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

At an altitude of 12,000 meters in Texas, the Starship SN5 prototype reached the highest point of the flight and attempted a vertical landing.

However, unlike the Long March 6A, which was successful in its fifth launch, SN5's luck was obviously not very good. The nozzle swings of the three "Raptor" generation engines were so large that it was a bit worrying.

The computer tried its best to bring SN5 to the landing site, but its descent rate was too high, which was completely unbearable for SN5, which weighed several hundred tons.

In Musk's raised eyebrows, the SN5's built-in landing gear broke when it hit the ground. The strength of the stainless steel rocket body could not support such an impact. It quickly collapsed and deformed, and the remaining fuel leaked out, turning into billowing black smoke. The fireball enveloped the wreckage of SN5.

Lao Ma patted Tom Muller on the shoulder and said encouragingly:

“It’s okay, buddy, you’ve done a great job, we’ve got more data and we’re one step closer to success.

Starship is the goal of the future, it is difficult, and this little failure is insignificant. Moreover, we have surpassed our opponents in some aspects. "

The "beyond" Musk refers to refers to the first phase of the "Gateway" lunar space station construction mission on the 22nd of last month. The 13-ton HALO and PPE modules were launched by a heavy-duty Falcon rocket and successfully delivered to the lunar orbit.

Because of its lighter weight, two universal core stage boosters were recovered for this launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket. The middle core stage had to work longer and eventually burned in the atmosphere.

The combination successfully reached the lunar orbit on the 26th. Now NACA is updating the pictures and images sent back by the two combinations every day.

Although they are not lunar surface detectors, these two modules have large mass, large communication power, and large power generation capacity. They can also be used as powerful detectors to assist in the lunar landing mission together with LRO.

In comparison, although the progress of the space shuttle opposite is very fast, the current progress of the moon landing is still not comparable!

Moreover, in these days, NACA and European scientists have determined that there should be ice within 100 kilometers of the Qom impact crater through part of the information disclosed by the Aerospace Development Commission and LRO's intensive detection of the Qom impact crater, but the difficulty of mining it varies.

With such a large area, even if the Aviation Development Commission wants to squander it, it will not work. First of all, international law has stipulated that no one can claim ownership of the physical territory, which means that the actual control area shall prevail.

For actual control, the world will only recognize unmanned or manned camps and robot activity areas, otherwise they will not count.

Therefore, the unmanned detection of NACA is very urgent, but it is not that urgent for the time being. As long as people go up first, the priority will definitely be higher than that of the rover. It is enough to concentrate on the manned moon landing first.

Tom Mueller barely managed a smile at Lao Ma's relief. As the chief designer of the starship, he knew very well that the seemingly silly, black and thick stainless steel starship was more difficult and had many revolutionary designs on it. , cannot be achieved overnight.

The Starship spacecraft is slightly better, but the envisioned overweight booster equipped with 33 Raptor engines is a bit troublesome. Three engines with a thrust of 185 tons are more terrifying than the 29 150-ton engines of the N1. They are definitely a nightmare for any traditional rocket expert.

"Du~du~"

Lao Ma took out his mobile phone and saw new content posted by the users he followed on Little Bluebird.

When I opened it, it was the Aviation Development Committee:

"New year, new life, new rocket!"

Below the text is a picture. A crane at the port places a widened container about 50 meters long on a semi-trailer truck. The container is painted in red, white and blue, with CASA and MLEP (Manned Transport) printed on it. Moon Landing Project) logo.

Tom Muller glanced over and subconsciously uttered "damn! (Damn)".

Musk: "Is this their new rocket?"

Tom Mueller: "No, this is the booster or core first stage of the Long March 10 rocket. This is the second Long March 10 rocket!"

Musk: "But NACA said that the second Long March 10 will be manufactured in June or July."

Tom Mueller: "Obviously, we have all underestimated the determination of the world's largest industrial country... God, it has been less than 6 months since the last rocket was launched, so they can build at least two rockets a year, next year's They will be able to land on the moon by this time, and the SLS rocket we are supposed to land on the moon may have just started construction!"

Musk: "Director Claire is going crazy right now."

…

February 3rd, the first day of work in the new year.

Serev got up calmly, then sat at the table in the living room and let the woman pour him a cup of freshly ground coffee.

Among the six gentlemen at the dance, Serev was the first to fall. He immediately fell in love with Lin Na, who is half-Russian. The latter's father is an old intellectual from the Northeast and has a clean background.

But Serev still took Linna into the base and asked her to sign an employment contract in the name of arranging work. He now enjoys having people around him.

Lin Na: "Liao Fu, when will we move to another place?"

Serev: "..."

Well, the ability of the Systems Research Institute is to ensure that personnel are loyal to the base and not reveal secrets. It does not turn people into mindless slaves, and their living habits, hobbies, etc. will not change at all.

Because Serev came from a different background, he had little pursuit of personal life. The environment of the base was very comfortable for him, but the woman's mind was obviously different. A base full of hurried researchers was not her ideal living environment.

"Come on, come on, I'm going to report to my boss today and choose a place in the city..."

Serev did not dare to wait any longer and finished his coffee before picking up his bag and going out. Lin Na looked down from the balcony and saw that the unmanned electric vehicle in the base was already waiting below. It sensed that Serev had gone out and opened the door automatically.

The latter got into the car, and the electric car started immediately without hesitation and drove to the office building in the distance, where Lin Ju was already waiting.

When Serev walked in, he found Lin Ju and Ye Changsi discussing the design of the lunar space station.

Why has Ami's "Portal" launched the first part and there is still no movement in Xinyuan? Because they are still struggling.

The reason for the confusion is the design issue of the lunar space station. The purpose of the lunar space station is to cooperate with the moon landing and lunar development, and it is not a simple human living cabin.

The most critical link is to serve as an energy supply station, but this is not a functional design, but a set of systematic tasks for unmanned fuel collection and transportation on the lunar surface and orbit. Each link needs to be sorted out.

Ye Changsi saw Serev just raised his head and said hello, and then continued to discuss with Lin Ju:

“The most basic design parameter is that assuming that the space station can support a fuel replenishment mission between the Earth and the moon every month, whether it is for H2 or XN90, it needs to have at least 20 tons of fuel storage capacity.

Therefore, the lunar surface must be able to ensure that about 20 tons of fuel are delivered every month. If it is transported by rocket, it will consume an additional 10 tons of fuel, so the lunar surface must have the ability to produce 1 ton of fuel every day. "

Lin Ju: "Assuming we use hydrogen-oxygen fuel, we will produce at least about 1,250 cubic meters of hydrogen per day and 50 cubic meters per hour."

Serev, who had already scanned the handwriting on the table, interrupted without looking up:

"50 cubic meters per hour, which is about 4.7 kilograms of hydrogen. Such equipment must weigh at least 50 tons and consume about 300 to 400 kilowatts of electricity. This is not a small device."

Ye Changsi: "Technically speaking, if it is made into an integrated Xinyuan-3, it can be transported in one go. However, a system that can mine, produce, transport and store hydrogen will cost too much. The cost of building them will be too great." Probably more than 5 billion yuan."

Lin Ju: "But this fuel station is very useful, especially when going to Mars and other places. It is much easier to obtain drinking water and fuel supplies on the moon than on the earth. It is very suitable as a port for future spacecraft to depart."