It's normal to develop some black technology in the future, right?

Chapter 393 We're going to watch a space battle royale!

First go to the International Space Station, then go to the Light Armor, and finally return to Earth. Although it sounds difficult, it is actually very difficult.

The most important thing is that it has never been done like this before.

It’s like this is the first time since the creation of the world.

The core module of the Light Armor, the painting cabin responsible for the port, and even the astronauts' living cabin have all been installed.

However, all previous installation steps were automated, using highly standardized module designs for automatic docking.

That is to say, up to now, the Light Armor has never been visited by human astronauts.

The Changkong space airliner was just tested on Earth this year. After listening to it, Nelson thought that the plan sounded feasible, but it was the first time after all, and the risk of failure was still very high.

"Elon, this sounds great, but what if something unexpected happens?" Nelson hesitated.

Before knowing the specific plan, he had full confidence in his Chinese counterparts, but after learning about the rescue plan, he began to hesitate.

Musk said bluntly: "The probability of accidents when Chinese colleagues do this is no higher than using the Boeing laboratory solution directly.

And our Chinese colleagues succeeded, so we successfully rescued the astronauts on the International Space Station, proving that China's "port" plan is feasible.

In the future, we will also launch a space station with similar port functions on the route from the Earth to the Moon.

If our Chinese colleagues fail, the Chinese people will help us share the responsibility.

My idea is that we must not get into the trolley problem.”

The essence of the trolley problem is that there are N people in total, but you can only save a number of people that is less than N. Who are you going to give up at this time?

Once the astronauts on the International Space Station are faced with the problem of abandoning some of them, let alone whether there will be chaos there, even if this is done, under the current social trend, the public opinion crisis it will cause will definitely be more serious than a failed rescue.

What's more, if the Chinese are asked to take on the important task, NASA will not have to bear any responsibility for failure. The international public opinion system dominated by America will naturally put the blame on the Chinese.

Nelson quickly realized this: "Okay, let's do it."

Even at the American national level, failure is better than success.

After NASA communicated with CNSA (China National Space Administration), all departments involved began to take action.

R&D personnel, engineers, and astronauts in charge of flight missions all have their own responsibilities, and this is also a big test for China's aerospace industry.

Lin Jia communicated with CNSA's senior management via remote video: "For such a difficult task, didn't you negotiate the price with NASA?

Boeing carried out the astronaut passenger mission, and the two of them also caused trouble. They both received $2 billion from NASA. According to this ratio, it is not too much to ask NASA for $35 billion, right? "

The official on the other end of the video said awkwardly: "NASA said that the money issue can be discussed after the matter is over. The situation is urgent now and there is no time to negotiate the price."

Lin Jia was speechless: "Then you just wait, until the matter is resolved, they will have plenty of excuses to default on their debts.

Don't you understand this White House? They will take every penny from their allies.

Can we believe their words? They will send us away with tens of millions of dollars.

Even if one astronaut costs $12 million, 1.2 astronauts would only cost $ million, so this deal is a huge loss.”

Obviously, China took on this task without hesitation, and its thinking had nothing to do with money.

"Boss Lin, if this matter is done well, it cannot be measured by money at all." The other party whispered, "We are willing to do it even if it costs money. This will enhance the international reputation and demonstrate the strength of China."

Lin Jia was already rolling his eyes in his heart, but on the surface he had to pretend to agree: "Understood, we at Light Armor Aerospace will definitely fully cooperate."

After communicating with the CNSA officials, she quickly called the executive in charge of marketing and said, "Communicate with the foreign media we are on good terms with and ask them to be prepared. When we have some news, we will need their cooperation in publicity."

Although executives of functional departments like this do not need to work overtime at this time, all employees are still on duty.

Everyone wants to be a part of this historic moment in person.

The rescue of the International Space Station is under the responsibility of China. This sense of honor is totally worth sacrificing a little bit of rest time.

After hearing this, the vice president said: "Okay, Mr. Lin, I will communicate with them as soon as possible.

Can you please reveal the specific news? This way I can prepare the press release in advance and provide them with news content with our unified caliber when the time comes."

