Rebirth of Hong Kong Island, leading the technology war

Chapter 621 Electromagnetic catapult launcher design revealed! Experts in the room were in an uproar; this technology was simply impossible to achieve.
"A new launch pad? How new? What revolutionary technology does it utilize? Is it an innovation in materials or structure?"

Xie Jiangping waved his hand, indicating that he also knew only a limited amount of information: "More specifically, I only have a vague understanding of it, and it seems to be a very advanced concept. When Speaker Hua comes over in a while and the relevant information is displayed, it should be clearer. As far as I know, that concept... is quite bold."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Zhengze's curiosity was piqued: "In that case, I'm really looking forward to it. I want to see what kind of new launch pad it is that makes Speaker Hua attach so much importance to it and insist on inviting all of us here for a closed-door technical seminar. I hope it's not just a publicity stunt."

Lu Anlei also showed a thoughtful expression.

In fact, she also felt that this matter was somewhat illogical.

According to the usual procedure, for the preliminary review of such technical solutions, the Hong Kong government should send a summary of the core technical information to the participating experts in advance, so that everyone has enough time to read, think and prepare their opinions.

Why did Hua Junfeng deviate from his usual practice this time, not distributing any materials in advance, but instead waiting until the meeting to conduct real-time discussions?

This approach is inefficient and not conducive to in-depth discussion.

If other organizers did this, it might be attributed to a lack of experience or insufficient attention to detail.

But Wah Chun-fung is different. He is the Speaker of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and is known for his steady and thorough approach.

His decision to do something, especially such an important technical assessment, must have been made after careful consideration; he couldn't possibly make such a seemingly basic mistake.

Therefore, the only reasonable explanation is that Hua Junfeng intentionally withheld the technical information in advance.

Perhaps it was for the sake of secrecy?
Perhaps they want to see the experts' most direct and immediate reactions?
Or perhaps the technical solution itself is so special that it can only be demonstrated in such a controlled environment?
In any case, the mystery will be revealed soon.

Lu Anlei had to admit that Xie Jiangping's words had greatly piqued her curiosity about this so-called new type of launcher.

What kind of idea is this that warrants such a grand and mysterious undertaking?
A moment later, several more men and women who looked like scholars entered the reception room.

These people are either senior experts with gray hair and a calm demeanor, or middle-aged and young scholars who are in their prime and have sharp eyes.

One or two of them were familiar faces to Xie and Xiao, while the others were relatively unfamiliar. They were obviously experts and scholars in related fields invited by Hua Junfeng through other channels. They covered different professional backgrounds such as aerospace engineering, aerodynamics, high-energy physics, large mechanical structures, and strong electromagnetic field applications, but all of them were more or less related to aerospace technology.

Shortly after the last invitee took his seat, the door to the reception room opened again, and the main guest finally arrived. Hong Kong Speaker John Woo walked in with steady steps, his chief assistant Ding Jiani following beside him as always, carrying a tablet computer and a notebook.

As soon as Hua Junfeng entered, the experts and scholars who had been sitting and chatting or deep in thought almost simultaneously stood up to show their respect for the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong government.

This small detail fully demonstrates that Wah Chun-Fung enjoys considerable prestige among various sectors of Hong Kong society, including among these often high-minded and principled scholars and experts.

With a warm smile on his face, Hua Junfeng quickly stretched out his hands and pressed them down: "Professors and experts, you're too kind. Please sit down, please sit down. Jia Ni, please have someone bring you some coffee and snacks."

After everyone was seated, Hua Junfeng walked to the head seat, but did not sit down immediately. Instead, he stood up and said to everyone, "Please relax and don't be so serious. This is an informal, small-scale internal symposium. We mainly want to hear the insightful opinions of the experts. Please relax and let's chat freely."

Although Hua Junfeng spoke lightly, no one present was naive enough to believe that this was just a casual and pleasant chat.

The fact that so many experts and scholars, who are considered leading figures or luminaries in their respective fields, were able to be invited to this highly confidential meeting room speaks volumes about the importance of the matter being discussed.

Hua Junfeng didn't exchange many pleasantries and went straight to the point. He gestured to Ding Jiani beside him.

Ding Jiani understood and immediately began to skillfully operate the control panel on the conference table, turning on the high-definition projector installed on the roof.

