Chapter 953 Advantages of Controlled Nuclear Fusion

"That’s not my concern anymore. This is the conclusion the experts reached after discussion. It seems that a year ago, the Beautiful Country once again received data transmitted back by Voyager 1."

A year ago, Voyager 1 once again sent information back to Blue Star—seriously? Hearing that, Mo Jingchun was directly stunned.

If it’s true, then based on its latest position, they really could send the Space Shuttle to catch up with Voyager 1. But by the time the Space Shuttle actually caught up, that would already be decades from now.

By then, humanity’s technological level might have taken another leap, and we’d have more advanced and faster Spaceships.

However, Mo Jingchun only thought this to himself without saying it out loud. Without the system’s help, he didn’t believe humanity could trigger a technological explosion within a few decades and develop high-speed Spaceships.

"As long as the Old Russians agree on their side, I have absolutely no problem here. We’d even need to make some modifications to the Space Shuttle, and Candy Technology will fully cooperate."

For tasks assigned by the higher-ups, Mo Jingchun was always very cooperative. That couldn’t help but make Qin Yuzhu let out a long breath of relief.

Willing to cooperate—that makes things easy.

Next it’s nothing more than negotiating terms. With the global union as the foundation, if they need money, there’s money; if they need advanced machinery and equipment, there’s machinery and equipment.

"Do you have any requirements? Or needs?"

Mo Jingchun gave Qin Yuzhu a serious look. And sure enough—he did. Just when he was getting sleepy, someone came over with a pillow. That very morning he’d still been thinking about researching controllable nuclear fusion—without nuclear fuel, what was he supposed to research?

And here it was: the person delivering the pillow had arrived, even proactively.

If it had been in the past, if Mo Jingchun had told the higher-ups he wanted to research controllable nuclear fusion, they might have been suspicious and had misgivings.

Now though, there would definitely still be resistance, but this was absolutely when the resistance would be at its minimum.

Nuclear fusion and nuclear fission are different; they’re fundamentally distinct. Nuclear fission, also called nuclear splitting, is the process where a heavier nucleus splits into two or more lighter nuclei while simultaneously releasing immense energy.

Nuclear fusion is the process in which two lighter nuclei, under enormous temperature and pressure, cause the outer electrons to break free from the nuclei’s binding, allowing the two nuclei to merge and aggregate into a new nucleus.

Nuclear fission requires relatively little external force; some fission processes are even spontaneous and don’t require any external input—for example, unstable radioactive heavy uranium-235 undergoes fission on its own and releases neutrons.

If you want to research nuclear fission, then you need to submit an application to the higher-ups for uranium—a radioactive material strictly controlled by all countries.

Controllable nuclear fusion, however, is completely different.

On the contrary, nuclear fusion, also known as nuclear merging, is the process where lighter elements aggregate into heavier elements. Nuclear fusion is almost impossible under spontaneous conditions; it only occurs under extremely large external forces, ultra-high temperatures and pressures, or high-density conditions.

Moreover, the energy released by nuclear fusion is far greater than that of fission. This is because fusion produces a mass deficit, and that missing portion of mass is converted into immense energy.

Most importantly, the fuel for nuclear fusion is hydrogen, and the product of fusion is the stable helium nucleus. No radiation, zero pollution throughout the process—it’s the cleanest form of energy.

Of course, none of that was what Mo Jingchun cared about most. What most convinced him that the higher-ups would agree to his controllable nuclear fusion experiments was this: the nuclear fuel required for controllable fusion is not radioactive uranium, but hydrogen isotopes—deuterium and tritium.

Compared to radioactive uranium, extracting deuterium and tritium is almost ridiculously simple. Deuterium can be directly extracted from seawater, and tritium can be produced by reactions between deuterium and lithium.

Mo Jingchun had considered secretly running experiments and only informing the higher-ups after getting results. But after some thought, he vetoed that idea.

Once he did that, even if there were no accidents at all during the entire experiment, the consequences would still be severe.

Because the new mutual trust relationship between Candy Technology and the higher-ups would collapse outright. The final outcome would be growing mistrust on both sides and a relationship drifting further and further apart.

Obviously, that was not what Mo Jingchun wanted to see.

Seeing Mo Jingchun lost in thought, Qin Yuzhu remained silent. Even though she was thirsty, she didn’t make any extra move to pick up the water glass on the table.

After a long while, Qin Yuzhu suddenly saw Mo Jingchun break into a broad smile, as if he had figured something out.

"Ahem, Qin, as a member of humanity, whether in terms of technical support or pricing, I can make the biggest concessions. But I have one not-so-small demand... no, request."

The turn in Mo Jingchun’s wording made Qin Yuzhu’s heart clench.

"Demand" and "request" differ by one word, but the gap between them is huge. What’s more, he had said "not-so-small," which basically means very big. Demands are often easy to meet; requests imply there’s a possibility they can’t be fulfilled.

Qin Yuzhu, her expression grim, looked at Mo Jingchun and said, "Go ahead."

"Back when the Space Shuttle had several problems that we just couldn’t break through, I turned to other lines of research. For the past two years, I’ve been studying a completely new feasibility analysis for controllable nuclear fusion. At present, I’ve gotten a small result. In other words... I want to run experimental verification. But as you know, this thing has inherent risks. Without filing a report, I really don’t dare conduct experiments in secret."

At that moment, Qin Yuzhu was utterly dumbfounded, so shocked by Mo Jingchun that she couldn’t even speak.

Controllable nuclear fusion—that’s controllable nuclear fusion—and he has preliminary results after just two years? If it were anyone else saying this, Qin Yuzhu would have stood up and left.

You can fool ghosts, but you can’t fool them like this.

But the person speaking was Mo Jingchun. All these years, no one knew where his limits lay.

From Mo Jingchun’s book purchase records, there did in fact exist a large number of books related to nuclear fusion.

And that’s just the books; the data Zero has collected from the internet should be even more extensive.

Taking a deep breath, Qin Yuzhu gave Mo Jingchun a complex look and said, "No wonder so many people from different countries want to stab you. If you weren’t from Xia Country, I’d want to stab you too. Your brain is terrifying."

Mo Jingchun’s mouth twitched as he shrugged. "Actually, in the development process, Zero’s contribution is the greatest. I only propose the ideas; almost all the other work is done by Zero."

"You have Whale. In these few years, the experimental progress of the various research institutes should have gotten a massive boost, right?"

Qin Yuzhu did not directly answer his question, because what Mo Jingchun said was simply true. People had suggested copying multiple instances of the Whale AI to serve different research institutes, but the result was that although the copied AI had identical source code, it still lacked that spark of spirit.

It was like a person who has a body but no soul.