Chapter 1668: The Last Time For Something This Dangerous
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“Antimatter?”
At the Pan-Asian Cooperation headquarters, after hearing Secretary Wei’s report, Li Guangya, who was writing the const.i.tutions for the Human Alliance, was stunned. His finger on the holographic screen paused.
“Yes…” Wei Song nodded vigorously. He gulped and continued speaking quickly, “According to the news from the destroyer we deployed on Mars...o...b..t, they saw a beam of light coming from the ground, shooting at the satellite in orbit. The satellite seemed to be lit up, and finally, the laser suddenly disappeared. Energy does not disappear into thin air… According to the calculations of the s.h.i.+p’s engineers, if the energy was stored in that satellite, I am afraid that only the energy density of antimatter can match their calculation results.”
After hearing this, Li Guangya’s expression slightly changed, and he immediately asked, “Which department does that satellite belong to? Wait, is it ours?”
“It’s ours… But not owned by a department. It’s owned by Academician Lu.”
Academician Lu?
Li Guangya was stunned when he heard the name, but his face soon showed a look of realization.
If this is Academician Lu’s work, all of this makes sense…
After a sigh of relief, Li Guangya looked up at Secretary Wei, who was standing behind the desk, and continued, “Then what? Are there any problems with Academician Lu’s experiment?”
“Not the kind of problems you imagine… But there are a lot of problems.” Wei Song continued with an embarra.s.sed expression on his face, “The key lies in the antimatter energy pile.”
Li Guangya raised his eyebrows, looked at him, and asked, “Oh, really?”
Faced with the chairman’s question, Wei Song nodded and continued, “According to the a.n.a.lysis by experts from our military, they calculated based on the input energy and energy conversion rate, that if an explosion occurs, the energy released in an instant can easily destroy a s.p.a.ce base station or a s.p.a.cecraft carrier.”
After hearing these words, Li Guangya went silent for a while.
After a long time, he sighed and spoke.
“I’ll call Academician Lu later…”
Wei Song nodded and spoke with a wry smile.
“That is my suggestion too.”
Although they all believed that Academician Lu would not do anything dangerous, placing such a big time bomb in s.p.a.ce made people feel uneasy.
If this satellite was stolen by s.p.a.ce pirates active in the nearby airs.p.a.ce, the entire First Fleet would be exposed to danger.
Because of that experiment, the entire aircraft battle group deployed in the orbit of Mars had entered the highest level of alert status…
While this antimatter energy pile floating in orbit was making the security forces of Pan-Asia and other colonial cities on Mars nervous, the energy tower not far from Tiangong City was full of joy and celebration.
“We did it!”
Although Feren felt incredible about the energy tower in front of him, he still couldn’t completely emphasize with the engineers here.
He looked at the people who cheered and hugged each other and whispered, “Why are they so excited…?”
This sentence was accidentally heard by an engineer standing next to him, and he immediately cast a contemptuous glance at Feren and spoke.
“Why are we so excited? How could someone ask such a stupid question? This is a historic moment… Forget it, even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”
Feren snorted and didn’t respond.
Professor Leonard, who was standing next to him, looked up at the open dome. He then suddenly looked at Lu Zhou.
“The antimatter energy pile… is in the sky?”
“That’s right.” Lu Zhou nodded with a smirk on his face. He continued, “We used a laser beam to transmit the nuclear energy produced by the second-generation controllable fusion reactor to the energy receiver on the antimatter satellite in orbit. By using a series of complex physics processes, this energy is finally transformed into a magnetic field that confines antimatter and generates high-energy antiparticles.”
Leonard said, “In other words, the antimatter energy pile is not an energy generating device but an energy storage device?”
“You can think of it like this.” Lu Zhou nodded, smiled, and continued, “It’s like a battery with a higher energy density.”
Speaking of batteries, he felt quite nostalgic. He still remembered that the first applied field research he completed was to solve the problem of lithium dendrites, thus making a true lithium battery.
He never expected that a century later, this bottleneck on energy density would be solved by him again.
Seeing Professor Leonard was silent, Lu Zhou thought for a while and suddenly said to him, “Remember the question you asked me earlier?”
