Chapter 139: Build the Spaceplane Like a Car

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(Sweat, there was a major error in the last chapter—the airport’s area was mistakenly written as 50,000 square kilometers... Thanks to the readers who pointed it out in time; it has now been corrected.)

At the Aerospace Plane Research Institute of Fuyun Group Space Exploration Company in Longling Town, Li Fu, Yu Liang, Chen Bin, Cao Haitao, and Yang Yiping were all dressed in white lab coats. Behind them followed a large team of over a hundred people, all gathered around a massive aerospace plane, pacing around it.

This colossal aerospace plane was a replica crafted by the company, modeled exactly after the original—identical in specifications, dimensions, and internal structure. Yet, its performance was vastly inferior, to the extent that Li Fu didn’t even dare to let anyone attempt a test flight because the plasma engines encountered numerous issues during testing.

Not only was its thrust far lower than that of the state-manufactured aerospace planes, but its stability was also extremely poor. Clearly, despite using the same technology and materials, the products were worlds apart: one could shuttle reliably between Earth and space, while the other lacked the courage for even a trial flight.

“Fu Ge, this is the aerospace plane we replicated. Although it looks similar, the interior is vastly different,” Chen Bin said, shaking his head as he explained to Li Fu. When they had worked on the "Divine Arrow" fighter jet project, it hadn’t seemed so difficult. But now, building everything from scratch on their own, they truly understood the challenge.

“Being able to replicate it is already quite an achievement. The key now is improving the machining precision of the core engine blades and enhancing the overall performance of the aerospace plane. Other issues are minor and can be resolved easily,” Yu Liang sighed. Despite appearances, this replica had cost over five billion Huabi to develop—a veritable pile of gold—and overcoming countless obstacles along the way had not been easy.

“Honestly, even if we improve machining precision and raise the material yield to acceptable levels, controlling costs below one billion Huabi still seems unrealistic. I think we can't stick to the old path; we need to blaze a new trail that dramatically lowers the aerospace plane’s cost,” Cao Haitao said thoughtfully, stroking his chin.

“Go on,” Li Fu said immediately, intrigued. He had boldly promised the state that his company could produce aerospace planes for one billion Huabi each. With current methods, this cost was impossible to reduce below that. Moreover, Li Fu intended to profit from selling aerospace planes. Following company principles, a product priced at one Huabi should be sold at a hundredfold or more to qualify as a high-tech enterprise. Selling to the state for one billion Huabi meant costs had to be controlled within tens of millions Huabi, ideally under one hundred million.

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“Excluding the core plasma engine, the aerospace plane has over 50,000 parts and components, each produced with different processes—very complex. Assembly is also intricate and time-consuming. Add the core plasma engine, and complexity increases even further,” Cao Haitao explained.

“This is a massive project of great importance. No errors can be tolerated. If we continue using previous manufacturing methods, cost reduction will be difficult. We must adopt entirely new ideas and approaches to design and produce the aerospace plane,” he continued, carefully organizing his thoughts.

“Consider the history of automobiles: when cars first appeared, they were the exclusive domain of the wealthy and powerful—ordinary people couldn’t afford them. It wasn’t until the Ford Model T emerged that manufacturing costs plummeted, making cars affordable for the common family,” Cao Haitao said.

“Our aerospace plane can follow Ford’s manufacturing philosophy—redesign it without being constrained by old thinking. We should boldly adopt new modular designs to drastically reduce parts. Only then can we significantly cut costs,” he said, projecting his ideas on a large virtual display. Cao Haitao experimented with reshaping the aerospace plane—removing the wings, making it shorter and bulkier, resulting in a somewhat awkward form.

“This is my preliminary concept. Removing the wings alone would reduce over 5,000 components.”

“In space, the aerospace plane’s shape doesn’t need to consider air resistance. We can design it to be simpler and more practical,” Cao Haitao explained.

The team listened attentively, pondering Cao Haitao’s new approach.

“Cao Haitao has good ideas. His thinking shows a trend toward classifying aerospace planes. Over time, they will diverge into two main types: one for shuttling between Earth and space, and another designed exclusively for use in space.”

“The Earth-to-space shuttle still needs to consider air resistance and lift, making its design more complex. The space-only vehicle, which shouldn’t really be called an aerospace plane, is more a spacecraft. Since it doesn’t enter planetary atmospheres, its design focuses mainly on cargo capacity, maneuverability, and thrust.”

Li Fu, recalling the future development of spacecraft from the Super Civilization Seed archive, clearly understood the aerospace plane’s trajectory. Hearing Cao Haitao’s ideas, he couldn’t help but give him a thumbs-up.

“I agree with Cao Haitao’s approach. Our goal is to build aerospace planes like cars—drastically reducing costs so that ordinary people in Huaxia can afford and freely pilot them between Earth and space,” Li Fu praised.

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Li Fu’s commendation of Cao Haitao’s ideas was well deserved. Clarifying direction and mindset is essential for future development.

In truth, Li Fu wanted to introduce anti-gravity technology sooner. With anti-gravity, there would be no need to worry about aerodynamics, air resistance, or even runways.

However, Li Fu thought it premature to bring out anti-gravity technology now. His team was still too inexperienced. Let them first master aerospace plane research and gain experience; after a few years, when everything matures, anti-gravity would naturally be introduced.

Since confirming this new direction, Li Fu immersed himself daily in the aerospace plane research department, leading the team in redesigning an innovative aerospace plane.

Li Fu was eager to mass-produce aerospace planes, aiming to cut costs below 100 million Huabi. Partly, he needed numerous planes to develop his space forces; partly, he wanted to greatly promote private Huaxia involvement in the space industry.

With Li Fu’s involvement, all longstanding problems vanished. The persistent issue of material machining precision was resolved partly by recruiting top experts through Liu Shiying and partly by integrating advanced material processing technology from the Super Civilization Han Tech Empire.

Within a month, machining precision skyrocketed. Though not yet surpassing the West’s most advanced levels, it reached international first-class standards. More importantly, the yield rate improved dramatically.

Previously, the yield was just a few percent; now, the defect rate dropped to mere single digits. This alone cut the aerospace plane’s cost to around one billion Huabi.

Yet, Li Fu and his team would not be satisfied with that. Their goal was to design even cheaper, more reliable aerospace planes.

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