Chapter 1179: The Arms Race

In an air force base in the desert of Nevada, USA, dozens of technicians are nervously staring at the test situation in front of them.

A beam of laser was launched from the ground into the sky, and a few seconds later, it was sent back from the sky. The staff nervously checked the data packets sent back, analyzed the bit error rate, checked the communication protocol, and tested and adjusted the launch equipment.

And in the Pentagon thousands of miles away, generals in military uniforms, or politicians in suits and ties, are also waiting for the result of this time.

At the emergency cabinet meeting held some time ago, the United States made a major resolution that it will devote all its efforts to develop aerospace technology and strive to colonize Mars as quickly as possible!

At the cabinet meeting, the current president's tone was very firm: "400 years ago, our ancestors left Europe on the Mayflower and came to this new continent. It is the descendants of these people, we, who established this Great country. And 40 years ago, we once had an arms race, knocked our opponents into the abyss, and truly became the greatest country in the world. Now, a new round of challenges is coming, landing on Mars, Colonizing Mars is a greater thing than discovering America, Mars is our new America, and whoever controls Mars controls the future!"

After this meeting, the president issued a presidential decree and established the "Mars Colonization Committee". The cabinet members either sent their cronies, or participated in person, to participate in this new round of arms race.

There are already many plans for landing on Mars. As early as decades ago, the United States had already designed a technically feasible Mars landing technology, but it had to be shelved because of cost and environmental factors. This is the "Orion Project" of the United States.

This plan is a perfect combination of whimsy and scientific rigor. The propulsion method it uses is nuclear propulsion, but it does not propel steadily, but keeps dropping nuclear bombs on the back of the spacecraft!

The spacecraft used by the "Orion Project" in the design is like a spinning top with a metal disc attached to the back. , At the moment of the explosion, the nuclear bomb plasmaized the plastic disc, forming a huge impact force, pushing the spacecraft forward.

This plan looks absurd, but in fact it is very effective. There are two major factors restricting it, one is the cost, and the other is the harm caused by the nuclear explosion.

In order to avoid the radiation hazards caused by nuclear explosions, ordinary chemical rockets must be used to send the spacecraft to outer space, and then this special nuclear engine must be activated.

The spacecraft in the Orion program is a super giant. It must have a wide enough cross-section to generate enough thrust. Before the appearance of earth catapults and space elevators, it was almost impossible to launch it with ordinary rockets, and the cost was too high. Taller……

But now, all obstacles have been cleared away, and the biggest obstacle restricting human beings from flying into space - the gravity of the earth, has been smoothed out by the lazy gods with the mighty power of technology.

The "New Orion Project" has used 77 of the top laboratories in the United States, with hundreds of project teams, and the first one to be tested is laser communication!

In layman's terms, this is an experiment that the president is paying close attention to, and it is a political task that cannot be missed!

In order to ensure the success of the test, NASA technicians set up five devices for transmitting and receiving signals in five places in the United States, and according to the weather conditions, they immediately selected a certain device as a base station.

Today in Nevada, the weather is sunny and cloudless, which is the best weather for laser communication experiments.

The signal transmitting device of the communication base station is a powerful laser transmitter that can modulate the signal onto the laser, and the receiving end is a huge astronomical telescope to reduce the bit error rate of the signal.

The other end of the experiment is a satellite flying around the moon. Information will be transmitted from the earth to the moon, and then back from the moon. The total distance is 800,000 kilometers. Even at the speed of light, it takes close to three seconds. to complete.

This is the basic reality of inter-universe communication, over distances and times far beyond the scales normally accessible to humans.

Just like going back to the era before the telegraph, the communication basically relied on shouting, and the transportation basically relied on walking.

But when landing on Mars, communication is the first priority. Without communication capabilities, there is no way to know the situation of the spacecraft in the universe in time, and there is no way to help them deal with emergencies.

In the vast and endless universe, violent electromagnetic waves are everywhere. Whether the traditional communication method using radio waves can transmit information basically depends on ignorance.

However, with the current laser communication technology, the transmission distance of tens of millions of kilometers, or even hundreds of millions of kilometers, is also disturbed by countless numbers, which is almost the same as that of Kameng.

Therefore, if this test is successful, the United States intends to use the multi-satellite chain relay mode to launch a series of relay satellites between the Earth and Mars to ensure the reliability of communication.

It is even possible to directly let the Mars spacecraft automatically release several relay satellites during the flight. They have already thought of the code name, and they are called "breadcrumbs".

Longer distances mean better pointing and targeting technology, more powerful laser beams, better communication protocols, and more bandwidth to transmit redundant information for error correction.

The laser beam emitted from the ground to space is also affected by atmospheric density, atmospheric turbulence, ground dust, clouds, and suspended particles in the air. This effect can sometimes be fatal, and the technology involved in eliminating interference, There are countless more.

Therefore, even in the United States, this laser communication technology has never really entered the practical stage.

To eliminate these obstacles, every technological advancement can be called a revolution in related fields.

But in any case, the United States has dominated the world for nearly a hundred years. During these hundred years, they have accumulated the world's best universities, the best talents, and the most competitive research and development institutions. Perhaps in terms of quality, the lazy gods have an extreme advantage, but in terms of quantity, the United States is the one who really has the greatest advantage!

It has only been a year since the rise of the lazy gods, but now, the best talents in the world are still in the United States!

The United States is bound to win this experiment!

Rounds of tests are going on, first a picture is sent, and then it is enlarged to a set of short videos. During this process, the communication protocol is constantly adjusted to achieve a balance between bit error rate and channel utilization...

In this test, the carrying limit of the channel is 1000M, and the reliability and redundancy of information are positively correlated, that is to say, the more checking information is added to the transmitted information, the more reliable the information can be guaranteed. But it will also affect the utilization of the channel.

The test results are gratifying, as long as we make a little progress, we can enter the practical stage!

With money and talent in open supply, solving these technical problems is just around the corner!

Hearing this news, the cabinet members and military generals all smiled.

When I was having fun, an NSA (National Security Agency) official said: "The lazy gods are also testing their own 'laser communication'. I don't know what their results are?"

When the participating experts of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) heard this sentence, they almost rolled their eyes to the back of their heads.

Everyone is just missing one letter, and they were originally born from the same root, so why rush to each other!

Why don't you open which pot and lift which pot?

It's fine to ask questions, can you not ask such sensitive questions!

"Uh, our experts are following up and evaluating, and should be writing an evaluation report now..."

"Where's the report?" The Minister of Defense sitting at the top asked with a cold face.

"Uh, let me urge you..." NASA officials immediately called the base in Nevada. After picking up the call, they heard that it was a urging report, and they yelled: "Sorry, our report has not yet been released. Finished, there is really no way to make a conclusion on the current technology of the lazy gods, their technology is really incredible! Incredible!"

"In order to evaluate their technology, we mobilized a pilot drone control system..." He turned his head and looked not far behind.

A technician in his forties, wearing a heavy operating suit and a huge VR (virtual reality) helmet, was walking around the room dragging a wire, screaming in surprise.