Chapter 10.

Superfluid Plasma.

15.sep.2119.

Washington, DC.

 US Presidential Science Advisor Nordwood was the figure behind the AEX constellation. In fact, it would be more correct to say that Nordwood was more closely connected with AEX than with GBA. In any case, at one time it was representatives from AEX who recommended him.

 Now Nordwood, who had arrived unannounced, was in the reception room. Having finished the online meeting, Oppenheimer immediately ordered that the advisor be invited.

Nordwood's emergency manifestations were not the first time that the defense complex, one of the constellations, not necessarily AEX, had brought another breakthrough thing to fruition, and, accordingly, the expectations were pleasant.

 Thus, in particular, it was Nordwood who once presented the technical description of the second-generation V-shuttle, which subsequently began to essentially form the orbital component of the military process of the third and subsequent years of the war. At that time, most of the shuttle technologies had already been reliably tested at the testing grounds, so Nordwood, and accordingly the constellations, announced the development not empty-handed.

 - Today I have something truly special, sir, - Nordwood announced after short greetings.

- The matter is so serious that I consider it reasonable to present the materials not here, but in the basement.

 The basement was often called a complex of shelters and situation rooms located below. During the War, a small situation room was added to the existing hall, located at a depth of fifty feet underground.

The President did not object, and soon both were descending in the elevator. Nordwood, almost bursting into the room, immediately rushed to the computer connected to the television panels.

- Will there be a demonstration video? - Oppenheimer inquired.

 - There will be, but not first. First there will be a boring story, - Nordwood said, fussing around the computer.

 - A man of science can't handle a video system! - Oppenheimer, heading towards the bar, smiled good-naturedly, looking towards Nordwood, who was leaning over the shelf with processors, - do you want something to pour you?

 - Mister President, - Nordwood answered, - this is such an amazing thing that you won't even need any drinks.

 - What's going on there? We finally got our hands on an alien ship?

 - Something like that, - muttered Nordwood, who was building up intrigue, finally leaving the processors alone and now settling down in a place on the side of a heavy rectangular table.

 - So, - Nordwood began, slamming a heavy black folder on the table.

He did not wait for Oppenheimer, who was standing at the bar, to take his seat.

 - For a number of years, work has been underway to create a prototype thermonuclear generator that has significantly reduced dimensions compared to existing systems, - he continued. - The main problem all these years, and indeed since the very first reactor, was the impossibility of implementing magnetic confinement of small volumes of high-energy plasma. The magnetic field is formed by superconducting magnets, which have certain physical limitations, not only temperature, but also current density. The physical properties of the plasma itself imposed their own limitations, or rather, these were its properties within the framework of what was known to us and tested in practice.

However, now we can say that we have made a number of fundamental breakthroughs that are radically capable of changing the principles of constructing thermonuclear power plants. For example, these are intermetallic superconductors with an inverse characteristic.

 - How many years have we been putting a ship electromagnetic gun on a tank? - the president said sarcastically.

 - This may not be necessary anymore, - Nordwood answered calmly. - Superconductors are just a small element. Sometimes I even wonder how we figured all this out so successfully.

 - Well, since we finally figured it out, let's do it more consistently, - Oppenheimer tried to cool the adviser's ardor.

 - The key element is superfluid plasma. This is the slang name they gave it in the laboratories. Again, in terms of maintaining secrecy, this is a good measure. I suggest that you, Mr. President, stick to this terminology in the future.

 - Superfluidity occurs at cryogenic temperatures. I was shown it once... Are you talking about cold fusion? - Oppenheimer said with some satisfaction from the unraveled puzzle.

 - Cold fusion is completely unscientific fiction. Something cold actually exists with us - superfluid plasma is a cold plasma of the second kind, a different quantum state. You were told about it. Back in late 2116...

 - Well, I might not have remembered such subtleties, it's not a great omission on my part, - the president answered, - I remember that around that time AEX informed me in the usual way about their private research program, promised a portable thermonuclear reactor. Portable by shipbuilder standards, and if everything goes really well, then by large aviation standards. Well, that's all.

 - So, - Nordwood answered conspiratorially, - that's it!

 - What kind of plasma is it anyway? - Oppenheimer decided to refresh his memory of the boring nonsense he had once heard. - It seems to be pumped with energy, and the energy is not going into Kelvin, but into something else. They described it as another quantum state. Plasma won't even melt metal in temperature.

