I ask you to build tractors, but you build rockets?

In the airspace west of Chengdu, on a JJ-7, two pilots, one old and one new, were flying it for training.

After completing the first roll, the tower's voice sounded in the headset:

"Eagle, there is a GJ-21 Meteor high-education aircraft above your aircraft. Please pay attention. Over."

"Eagle received."

"Eagle received."

The instructor in the back seat raised his head and saw the wake left by a beautiful meteor high-education aircraft painted in red and white paint passing by at high speed.

"Young Eagle" also took a look, and then said with some envy:

"Boss, all private companies are flying fly-by-wire flight control trainer aircraft. The Meteor higher education aircraft can fly 22,000 meters and 2.2 times the speed of sound, right? Why are we still flying the JJ-7? When can we fly the JJ-10?"

Eagle: "Teacher 10? Only the best in the capital and western Xinjiang can fly. These JJ-7s were replaced by Southeast's Shanying higher education aircraft. It's not bad to fly with JJ-7s. Besides, they are training in aerospace." Member, can it be the same?"

Speaking of the GJ-21 Meteor high-education aircraft, the original design indicators were a maximum ceiling of 16,500 meters and a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, which is similar to the standard trainer aircraft in various countries.

However, during the actual manufacturing, Xinyuan engineers felt that it was too slow and could not bring out the high-altitude and high-speed performance of the XW-9, so they modified the airfoil, all the way to the "double two two" indicator, which is 22,000 meters, 2.2 Mach.

In fact, it can be higher, but that is not cost-effective, but even now it is exaggerated. The empty weight of the Meteor high-education aircraft is 6 tons, the maximum take-off mass is 14 tons, and it is equipped with an XW-9. The thrust-to-weight ratio is directly over 1, and the cruising radius is 750 kilometer.

This is basically a slimmed-down version of the J-8 with super enhanced maneuverability. In fact, the airfoil of the GJ-21 is usually used on fighters below Mach 1.8. The reason why it can reach Mach 2.2 is purely due to the large thrust-to-weight ratio.

The XW-9's high-altitude data and fuel consumption were so good that the 601 Research Institute even considered buying two J-8IVs with double three-three indicators.

Such a Meteor high-education aircraft has been flying frequently since it was manufactured, making the rookies at the nearby air force base envious.

Eagle: "Actually, it's not that I can't fly it. Next week I will take a rotation to supervise the flight school at Hushan Airport. When I fly it, I will show you a Cobra in the sky. Learn from it."

Young Eagle: "..."

"I really envy these students. They can fly like crazy during the holidays. I have never seen less than fifty planes in the flight school."

"Alright, little eagle, let's fly at low altitude right now. The eagle's nest, have you seen the flock of birds on the radar?"

"Eagle, not at the moment, please be safe."

"Understood, Eagle, push the stick forward and throttle!"

"..."

On the ground, Deng Lei watched ten Caiyun trainer aircraft queuing up to take off. He moved his neck carefully in discomfort, and then looked up at the J-7 flying by in the distance.

On October 4, Deng Lei, who had experienced a space journey of more than 6 months and 208 days, landed at the airport of the Xinyuan Launch Site on the Progress space shuttle.

This time, he still walked out standing, but he was a little tired compared to before.

The ground has always believed that more than 6 months of zero-gravity environment will make it difficult for astronauts' bodies to adapt to gravity. After coming down, they will have to lie down and recuperate for at least 4 to 7 days before they can adjust.

It's not just a matter of willpower, but also that the internal organs have already adapted to zero gravity, and it's very difficult to suddenly readjust.

But this time the four people who returned in the Unity Hao were not allowed to be carried out, and they walked out standing.

Because a space shuttle is different from a spaceship, it has to go through a relatively long process of deceleration and gliding. The process of feeling gravity lasts for almost two hours, and the body has slowly adjusted during this process.

As long as the exercise is not too strenuous, there will be no big problem for the four occupants.

The next crew is the Unity space shuttle launched on October 20, carrying six people. The space agency still has three professional astronauts, but the three from Xinyuan are all payload experts, including Guo Shen.

Although the latter kept clamoring that he wanted to engage in H2M manufacturing work, he was still sent to the airport by Serev.

Serev is the real busy man. Serev, who is thoroughly familiar with the work of the base, has presided over multiple projects one after another, restoring his workaholic state when he was in the league.

The 24-year-old is healthy and energetic, and all the ailments that plagued Korolev in his later years have disappeared. Now he just wants to work with all his strength. The B-level base and the huge production capacity of China are unimaginable when he was in the league.

What he said to Lin Ju at the beginning was: "In our time, I thought that humans should have established cities on Mars, or even colonies, but now the two camps are still working hard to land on the moon. This is serious of regression.

With the power of Xinyuan, we will set human footprints throughout the solar system in twenty years, preferably ten years! "

Even during his vacation time at the base, Serev just stayed in the design room, constantly imagining new spacecrafts, new rockets, landing plans for major planets, satellites, etc., and focused on advancing into space.

…

October 10, Cape Calaveral launch site.

A small space shuttle, the Dream Chaser, belonging to the Sierra Nevada Corporation and the successor to the NewSTS program, is hoisted on an Atlas V (Atlas V) rocket and is preparing for launch.

Sierra Nevada Corporation was originally preparing to launch the first Dream Chaser in November 2016. However, after NACA’s strong support and reduction of quality indicators, Dream Chaser’s progress was faster.

Although it is a month ahead of schedule, the Dream Chaser B1 version of the 15-ton "Dream Chaser Blok 1" is not a test machine, but an official version that can theoretically carry people.

It has an empty weight of 10.6 tons, 9 seats, and even the potential to increase it to 11 seats, and no cargo space. This is the internal situation of the Dream Chaser B1.

Compared with the old STS, the Dream Chaser is called a "mini space shuttle", but it is actually not that small. In order to allow the Falcon 9 to be launched, significant weight reduction measures were taken, but the actual size is not. No matter how small it is, it still looks quite big.

Its insulation tiles are more advanced than those of the old space shuttle, are fewer in number, are more reliable, and more importantly, are cheaper.

The Dream Chaser and H1 series are different from the old space shuttle STS. They are launched in a fairing, which can greatly reduce the index and weight of the insulation tiles.

There are three main developers of the Dream Chaser space shuttle: NACA, Sierra Nevada, and Lockheed Martin. Although the research power is stronger, it also brings some problems of competing interests.

For example, this first flight was supposed to be undertaken by Falcon 9, but despite various compromises, it still used the Atlas 5 rocket of the veteran launch contractor ULA, which resulted in a huge excess of capacity.

NACA reluctantly agreed because these established contractors had invested a lot in the early stages of the Dream Chaser program and had to pay for it. They were already very dissatisfied with NACA's support of SpecaX.

For example, the FGD flexible gravity device, all the giants tacitly ignored the fact that SpecaX proposed it, wanted to join forces to win the future artificial gravity device project, and began to actively promote projects that can overwhelm starships.