Chapter 300 City in the Sky
Minqin County, on a farm 50 kilometers west of the high-tech industrial park in the western suburbs.

At this time, a large field of soybeans were directly uprooted after the summer harvest, and then the ground was compacted. The steel structure foundation dropped from the sky quickly built a large base nearby.

Blue Whale Airship Company’s general manager Wan Gaofeng, technical director Hou Xin and others are currently in this base.

In the middle of the base is a specially made counterweight tower, which looks very similar to the Egyptian pyramids.

Each rectangular container is made of special foam silicon and concrete. Each container can hold about 1900 tons of sand. Together with the container itself, the total weight is about 2000 tons.

The entire counterweight tower is made up of 750 stacked rectangular containers with a total weight of approximately 100 million tons.

There are several thick cables on the top of the counterweight tower, connecting from the top of the tower to the bottom of the stratosphere, about 1.1 meters above sea level.

There are more than a dozen specially made large airships docked in the stratosphere at this location. These airships combined together look like a city in the sky.

Led by Wan Gaofeng, Hou Xin, and the base’s director Chai Letian, they put on special protective clothing similar to space suits, and then took the ramp elevator to the top of the counterweight tower.

Among the people traveling with them were several researchers from China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, including the team leader Dr. Li Hao.

At the top of the counterweight tower, there is a cabin similar to an elevator.

Coming out of the slope elevator, Dr. Li Hao looked around and saw endless emerald green soybean fields surrounding the base, and looking up he saw a “white cloud”.

Dr. Li Hao asked curiously, “Mr. Wan, how much money did you invest in this project?”

“Not much, just a few billion.”

“More than 1 billion? So cheap?” Dr. Li Hao was very surprised.

Wan Gaofeng smiled and explained: “The equipment and materials are provided by our company and other sister companies. Although other sister companies also want to make money, the prices are obviously much lower than the market prices.”

“I see.” Dr. Li Hao immediately realized that the Hailufeng-affiliated companies do have huge advantages. Many of the companies in the entire Hailufeng-affiliated company have unique technologies, which is something that other companies find difficult to do.

“Dr. Li, let’s go to the side and put on our safety backpacks!” Hou Xin said, pointing to a room next door.

“it is good.”

When the group arrived at the room, the staff provided each person with a special backpack in accordance with the management manual.

Inside these special backpacks is the main automatic parachute that can be deployed quickly.

Press the closing button of the helmet mask of the protective suit, and a transparent mask will extend from the other part of the helmet. From the appearance, it looks like an astronaut’s space suit.

Then everyone activated the internal voice communication channel and adjusted the unified channel.

“Walk.”

Enter the cabin.

It is a row of circular seats that can accommodate 10 passengers at a time. These seats are similar to roller coaster seats, but the difference from roller coaster seats is that these seats have special safety settings.

In order to ensure the safety of passengers, when encountering emergencies.

If the cabin altitude is lower than 1000 meters from the ground, the seat will lock the passenger and then eject together with the passenger. The seat has an automatic parachute and cushioning airbag inside.

If the altitude is higher than 1000 meters, the seat will automatically detach from the passenger after ejecting the passenger, allowing the parachute in the passenger’s backpack to open automatically.

Secure your body.

The staff checked again and found no problems, then asked the control room to start the elevator.

Then the aerial elevator started.

This cabin is cylindrical in shape, with fixed cables passing through the middle of the cylindrical cabin and four traction cables connected to the tops of the four sides.

As the control room pressed the up switch.

The cabin was pulled by the towing rope and moved slowly upwards. The speed was not fast, about 10 meters per second.

Due to the relatively high altitude near Minqin, the sky city in the stratosphere is actually not 1.1 meters from the ground, but only about 1 meters.

After more than ten minutes, the cabin finally crossed the troposphere and arrived at the bottom of the stratosphere where the air was thin and the air flow was relatively stable.

Everyone looked out the window and the ever-increasing height brought an unprecedented experience.

This is a completely different experience from flying on an airplane.

