roccoschili Page 787
Page 787
After passing Perm Station and heading east for a few hours, a white obelisk beside the railway appeared in front of us from far to near, marking the border between Europe and Asia.The special train continued eastward.
After driving through Novosibirsk, the time difference between here and Moscow has increased to 4 time zones, but the train is still running.When approaching Krasnoyarsk, the special train finally left the main railway line, took a branch line, and got into the vast pine waves.
"At the end of this railroad, we built a logging town, but it was a fake, with fake houses, fake shops, and fake streets, and there wasn't a single logger in the town, and all the buildings were fake. It's just to cover up."
"Not far to the east of the railway line is a tributary of the Yenisei River. From 1954 to 1956, the Ministry of Electric Power built a new hydropower station on the river. This hydropower station is real, but it is not connected to the Novosibirsk grid."
"The [-]-kilometer single-track railway has a very monotonous curve on purpose, and the pine forests on both sides of the railway have also been specially pruned. All forest areas have the same length and width, making it impossible to tell how far the train has traveled. In fact, I I don't know the exact location of the destination, and I have never found it on the map."
Tang Hua took this route for the first time, but his colleague Mikhailovich Prokhorov, an academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, has been here many times, and he introduced the situation along the way to Tang Hua.
"From the terminal station of Logging Town, the railway extends 7 kilometers forward. The place where our train stops is the real destination, 'Laser City'."
Tang Hua got off the train, and the Siberian summer wind whistled low as it passed through the forest.Song Tao is not only a visual effect, but also an auditory effect: the vast forest sea looks like a dark green ocean, and it sounds like the rolling sea waves.
At the station of Laser City', Tang Hua and Prokhorov were greeted by Major General Yuri Kornilov, the commander of the base.
"Commissioner Tang, welcome to Base 6626."
……
In February 1951, under the witness of the high-level Soviet military, Tang Hua announced the laser principle and the basic design of the laser in a small area of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and also showed several laser prototypes.
The Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union immediately became interested in high-energy lasers. At the New Year's Eve party at Tsinghua University, the scene of the laser destroying (burning) the truck was so impressive to them.
As a result, the Soviet Union contracted the development of high-energy laser hard-kill weapons, and began to design a technology tree.
Tang Hua handed over laser hard-kill weapons to the Soviet Union, of course not to cheat them, but the investment in this project was huge, China could not afford it, and the development cycle was too long. At that time, what China needed most were laser-guided bombs/missiles and industrial lithography systems , optical fiber, these are to be developed as soon as possible.
After the development of high-energy lasers in the Soviet Union spread out, Tang Hua wrote to the Soviet Laser Committee in 1954, pointing out that carbon dioxide lasers or hydrogen fluoride chemical lasers were the most likely way to succeed in laser hard-kill weapons.
The Soviet laser group conducted principle verification in the laboratory, proving that Tang Hua was right. At the end of 1954, the Soviet Union built the 6626 base on flat ground in the dense forest of the Novosibirsk-Yenisei River. It was also commonly known as the "Laser City" among the officers, soldiers and scientists of the base.
The number 6626 base does not mean "the 6626th military base of the Soviet military" in order. It was picked up at random. The source of the number 6626 is Planck's constant.
The first four digits of Planck’s constant are 6.626 times 10 to the power of -34, which is the ultimate divisible scale of the universe. In addition, quantum mechanics is also the basic theoretical basis of lasers. It is quite suitable to be used as the serial number of Laser City (than that 3141 base is good).
……
"Don, this is your city."
"No, this city belongs to you, and you are the general manager of the high-energy laser project."
Tang Hua and Prokhorov strolled in the small "city" of Base 6626.It is not like a normal city, all the buildings on the ground are very low-from the air, it is still a small logging town, and the real large-scale buildings-scientific research institutions, testing centers, and auxiliary equipment for lasers are all built underground.
On the edge of the small town is a large hemispherical building, no matter from which angle it looks like an observatory.
This is actually the first laser weapon ЛА-6626 built at Base 1 that can shoot down aircraft. The circular top cover of the observatory can be opened to reveal seven 7-kilowatt lasers arranged in plum blossom piles. A point ahead is focused together.
1958年建成后，ЛА-1先是测试射击地面静止目标，然后射击空中飞行靶标。1960年，ЛА-1击落了一架从20公里外飞过、高度6600米的图-4改装无人靶机。
"Has the tracking system of ЛА-1 been upgraded recently?" Tang Hua asked.
"The upgrade from Л-6B to Л-1C was completed in June," said Prokhorov. "Theoretically speaking, its spot focus will be more accurate, and the tracking accuracy will also be improved. Now it is necessary to shoot down the Tu-1 The irradiation time should not be 4 seconds, but 30 seconds or less."
Tang Hua: "The beam tracking system of ground lasers is actually not as convenient as that of space platforms. It requires a huge and complex rotation and pitch mechanism, and the tolerance for rotation angle errors is extremely low."
Prokhorov: "So the ЛА-2 project was born."
……
In 1958, after the completion of ЛА-1, Tang Hua wrote a letter to suggest resetting the development direction of high-energy lasers.
