What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
"When I saw the ocean, I thought that people without land were just clumsy explorers. "Human curiosity is like a bottomless pit, which needs to be constantly explored and excavated to fill, the earth is vast, countries are always secretly competing with each other, and the exploration of the world is also included."
In the former Soviet Union, forced by the oppression of the United States, the government led a number of large-scale projects, one of which was to dig the core of the earth, deep into the ground, but did not want to stop at the level of 10,000 meters.
Geocentric project launch background
In the second half of the last century, World War II was basically over, but the world was still not at peace, and the United States and the Soviet Union were listed side by side as the world's "superpowers" and maintained a confrontation for a long time.
The military strength of the two sides is equal, and no one will back down in the struggle to dominate the Eastern and Western worlds and become the first in the world, but if one side is delusional and hastily provokes war and competes for hegemony, it will inevitably plunge the whole world into the depths of the water again.
After the First and Second World Wars, humanity longed for peace and tranquility, and no country dared to bear such serious consequences as declaring war on the nations of the world.
As a result, the two countries can only accelerate the development of nuclear weapons, stockpiling a large number of destructive weapons, threatening and deterring each other. In this way, on the one hand, they avoid the recurrence of world wars, and on the other hand, they still maintain small-scale conflicts and frictions.
They usually replace war with competition in other fields, adhering to the principle of "mutual containment, no use of force", such a secret contest is figuratively called "Cold War".
During this period, in addition to the contest between the two countries in terms of armaments and weapons, the two countries competed in political and economic resources, and under such a model, the comprehensive strength of the United States and the Soviet Union itself was greatly enhanced.
All aspects of rapid development, remarkable achievements, far more than the rest of the country, whether it is heaven and earth, flying, walking, swimming, they must be divided into high and low, make you live and die.
At that time, the two countries had already sent astronauts into space, attracting worldwide attention, and even the first U.S. moon landing, so they turned underground and launched an extremely fierce "drilling competition" to score a victory or defeat in the center of the earth.
The United States first dug down more than 4,500 meters in the soft soil, after research, there was really no progress, the Soviet Union had just fallen behind in the race to land on the moon, this time it must pull back a round, show its might.
In the 1870s, the Soviet side officially began to excavate the center of the earth, and the plan was named "Kola Ultra-Deep Drilling".
Input of drilling plans
Before the plan began, the Soviet Union obtained huge amounts of money through mineral resources such as oil, and its national strength was strong and reached its peak, and the psychology of the leaders who wanted to do something big was inflated.
In this way, the Soviet Union boldly carried out a multi-faceted investigation, decided to locate the Kra Peninsula in northern Russia, before the start of construction, the Soviet Union had a total of sixteen research institutes, the analysis of soil and rocks, as a strong scientific and technological support, the then Minister of Geology of the Soviet Union personally supervised the excavation.
The first seven kilometers were easy, but after that, it was like encountering a big problem. The deeper the drilling, the more difficult it is, and the tighter and sharper the instruments are needed, otherwise the general drill bit will go in, just like noodles touching stones, soft and weak, and there is no movement at all.
According to the evidence of relevant information, the Soviet drilling plan consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, burned money, and countless instruments were refined into drilling equipment, stepping up follow-up support, and the rich Soviet Union at that time really dared to think of anything and dare to do anything.
The further down, the higher the temperature, the more demanding the high temperature requirements of the drilling equipment, the Soviet Union to the then mining power Switzerland, constantly purchased related equipment, the rich Soviet Union before and after the flow, just in the import of equipment this aspect spent billions of dollars. In the strata of more than 9,000 meters underground, the research team excavated a large number of rare metals.
Including a considerable number of gold diamond layers, the content is very rich, extremely economic value, sure enough to keep digging is not wrong, such a discovery makes them feel very pleased, several years of investment, finally not in vain, although it is only a cup of water and salary.
It was always better than nothing, but soon they found that the stored ore was too deep, and it was basically impossible to carry it out, which really gave people hope, and another stick was broken.
In 1989, the Soviet Union abruptly announced that it would terminate the project to excavate the center of the earth, and it did not resume work until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The radius of the earth is about 6371 kilometers, the average thickness of the earth's crust is about 17 kilometers, the Soviet Union excavated to 12262 meters at that time, it is close to penetrating the earth's crust, why not go deeper? I didn't understand it until 49 years later.
Cause of abrupt termination
The termination of this grand project of the Soviet Union has long been foreseen, the Soviet Union's own mining equipment can not keep up with the depth of excavation, and later Swiss imports can not meet the requirements, the bottleneck in equipment makes the experts helpless, Mount Everest is only more than 8,000 meters high, the Soviet Union is down to more than 12,000 meters, and researchers around the world can not help the Soviet Union to continue the project.
Since 1979, the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan, the Soviet War in Afghanistan broke out, the war is the most expensive money, the Soviet Union's 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, like a gold-devouring monster, constantly encroaching on the Soviet Union's national economic system, 84 billion rubles of money into the war.
Perhaps the cost of this item did not shake the Soviet system, but except for Afghanistan, the Soviet Union had troops in various countries to maintain, and the Vietnamese side also had a great cost.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union has launched large-scale military competition with the United States for decades, and only the Soviet Union, which has 60% of the US economy, has continuously invested in various useless projects, and has no income, so blindly becoming bigger, in fact, it has also greatly helped to empty the Soviet economic system.
There were also the falling prices of oil during that period, the economic resources were cut off, and the days when the Soviet Union wanted to rely on the mountains and eat the mountains were gone. At this time, they finally woke up, compared with the development of the economy and the stationing of foreign troops, the excavation plan of the Kola Peninsula was really expensive, but it was meaningless and worthless.
Even now, Russia is still a war-ready power, in large part because of the military resources left by the former Soviet Union, but this 10,000-meter-deep hole is so far no useful place.
This ineffective and large project of the Soviet Union warns us that we must be down-to-earth in everything and not shake ourselves based on empty imagination and admiration from the outside world. You can't just observe the world with your eyes, but you have to go through careful thinking and detailed research of the brain.
Enduring curiosity and a passionate spirit of inquiry is one of the ways we express our love for the world, and no matter how great a discovery may be, its original source is a bold and reasonable conjecture of the unknown.
"If you want to enter the realm of infinity, then you should explore the finite and thoroughly in front of you." Bold and unbridled conjecture, down-to-earth work, fast or slow, will have achievements.