After thinking for a moment, Lin Jia said: "NASA has entrusted the space rescue mission to China Aerospace, but the specific amount of the rescue mission is unknown. The journey involved in this space rescue will exceed 50 kilometers and involve 12 astronauts.

We assume that NASA will eventually pay $1 million per astronaut. What we need to promote is that China Aerospace can complete a space transportation mission of more than 1 kilometers at a price of only $50 million per person.

Boeing completed a round-trip 800-kilometer space transportation mission at a price of $20 billion per person. Is this price reasonable? Even from a cost perspective, the future space transportation mission for the International Space Station should be handed over to China Aerospace. "

The vice president immediately understood what Lin Jia meant. NASA wanted to settle this order at a super low price after the space rescue was over. Then I would make things difficult for you. If you give a super low price, then why would NASA give a super high price to Boeing or other American commercial aerospace companies in the future?

With the precedent of China Aerospace's rescue, NASA's future space transportation prices will face scrutiny from the public and the media. If they are much more expensive than China Aerospace's prices, it will arouse public doubts.

Perhaps the Americans can suppress domestic opposition, but they cannot interfere with their allies' choice of future space transportation providers.

CNSA does not care about commercial interests, but Lin Jia feels that something needs to be done to put indirect pressure on NASA. If it cannot affect the present, then it must change the future.

Every bit of leverage has the potential to play a role in the future.

In Lin Jia's opinion, the biggest gap between China and America is not in hard power, but in soft power.

Although China has made unprecedented progress in the aerospace field and there is no gap between it and America, both sides have their own advantages in the countless sub-items under the aerospace category.

But in the eyes of the outside world, China is indeed very strong and has developed rapidly in the field of science and technology, but there is still a gap between China and America. Lin Jia hopes that in the future, when various stakeholders make decisions, they can add a little bargaining chip to lean towards China, just a little at a time.

"Okay, I'll get ready right away."

"Honestly speaking, I never thought that my first flight mission to the Guangjia space station would be under such circumstances," said Wang Xudong, a Chinese astronaut who was assigned to the rescue mission.

The Chinese astronauts who are carrying out this rescue mission are well-tested Chinese astronauts. They have been preparing for landing on the Guangjia.

Including the development of Changkong, Chinese astronauts participated in the entire process from early design to later test flights.

Because the launch angles for the round-trip between the Earth and the sky and the long-distance voyage on the Earth are different, the operators participating in the training are also different.

Astronauts are trained to travel back and forth between the Earth and the sky, but pilots responsible for long-distance travel missions on Earth, even if they are the best-selected captains within the airline, can only undertake flight missions within the Earth.

"Who said it wasn't? This mission is not easy." His partner said, "Not only do we have to complete the first docking with the Light Armor, but we also have to complete the rescue mission at the International Space Station."

“In fact, judging from the controllability of the Changkong and the route data accumulated in the past, there will be no accidents in either case.

The only thing I'm worried about is whether the foreign astronauts who rescued you will cause you any accidents during the journey."

In the past, Guangjia Aerospace has launched rockets to carry cargo to the Guangjia 19 times. The 32-kilometer route has accumulated enough data to help them avoid obstacles on the route.

This fully demonstrates the benefits of data accumulation and reuse. In the future, whoever wants to go to the Lagrange point where the Light Armor is located will either have to spend a very high price to try and error, or buy China's route data.

Even in the more distant future, interstellar route data alone will become an unbreakable moat, and slightly backward countries will not be able to overtake others simply by relying on technological spillovers in spacecraft.

In the past, technology spillovers and supply chain transfers have helped many countries achieve industrialization and realize latecomer advantages, but in the aerospace field, the help that technology spillovers can provide will be very limited.

Chinese astronauts are preparing. NASA has officially completed the docking with CNSA, and NASA will tell China the information about the International Space Station itself and its location without reservation.

After the President publicly acknowledged the crisis facing the International Space Station in his speech, this matter is no longer a conspiracy theory but an objective reality.

Almost instantly, it became the biggest news on major social media platforms around the world, with even America's successful return to the moon being firmly ranked second.

Everyone is paying attention to this matter. Why is there such a crisis in the International Space Station? How many people are there on it? What countries do these people belong to? Can they be rescued? Will the disaster of Boeing sending astronauts up and not being able to bring them back happen again?