At the time of writing, both China, the United States and the Soviet Union have launched artificial satellites, and the space race is in full swing. The United States and the Soviet Union have both tested their own intercontinental missiles. Many people in the Soviet military have gradually realized that intercontinental missiles are the future nuclear warheads. Primary means of projection.
The main content of Tang Hua's suggestion is: if a high-energy laser is launched into low-earth orbit, when it intercepts an intercontinental missile, the place where the optical path passes is the space, and will not be attenuated and diverged by the atmosphere, so it can fly from hundreds of kilometers or even thousands of kilometers. Destroy ICBMs.
Although the flight speed of ballistic missiles is much faster than that of bombers, after the rocket engine is shut down and disengaged, the warhead of the missile will fly in a parabola according to inertia, and its flight trajectory has rules to follow.
Therefore, a high-energy laser in low-Earth orbit can also more easily focus the beam on the missile warhead for a dozen or tens of seconds.
The disadvantage of low-Earth orbit lasers is that their volume and weight are relatively limited. However, with the improvement of solar panel efficiency, capacitance efficiency, and laser miniaturization, this problem can definitely be overcome in the future.
Tang Hua's letter basically revealed the space-based directed energy weapons in the United States' strategic defense initiative, commonly known as the "Star Wars" program.
Several major systems of space-based directed energy weapons in the United States were proposed in the 70s. Could China and the Soviet Union in the 60s come up with the concept machine?
The 6626 base really came up with one.
1 meters west of the "observatory" of ЛА-500, there is a hexagonal dark green observatory, where Tang Hua saw the prototype of ЛА-2.
A cylinder with a diameter of 3 meters and a length of 8 meters.
"The Rocket Army recommends that ЛА-2 be launched to an orbit at an altitude of 280 kilometers, so that it is closer to the ground, and the distance of the laser flight is closer when intercepting missiles," Prokhorov said, "but we tend to let the laser fly at 300 or 320 kilometers. Higher orbits, such orbits, the laser’s on-orbit lifespan will be longer. On a 280-kilometer orbit, the laser will fall after staying in 6 months; on a 320-kilometer orbit, the laser’s orbit can last for 3 years.”
Tang Hua: "The laser itself can carry the engine and propellant used to maintain the orbit, and make up for the dropped height every once in a while. It can even allow other spacecraft to dock with it to replenish fuel. However, the 320-kilometer orbit Altitude is wise, otherwise it would take too much fuel to maintain orbit."
……
ЛА-2的功率比ЛА-1小，7个80千瓦激光器捆一捆，但是体积也比ЛА-1小。
The total weight of the ЛА-2 sample gun that is scheduled to be launched into the sky cannot exceed 20 tons. This 20 tons is not a small number. According to Korolev's plan, the Soviet Union will not be able to transport 1965 tons until the "Proton" rocket is launched in 20. The ability to go to low Earth orbit.
ЛА-2 is actually just a small-scale verification model. It is mainly to try to see if it can track and focus in space. In addition, it may burn the solar panels and optical imaging systems of enemy satellites.
全尺寸全功率的那个叫ЛА-3，总重可能会达到80~100吨，能把ЛА-3发射上天的只有N-1这样的登月火箭了。
"Because the power of ЛА-2 is small, when it is tested on the ground, it can only be shot down by flying the target plane within a distance of 10 kilometers," Prokhorov said, "but this is also a good thing, so that we can See that Tu-4 with the naked eye."
Both Tang Hua and Prokhorov were holding binoculars, and a colonel from the base next to him was in charge of contacting the main control center with a walkie-talkie to find out when the target drone arrived and in which direction the target drone appeared.
Under the prompt of the colonel, Tang Hua saw Tu-4 flying from the sky after a while.
"The base radar has tracked the target aircraft. The target is locked and enters the pre-tracking mode. The laser is ready, and the countdown to launch... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, irradiation."
After the colonel finished the irradiation, the Tu-4 on the horizon did not change, but this is a normal phenomenon.
Lasers will never be able to blow up aircraft and missiles with a "biu" like in science fiction. They can only let the focused beam shine on a certain part of the target machine, and through the precise tracking system, let the laser continue to irradiate the target machine fixedly a certain point.
Tens or tens of seconds later, the surface of the target drone is burned, and then it may fall on the spot due to the drastic change in aerodynamic shape, or it may be that after the surface of the target drone is burned, the laser continues to burn the equipment inside the casing, completely blowing the target drone.
Tang Hua silently recited "30" in his mind, and the flight path of the target drone seemed to have changed a little bit.After another 5 seconds of silent recitation, the effect appeared.Thick smoke rose from the Tu-4 target fuselage, and then the entire plane rolled in the air.
"Good job." Tang Hua shook hands with Prokhorov.
"Next, we need to solve miniaturized energy storage devices, optical-infrared detection and targeting systems, attitude micro-control, orbit change technology, high-power solar panels, satellite communication systems, ... a series of technical difficulties lie ahead." Horov sighed, "If I can make it in my life, it's probably enough."
Tang Hua: "But this thing is of great significance. As long as lasers or any other means can effectively shoot down the warheads of intercontinental missiles, it will cause a technological revolution and even change the strategic posture of the United States and the Soviet Union."