Soon, the white projection screen lit up, displaying the cover of a technical document.

When everyone's attention was focused on the bold, enlarged title on the cover, the entire meeting room fell into a brief, almost imperceptible silence.

Immediately, it exploded like a drop of cold water falling into a pot of boiling oil!
On the projection screen, a prominent title was clearly displayed:

[Discussion on the Technical Principles and Preliminary Implementation Plan of Electromagnetic Catapult Launchers]

"Wha...what? An electromagnetic catapult launcher?!"

"My God, this refers to... electromagnetic catapult technology used in space launches?"

"I've heard about some theoretical discussions of this technology, but it's still in a very early laboratory stage and far from mature!"

"Is this... a feasible plan? Or just a conceptual prophecy?"

"Could it be that Hong Kong Island is actually planning to approve a project and start construction on this facility immediately? This...this is too crazy, it definitely won't work!"

"Are you kidding me?! Building such a large-scale electromagnetic catapult on the ground to launch rockets? With humanity's current technological reserves and engineering capabilities, it's simply impossible!"

A chorus of doubts, gasps of surprise, and whispers of disbelief instantly filled the room, and all the experts’ faces were filled with shock and confusion.

All the previous speculations about subsidy fraud and hype seemed to be temporarily overshadowed by the impact of this overly avant-garde headline.

The atmosphere of the meeting suddenly became incredibly tense and focused.

Xiao Zhengze broke the noise in the conference room first, adjusting his glasses: "Speaker Hua, please forgive my bluntness, but I think this plan... is fundamentally lacking in feasibility, that's right, seriously lacking."

He paused, glanced around at everyone present, and turned his gaze to the eye-catching title on the projection screen: "The core problem is that the relevant technological foundation is far from mature. As far as I know, even the United States, with its most powerful technological strength, has long been stuck in a bottleneck in its cutting-edge research on electromagnetic catapults, especially in its exploration of applying them to extreme conditions such as space launches. The progress is very slow, let alone engineering and putting them into practical use."

"As for Hong Kong Island, although it has its highlights in some basic scientific research, when it comes to this kind of mega-project that requires the support of a huge industrial system and involves the integration of top technologies from multiple disciplines... to put it bluntly, the gap is even bigger. Even if this plan contains some seemingly novel theoretical foundations, there is a huge gap between theory and practice. With our current conditions, these ideas are simply impossible to implement and can only be castles in the air."

Xiao Zhengze's speech clearly expressed the sentiments of the vast majority of experts present.

As soon as he finished speaking, a chorus of whispers of agreement and nods of approval filled the conference room.

"Professor Xiao is right, this idea is indeed too advanced." "Yes, the current conditions simply don't support it, it's practically an impossible task."

"This is such a far-fetched idea! Who came up with this plan? It feels completely detached from engineering practice and is utterly unprofessional."

"The so-called electromagnetic catapult launcher currently exists at best in the theoretical discussion stage of some academic papers, and even the core theoretical system that supports it is not yet particularly perfect and mature."

"This is outrageous and shocking. How can such a technology, which is clearly still in the conceptual stage and far from mature, be discussed so seriously at a meeting of our level? Isn't this a bit too frivolous?"

After the initial shock, these experts and scholars generally felt belittled or even mocked.

They spent their precious time gathering here expecting a serious technical discussion, not to hear a science fiction concept.

Therefore, some outspoken experts couldn't help but voice their doubts and dissatisfaction directly, their tone inevitably carrying emotion, and for a moment they didn't care whether their words would offend the conference organizer, Speaker Hua Junfeng.

However, Hua Junfeng, sitting upright in the main seat, showed no anger or displeasure at the slightly chaotic and questionable scene.

On the contrary, he remained calm, his gaze sweeping steadily over the crowd, as if everything before him was already within his expectations.

Don't assume that Hua Junfeng is just a purely administrative official and therefore knows nothing about technology.

In fact, he had a solid science and engineering education background in his early years. Although he worked in administration for a long time after graduation and did not conduct in-depth research in the field of aerospace technology, he had already done his homework in private after receiving Hu Jiangshan’s amazing proposal, thanks to his strong learning ability and information processing ability. He consulted a lot of relevant public information and technical documents.