 - It can be at room temperature or even lower, - Nordwood answered. To get that, you need a strong magnetic field and a concentration of matter, that is, plasma. The density of matter is up to several kilograms per cubic meter. For plasma in man-made conditions, this is monstrous. For natural conditions, like stars, no. Now they are already making assumptions that the stars are cold inside.

 - Does fusion occur in this plasma? We need fusion, right?

 - It does, sir.

 - So why isn't it cold fusion?

 - Everything is written here, I'll need an hour to explain.

 - Well, I'll go and read it, - Oppenheimer answered.

 - That's why I brought it, - Nordwood was not at all embarrassed.

 - Do you know how hard it is to read all these scientific materials? - Oppenheimer answered, having cheered up a little, - You read the text, throw out the formulas. And now try to guess what's what from the rest. Couldn't they write so dryly?

The President moved towards the bar. At that moment, a wide 115-inch screen lit up behind him.

 - Video presentation, Mr. President, - Nordwood announced, immediately pausing the video. - I present to you a new generation power plant, built by the joint efforts of AEX and GBA. The test site is located in the Great Lakes region and is presented as an experimental power plant.

 - So it turns out that this is an experimental power plant, - Oppenheimer grinned, fiddling with his whiskey.

 Meanwhile, the screen was showing the titles of the constellations and the countless corporations that were part of them.

 Finally, an image of a fairly large hall with a vertically installed unit appeared, resembling either a huge vertically installed jet engine or some kind of satellite that had gone beyond the standard dimensions.

The unit was about thirty to thirty-five feet in diameter and a little more in height. In general, by the standards of thermonuclear power plants, this was indeed a portable device that did not at all constrain the shipbuilders with its dimensions, and in the civilian sector, a small-sized power plant would always find application.

 The voiceover began to tell everything that Nordwood had already managed to say, but now, one by one, they showed the reactor units - all these electromagnets, superconducting parts that shone like mercury, heating up red-hot during operation. Finally, they showed that very plasma - the same toroidal ring, flickering in the magnetic chamber. Then something new appeared - a bundle snapped off the ring, like wire from a skein, but this was only an animation - obviously, the video camera inside the reactor could not film it. Then the ring began to pulsate and a thin beam struck it - this is how, according to the off-screen explanations, the superfluid plasma array was being refueled with ordinary matter, that is, ordinary plasma. Without high-frequency oscillations that distributed the matter that had not yet passed into the state of cold plasma over the surface of the array, the superfluid plasma would have begun to interact with the excessively concentrated ordinary matter in such a way that the reactor would have been destroyed. In the end, the off-screen presenter discouraged everyone by declaring that in reality the process looked completely different, and the entire animation was just an illustration of the operating principle.

 Finally, the voice announced a test run of the fusion process. Of all that was shown, there were only diagrams on several displays located on the instrument stand, which was right there in the hall. Surprisingly, the hall was not only not abandoned by the personnel, but they were also standing in close proximity to the reactor. Thermonuclear fusion, of course, was incomparably cleaner than a nuclear reaction, but still, no one had ever stood next to an experimental reactor like this before. It was not even about radiation, but the danger of a banal destruction of heat protection. Or the same incorrectly gone interaction of superfluid plasma and ordinary plasma.

 Nevertheless, the personnel demonstrated composure and confidence.

 Two branches departed from the main unit, giving a distant resemblance to a chemical flask - such often have outgoing tubes.

 One of the branches ended in a massive unit, fixed in its position with the help of a heavy concrete structure. The branches themselves did not create the appearance of any rigid console - the main line, entangled with cables and tubes, looked more like an excessively thick cable or sleeve than something rigid. The voiceover announced that the installation would now operate in the energy output mode. Inside the unit located at the end of the branch, in a special chamber, another process was taking place. In addition to the incoming superfluid plasma, a flow of ordinary plasma was introduced there, but unlike the reactor pumping, which was carried out in the high-frequency oscillation mode, here the interaction was different. It, the interaction, was carried out according to the scenario that could destroy the reactor, but now it was happening in this special chamber of the convergent, as it was called. There, this force was restrained by the same magnetic field. The energy here went into the ion flow, formed and directed by superconductors, which received power from the electrical circuits of the reactor - the array of superfluid plasma, among other things, emitted the most powerful electromagnetic oscillations, which were converted directly into currents. In essence, this entire reactor was a perfect electric generator. The parameters of the electrical oscillations were set by the same system that forced the array of superfluid plasma to accept refueling with a conventional one.