There are so many mysteries surrounding the International Space Station crisis, any one of which is enough for the media to make news.

For the media, one wave of traffic can directly consume them all, and the KPI indicators for this week will be more than that for a whole year.

The American presidential election is held every four years, but this kind of crisis of life and death of the International Space Station has only happened once in its 30-year history since the International Space Station was launched.

This was a big job that Boeing did in the past. Two astronauts who were originally scheduled to stay for only eight days were forced to stay in the space station for more than 200 days. In the end, Boeing sent them up, and the mess was left to SpaceX to clean up. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was responsible for bringing them back.

This incident has appeared frequently in various media around the world.

The fun this time is undoubtedly hundreds or thousands of times better than the last time Boeing did it.

Moreover, the damage NASA has done this time is so bad that NASA cannot save it on its own, and it even has to ask China Aerospace for help.

One can imagine how long the media can continue to hype this up.

First, one of the most credible official WeChat public accounts of Dongda published an article:
"**News: At the invitation of the American Space Agency, China Aerospace will launch a rescue operation for astronauts from various countries who are facing personal safety on the International Space Station. The rescue operation will be broadcast live on the following social media accounts. Readers who are interested are welcome to watch the rescue live broadcast."

The old Chinese are not that easy to fool.

To be precise, the current Chinese propaganda is not so easy to fool. What Lin Jia can think of, naturally others can think of as well.

Whether NASA pays or not is secondary. The Chinese are trying to gain the upper hand in public opinion by taking advantage of this incident. Don’t they know how to play this game?
If NASA can broadcast live the return to the moon, why can’t CNSA broadcast live the rescue mission?
The Chinese man also wanted to broadcast the entire event live, and the only thing left was to call NASA Administrator Nielsen to the studio to give a speech as a special guest.

The newsletter was sent out at 10 a.m., and within ten minutes of being sent out, the number of views exceeded 10. This made their internal staff sigh that it had never been so easy to publish a WeChat public account article with + views.

The news flash from a certain agency was like a starting gun, and various media on the Internet began to move. Tonight was simply a sleepless night for everyone.

However, traditional media outlets are all based on the facts themselves, and discussing the facts alone obviously cannot attract readers. After reading it, readers just click on it, take a quick look and then exit.

"This rescue mission will be carried out by the Changkong aerospace plane jointly developed by COMAC, China Aerospace and Guangjia Aerospace. Since its development, the plane has been responsible for long-distance flights and round-trip flights between the ground and the sky."

These reports are boring and cannot arouse the interest of the older Chinese at all.

On the contrary, it is the good work done by self-media bloggers that makes readers feel unprecedented participation:

“Phase 1: We declare that nothing happened

Stage 2: Saying that maybe something is happening but we shouldn’t do anything about it
Stage 3: Saying that maybe we should act but there is nothing we can do

Stage 4: Saying that maybe something could have been done but now it’s too late
Fortunately, the presence of the Chinese allowed them to take action in the second phase.”

"Can we not rescue him? We need people to rescue him. I checked the information and found an astronaut who has a bad temper. Can we test him? Let him drift in space alone. If he can come back, it's good luck. If he can't come back, forget it and forget about him."

"Why go and rescue these people?
The confined space, the tense atmosphere, the characters from six different countries, Russia and America, France and England, Japan and the Maple Leaf Country, and there are even only four escape pod locations.

Isn't this a typical Snowstorm Manor murder case? There are even cameras everywhere on the space station, and the theme of The Truman Show is added to it, making it the world's first space suspense mystery thriller sci-fi film.

There are only 6 hours left and 12 people have to compete for 4 escape pods. This is such good material! NASA should announce that only 4 of them can survive, and then urgently put the live broadcast rights out to the world for bidding. The highest bidder will get the sole live broadcast rights.

The battle royale that has attracted the attention of the global audience, and the astronauts from various countries have their own supporters. This is not just a billion-dollar sale. This is much better than some squid game!
Once the Chinese get involved, you turn this battle royale into a space rescue. There have been too many Hollywood movies with space rescue plots, and it's really aesthetic fatigue. Can NASA listen to the opinions of the general public?

We want to watch a space battle royale!"

(End of this chapter)