Of course, the experience of taking a high-altitude elevator is not good, because when passing through the troposphere, the surrounding air disturbance will cause the cabin to shake significantly, and it feels as if the entire cabin is about to fall down at the next moment.

If someone is afraid of heights, they will probably be scared to death.

Fortunately, everyone present had been screened for acrophobia.

Outside the window is an endless expanse of emerald green land, and looking west, there is a yellowish-brown line, which is the untransformed desert area.

“arrive.”

The staff’s reminder helped everyone wake up from their shock.

Arrived at the elevator station at the bottom of the Sky City.

Everyone walked out of the cabin with weak legs.

Standing on the observation deck below, you can overlook the area with a radius of hundreds of kilometers, including Minqin West Suburb High-tech Industrial Park, Minqin Old County Town, Minqin New County Town and other areas.

A researcher opened his mask and ate a piece of candy to refresh himself: “This perspective is a bit like looking down at the earth from outer space, but there are still some differences between the two.”

“We should be the first foreign tourists to the Sky City, right?”

Hou Xin nodded: “Yes, you are the first group of foreign tourists.”

Dr. Li Hao pushed up his glasses and asked, “So, the Sky City will be open to the public in the future?”

“Of course, but it won’t be open to the public so quickly. After all, this project is only in the testing phase and needs to be modified later.” Wan Gaofeng wanted to develop tourism projects, but this was obviously not that simple. Besides, there was nothing fun in the Sky City right now. You couldn’t come all the way here just to take a ride on the high-altitude elevator, right?

In addition, the Sky City project involves some confidential technologies and confidential projects, so even if it is open to tourism, tourists need to be strictly screened.

At the bottom elevator station of the Sky City, everyone rested for more than ten minutes before taking another elevator inside to the upper part of the Sky City.

Coming out of the elevator, there is a translucent hemispherical area. This area is mainly an observation deck. Looking up, you can see a very bright sun and a spotless light blue sky, a sky with almost no obstructions.

“It’s empty and vast.”

“Yes! The vast, empty sky.”

Since the hemispherical observation deck has a special air pressure, temperature, and gas control system inside, and can block some cosmic rays and ultraviolet rays, people can chat and laugh here.

Otherwise, at this altitude, the altitude sickness alone would be enough to devastate them.

There are no skyscrapers as imagined on the sky city, but endless solar photovoltaic panels. There are only about six or seven buildings protruding from the plane.

One of them was the hemispherical observation deck where they were standing at the moment.

Li Hao looked to the north. There was a building over there, about 600 to 700 meters away. “Is that the high-altitude telescope over there?”

Hou Xin smiled slightly. “Yes, that is a high-altitude telescope project that we are cooperating with Purple Mountain Observatory. After all, our company does not have any astronomical research projects, so we rented some of the surplus payloads to Purple Mountain Observatory for use. They installed several high-performance astronomical telescopes here.”

Li Hao was also extremely envious.

The Hailufeng Group is indeed wealthy, and a project like Sky City is almost impossible to generate profits, but they still chose to invest.

Even if we develop tourism projects in the future and sell tickets for one thousand yuan, it is estimated that it will be difficult to make money.

Fortunately, the Sky City can generate electricity through photovoltaics every day, and a part of the income can barely break even. As for making money, there is no need to dream about it.

Although Wan Gaofeng said that the Sky City project only invested more than 10 billion yuan, this money did not include the purchase and maintenance of various scientific research equipment in the later stage.

Therefore, Wan Gaofeng invited people from companies and research institutions such as China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation to come and see if he could trick a few suckers into sharing the costs.

For example, the Purple Mountain Observatory, which had been persuaded to cooperate in the astronomical telescope project, paid for the scientific research equipment and also paid for the site rental.

Hou Xin began to deceive: “Dr. Li, our Sky City currently has about 3000 tons of surplus payload. If you are interested, we can cooperate to develop a high-altitude launch vehicle or a high-altitude space shuttle.”

“Director Hou, we still need to study this matter. You know, I can’t make a decision on this kind of thing.” Li Hao shook his head, with an expression that said I can’t help.

