This star is going to the moon

Chapter 429: Other Competitors for Lu Yun's Award; Ma Yilong's Advanced Prototype of the Super Rocket Finally Successfully Completed.
Wow, there's so much space information these days! How come I never noticed it before?

Previously, unless it was a super-exciting space mission, it was just news within a small circle. Now, because Lu Yun, a super-popular actor and space star, has brought a lot of attention and news coverage, more people know about it.

Indeed, but Lu Yun is too strong, with so many titles... there's not enough room for all of us here!

[Haha, there's nothing we can do about it, our Road God is just that powerful. Not having enough titles wouldn't reflect his true strength!]

[It's true, I didn't know Lu Yun was so strong before I saw this title. It seemed like he could do everything.]

[It's a pity this is an aerospace-related topic. Actually, Lu Shen has other huge influences in other areas, such as powered exoskeletons. It feels like powered armor will be able to be built in a few years.]

There's no denying that. Lu Shen is just too strong. In the field of aerospace, no title is just for show...

The chief designer of the "Wooden Kite" class space shuttle goes without saying; he is the most indisputable figure because this thing was truly unprecedented!
Neither the partially operational space shuttle nor the X-33, a second-generation space shuttle that was not fully developed and capable of single-unit orbital insertion, could gain attention.

The "Wooden Kite" class space shuttle designed and built by Lu Yun is not just a single-stage-to-orbit space shuttle like the X-33 that takes off from a launch pad; it can take off horizontally directly from the runway.

This not only reduces costs and increases flexibility, but also reduces the G-force acceleration experienced by passengers.

With the "Wooden Kite" class space shuttle, it is only natural that it would become the pioneer of a new era of human spaceflight and a major driving force behind the explosion of commercial space tourism.

Previously, astronauts' space missions were measured in months, especially for missions to the International Space Station and Tiangong Space Station, which often took several months to launch.

After all, manned spaceflight is too expensive.

Except when manned spaceflight technology was first developed, when astronauts would simply ride in a narrow manned spacecraft and orbit around in space a few times, they would usually stay in the space station for a period of time to conduct research.

Of course, this is all predicated on the existence of a space station.

However, ever since the "Wooden Kite" class space shuttle was developed, especially when the prototype "Wooden Kite" was test-flown, the cycle of manned spaceflight has been calculated in "days" or "weeks".

For example, ten days, half a month, one or two weeks, etc.

For manned spaceflight, this is essentially "flight-like".

In the nearly ten months since last summer, the "Muyuan" has conducted nine manned test flights, four manned flights under the "internal partner" model, and the "Lingji Yidong" prototype of the "Muyuan" class has carried out five commercial space tourism flights, transporting more than 100 people into space in total!
During the same period, the official space agencies of Laos, China, the United States, and Russia combined only managed to send a dozen or so people into space!

If this isn't the new era of manned spaceflight, then what is?
As for commercial space tourism...

At the beginning of the century, only a few commercial space tourists went into space. The appearance of "Wooden Kite" directly expanded that number to hundreds. Isn't this a "commercial space tourism boom"?
Not to mention that in the second half of the year, the "Lingji Yidong" spacecraft will begin operating a weekly commercial space tourism flight, which will take at least 300 people into space in six months!
It's been 60 years since humans first entered space, and if we don't count the contributions of Earth's space program, only five or six hundred people have ever been to space.

Of course, this includes people who have been to space repeatedly; both previous missions and those that have traveled to Earth should be counted as "person-times."

Speaking of technology, countries with some spacefaring capabilities are now developing their own reusable rockets, and they all owe a debt to Lu Yun for "open source".

Therefore, Lu Yun's title as the founder of the "Great Technology Integration Theory" and the "Source God" of the global explosion of reusable rocket technology is well-deserved.

In addition, there are other titles, and all of these combined make it almost certain that Lu Yun will win the "World Space Award" individual prize.