 The voice finally fell silent. A bright flickering beam suddenly struck from the unit, that is, the camera, going somewhere down, into a tunnel specially equipped for this.

 The shots with the hall were replaced by a view of a gray concrete giant, hiding on the shore of the lake. From somewhere below, a column of steam struck, crumpling into a white cloud, moving away. The scale was serious - the cloud in its upper part reached a height of half a kilometer - this was reported by the voice. The static thrust was… - the voice reported, when the installation appeared in the frame again… - this is only twenty percent less than the thrust of the first stage of the Saturn-5 rocket, which delivered man to the moon.

 - Since we are talking about thrust, it turns out that the reactor can work as an engine, did I understand correctly? - Oppenheimer perked up.

 - Exactly. In fact, the engine was what initially interested us first and foremost.

 - Of course! - Oppenheimer responded, - and what does it fly on? Some kind of working fluid is needed? How much of it, this working fluid, is needed? Nuclear shuttles are forced to carry with them considerable reserves of water, which they heat up and shoot out of the nozzle. How is it here?

 - For a comparable specific impulse, orders of magnitude, two orders of magnitude less, - Nordwood answered. For a reactor of the presented dimensions, even if it were built into a ship with a mass twice as large as the reactor, we would need approximately... five hundred pounds of a light metal like potassium to fly to the moon and back. It is better to use hydrogen - in this case, there will be no formation of comparatively heavy isotopes in the exhaust track. Theoretically, options with different working fluids are possible - hydrogen at launch and light metals on the march. The beam that beat out of the unit is the exhaust stream. In addition to everything else, we got an ion engine, only finally incomparably more powerful than what is still, like a hundred years ago, slowly moving satellites. Nevertheless, the principle is the same - ion flow. And this flow is well focused - this is due to new superconductors. The cloud of steam is just a disguise for a turbo unit test in case "@enemy" is viewed from orbit. However, the steam is formed directly by the ion flow - at the end of the channel there is a receiving chamber with incoming water.

 - How long did you work on this? - Oppenheimer was amazed.

 - It depends on what you consider as a starting point... There are too many components. For example, this quantum... that is, cold plasma of the second kind was predicted about fifteen years ago, before the War. Then in 2117 it was first obtained in a laboratory, but the possibility of practical application was not seen then - it happens. At that time, the installation could not even work as an electric generator. Superconductors are a separate story, it was on its own. Sometimes I myself am surprised how it all came together.

 The first convergence installation, - Nodraman continued, - that is, a complex system that made it possible to select superfluid plasma and introduce an ion flow into it was built in 2113, in the first half of the year. It worked in a pulsed mode, producing tens of kilowatts of thermal energy per pulse. The reduced thrust was measured in millinewtons. Inverse-type superconductors became available in 2116 - this was also a private research project of GBA. The main reactor chamber is made on those manufactured back in the test production. As for the engine, that is, the convergence chamber, more modern samples were used there - they both contain the array of superfluid plasma when interacting with the usual one and focus the exhaust stream. No other unique materials are used in the device. The frame and frameworks of the feeders, that is, the branches, of course, are not made of aluminum and copper, but all of this, including gold and Inconel, is and always has been.

 - And how long will it take for this... for this to start moving the shuttles? You know that first of all I will ask about them.

 - On the one hand, it is something comparable to the Manhattan Project of the century before last, but on the other...

 - What on the other? - On the other hand, back then we had to create a completely new industry - it wasn't enough to bring laboratory principles to an industrial scale, we also had to drag ordinary areas of production like electrical engineering to a new peak. And now... - Nordwood smiled contentedly, - It turned out as if at the time the decision was made to create the first bomb, the US already had a nuclear industry that had been operating for years - they were building power reactors, sometimes obtaining plutonium that was suitable for small-sized reactors on satellites, and then suddenly they decided, why don't we build a bomb?

 - It all sounds too good.

