Chapter 1348: Nuclear expansion, nuclear expansion!

"Academician Chang, what do you think?"

Xing Muchun, holding an English newspaper published the day before, asked Chang Haonan, who was waiting for the data analysis results behind the desk.

As summer turned to autumn, the development of "Kadena Express" gradually got on track. Many trivial matters could be decided by the heads of each subsystem, and then reported to the project management on a regular basis. This significantly reduced the workload of Chang Haonan and others.

At least, there is time to take a break from work.

"What are you looking at?"

The latter put down the thermos in his hand and turned his eyes from the computer screen to the newspaper on the desk.

Then I almost laughed out loud——

In bold black font, a striking headline was printed on the newspaper:

[Redefining hypersonics - The Air Force has been approved by Congress and will restart the "Falcon" program at the end of this year to build a new strategic deterrent force]

The content is nothing particularly new.

After all, the United States has been arguing over whether to formalize the HTV2 unpowered glide vehicle since a few months ago.

Don't be fooled by the high-ranking officials who appear to be righteous and upright in the court; in the final analysis, they are all doing it for money.

As top military giants, Lockheed Martin and Boeing each have extremely strong connections on Capitol Hill and within the Pentagon. Hypersonic weapons are undoubtedly the biggest hot topic today. Whoever can take the lead in this field will seize the initiative in subsequent projects worth at least hundreds of billions of dollars.

In addition, projects hosted by the Air Force Space Command often have looser restrictions on the flow of funds, making it easier for Commissioner Smith to manipulate them.

With such horrible benefits, even breaking one's head is normal.

It’s just that the sentence structure of “redefine xxx” made it hard for him not to recall some interesting things from that past timeline.

Xing Muchun, who was sitting opposite him, certainly didn't understand why Chang Haonan had such a strange expression. He gave him a puzzled look and continued:

"The Americans responded so quickly. Considering that they hyped up our hypersonic research project in the media in the past two months, this should be considered a targeted action, right?"

Chang Haonan did not stop smiling immediately, but joked:

"It's more about Boeing than about us."

"Some time ago, I asked Professor Yang to study the budget of X51A based on public information... Although many details are incomplete, it can be basically determined that Boeing has received about 30 times the amount of funding as us, including the remaining period that has not been completed. Considering that the project will obviously be delayed, this number will only become more terrifying."

Although Xing Muchun had anticipated this situation, he was still shocked when he heard the result.

You know, the funding they received included both the gliding and air-breathing options.

Boeing, by contrast, is responsible for only a single air-breathing model.

What's more important is that for this type of technology-intensive work, labor costs are not the decisive factor at all. Even taking into account the exchange rate differences, China can still gain little advantage in this regard.

In other words, most of this 30 times, or 60 times, cost is consumed in various inconspicuous links in the middle.

Xing Muchun nodded and sighed:

"With such a horrific profit...it's impossible for others not to be jealous."

"In fact, to some extent, the U.S. dollar only needs to print money... so spending money is secondary."

Chang Haonan smiled and said:

"The biggest problem for Americans is that under this execution model, a project can only maximize profits by delaying it continuously. If it succeeds quickly, there will be no profit to be made. As a result, even if the other party has sufficient capabilities, there is no motivation to execute well..."

This time, Xing Muchun finally understood the hidden meaning:

"So, like the X51A, you are not optimistic about this Falcon project?"

From a technical point of view, gliding is less difficult than air-breathing because there is no need to consider the power, air intake, and weight changes caused by fuel consumption.

The reason why he talked about this matter with Chang Haonan today was because he was worried that the other party would catch up in a relatively short period of time after finding the right research and development direction of starting with the easy and then moving on to the difficult.

Although in terms of progress alone, according to the schedule for test launch in the first half of 08, the possibility of Lockheed Martin catching up is actually very low.

But the range of HTV-2 is over 11000 kilometers, so when it comes to performance and speed, the Americans still have something to say.

As a result, Chang Haonan didn't think this thing could succeed at all.

"In the field of hypersonics, there is no need to regard the Americans as the main competitors..."

He shook his head:

"In comparison, there is something else that is more worthy of worry."

"what?"

