931 Century Project

In this way, the Skyhook spent several days to drag all the containers into space. After the last container was lifted off, Ouyang Ping breathed a sigh of relief: "Finally, it's done."

"Finished?" Ye Han's voice suddenly rose, "You think it's a good idea."

"Ah? There's more?" Ouyang Ping exclaimed.

"It's just the beginning, it's still early!" Ye Han looked very melancholy.

Ouyang Ping was very disappointed and asked unwillingly: "How much is left?"

"How do I know? I'll count when I have enough." Ye Han said irresponsibly.

Ye Han was right. The next morning, a large group of aliens rushed to the base with giant insects, and each giant insect had a pile of things on its back.

Everyone continued to receive them, and after all were packed, they notified the Skyhook to lift them away.

In this way, it had to be repeated every few days. Ye Han was numb and could not remember how many carbon fiber plants the Skyhook had taken away. Anyway, he collected the aliens' deliveries. If there were not enough containers, he would ask for more. To put it nicely, he was enriched day by day, but to put it honestly, he was exhausted every day.

Finally one day, Ouyang Ping could not help asking: "Boss, is it not enough?"

Ye Han said: "More than 24,000 kilometers, do you think it is enough?"

The gravity of Europa is only 80% of that of the Earth, and its rotation speed is much faster than that of the Earth. Therefore, the synchronous orbit of Europa is much lower than that of the Earth, only 24,000 kilometers, which is two-thirds of that of the Earth.

In other words, the cable length required for Europa must be more than 24,000 kilometers!

Huh? Why not 24,000 kilometers?

Because what is placed in the synchronous orbit is the center of gravity of the cable plus the space station, the position of the space station must be a little higher than the synchronous orbit, only in this way will it not deviate.

Ouyang Ping's eyes widened: "When will this be received?"

Ye Han sighed helplessly: "When it is enough, then it will be counted!"

Ye Han was not having a hard time here, and other aspects were not easy either.

The main function of the Tianhe is no longer a space station, but a primary processing center for alien vines!

The Tianhook sent the container to the Tianhe.

After the Tianhe received it, it temporarily placed the container outside the space station, took the container in order, took out the vines inside for preliminary processing, removed the outer skin, unnecessary tissues and excess water, leaving only a lot of carbon nanofibers.

The conditions of the Tianhe were limited, and it could only process to this step. After processing, it had to be repacked and shipped back to Beiyuezhou, the whole bundle of carbon nanofibers was broken up, the nano-scale carbon nanotubes were extracted, and rewoven into a suitable carbon nanofiber cable.

This process was not as easy as imagined. In order to disperse the fiber bundles, Beidu and Washington worked together to manufacture a batch of professional equipment. All carbon fibers shipped back to Beiyuezhou were processed by automated machinery.

However, even with the most advanced equipment, carbon nanotubes can only be separated manually. Industrial production does not have such high precision. At most, it can only separate dozens of carbon nanotubes.

However, this level is enough. Dozens of entangled carbon nanotubes are woven into cables, and with appropriate treatment, the strength fully meets the requirements of orbital elevators.

The weaving of the cable is not smooth sailing. It is more than 24,000 kilometers long. It can circle the equator halfway around the earth and turn. In order to ensure the strength, there can be no joints in the middle. How can it be woven?

Beidu and Washington have been worried about this matter. After all, this is the first time that humans have built an orbital elevator. They can't wait to test all the theoretical things. If the resistance organization knows that humans use them as experimental subjects, I don't know what they will think!

What's more troublesome is that the weaving speed is too slow. At the beginning, only a few kilometers can be woven every day. At this speed, it will take more than ten or twenty years to complete.

Beidu and Washington had a very efficient emergency consultation. After the consultation, dozens of processing equipment were added immediately, and the weaving equipment was also improved accordingly. After some efforts, the daily output was finally increased by a large margin, reaching the level of 30 kilometers per day.

But at 30 kilometers per day, it would take more than 800 days to accumulate more than 24,000 kilometers, which is a full two and a half years. The Earth and the resistance organization are willing to wait, but can Jupiter be quiet for so long?

And it is meaningless to continue to add equipment, because 30 kilometers per day is the limit, and no more raw materials can keep up - in order to catch up with the progress, even the carbon fiber produced on Earth is used.

Fortunately, this thing is not a rope in the usual sense, and it is not the same thickness from beginning to end. The force at each position of the cable is different. The closer to the synchronous orbit, the stronger the force, so the newly woven cable is the widest and heaviest, and can be gradually gathered and thinned later.

In order to get accurate data, Beidu and Washington used supercomputers to calculate several times, and then compared the data together. It really took a lot of effort to get the most accurate mechanical model.

The first part of Beiyuezhou was the cable connecting the ground end in the atmosphere. This part was not much different from the space station part, so the weaving difficulty was relatively high. After this part was woven, the difficulty would gradually decrease and the weaving speed would also slowly increase.

In this way, there was an endless stream of transport ships traveling between the Earth and Jupiter. The high-density transportation continued until early June 2029 before it was relieved.

The weaving task of Beiyuezhou lasted until the end of July. At the beginning of weaving, the completed cables were coiled layer by layer in the meteorite crater on the ground of Beiyuezhou. However, as the project progressed, the cables piled up more and more. Once they were tangled together, they could not be untied at all. At that time, all the work was in vain.

Later, Beidu simply used a spacecraft to pull the cable into space, pulling it out from the moon. At the beginning, it was only a few hundred kilometers. It was woven and pulled out, and finally it was pulled out for more than 20,000 kilometers, dragging behind the moon like an ice-white tail - after strict surface treatment, the outer layer of the cable was glued with a thin layer of insect shells, so it looked light ice white.

Beidu and the base group also issued a joint statement, designating the area near the cable as a no-fly zone. No matter which country's aircraft were allowed to approach, otherwise they would be shot down without negotiation. Even if they were warships of the Beiyuezhou fleet and the international fleet, they had to obtain permission from the joint command to approach.

On July 11, 2029, the last section of the cable was completed. With the order from the Joint Command, the spacecraft that had been holding the cable immediately flew to Jupiter.

So far, the orbital elevator project, which lasted nearly ten months, has finally borne fruit and is about to bear its first fruit.