The conference room on the first floor of the Pan-Asian Ministry of Science and Technology was crowded at this moment.
The time for the meeting was getting closer and closer, but Academician Ge Huaizhi, who was sitting at the head of the conference table, had no intention of announcing the start of the meeting. He just switched his gaze back and forth between his watch and the door from time to time.
Seeing that it was almost time, the assistant sitting next to him finally couldn't hold back and reminded him in a low voice.
"Academician Ge … The meeting is about to start."
"I know." Academician Ge returned impatiently. He cast his gaze to the door again and said casually, "Where is Academician Lu? Is he coming or not? "
A wry smile appeared on the assistant's face as he lowered his voice and spoke.
"He … said in his reply to our email that he would consider our invitation, but he didn't seem to say that he would definitely come."
What is this guy doing?
Such an important meeting, as the chief consultant, he doesn't even want to come.
Although Ge Huaizhi knew that his academic status was not enough to criticize that big shot, he still couldn't help but sigh heavily for his unreliability.
"Consider it? Looking at this time … He probably won't come. "After glancing at the conference room full of people, Academician Ge lowered his voice after a moment of silence. He still didn't give up and said to his assistant," Go outside and walk around. If he can't find a place … bring him here. "
A wry smile appeared on the assistant's face, but he didn't say anything. He just nodded and walked out of the conference room.
Academician Ge watched his assistant leave until the door of the conference room was closed again. He sighed and turned his gaze to the bustling conference room.
He stretched out his knuckles and knocked on the table hard. After the conference room was quiet for a while, he spoke in a serious tone.
"The outline of the meeting has been issued, so I will make it short.
"This meeting is critical. I hope everyone has a 120% spirit.
"Now, the meeting begins."
As everyone knew, although the name of the space elevator contained the word elevator, it was not the same as the kind of elevator people often understood. This kind of elevator was not built from the bottom up, but from the top down.
That was, first choose an area on the ground with relatively stable geological activity as an anchorage, and then build a space station in the geosynchronous orbit above this anchorage.
Then, from this space station, the "ladder" was lowered bit by bit until it finally landed on the anchorage.
Because of this, this space station above the geosynchronous orbit could be said to be the most important component besides the ladder itself.
Considering the importance of this space, the Space Elevator Project Office solicited design proposals from the academic and industrial circles in the Pan-Asian Cooperation in the form of public bidding.
Considering the investment scale and strategic significance of the project, almost all scientific research units or enterprises engaged in space station design or aerospace engineering research in the Pan-Asian Cooperation participated in the bidding for the project.
As for the purpose of this meeting, it was naturally to evaluate the design proposals of these research institutions and companies — the so-called expert evaluation segment.
The expert team for the evaluation was personally led by Academician Ge. Almost all the core researchers of the space elevator project team participated in this evaluation.
The meeting soon entered the main topic.
The first to be displayed was the design plan of the Institute of Aerospace Science and Technology of Peking University.
A man in his 40s walked to the center of the circular conference room and placed a thumb-sized card on the projection equipment in the center of the conference room.
Soon, a blue beam of light appeared in the center of the conference room. A ring-shaped space station about half the height of a person and two steps wide appeared in front of everyone.
Although he had an ordinary face, the experts in the aerospace field sitting here were no strangers to this young and middle-aged professor.
As an expert in the field of aerospace engineering, Professor Zhu Haiqing, who taught at Yan University, had participated in the design of the Atlantis space station. He was considered a well-known big shot in both the industry and academia. The only thing he lacked from the title of academician was some experience and experience.
The design plan launched by the Institute of Aerospace Science and Technology of Yan University was completed by the research team led by Professor Zhu.
"This is the design plan of our Yan University Institute of Aerospace Science and Technology.
"Based on the design of the Tianzhou space station, we divided the entire space station into three areas: residential, commercial, and industrial, distributed from the inside to the outside.
"The counterweight pole in the center of the space station is the core of the entire design plan. Considering that as the mass of the space station changes, the center of gravity of the space elevator will float up and down in the synchronous orbit, this design can ensure that the center of gravity of the space elevator is always in the right position."
When describing this design plan, the man had a confident smile on his face.
Listening to his explanation, there was a burst of whispers in the conference room.
Professor Zhang, who was sitting next to Academician Ge, whispered to him while looking straight at the holographic blueprint suspended in the beam of light.