 - I'm more confused by the scientific part - how did they get to all this so early. As if it were a conspiracy of scientists who knew everything half a century ago but kept quiet. This is a joke. But seriously, AEX and GBA have their own programs and such resources that... If they had existed then, they would have implemented the Manhattan Project and not noticed. But, unfortunately, they weren't there then. Remember how new models are being adopted now.

 - I agree with that, - Oppenheimer replied. I thought the plans to put the old-new F-222 Raptor into service in six months were indecently optimistic, but in fact, exactly six months passed from the signing of the document to the delivery of the first fifty machines.

 - I sometimes think, - Oppenheimer continued thoughtfully, - that we have created this... Like in the classic film "Terminator"... I'm not talking about robots, but about machinery in general, about this "Skynet". Only these are not machines that have conquered humanity, but a huge printer that can print everything we need - for example, fighters modified to suit the situation, missiles... In a sense, they have conquered us, but perhaps because of their usefulness. Although this can be said about everything that man has ever created. At least about a plow and a fire. And now, if we carelessly return to our previous way of life, then this unique thing, this printer, will perish. The industry will crawl into its corners and start churning out various cars and other toys for grown-up children, for ordinary people. And then sooner or later a new war will break out and everything will start all over again, and it is not yet known how it will turn out then. This cannot be allowed.

 Nordwood glanced at the glass and noted that the president had barely sipped from it.

 - So what about the shuttle? How soon can the engine be installed in something functional? Let it be a thermonuclear shuttle of only the first stage, but I, we, need it to be functional. Fully functional. In the sense of military application.

 - Within one year, this is quite realistic - Nordwood answered calmly, although he fully admitted the possibility of the president's skeptical reaction.

 - Do I understand correctly that the engine has already acquired its final form? - Oppenheimer nodded towards the screen, on which a frame with the reactor was frozen.

 - Not quite. Changes are being made to it now. These changes are purely tactical - the engine must have more branches for maneuverable flight. The main camera will not change fundamentally, only the superconductors will be of those that are now being produced more en masse. The ship itself is not a problem at all - the same, so to speak, supporting frame on supports plus a cabin and weapons systems. AEX had its own interplanetary ship project, though it was nuclear-powered. That engine was bulkier, so redesigning the supporting frame wouldn't be difficult.

 - Yes, I remember those shuttles, - Oppenheimer replied, - Incapable of anything purely civilian machines.

 - Less than a year... - Oppenheimer said, already picturing a gigantic P-shuttle with an arsenal of missiles like the sys.520 on board. Of course, he was perfectly aware that this would not happen, but a vertical takeoff platform with several nuclear blocks on board, capable of flying to the moon and back, is not just a superweapon, it is a path to high orbits, which may turn out to be occupied exclusively by the Western Bloc. And if the first successful flight takes place before the elections...

- I can guess where you're going, - Nordwood interrupted the pause, - but the truth is that tying the end of the first stage shuttle program to the upcoming elections is not something out of the ordinary. I suppose that we might have to refrain from some active advances at the front... Even Harlington's efforts to normalize things in the rear could play into our hands.

 Oppenheimer finally took a sip. Nordwood continued:

 - It's not so much the cost of the program itself, but the diversion of some production capacities, in particular the industry of new superconductors, and they, these enterprises, grow parts from amorphous metal - that is, there will be problems with some hypersonic drone bombers. Solutions will still be found. In extreme cases, there are ceramics - the Asians do it and have always done it. Another point is that AEX assumes the production of the engine, that is, the reactor, in a series - not two or five, but at least fifty. This is in a trial series. They cannot afford to build new workshops or even enterprises for the sake of individual orders. It would be more accurate to say that we all cannot afford this. Among other things, the Pentagon will have to consider the successful implementation of the project as a crisis, - Nordwood made quotation marks. - "Crisis" here does not mean something bad. Remember that diagram with a series of events and outcomes?

 - I remember. Even speechwriters reminded us of a series of these staff exercises, - Oppenheimer answered.

 - In any case, we will either seize the leading role in the de-escalation process, or successfully implement the conversion according to our own scenario, - Nordwood summed up.

 - Rather, it will be a conversion, - Oppenheimer answered.

 - One does not interfere with the other. "From these bricks, I mean the components of the scenarios, you can build anything," answered Nordwood, who was well aware of Oppenheimer's vision of the future of the entire War Process. President Oppenheimer, who had long since rejected any plans for concluding a classic peace treaty.