Chapter 39: Helium-3 Nuclear Bomb

At 3:36 p.m., at Ekeli Crater, a light that had never appeared in the ages suddenly flashed.

A huge pillar of dark purple smoke was seen rising to a height of 20,000 meters in one second and continued to rise, illuminating the whole earth with a dazzling light!

The huge fireball with a diameter of almost 5,000 meters tumbled up while turning from dark purple to orange, while the sphere expanded dramatically, as if a natural greatness that had been bound for billions of years was suddenly released!

The moon has no atmosphere and little gravity, and the scene of a nuclear explosion is completely different from that of the Earth.

Because its surface is a vacuum environment, there is no way to transmit shock waves, so the killing range is much smaller, but the dust rushing up to the sky instantly gained a strong kinetic energy, and constantly spread outward, and some even broke free of the moon's gravity, directly into cosmic space.

Scientists were instantly busy, satellites began to collect data non-stop, various scientific instruments began to mobilize, and there was even a slight tremor under the feet. However, this tremor was already very faint when it was transmitted to the inside of the base.

Through the satellite map of the moon, one can see the extremely powerful light radiation in the vacuum almost without any obstruction, instantly shot in all directions, the extremely high temperature instantly turned the nearest dust into plasma.

And the electromagnetic pulse shot out in all directions almost simultaneously, and the whole screen clattered and shuddered.

"This is the ... satellite being subjected to an EMP and overloading." A scientist stopped what he was doing and explained to himself. The satellites were designed to be resistant to the solar wind and would automatically shut down when subjected to a large number of EMPs to avoid damage.

"Activate the backup device!"

"Transmit back the data collected by the lunar rover!"

This little trouble was obviously not difficult for the crowd, and one after another data was collected and recorded into the file.

Ding Yidong's eyebrows began to rise and his face visibly flushed.

Although the nuclear bomb had exploded, it was not necessarily a success. Only after the data analysis, this test met the level of one million equivalents, could it be called a real success.

"Congratulations, Professor Ding."

"Congratulations! Celebrate in advance!"

"Thank you, thank you all!"

Although the final results were not yet available, everyone had already started to congratulate Ding Yidong in advance. These scientists were very sensitive to the data, and although they hadn't analyzed it with computers yet, they could basically say that it was eight or nine times right. An atmosphere of joy floated in the air.

"Okay, comrades!" Oliver, who was also slightly excited, coughed lightly and said, "First of all, we would like to thank Professor Ding Yidong for his dedication over the years. The various technologies he invented play a vital role in this trial, and we would like to express our sincere gratitude to him!"

Many people had read Ding Yidong's paper, and it was indeed of a very high standard. It was true talent, not gibberish, and such people always deserve respect.

"Then, everyone go back and analyze the data. Then think about the possibility of replacing the hydrogen bomb with a helium-3 nuclear bomb as a solution. At eight o'clock this evening, we will have another meeting."

Although it was a late meeting at eight o'clock in the evening, no one had complaints, everyone was used to it. Or rather, the guys were very energetic in the face of something new, and one by one, they hurried back to analyze the data.

...

The eight o'clock meeting started on time, and a debate on helium-3 began, not only with the scientists, but also with a large number of engineers.

The meeting had two themes: first, to discuss the possibility of replacing the hydrogen bomb with helium-3; second, to discuss Professor Ding Yidong's "Billion-Ton Nuclear Bomb Propulsion Program".

"Good evening, comrades."

Oliver stood at the front of the meeting, a scene he was already very accustomed to. "Everyone already knows about the helium-3 nuclear bomb test this afternoon. Now I will broadcast the final results: our scientists have concluded after calculation and analysis that the nuclear bomb of this test finally released-"

"1.016 million tons of energy from the tnt explosion, which is basically in line with expectations."

"This test, a complete success!"

The people below began to applaud enthusiastically for a long time before stopping.

"Okay, so on to the first topic of today's meeting: exploring the possibility of replacing the hydrogen bomb with helium-3."

"First, let me explain why we need to do this, because our lack of energy has caused some engineering projects to be seriously delayed."

"In more than three months, we have only produced less than four million tons of steel, half a million tons of copper, and even less non-ferrous metals such as titanium and aluminum, seriously falling short of expectations. The main reason for this is still the lack of energy."

Oliver listed a series of tables on the screen, which listed the engineering progress of various projects of the base in the past three months, including metal smelting, internal facility construction, engine unit construction, mining volume, and so on.

The people here are all in charge of various industries, familiar with their own projects, but not so sure about the others. They figures all have an intuitive view, and to be honest, the data given by Oliver is, on the whole, much worse than expected.

The atmosphere in the meeting room immediately quieted down, there were some whispers also disappeared.

This threw a pot of cold water on the hearts of many people, just yesterday had a party, many people are still immersed in that crazy ambition. After returning to reality, the cold data gave them a blow to the head.

Only 56% of the projects were up to standard and 44% were behind! This progress was much worse than they had imagined. Most of the people here knew the truth about the imminent destruction of the Moon, and whether the progress was good or bad, mankind was going to have to leave the Moon!

The consequences of leaving without completing the project can be imagined.

Those project leaders who were lagging behind lowered their heads in shame and had some aggravation in their hearts. They had really used all their strength.

"Let me say a word here, it's not the people, it's the energy." Oliver promptly relieved: "Our previous calculations are still too optimistic, there are partial deviations, and no matter how much we save, there is still not enough energy!"

"So I'm here to give a solution ... that is - cut the hydrogen bomb program and replace it with the more energy efficient helium-3 nuclear bomb, freeing up energy for production!" He gave some more figures, the hydrogen bomb program consumes about 30% of the energy of the whole base in total, if this part is all saved ...

This plan sounded good, and the people at the bottom began to talk about it.

However, to make them overturn the original plan and change it to a new one all at once, in fact, many people are not quite able to accept it, or need time to digest it. People are creatures that don't like to change much, even if the new plan is better and more perfect, people will still feel awkward or feel risky for a while.

"Mr. Oliver, are you talking about a reliable helium-3 nuclear bomb? We've only tested this weapon once!" One of the engineers asked.

"Your concern is not unreasonable. This question should let Professor Ding Yidong give an explanation." Oliver said.

Ding Yidong went on stage, took out the speech he had prepared long ago, and spoke with the slides. He had prepared for a long time and tried his best to convert the profound content into something that everyone could understand.

The main content highlights two points: first, he has been studying for more than ten years, the core content has been very thorough, and second, the mainstream scientists agree with his program.

How to explain the technology in it again, rather than proclaiming their authority. There are specialties in the field, most people do not understand anyway, talk more than directly say "I am the authority, you must believe me!"

His approach seems to be quite good, many people's emotions began to stabilize, seems to be somewhat acceptable. Looking at the mainstream scientific authorities, they were also more accepting of this program.

With that, Ding Yidong introduced the final topic - The Billion-Ton Helium-3 Nuclear Bomb Propulsion Program!

"I'm here to give a new scheme, how about creating a billion ton level helium-3 nuclear bomb that can blast the ship up in one go. Time saving, energy saving, efficient and fast!"

Now it was like a heavy bomb thrown into the crowd!