"The Minotaur 4 rocket used as a launch vehicle is a modified version of the retired Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile... If they are allowed to launch a few more times, it is entirely possible that they can delay the launch of the Minuteman 3 until it reaches the end of its lifespan, and then re-establish it in some way."

American technology during the Cold War was truly astonishing.

As a ballistic missile developed in the 118s and put into service in the 70s, the LGM80 is still not outdated even from the perspective of thirty years later. If factors such as accuracy and projection capability are taken into consideration, it can even be considered to be far ahead.

Today, Americans are gradually losing the ability to develop new models. If they were really asked to go back to doing archaeological scientific research, it would bring a lot of new troubles.

Especially for China, whose nuclear capability is already weak, the threat posed by the aging Militia III is obviously smaller in the exchange of nuclear balance.

As for new ballistic missiles such as the Sentinel, there is no need to even look at them.

At least in the foreseeable future.

Xing Muchun seemed quite surprised by this conclusion:

"I think that as long as there are enough warheads, it won't be a big problem even if the launch success rate of the vehicle is a little low... Besides, the mainstay of the US nuclear force is still the submarine-launched Trident D5, which is still in its class and is still in production. It's far from the time when it needs to be replaced."

Nuclear policy and nuclear balance are uncertain issues for all mankind.

Especially in the post-Cold War era when the number of nuclear warheads has been greatly reduced and physical test explosions are no longer possible, this is a completely new research topic.

Therefore, Chang Haonan did not continue on this issue.

Instead, he suddenly changed the subject and brought up another topic that he had just thought of:

"Old Xing, after this project is over, what are you going to do next?"

This seemingly abrupt turn of events made Xing Muchun stunned:

“I really haven’t thought about this…”

When he switched from deputy chief designer of rockets to the hypersonic weapons project, he had actually made plans to retire after completing this project, and he even worried whether he could live to see the day when the results would be realized.

But the actual situation is that the progress is rapid. According to the current progress, not only will I not have to retire after finishing this job, I will even have the opportunity to be promoted from deputy to full-time and take charge of a project personally.

The only problem is that in the previous system, the chief engineer would often step back after completing a landmark project, so that the deputy chief engineer could take over the subsequent research and development work on the same route.

Both in terms of qualifications and abilities, it all makes sense.

However, the chief engineer Chang Haonan is more than 20 years younger than him, and it is impossible to outlast him just by waiting.

And the situation of the hypersonic weapons project is also very special.

As the deputy chief engineer, Xing Muchun is mainly responsible for the overall research and development, while Chang Haonan's main focus is on the research of waverider layout.

This is completely opposite to the division of labor in most projects.

This made it difficult for him to take over the subsequent work alone without Chang Haonan.

After thinking for a while, Xing Muchun simply replied:

"It's not impossible to continue working with you as the deputy chief engineer."

This is not false.

Being the deputy chief engineer for Chang Haonan is definitely more comfortable than being the deputy chief engineer for more than 95% of the chief engineers.

But the latter shook his head:

"After the project is completed, I should change my research field..."

"You are working on rockets, so you might be more suitable to go back to be in charge of launch vehicles, or... continue to stay in the military industry and work on the next generation of ballistic missiles."

"Ballistic missiles..."

Xing Muchun caught the key words and seemed to understand why Chang Haonan suddenly brought up this.

The other party has just spent a long time laying the groundwork for topics related to nuclear power, and it is obviously not the tactical models that are used for small-scale attacks that they are referring to now.

"Did you hear any rumors?"

He asked tentatively.

"That's not true."

Chang Haonan decisively denied it and then explained:

"But we can roughly assume that the level of nuclear deterrence is roughly equal to nuclear capability divided by comprehensive national strength... In the past, when our national strength was weak, we only needed entry-level nuclear forces to maintain strategic nuclear balance. However, as the power comparison between our country and the United States gradually narrows, it has become difficult to maintain the balance with the existing nuclear forces alone."

This theory is indeed novel and sounds very reasonable.

However, before Xing Muchun could fully come to his senses, Chang Haonan continued to give his own judgment:

"So I guess that in a few years, nuclear expansion... will be put on the agenda."