"What do you think of this plan?"
"It's average." Academician Ge touched his chin. After pondering for a moment, he continued, "I don't see any problems."
Professor Zhang said with a smile, "If even you can't see any problems, then isn't it stable?"
"Don't say that. The space elevator is a new thing. No one has really seen it, and the past experience is not experience at all. We are all crossing the river by feeling the stones, and no one is better than anyone else. "After a pause, Academician Ge made a mark on the form in his hand and continued without making any comments," Let's look at a few more plans. "
Professor Zhang, who was also a member of the review committee, nodded and agreed.
"That's true."
Professor Zhu Haiqing stood in the middle of the meeting room and bowed to the members of the review committee. He then left the meeting room with his proposal.
Next up was Academician Liu Bingrui from the Institute of Aerospace Science and Technology of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
Academician Liu was also an incredible big name. Although he was already 60 years old, he was still active in the frontline of aerospace engineering research. Unlike Professor Zhang from Yan University, he had a wealth of practical experience in the design of large space stations.
This included the Pan-Asian Cooperation's Lagrange Space Base, as well as the new orbital transit station over Tiangong City, all of which had his research results.
Even though the evaluation was on the design, not the qualifications of the tenderer or the academic resume of the person in charge of the project, Lu Zhou had to admit that the results of these big names in the industry were much better than the design proposals sent by the research institutes.
After seeing the plan proposed by Academician Liu, the expression on Academician Ge's face became more and more entangled.
It was not because the plan was bad.
It was because both of them looked so good that he didn't know which one to choose.
"Let's go through all the plans first … Wait until the end to make a choice." After making a mark on the form, Academician Ge glanced at Professor Zhang next to him and continued to ask, "How is the preparation on the matrix going? Has the application been approved? "
Professor Zhang nodded.
"The Ministry of Science and Technology has contacted the military through the chairman. They agreed to let us use the 'matrix' for twelve hours."
The so-called matrix was the quantum computer array seized from those awakened ones.
Although it had not been clear so far where this' matrix 'came from and for what purpose it was built by who, after the research of the Pan-Asian Academy of Sciences, most of the dangers were finally ruled out.
Considering that this supercomputer was for scientific research purposes, especially in the field of computational simulation, Academician Ge deliberately used the privilege of the space elevator project team in scientific research priority to apply to the organization to use this supercomputer for the calculation and simulation of the space elevator design plan.
"Twelve hours?"
After a moment of hesitation, Academician Ge nodded and said to himself.
"It should be enough."
…
In fact, it didn't take as long as twelve hours.
Most of the waiting time was spent on long communication distances and relatively narrow communication bandwidth.
If it was just calculations, for the quantum computer array buried deep under the surface of the asteroid, twelve hours was simply superfluous.
A few minutes might be enough.
Finally, after going through all the design plans and synthesizing the opinions of other scientific researchers in the project team, Academician Ge announced the shortlisted list and expressed his gratitude to those research units that failed to be shortlisted for their active participation.
Next, it was time to verify the calculations on the supercomputer.
All the data was transmitted to Ceres hundreds of millions of kilometers away. After being examined by the quantum supercomputer array there, the staff of the space elevator project team received the data back from the Pan-Asian Academy of Sciences.
Looking at the list of projects projected on the holographic screen, Professor Zhang cast a questioning look at Academician Ge, who was sitting next to him.
"Which one should we start with?"
Academician Ge pondered for a while and spoke.
"Let's start with the plan of the Yan University team."
His first impression of Professor Zhu's plan was quite good. He should be able to get a good evaluation result.
If the first news was good, it would undoubtedly be a huge boost to the morale of the entire space elevator project team.
Whether it was Academician Ge or Professor Zhu Haiqing himself, they were full of confidence in the results of the evaluation!
Professor Zhang nodded quickly. His fingers quickly tapped a few times on the holographic keyboard. Soon, the simulation results of the Yan University team's design plan were presented in the holographic beam.
However, the moment they saw this result, almost everyone's face showed a surprised expression, and their mood instantly fell to the bottom.
The originally expected image of the stable operation of the space elevator did not appear. Instead, it was replaced by space garbage scattered on the geosynchronous orbit and those calculation parameters marked in red.
Especially the most eye-catching number, it stung everyone's eyes.
Plan success rate —
Less than 3%!
What the hell?!
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