Although other countries also nominated individuals for the award, such as the United States, which nominated Elon Musk, saying that he is the pioneer of reusable rockets and is developing a new type of fully reusable super rocket in a rapid iterative manner.

However, this alone cannot shake Lu Yun's position, not to mention that Ma Yilong's so-called "rapid iteration" of the super rocket only resulted in four flights and four crashes, and did not achieve a successful maiden flight.

Another rather unusual recommendation is that Brother San recommends Lao Xian.

The reason given is that without Lao Xian's support, Bharat Space wouldn't have developed so rapidly, and Bharat Space is an important part of global space exploration; without Bharat Space, global space exploration is incomplete. Netizens: "..."

The current online discussion revolves around whether Lu Yun can win the team award as the leader of the "Wooden Kite" class space shuttle team.

After all, while the individual awards are unbeatable, there are still some obstacles on the team awards side.

Leaving aside the Hayabusa2 asteroid sample return team, there's also the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity Mars drone team from the US.

The reason for recommending them is the successful maiden flight of the Ingenuity drone carried to the Martian surface by the Perseverance rover, which made history.

In addition, the rover itself made history by successfully converting carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen.

That was a device called "MOXIE" installed on the Mars rover, which used electrical and chemical methods to break down one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms in a carbon dioxide molecule.

During its first run, "MOXIE" produced 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to the amount of oxygen a normal astronaut needs for about 10 minutes.

Currently, the device can produce about 10 grams of oxygen per hour.

That is, it can produce enough oxygen for an astronaut to perform normal activities for 20 minutes in 1 hour of operation.

Engineers at MOXIE plan to conduct further tests and attempt to increase its oxygen output in preparation for a future human landing on Mars.

As for space teams from other countries... they can be ignored in this year's "World Space Award" because their space achievements are simply not up to par.

India couldn't even get a piece of the action, even though they announced a lot of major space programs last year, such as manned spacecraft test flights and Chandrayaan-3 landing on the lunar south pole.

But all of them have been postponed.

In theory, the chances of the "Wooden Kite" space shuttle development team winning an award are greater than those of the smaller "Hayabusa2" and "Perseverance" Mars rovers and "Ingenuity" drone teams. However, considering that Lu Yun is a sure thing to win an individual award, it's hard to say whether the team will win an award.

On the last day of April, Zhang Yimou's film "Cliff Walkers" was released, and Liu Haocun, whom he had been promoting, was once again criticized for his acting skills.

It's said that her acting skills are far inferior to those of the other main actors, and that her portrayal of a female agent doesn't match the overall tone of the film.

But Director Zhang didn't care; he was determined to promote Liu Haocun!
As May arrived, Ma Yilong took over the "traffic baton" from Lu Yun and became the center of global traffic.

In this era of ever-increasing space travel volume, the advanced second-stage prototype of the 9-meter diameter "Super Falcon" rocket, which has seen four successful flights and four crashes, is about to undergo its fifth test flight.

(A meme created by netizens about the fifth test flight)

This time, the advanced prototype's test flight was finally successful.

All three engines ignited successfully, and the aircraft flew smoothly to an altitude of 10 kilometers. Then, the engines were shut down and the aircraft completed attitude adjustments, performing a "belly roll" maneuver to precisely align itself with the landing pad.

Finally, the engine was reignited to achieve a controlled landing!
The entire test lasted about 6 minutes. After landing, a local fire broke out on the bottom, but the fire was extinguished by the automatic fire suppression system a few minutes later. The landing was successful!
(Image from the internet; the black circle indicates some of the heat-insulating tiles used for testing)

After his success, Elon Musk went on a Twitter rampage, launching vicious attacks on those who had previously criticized him, especially Bezos, the owner of Blue Origin, who was trying to sabotage his lunar lander contract.

[Elon Musk: @Bezos, where the hell are you?! Say something!]

(End of this chapter)