“Haha, Dr. Li is too modest.” Wan Gaofeng immediately suggested: “How about this, Dr. Li can come to our place for inspection in the near future. We also know that Dr. Li is in a difficult situation. As long as you can truthfully report the true situation of Sky City to your company’s management, we will be very grateful.”

Li Hao did not refuse this. After all, he had to consider the Buddha’s face. He could ignore Wan Gaofeng and Hou Xin, but he could not ignore Jiang Miao behind the Blue Whale airship.

What’s more, there is a lot of cooperation between CASIC and Hailufeng Group. Various new materials developed and produced by Hailufeng Group have become a new starting point in the aerospace field. It is difficult for foreign aerospace departments to obtain these new materials, while CASIC, as a domestic enterprise, can easily obtain relevant materials.

Moreover, now it is not only CASIC that is researching the application of new materials. Other domestic aerospace regions are also taking action. Although they are still the domestic aerospace giants, there is still the possibility of failure if they do not pay attention to new technologies and new materials.

“No problem, this is also one of the purposes of my visit this time.”

Everyone wandered around the sky city for several hours.

Li Hao and others have already had a preliminary understanding of the situation of the entire Sky City.

Back to the hemispheric observation deck again.

Li Hao, who already had a lot of questions, asked as soon as he sat down: “Boss Wan, if we want to launch a carrier rocket in the Sky City, I have a few questions I would like to know.”

“Dr. Li, please feel free to speak.” Wan Gaofeng said as he turned around and told the staff: “Xiao Lin, arrange lunch.”

“Okay, Mr. Wan.”

Li Hao didn’t care too much about food and drink, and went straight to the point and asked: “The first question is about how to transport the carrier rocket to the sky city.”

“This problem is easy to solve. Although the large airship will only have a few hundred tons of payload left when it reaches the stratosphere, it is enough to lift the unfueled launch vehicle up.”

After hearing this answer, Dr. Li Hao thought for a moment and asked, “In other words, the launch vehicle needs to be refueled on the Sky City?”

“Yes, there is no big problem in this regard. Our Sky City currently has about 3200 tons of payload. We can reserve a batch of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen here in advance.”

Li Hao thought for a moment and felt that this solution was acceptable. Then he asked another question: “If the carrier rocket is to be launched on the Sky City, the tail flame of the carrier rocket’s engine will generate high temperature. The Sky City is a hydrogen airship. How does Mr. Wan plan to avoid this risk?”

“We have certainly studied this,” Hou Xin continued. “We will design a special launch platform that is hollow and uses silicon carbide nanotubes as the core material of the platform. This will prevent the high temperature of the engine’s tail flame from affecting the surrounding hydrogen airbags.”

But Li Hao was not satisfied. He shook his head and said, “What if, I mean what if, the rocket explodes on the launch platform, the surrounding hydrogen gas bags will definitely be affected. How will we solve the risk at that time?”

However, Hou Xin was confident: “We are prepared for possible explosions. Dr. Li should know that our company has developed foam silicon materials.”

“Foamy silicon? I know that.”

“We plan to use foam silicon as a safety fence to isolate the launch platform from the surrounding hydrogen gas bag. Even if an explosion occurs, it will not affect the hydrogen gas bag.”

Li Hao thought about it silently in his mind for a while, and found that Hou Xin’s plan didn’t seem to have any major problems, so he asked the next question: “Okay, the next question is about…”

Hou Xin answered more than a dozen questions one by one.

Li Hao smiled and shook his head after getting a satisfactory answer: “It seems that Director Hou was well prepared!”

Hou Xin did not hide anything and spoke directly from his heart: “I am also a technical person, so I naturally know a lot of problems. In order for this cooperation to proceed smoothly, I must be well prepared and I cannot let Dr. Li make a wasted trip.”

“I have seen your company’s sincerity and determination. I will describe the report truthfully this time. I hope we can continue to cooperate in the future.”

“Then I wish us happy cooperation.”

Both parties stood up and shook hands with a smile.

Kobayashi, who had just gone downstairs to prepare lunch, was now pushing a cart and handing out the prepared lunch boxes to everyone.

(End of this chapter)