Pacific Ocean, equator.

Since the Noah's America was merged by the Federation, the Pacific Ocean has now become the inland sea of ​​the Federation.

In the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean and in the middle of the Gilbert Islands, it was operated by the Suiren Department for several years. It was no longer the small island state it was in, but the economically prosperous maritime city.

Of course, when Huang Xiuyuan chose to control this place, he actually had another ambition, and today this ambition finally met all the conditions for realization.

A huge fleet, including 50 large engineering ships, 50 transport ships of 200,000 to 500,000 tons, and 1 nuclear fusion power generator (Fendou), set off from the Port of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.

Huang Xiuyuan appeared in the fleet in person. Due to the unprecedented strength of the Federation, the external threats he faced were reduced by a lot, and he was no longer in a secret security state like before.

What's more, it is now the hinterland of the Pacific, with federal control areas everywhere. To attack Huang Xiuyuan here, the difficulty is no less than attacking the core cities of the local area.

The destination of this huge fleet is Baker Island 1,240 kilometers away from here, which is also one of the Pacific islands controlled by Noah before.

Huang Xiuyuan was on an engineering ship, with more than a dozen researchers and engineers next to him, and there was a huge sand table model in front of them.

This is the seabed terrain near Baker Island, and it is also what the Suiren Department has been working hard to collect in recent years.

What exactly is Baker Island worthy of such a great battle between the Federation and sending such a huge fleet over.

First of all, from the perspective of geographical geological conditions.

Baker Island is located in the central area of ​​the Pacific Ocean, and the equator passes through the south side of the island's base. Here, the crustal plates are relatively stable and are not the active volcanic seismic zone at the junction of the plates.

Second, the climatic conditions here are relatively stable. Although there are typhoon weather, typhoons are not common because they are near the equator and are controlled by tropical depressions all year round.

Third, Bell Island is sparsely populated and full of large oceans.

Except for the Island of Howland on the north, other islands are generally around thousands of kilometers away, which is a typical Pacific island.

The purpose of Huang Xiuyuan and his group here was not to visit, but to build a super project - the Wood Construction Plan.

The building plan is actually a space elevator project.

Although the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Engineering and the Suiren Department have their own ideas, the wealthy federation can support a variety of projects of the same destination. Even if some of them fail, as long as one or two succeed, it will be profitable.

The location of a space elevator is not something you can do casually.

First, the ground stations of space elevators must be built on the equator, and then the climate is required to be relatively stable: the winds are below level 2 all year round, cumulonimbus clouds do not often appear, and they are far away from various pressure zones and monsoon circulation.

Considering the possibility of breaking of the cables of space elevators, it must be kept away from the gathering places of humans.

Finally, the geological stability is the ground crust that facilitates the fixation of cables.

Therefore, among the equatorial regions around the world, the equatorial regions of Central America, Southeast Asia, and central Blackland are excluded, and only the equatorial regions of the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Ceylon Ocean are left.

These three sea areas are the first to appear in the Atlantic equatorial waters.

The reason is very simple, because the Atlantic equatorial waters are not only sturdy winds and high waves, but the average sea water depth is too deep, and there are no islands. There are also plate fault zones passing by, and the mid-ocean ridge is in the land-making stage, and the geology is not stable.

Then there is the Ceylon Ocean, which is also not suitable here. The eastern section of the Ceylon Ocean equatorial waters is adjacent to a fault zone; while the western section of the Ceylon Ocean equatorial waters has complex climate, ocean currents and social conditions.

In the end, only the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean remain.

In this sea area, from the 180-degree longitude to the 120-degree west longitude, various conditions are very suitable for the construction of ground stations for space elevators.

Especially now, since the Pacific Ocean is the inland sea of ​​the Federation, it is easier to protect and operate than the Atlantic Ocean and Ceylon Ocean.

Bell Island is one of the sites, and there is another option to the east, that is, Jarvis Island and the undersea mountains of the Ryan Islands. If land reclamation is used, it can also be used as a ground station.

Setting up a ground station for space elevators on Baker Island will achieve twice the result with half the effort.

According to the general plan of the building plan, the ground station of Bell Island will be a huge building covering an area of ​​30 square kilometers. The building height is 3.5 kilometers and it presents a pyramid layout, which is also the ultimate pressure of the current construction materials.

If the height of the building exceeds 4 kilometers, even if various nanomaterials are used, unless the bottom is full of solid fillers, there is no way to build it.

A height of 3.5 kilometers will be stuck below the safety line.

The reason for building a ground station with such a large area and such a high height is mainly to bind the pulling force of the synchronous track space station, which is equivalent to the ground counterweight.

After all, space elevators cannot use a pressure-type main body, they can only use a pull-type main body.

If you want to adopt a press-type structure, it is similar to the way to build a high-rise building, building from the ground up. As mentioned above, the current height limit of the building is 3.5 to 4 kilometers.

Under such material conditions, it is obvious that the press-type structure cannot be used.

If there is really material to reach, there is no need to build a space elevator. Just build a mass projector with a height of 30 to 50 kilometers.

Therefore, space elevators can only use pull-type, which means using the synchronous track space station to pull the cable, and straighten the cable through the weight of the synchronous track.

This is also the key point of the construction of a space elevator, which is to first send the cable to the synchronous track space station, then splice it bit by bit, and gradually put the cable down to the ground.

Otherwise, there is no way to construct. After all, the length of the cable must reach 35,786 kilometers, and it is not realistic to pull it up from the ground.

The synchronous orbit space station is now under construction. In order to achieve the counterweight, the total weight of this space station must reach at least 8,000 to 12,000 tons.

The Jianmu Synchronous Track Space City designed by Jianmu is 52,000 to 65,000 tons.

For the current federal government, this weight is just a drizzle and can be completed in less than half a year.

The cable material was originally intended to use carbon nanotubes, but the federal carbon nanotube synthesis technology broke through around 14 years. The problem of braiding a cable of 35,786 kilometers in length is not too big.

However, the fracture limit length of carbon nanotubes is about 4716 kilometers, which cannot reach the height of the synchronous orbit at all.

Since the cable has to withstand tens of thousands of tons of pulling force, it is obviously impossible to calculate based on the limit breaking length. It is estimated that about half of the length is almost the limit.

The length of more than 2,000 kilometers is obviously not up to the requirements of a space elevator.

Until around October last year, Xie Qing's team used electric field synthesis technology to synthesize a brand new nanowire - multiple carbon nanotubes + silene heads - formed silene - supercarbon nanotubes on the moon.

The ultimate fracture length of silene-ultracarbon nanotubes is about 170,000 kilometers, the tensile strength is 540,000 MPa, and the specific strength is 390,000.

The comprehensive performance is one order of magnitude higher than that of carbon nanotubes, just meets the manufacturing of ultra-long cables.
Chapter completed!