During this period, Fang Hong has also been intensifying his efforts in the field of cutting-edge science and technology, and the "Natural Science Foundation" entrusted to Yu Qiu has not been idle.
The next day, morning.
In Jingxin's villa, Yu Qiuzheng was staying with Fang Hong. She looked at each other and said: "If the project plan of the survey space telescope is announced, I am afraid it will cause a lot of controversy. Spending so much money is a big gamble..."
Hearing this, Fang Hong said calmly: "What do they know? This project will not lose money at all. Even if the telescope itself fails to launch, the accumulation of technology and the upgrade of the industrial chain are real. The most important thing is the optical device technology."
The accumulation in this field will be of great benefit to the relevant technical aspects of the semiconductor industry."
Fang Hong's layout in the semiconductor field and the creation of the entire industry chain are being carried out secretly in order to avoid prematurely arousing America's alarm. It can be said to be very low-key.
For example, the "Survey Space Telescope" project involves the technological research and development of optical devices. Related technologies will also be beneficial to the semiconductor industry in the future.
The most important thing is that this way, there is no need to announce to the outside world that we are vigorously engaged in semiconductors. Don’t worry, America, we will not compete with you for business.
Now you have to act and keep a low profile, because there are many technical nodes that need to be broken through. If you dance too much, it will increase the difficulty of your own technical research.
According to the current basic design framework, the space telescope is aimed at the "King of Ace Pigeons" Webb Space Telescope. As early as 1996, the Webb Space Telescope began front-end research and development, and the project was officially approved the following year. The original budget was 5
billion and is scheduled to take off in 2007.
Now that 2011 is almost over, the telescope has not been completed at all, and the budget has been increased, and the construction period has been delayed again and again.
To do this again and again, to a large extent, it is necessary to ensure that it is truly foolproof, because if there is a slight flaw, it will be in trouble. After launch, it cannot be repaired like the Hubble Telescope, and failure means that it will be in vain.
.
In addition to ensuring that the Webb telescope is foolproof, another key point is that the technology is demanding, extremely precise, and the research and development is extremely difficult. This is one of the reasons why the cost has been delayed year after year.
At present, the launch of this telescope has been postponed to 2014, but as a time traveler, Fang Hong knows that it will have to continue in 2014 and will not be launched until 2021. The final budget exceeds the sky-high price of 10 billion US dollars.
The "Survey Space Telescope" project plan to be promoted by the Natural Science Foundation will be officially approved by the end of this year and is expected to be officially launched in 2O2O, which will last for about nine years.
Yu Qiu believes that the "Survey Space Telescope" will cause huge controversy because Fang Hong has set an extremely outrageous budget figure for this project, reaching an incredible 75 billion yuan.
Not to mention that the outside world cannot understand it, even Yu Qiu has difficulty understanding it.
Fang Hong looked at Yu Qiu and said with a smile: "The clear mission of the survey space telescope is to explore the universe. It lasted nearly ten years, with a sky-high budget of 75 billion. How many companies or scientific research units participated in the research and development, and they have orders.
, with R&D tasks and enough profits to improve technology, how many high-precision technology companies can be born with 75 billion?"
Obviously, Fang Hong wants to support the development of related technology industry chains through this kind of basic scientific research project with extremely large-scale budget investment.
On the surface, it seems very uneconomical and the risk is huge, but even if ten years later, the survey space telescope is launched and explodes in the sky, Fang Hong will still be able to accept it, because during this period, a number of companies that have accumulated a lot of advanced technology have emerged.
A weak technical foundation can be consolidated.
But the outside world obviously can't understand it, and that's right.
Fang Hong hopes so. He doesn’t want to be understood by the outside world at all. If everyone interprets the motivation behind the strategic layout of the semiconductor industry chain, it will make the United States vigilant and crazily suppress it.
It is foreseeable that the budget of 75 billion yuan may not be enough. Taking into account inflation over the past ten years, the total cost of launch in 2020 may eventually exceed the budget of 100 billion yuan, and doubling it may not be guaranteed.
Others hope that the budget should be as small as possible, but Fang Hong is just the opposite. He thinks of ways to increase the budget for this project, and he will stop drinking.
The design of the Survey Space Telescope is larger than that of the Webb Space Telescope. The latter is a mirror reflection structure composed of 18 hexagons. The first circle is six mirrors, and the second circle is 12 mirrors. A total of 18 mirrors add up to
25.4 square meters.
The mirror reflection structure of the survey space telescope is added by one circle, and the third circle requires 18 mirrors. The three circles total 36 mirrors, and the combined area reaches 50.8 square meters.
The Hubble Space Telescope currently in orbit is about 2.4 meters, and the survey space telescope will reach about 8 meters so far.
If you want to be able to clearly observe the first ray of light from the Big Bang, the polishing error of each of the 36 mirrors of the Survey Space Telescope cannot exceed an accuracy of 10 nanometers. If you want to see more light,
The mirror needs to be very big.
No wonder it is not planned to be launched until 2O2O.
On the one hand, technology is still catching up and it will take time. On the other hand, the technology is so demanding that if you want to get it done in three or four years, that is pure dreaming.
At present, the overall design idea of the survey telescope, which is still on the planning paper, has been released, and is still being further improved and demonstrated. The backs of the 36 mirrors have multiple motor controls, which can achieve fine-tuning with a precision of 10 nanometers.
In this way, there is no fear that the focus will not be correct after launch. Otherwise, not counting the potential value of the industrial chain, the sky-high investment of more than 70 billion or even 100 billion will still be in vain.
The material of the mirror itself is beryllium, which is a lightweight metal. In order to minimize the emission mass, beryllium is a good choice.
Although the strength of beryllium is not as high as steel, beryllium's Young's modulus is higher than that of steel, which means it is easier to break but harder to deform than steel.
Even beryllium can maintain a stable shape before breaking. However, beryllium is not very reflective, so in order to solve this problem, an ultra-thin gold coating must be applied to the mirror surface. This is also the case with the Webb Space Telescope.
in this way.
Because the properties of gold are not very active and it does not change color in space, gold is very suitable as a reflective coating material. The 36 mirrors covering an area of more than 50 square meters are actually not very much coated, only about 96.4 grams.
That's 3.4 ounces.
The current international gold price is 1,680 US dollars per ounce, which is more than 30,000 yuan. Simply calculating the gold price is not much, but the actual situation cannot be generalized. The current launch cost alone is far higher than the value of gold itself.
