This star is going to the moon

Chapter 274: Filming for the TV series "The Three-Body Problem" wraps up; a few things about Depp, his ex-wife, and Elon Musk (Seeking monthly votes)
Before Louis van Gogh's Wanhu rocket had successfully completed its maiden flight, Elon Musk's Falcon 9 was priced at approximately $62 million per commercial launch, with a profit margin of around 30% for a brand-new rocket without considering recovery.

The cost of launching a Falcon 9 rocket, excluding recovery, is approximately $43.4 million.

If recovery and reuse are taken into account, the first-stage rocket booster accounts for about 60% of the total cost of the rocket.

Second-stage rockets account for approximately 20%.

The fairing accounts for approximately 10%.

The remaining costs are for monitoring and control insurance, fuel, etc., which together account for about 10%.

Because the Falcon 9's first-stage booster and fairing are reusable, each launch can save about 70% of the cost starting from the second launch. This means that each launch only requires a new second-stage rocket, plus overall maintenance, telemetry, insurance, and fuel costs, totaling approximately $1302 million.

But Old Ma's offer was $5000 million, with huge profits.

This is an absolute steal!

Of course, that was before the Wanhu rocket had successfully completed its maiden flight. After its success, the Falcon 9's international launch market suffered a blow.

Wanhu Rocket's offer directly killed the competition. If it weren't for the US using various forms of hegemony to control the world, including "spacecraft with US technology are not allowed to be launched by Chinese rockets," the Falcon 9 rocket would have been retired long ago.

Even with such "hegemonic protection," Falcon 9's overall profit margin barely remained at 10%.

In addition, SpaceX has been investing heavily in Starlink and the 9-meter diameter Super Falcon rocket, which had previously resulted in consecutive years of losses.

After the emergence of Wanhu Rocket, it suffered huge losses year after year!

However, while Ma Yilong was furious with Lu Yun, the customers who purchased launch services were very grateful to Lu Yun.

Many clients have discovered that China and Laos have also made great strides in aerospace technology, so, without affecting international relations, they have transferred some of their satellite manufacturing and launch services to China and Laos.

Of course, some services have a significant impact on international relations, or are "protection fees" that must be paid to the US, and those cannot be touched.

Some spacecraft are too heavy, so only the Falcon 9, which is cheaper and has a larger payload, can be used for launch.

Despite the many types of rockets in the world, the price of disposable rockets simply cannot compete with that of reusable rockets. This is another important reason why the Falcon 9 rocket was able to dominate the world before the successful maiden flight of the Wanhu rocket.

In contrast to the cheers from the Chinese, the emotions of the Americans were quite different.

Especially Elon Musk and his "peers".

The Wanhu rocket was already cheap, and now that the fairing can be recovered, it is foreseeable that the price of the Wanhu rocket will drop even further.

Other countries are developing their own commercial rockets based on the "big technology integration theory" and the large industrial components of Laos and China. If they only want to ensure their own independent launch capabilities, that's fine; at worst, they'll just provide subsidies.

After all, other countries don't have the same launch needs as the US and China. They launch only a handful of rockets each year, which they can easily cover with subsidies.

But the commercial space industry in the United States is not doing so.

In particular, Elon Musk is not only facing the impact of the industry, but also the showdown between "Star Wars" and "Starlink".

Seeing that Starlink had launched another 30 satellites, Starlink had to hurry up and launch one as well.

Fortunately, a Starlink satellite was launched three days later, carrying 60 satellites.

Ma Yilong confidently stated, "I always said that 'Stardust' could never catch up with 'Starlink,' because one launch from 'Starlink' can equal two launches from 'Stardust.'"

As a result, problems arose during the launch three days later.

One of the Falcon 9's engines failed after takeoff, but fortunately, its thrust redundancy was guaranteed, and the other engines extended their ignition time, allowing the satellite to successfully enter orbit.

However, the recovery operation did not go smoothly, and the ship crashed directly into the Atlantic Ocean.

