Chapter 144 VVVLBI
Everyone sat there like they were meditating until three in the morning, and finally some of them couldn't bear it anymore. They felt that even if they just sat there until the sun rose, no solution would fall from the sky, and instead the chance of sudden death would increase. So Lao Bai and the others got up to see them off.
They went downstairs to escort the nuclear work group out of the apartment building and watched them get in the car and leave.
The community was quiet, with only a few street lights on.
"There is a backup for the Long March 5, right?" Wang Ning shivered in the cold wind. "The spacecraft also has a backup. Why not just use it to send the key over?"
"I mentioned this before." Old Zhao shook his head. "The aerospace working group suggested that we don't do this. The zero return has not been completed. The cause of the failure of the previous spacecraft has not been analyzed. We don't know whether the parachute opened too late or simply did not open. If we try again rashly, we may repeat the same mistake and the return capsule will crash to the ground with a bang."
"It created a big hole." Bai Zhen added.
"Headache." Zhao Bowen sighed.
"If you ask me, this is just asking for trouble," Lao Bai complained. "The world is about to be destroyed, why bother with so many rules?"
"Tell this to the Central Security Committee. They have made it a secret."
Zhao Bowen yawned and walked away while talking.
"Where are you going, Lao Zhao?"
"Go home!" Zhao Bowen yawned again and got on his electric scooter at the edge of the lawn. "There's a meeting at the provincial party committee at 8 o'clock this morning. I need to go back and catch up on some sleep. I can get four hours of sleep now if I hurry up... Damn it, this is the longest night I've slept in the past week."
Bai Zhen turned his head and looked at Wang Ning, "What about you?"
Wang Ning thought for a moment and said, "I'll sleep on the sofa."
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Five hours later.
Bai Yang followed Lian Qiao home from their morning run and saw his father sitting on the sofa listlessly, with big dark circles under his eyes. Uncle Wang was also sitting on the sofa listlessly, with the same big dark circles under his eyes. The two of them sat there lazily flipping through the documents on the coffee table, yawning one after another, opening their mouths to see a mouthful of yellow teeth caused by smoking and drinking, and the air was filled with the stale bad breath of middle-aged people.
Lian Qiao frowned.
"No kidding, I woke up this morning and looked at my pillow and it was covered with hair." Bai Zhen covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath, "But the saddest thing is that even if I sacrificed so much hair, I couldn't get a good idea."
Wang Ning scratched his head.
Old White couldn't figure out how to stop losing so much hair, so he was even more helpless.
Everyone hopes to find a reliable solution after waking up, or someone can get guidance from Zhou Gong in a dream, but unfortunately few people really see Zhou Gong. Bai Zhen lay in bed with his eyes open, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, so he went to the living room to find Wang Ning, who was also awake, sitting motionless in the dark. Bai Zhen suddenly turned on the light and scared him.
"What's wrong?" Bai Yang came out of the bathroom, wiping his sweat with a towel in his hand. "What's the problem?"
"What else could be the problem?" Wang Ning said, "How do we get the key over there?"
"Use a time capsule." Bai Yang said without hesitation, "Send it slowly."
"It's not safe enough. The last time we used spacecraft to deliver a package, our superiors lost some of their trust in us, and our approach was widely questioned." Wang Ning shook his head. "They asked us to come up with a plan that is as safe as possible. We are thinking about how to increase the safety factor."
"How safe can a time capsule be?" Bai Yang was puzzled. "Isn't it just a matter of luck when giving this thing?"
"Yes, it's just a matter of luck." Bai Zhen nodded, "That's what we think, but the world doesn't revolve around us."
Ten o'clock in the morning.
The nuclear working group came again, and Bai Yang looked at the little gadgets they poured out from the file bag with curiosity.
"Is this the key?"
"Yes." Someone nodded. "Excuse me, do you have any melon seeds?"
My mother brought over a large plate of melon seeds, and everyone started the melon seed meeting again.