Hua Junfeng was well aware that the only country in the world that had publicly attempted to put electromagnetic catapult technology into practical application was the United States, and that country was using it to launch carrier-based aircraft from aircraft carriers.

Even in that field, the technology is not yet fully mature. The electromagnetic catapult system on the new aircraft carrier is still in the testing and break-in phase, and reports of frequent malfunctions are common.

What about applying electromagnetic catapult technology to the aerospace field to launch carrier rockets weighing hundreds of tons?
This does indeed sound like a fantasy. Currently, it is only at the stage of theoretical demonstration and preliminary exploration by a very small number of research institutions and scholars worldwide, and is far from being implemented in engineering.

Therefore, when Hua Junfeng first saw the title of the proposal submitted by Hu Jiangshan, his first reaction was exactly the same as that of the experts present at the moment: he felt that the idea was too far-fetched and had extremely low feasibility.

However, when Hua Junfeng patiently began to carefully read through the thick technical document, the situation changed.

He was surprised to find that the level of detail and professional depth of the information far exceeded his expectations.

The document is not just empty conceptual descriptions, but contains extremely detailed implementation plan breakdowns, solid theoretical derivations, and even functional implementation plans for each subsystem.

The document is well-structured, with arguments presented in a progressive manner. It is presented in a very professional and organized way, giving the impression that it is not a hastily pieced-together idea, but rather a systematic result that has been summarized and generalized after multiple simulations and even partial experiments.

Frankly speaking, in Hua Junfeng's view, it would be difficult to imagine and write such a specific and operationally oriented plan without going through quite in-depth technical research and repeated functional simulation verification.

Hua Junfeng finally decided to arrange this high-level internal seminar and invited as many top experts and scholars from different fields as possible.

His purpose was clear: to use these discerning eyes to uncover the truth behind the plan, to investigate how much real technical content it contained, whether it had even the slightest feasibility, or whether it was simply a meticulously planned technical scam.

Hua Junfeng did consider sending the technical documents to the experts for review in advance, but after careful consideration, he abandoned the idea.

An intuition told him that this technical document might contain some very cutting-edge or even sensitive information, and its value might be beyond imagination.

To prevent information from being leaked prematurely and causing unnecessary attention or trouble, he decided to adopt this method of on-site presentation and centralized discussion, strictly controlling the materials within the meeting room.

At this moment, Dr. Lu Anlei fell silent, her delicate eyebrows slightly furrowed, her eyes fixed on the file properties displayed on the projection screen. It was over a hundred pages long.

A technical proposal that can be written in more than a hundred pages is itself a strong signal.

In her extensive research experience, documents of this length are rarely fabricated purely for sensationalism or to obtain funding, as maintaining the fidelity of hundreds of pages of technical content requires extremely high costs.

It must contain a lot of derivations, data, charts and analyses; it's hard to imagine that it's all just general talk or a pile of fancy words.

"interesting……"

Lu Anlei thought to herself, her curiosity truly piqued.

Lu Anlei began to believe that, regardless of the final conclusion, the author of this document must have put in a great deal of effort.

Of course, on the other hand, it is almost impossible to read and digest more than 100 pages of professional documents on-site in a short period of time, which poses a great challenge to the evaluation.

Hua Junfeng smiled slightly, pressed his hands together in a gesture of calm, and said in his usual steady tone, "Everyone, please don't rush to conclusions. I understand your surprise and doubts. Anyone who is encountering this concept for the first time will probably have a similar reaction. My suggestion is that we take our time and quickly go through the general outline and core content of this document."

"Once everyone has a preliminary understanding of the overall framework and key arguments, we can then delve into specific issues and share our insights and judgments. This approach might make the discussion more targeted and efficient. What do you all think?"

The experts present naturally had no reason to object to Hua Junfeng's proposal.

Now that we're already seated here, we should still observe basic etiquette and show respect to the meeting organizers.

If they're not going to give us this face, then they shouldn't have come in the first place.

So everyone nodded in agreement.

Seeing that everyone was ready, Hua Junfeng nodded to Ding Jiani beside him.

Ding Jiani understood and skillfully operated the computer, starting to flip through the technical documents on the projector page by page.

(End of this chapter)