at the same time.

Unfortunately, there are currently only 12 personnel in the Guanghan Palace base. In addition, due to rotation, many tasks are difficult to do, and each person can only wear multiple hats.

His eyes returned to the No. 1 hot well in Hongwan Plain.

Fang Hong and Sun Silu made a construction plan before coming here. Now that the equipment arrives, they can start working step by step immediately.

First, they need to do a drilling test to determine the specific temperature layer to facilitate subsequent drilling.

The improved internal circulation liquid cooling system allows the drill bit to work for a long time, and the material of the drill bit has also been improved.

The drilling speed of drilling rigs now reaches about 8 to 10 meters per hour.

The surface of the lunar mare is composed of lunar soil sediments, and the hard rock layer reaches below 20 meters. On the first day, it was drilled down to about 213 meters.

However, it is still more than a hundred meters away from the suitable temperature level.

Fang Hong was in charge of drilling, while Sun Sisi was preparing the thermoelectric power generation pipeline.

According to the design, the power generation power of this power station is 15,000 kilowatts, and the power of a single thermoelectric power generation pipe is 1,000 kilowatts, so 15 thermoelectric power generation pipes are needed.

In fact, the thermoelectric power generation pipeline is not long. The assembled length is 20 meters and the pipe diameter is 12 centimeters. It can operate for a long time in areas with temperatures of 400 to 500 degrees Celsius.

As for other parts of the pipeline, except for the cables, they are foamed silicon steel pipelines manufactured by the Guanghan Palace base.

Noon the next day.

The sky and surrounding ground were still dark.

Fang Hong finally saw the suitable temperature layer from the temperature detector behind the drill bit. Starting at 312 meters underground, the temperature broke through to 400 degrees Celsius.

As the drill bit continued downward, reaching about 357 meters, the temperature reached about 500 degrees Celsius.

Therefore, it can be determined that the optimal temperature level for power generation is between 312 and 357 meters underground. He finally decided to locate the power generation pipeline in the area between 315 and 335 meters.

"The idea is, I have determined the power generation temperature layer here, what about your side?"

The shortwave channel immediately sounded Sun Sisi's response: "I can do it here too. The foamed silicon steel pipes left by Keji yesterday are enough to assemble a power generation pipeline."

"Okay, I'll leave this to you. I'll dig a well."

"no problem."

Sun Sisi started the tram and pulled a piece of equipment to Well No. 101. The piece of equipment was similar to a metal cylinder, with a height of about 2.4 meters and a diameter of 1.6 meters.

This is the ground part of the generator set. Sun Sisi inserted a 1-meter-long thermoelectric power generation pipe into it, and then pressed the switch. This section of the thermoelectric power generation pipe slowly downwards.

Then comes the second and third quarters...

After the twenty sections of thermoelectric power generation pipes are assembled, the next step is the foamed silicon steel pipes, which are also assembled section by section.

After a quick snack in the evening, Song Lusuo continued to work. It was not until about 8 o'clock in the evening that the last section of the foamed silicon steel pipe was assembled.

In fact, the diameter of the foamed silicon steel pipe is much smaller than the thermoelectric power generation pipe. The diameter is only about 2 cm. It is mainly used to hold the power generation pipe. Fortunately, the gravity of the moon is relatively low, which reduces the gravity effect of the material itself.

After completing the underground part, he then tested the power generation effect. The output power was stable at 1,000 kilowatts per hour, which was in line with the design power.

The power station is being improved little by little at the rate of adding a temperature difference engine every two days.

It is estimated that the construction of the Hongwan Plain No. 1 thermal well thermoelectric power station will be completed around November 10, followed by the construction of the Hongwan Plain No. 5 thermal well and the Hongwan Plain No. 8 thermal well, resulting in a total power generation of 5.7 Thousands of kilowatts of geothermal thermoelectric power generation group.

In fact, the geothermal energy in the edge area of ​​the Hongwan Plain is very abundant, but it is limited by material issues. The current thermoelectric materials required for temperature difference power generation cannot work in environments exceeding 627 degrees Celsius.

Especially in underground environments with relatively high pressure, in order to ensure that the thermoelectric power generation system can work stably for a long time, the temperature range can only be selected between 400 and 500 degrees Celsius, which greatly weakens the power generation efficiency.

If underground thermal wells with a temperature of about 1,000 degrees Celsius can be used, the geothermal energy development potential of the Hongwan Plain will increase to 3 to 5 billion kilowatts per year.

Unfortunately, thermoelectric materials cannot withstand such temperatures.

Many real-life problems are ultimately related to materials.

If thermoelectric materials can withstand temperatures of 5,000 degrees Celsius, then humans can exploit geothermal energy deep in the earth even if they do not have solar energy.

Materials are an unavoidable issue in the process of technological development.

Many technologies are obviously very mature in theory. The reason why they have not entered mass production is because of the obstacle of materials.

Unknowingly, the time came to October 13th.

At the launch site at Space City in Houston, the Neptune 6 launch vehicle is ready for launch.

Under the nervous gaze of everyone, the launch vehicle was ignited and launched. The light blue flame pushed thousands of tons of weight and flew towards space.

Time passed by, and finally after the core first stage and fairing separated, the launch vehicle successfully broke through the Karman line and entered low-Earth orbit.

NASA and Boeing breathed a sigh of relief.

The most dangerous stage has finally passed, and the rest of the voyage will be relatively safe.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)