Ma Yilong: "..."

He had originally planned to schedule another Starlink launch at the end of the month, but it didn't work out.

Fortunately, "when one door closes, another opens." The US space program encountered a minor problem, but a few days later, China hosted its second space lecture.

Because this lecture coincided with the completion of the first phase of the Tiangong space station project, the space lecture first provided a comprehensive introduction to the space station. This was very different from the previous lecture.

However, Lu Yun didn't watch the live stream this time because he was very busy these past few days, filming the last few scenes of the TV series "The Three-Body Problem".

The actual filmed plot was supposed to be disjointed, but the last shot happened to be the last scene of episode 30 of the TV series, in which Yu Hewei's character "Shi Qiang" gave a speech in the wheat field, encouraging Lu Yun's character "Wang Miao" and Wang Chuanjun's character "Ding Yi".

"Insects have never been truly defeated!"

After Shi Qiang finished speaking, Ding Yi gave each of them a bottle of beer. After opening the bottles, the three of them poured the beer on the ground.

Later in the series, a large number of locusts will be planted in this wheat field to symbolize that "Wang Miao" and "Ding Yi" have regained their confidence in fighting the Trisolarans.

"it is good!"

"Crack!"

The director excitedly shouted, "I hereby announce that filming for the 'Three-Body Problem' TV series is wrapped!"

“ohhhhh!!”

Hearing the cheers of the crowd, Lu Yun, Yu Hewei, and Wang Chuanjun exchanged a glance and breathed a sigh of relief.

Especially for Yu Hewei and Wang Chuanjun, such a serious science fiction TV series put too much pressure on them.

So they all went to shake hands with Lu Yun.

"Thanks to you, Mr. Lu, you taught me so much scientific knowledge."

"Yes, if it weren't for a great scientist like you overseeing things, I don't know if I would be able to make a science fiction film."

"You're too kind," Lu Yun said gently, shaking hands. "It's all thanks to everyone's hard work."

While Lu Yun and his team were holding their wrap party, Zhang Han's production, "The Gentlemen of East Eight Districts," also wrapped up filming.

Zhang Han was very satisfied with the filming. The next step is post-production, which he will personally oversee and strive for perfection.

Even a single snowflake landing on an eyelash requires meticulous special effects!
He also plans to incorporate the post-production of this TV series into a variety show, where he will act as a domineering CEO interviewing and selecting interns.

The show is called "Our First Steps into the Workplace".

Lu Yun was unaware of this, but that evening, he played games with Peng Yuchang and Liu Chun, a game they hadn't played in a long time, and he vaguely remembered hearing them mention another game.

"...The game 'Bright Memory' released today is quite good. It's a domestically produced single-player game that one person worked on for several years," Liu Chun said.

"Oh, I know, the futuristic sci-fi shooting game, right?" Peng Yuchang said, "I heard it sold tens of thousands of copies in just one day!"

Upon hearing this, Liu Chun sighed and said, "Yes, that's it. You guys say that if one person can create such a good single-player game, why can't a large team do it?"

Peng Yuchang and Lu Yun: "..."

Liu Chun: "Hey, why are you all so quiet?"

What else could it be? Of course, Lu Yun had taken Peng Yuchang to see "Black Monkey," and they both knew that there was an incredibly awesome single-player game being developed in China.

Judging by the timeline, Feng Ji should be editing that 13-minute gameplay demo.

Lu Yun originally planned to ask about it the next day, but when he woke up, he saw a shocking event that affected both the entertainment and aerospace industries.

However, the main character is not himself, but Ma Yilong.

Johnny Depp, the famous "Pirate Captain," posted a video accusing his ex-wife, Amber Heard, of having an extramarital affair with Elon Musk, the "space enthusiast."

The video shows Amber Heard, wrapped in a bath towel, hugging and kissing Elon Musk in an elevator that was heading towards Johnny Depp's apartment.

"Tsk~"

(End of this chapter)