Leonard: “Which one are you talking about?”
“The source of that fossil.”
Leonard was slightly stunned and looked at Lu Zhou in disbelief.
“Will you… tell me?”
“Of course, but not now.” Lu Zhou smiled and looked up at the sky. “In one year at most, maybe half a year, when I leave for Tau Ceti, I will tell you the exact location of the remains of the Martian civilization. The secrets from billions of years ago will be revealed to you.”
After hearing this promise, an expression of excitement appeared on Professor Leonard’s face.
“Really? Remains of the Martian civilization really exist? Don’t forget your promise…”
“Don’t worry.” Lu Zhou nodded and continued smiling, “I will definitely not forget… Wait, I’m getting a call.”
When Lu Zhou’s personal terminal light suddenly turned on, he walked to the side.
There was no need to see who was calling, he knew the call was probably from Li Guangya.
Sure enough, the moment he pressed the accept b.u.t.ton, that familiar face immediately appeared in the video window.
Before Lu Zhou could say h.e.l.lo, Chairman Li Guangya, who was sitting on the other side of the camera, couldn’t wait to speak.
“Did you make that antimatter satellite?”
“Do you mean the one in orbit?” Lu Zhou looked at Li Guangya in the video window. He smiled and said in a relaxed tone, “Technically, it is an antimatter energy pile.”
After hearing the name, Li Guangya took a deep breath. After a while, he spoke with a wry smile.
“Why haven’t I heard you say anything about it?”
“Didn’t I mention it? I remember that I seemed to have posted an article on LSPM before…” After scratching his head, Lu Zhou thought about it for a while, then said, “Forget it, don’t worry about these details. Now… What do you want to know?”
“What else, other than that satellite?” Li Guangya sighed and continued, “To be honest, what will happen if that satellite explodes?”
“If it is full of energy, it would be equivalent to more than a dozen conventional hydrogen bombs… It’s an antimatter container, so why are you blowing it up?”
When Li Guangya heard that it was equivalent to more than a dozen hydrogen bombs, he almost vomited on the spot.
“That means you put a dozen hydrogen bombs in orbit around Mars?”
“Do you not understand me?” Lu Zhou sighed and explained, “Under normal circ.u.mstances, this thing will not explode, and compared to a bomb, it has a lot more uses and value.”
Of course, despite saying this, Lu Zhou did not deny the power of this thing.
For example, if they filled the satellite full of energy and detonated it on Ceres, an entire chunk of the asteroid would be blast open, and it might even cause the asteroid to deviate from its original orbit.
“I’m not planning to use it as a bomb.” Li Guangya coughed lightly. He said awkwardly, “I just hope that next time you do such a dangerous thing, at least tell me in advance.”
“Don’t worry, this is the last time for something this dangerous,” Lu Zhou said with a smile. He did not give Li Guangya too much time to digest this sentence and continued, “Speaking of which, I have something to ask you.”
Li Guangya: “What thing…?”
“If I’m not mistaken, the network connection between Tiangong City and Earth should have encountered some technical problems?”
After hearing this sentence, Li Guangya was shocked, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
“How do you know?”
Lu Zhou smiled and did not explain.
He certainly wouldn’t say that he was told by a system from a higher civilization.
After the promotion mission of energy science, the next step was information science…
After a pause, Lu Zhou continued, “The traditional network connection model can no longer adapt to the interstellar age… Forget about the interstellar age, when I was on Earth, I already felt that the network connection was out of date and could not handle Earth’s information exchange.”
Li Guangya immediately asked, “Is there a solution?”
Solving the problem of the network connection between Mars and Earth was one of the promises he made at the first congress of the Human Alliance.
He didn’t expect Lu Zhou to take the initiative and help him solve this problem. Since this rare opportunity was already in front of him, he certainly wouldn’t ignore it.
As Lu Zhou looked at the eager Chairman Li Guangya, he smiled softly and continued, “The solution is to build a brand new quantum network based on the framework of quantum communication technology. Under this brand new system, we will exchange information with higher efficiency. Explaining how to achieve this is complicated, especially for a layman… Just know the general idea…
“As for the specifics, just leave it to me.”