"Don't underestimate its small size. It has great power." The nuclear working group explained to Bai Yang, "Have you ever seen a head of state in a movie always accompanied by a person carrying a black briefcase? That black briefcase is the nuclear weapon command system, but it's fake in the movie, and this is real... You can think of it as a nuclear briefcase. It is a system integration. Under normal circumstances, the huge command and control chain involved is compressed into this small key. It integrates unlocking, timing, identification, triggering, and detonation. Without it, the nuclear bomb cannot be detonated."
"Oh." Bai Yang exclaimed, not quite understanding.
"After all, no one will give orders in 20 years." The nuclear working group added, "Ms. Qiu herself must be a closed control loop."
"So it's the fuse and the brains of the bomb?"
"It's part of the brain. The control department of the triggering system is actually inside this little thing."
The nuclear working group nodded.
"The trigger mechanism of that nuclear bomb is very difficult to make. If we want Miss Qiu to form a closed control loop by herself, we will inevitably have to make it a little smarter... But this is contrary to safety requirements. The nuclear bomb requires very high robustness (this is the requirement of your Director Zhao). It must not be damaged even if the spacecraft crashes. In order to achieve such crazy reliability, we can only reduce the proportion of microelectronic devices used in the nuclear bomb as much as possible."
"This is equivalent to using electron tubes, transistors, and even gears to make a computer. The computer can be so large that it fills up the entire living room." Someone continued, with a somewhat helpless tone, "In the end, we used a compromise method. We only kept the components with high reliability inside the nuclear bomb, and removed all the high-precision, fragile, and easily damaged intelligent control departments. We also made a replaceable peripheral, which is the key you see in front of you. Do you understand? If the key is damaged, you can just replace it. But if all the systems are built inside the nuclear bomb, it will be impossible to repair it if it breaks down."
"Very clever." Bai Yang said, "Then can I ask what the trigger mechanism of the nuclear bomb is?"
The members of the nuclear working group smiled at each other.
"You will find out."
"Then can we think of how to send this thing over?" Bai Zhen pointed at the key on the coffee table. "If this thing can't be sent over, then it's useless to say anything."
"Throw a time capsule into the lake?" Bai Yang said.
"No." Bai Zhen said, "They think the safety factor is too low."
The members of the nuclear working group spread their hands, indicating that this was also a requirement from their superiors and had nothing to do with them.
"Giving away time capsules is gambling," Wang Ning said. "We are gambling with the future of the world. If you can't afford the gamble, you will get nothing."
Bai Zhen sighed:
"This damned Three Laws of Slow Time."
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at the same time.
Zhao Bowen attended his first meeting of the day at the provincial party committee.
The astronomy team finally got tough and no longer had to endure the torture of the Iron Hand's pursuit. It was probably because after the failure of the Nanjing Command's last time-slow delivery mission, other teams were paid attention by their superiors, their priority was raised, and they began to show their strength. Whether it was the Hedgehog Project project team or the Human Cannon project team, the initial prerequisite for their work was to grasp the enemy situation, and to send scouts ahead before the troops moved. Therefore, the astronomy team was greatly relied upon. After enduring for a long time under the tyranny of the Nanjing Command, they finally got their day, and they were so proud of themselves.
Zhao Bowen lost his position in the astronomy group (now called the 1220 Global Joint Observation Task Force), and the focus of the astronomy group's work was shifted to supporting other teams. To be honest, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Astronomical Observatory had long wanted to get rid of Tie Shou Zhui Ming, this life-threatening ghost, and when the order came down from the superiors, almost everyone celebrated with a slap on their foreheads.
Zhao Bowen lazily curled up in a chair in the last row to catch up on his sleep.
At this time, the astronomy group on the podium were explaining a new technology that they had just successfully developed.
VVVLBI technology, the full name is The Very very very-Long-Baseline-Interferometry, abbreviated as 3V technology.
Its success will make possible a grand and ambitious plan:
Create the largest telescope ever built by mankind, the Earth-orbiting Event Horizon Telescope.
(End of this chapter)
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