At the current stage of space travel, Tom was always constrained by a very serious problem.
The efficiency of chemical fuel was too low.
It was precisely because of this that when he expedited to God-Enemy Star, Tom had no choice but to "throw" a large amount of supplies and fuel from Loshen Star to support the battleship’s combat.
When launching the probe to Earth, he even had to build a super-giant rocket with a total mass of over 70,000 tons.
Although building wonders was indeed very fulfilling, behind the sense of accomplishment, there was more helplessness.
If there were other options, who would bother building such a large rocket?
At this moment, facing the massive project of the God-Enemy Star development, the future spaceship traffic between the two planets would be extremely frequent.
Although the transportation of bulk basic materials could be solved by "electromagnetic launch technology," the rest, the transportation of time-sensitive goods and personnel, would also be extremely high.
Using such inefficient propulsion technology was somewhat unacceptable.
If this continued, at least 20% of the resources he produced might be wasted during the voyage, which was truly unacceptable.
Those were all produced by my hard work; just wasting them like that? No!
However, since more advanced propulsion technology could not be broken through for the time being, and he could not master secondary pressurized propulsion technology, let alone High-Speed Ion Propulsion Technology, he could only find ways to continue optimizing the existing technology.
Fortunately, even with the existing chemical fuel propulsion technology, there was still considerable room for improvement, and optimizing it would be temporarily sufficient.
Under the work of tens of thousands of propulsion technology research Clones, Tom gradually confirmed one thing.
That was, to improve propulsion performance and fuel utilization, one must start from three aspects: material performance, overall structure, and cooling system.
The materials for the self-made thrusters must be able to withstand higher temperatures and greater pressures to achieve higher thermal efficiency and thrust.
Material science improves thruster performance from the basic material properties.
The overall structure improves it from a structural perspective.
The cooling system improves its performance in terms of durability and reliability.
All three aspects were working towards the same goal.
The research Clones, divided into three large teams, worked day and night. Thus, in the propulsion research base, hundreds of test sites roared day and night.
Numerous engines of different shapes, structures, and even bizarre designs were spraying various colors of chemical fuels, methane, ethane, formaldehyde, liquid hydrogen, unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, day in and day out...
And so on, various different fuels were used in rotation.
Just for experiments alone, the fuel consumption of this research base reached tens of thousands of tons per day.
For this, Tom had to specially open a railway line to transport fuel from various chemical plants, which was then sprayed out as flames in the test sites.
Fortunately, all factories had undergone intelligent transformation at this time, and production efficiency had greatly improved; otherwise, with the additional consumption of this research base, it would have been truly unbearable.
After hundreds of days and nights, consuming a total of tens of millions of tons of fuel, the new type of engine that met Tom’s requirements was finally built.
It still used methane and liquid oxygen as fuel.
Firstly, this was because methane has a higher calorific value, and secondly, because methane reserves on Loshen Star are abundant.
The ubiquitous tolin can be processed to separate out methane.
The new type of spaceship propelled by the new engine was also built.
This was a Mercury-class Battleship.
However, compared to the previous Mercury-class Battleship, its combat power was undoubtedly stronger.
The number of machine guns on it increased to six, and the number of autocannons also increased to four. In addition, it could carry 12 interstellar missiles.
With more weapons, ammunition reserves certainly needed to increase.
The original Mercury-class Battleship, when fully loaded with ammunition, carried 400,000 bullets, with a mass of 4 tons. But now, this new Mercury-class Battleship, when fully loaded, could carry 1.2 million bullets, with a bullet mass reaching 12 tons!
The number of shells also doubled, with a total mass reaching 6 tons.
The same was true for interstellar missiles, with the total mass increasing from the original 4.8 tons to 7.2 tons at present.
In terms of ammunition alone, there was a total increase of 13.4 tons!
Clearly, more ammunition requires more space and more fuel reserves within the spaceship, and the overall volume of the spaceship also needs to be larger.
But the fact was, it remained the same size as before, not getting any bigger.
With no increase in size, and fuel capacity decreasing from 50 tons to 30 tons, its combat duration would obviously decrease.
But the truth was, the combat duration of this Mercury-class Battleship not only did not decrease but actually increased!
Because it was equipped with a new type of engine!
At this moment, with a command from Tom, the Clone responsible for operating this new Mercury-class Battleship immediately issued the forward command.
Thus, amidst the scorching flames, the acceleration of this Mercury-class Battleship reached 20 meters per square second, and in just a few seconds, it flew to an altitude of over a thousand meters, disappearing directly from the visual field of the Clones.
Not only did the total range increase, but maneuverability also increased!
The previous Mercury-class Battleship had a maximum acceleration of only 12 meters per square second, but now it has directly increased by 67%!
Upon reaching space, this Mercury-class Battleship unleashed its energy, performing various rapid accelerations and decelerations, as if afraid of having too much fuel, its engine almost never stopped.
But even so, it took several hours to exhaust its fuel.
After slowly returning to the Loshen Star base, the Clones immediately went forward and began a comprehensive inspection of its condition.
Finally, Tom got the conclusion.
The new engine was running well!
"Good, excellent."
Tom’s heart was filled with joy.
The advancement of one technology always brings a series of changes, not just one.
Just like now, the improvement in propulsion technology led to the birth of a new type of engine.
The birth of the new engine not only laid the foundation for the subsequent God-Enemy Star development but also greatly enhanced the combat power of the Mercury-class Battleship.
More ammunition reserves, stronger maneuverability, and longer combat time.
Not only that, all subsequent spacecraft he built, whether passenger ships or cargo ships, battleships or scientific research vessels, would all benefit from the improvement in engine technology.
And there was an unexpected surprise from this technological advancement.
Tom’s long-cherished plan to conduct large-scale exploration of every high-mass planet in the Inner Solar System could finally be implemented.
Because the improvement in thruster technology benefited not only spaceships but also rockets.