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

"Wow, is this where we're going to land?"

Zhou Qingfeng pointed to a small circle on the screen where the moon watch returned images in real time, and curiously asked his grandfather.

Zhou Rui: "Qingfeng, the diameter of the Qom impact crater is less than 5 kilometers. Think about it, based on the operating altitude of the Dawn spacecraft, how big must the impact crater you are referring to be?"

On the evening of February 14, the Dawn spacecraft and the "Full Moon" lander assembly arrived in lunar orbit. Six YF77s completed their missions and safely sent the 45-ton assembly to the lunar orbit.

Three ultra-high-definition cameras are fixed in the cockpit of the Shuguang spacecraft. The images they captured are directly forwarded and transmitted back by the "Queqiao" relay satellite, providing the world with the clearest live broadcast.

The Shuguang spacecraft is expected to return after staying in the lunar orbit for 25 days, during which it will carry out the separation and landing of the lander and the docking and return mission of the ascender, simulating the entire process of manned lunar landing.

The reason why the "Full Moon" lander adopts a separate design is that the lander and ascender weigh 14 tons and 9 tons respectively.

The reason why the integral type, which is more mass-saving and simplified in structure, is not used is that the lander will be designed as part of the future lunar base and can generate electricity, store supplies and conduct scientific research activities. The ascender is disposable, and the manned cabin inside is It can support 3 people to survive for up to 7 days and throw it away after completing the task.

Therefore, every time the Dawn spacecraft performs a lunar landing mission, it has to throw away an ascender and a service module, which is not a waste.

According to the Aerospace Development Committee's disclosure, when the future lunar space station and lunar scientific research station are built, an ascender capable of repeated trips will be developed, which can replenish fuel in the lunar orbit or the lunar surface and serve as a long-term up and down vehicle.

To land on the moon, we will only need the Long March 10A or the new Long March 5 with two boosters, and use the lunar orbit's 27 to 30 tons of transportation capacity to directly send the Shuguang spacecraft there, or even the Xinyuan 2 rocket can barely It can be done, so that the cost of landing once is far less terrible than the Apollo project, and it can be done once a year without affecting the overall situation.

Now, the Dawn spacecraft is orbiting at an altitude of about 28 kilometers from the lunar surface. Because there is no obstruction by the atmosphere, the craters and various landforms on the lunar surface can be seen extremely clearly.

Zhou Qingfeng lay on the screen, imagining that he was in the crew cabin of the Dawn spacecraft, overlooking the moon's surface through the porthole.

In his imagination, he was the astronaut who was about to land on the moon. Next, he would get into the lander, then separate, pull the joystick and slowly slow down and lower the orbit...

"Grandpa, will we be able to land on the moon this year?"

Zhou Qingfeng suddenly thought that this time it was an unmanned flight, and next time he should be able to directly land on the moon, right?

Zhou Rui touched Zhou Qingfeng's big head kindly and shook his head gently:

"The next time is a manned flight around the moon, and there will be another rehearsal. The actual moon landing should be next year."

Zhou Qingfeng: "But it's obviously possible."

Zhou Rui: "Qingfeng, in the Apollo program, Ami conducted four manned tests from Apollo 7 to 10 before officially landing on the moon. We only conducted one, which is already very aggressive. Now Ami is also going to conduct a manned orbit around the moon." That’s all.”

"Grandpa, do you think that if the lunar flight is a full-state test, will the astronauts be able to control the lander to land on the moon ahead of schedule?"

"this……"

Zhou Rui was stunned, blinked and shook his head.

"No, everything depends on the organization's arrangements."

In fact, this kind of thing has happened before. On May 18, 1969, astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan launched from Cape Kennedy for a full-state "rehearsal" of Apollo 10. ".

Because automation technology is not yet mature, the Apollo spacecraft and lander are mainly manually controlled. In theory, the three astronauts can directly land on the moon against the plan.

The real reason for their restraint was not how strict their discipline was, but the fact that James Webb, the director of NACA at the time, expected this and only added half of the fuel to the lander, allowing them to only land and not ascend and return.

In this way, the crew of Apollo 10 struggled with their thoughts for a long time. In the end, they did not gamble that they could survive in the wilderness on the moon until Apollo 11 came to rescue them. Otherwise, they might have postponed the moon landing in a hurry.

Now it is another situation. The automatic landing procedure has higher priority than the manual landing procedure. As long as the procedure is locked, the astronauts cannot go their own way.

After understanding his grandfather's explanation, Zhou Qingfeng was slightly disappointed. This kind of following the rules made him feel that he had lost the fun of space adventure.

What’s a space adventure if you can’t manually pilot the spacecraft?

…

"Ahhh!"

Beijing, a certain aerospace test site.

Following a series of exclamations, the posture of the simulated lander controlled by Lin Ju was greatly out of balance. The suspension cable 20 meters above was immediately locked. At the same time, the engine of the simulated lander was shut down, allowing it to swing around in the air with Lin Ju. It also starts spinning at the same time.

The ground staff quickly operated the machine and hurriedly put him down. Lin Ju sat down on the grass and just then felt that his limbs were shaking due to excessive tension.

"Teacher Lin, are you okay?"

A little girl with tied hair ran over to help Lin Ju up. The latter quickly stepped back on his hands and feet, like a frightened grasshopper.

"It's okay, it's okay, no need to help me, you go and do your work..."

Back to five hours ago, Lin Ju finished the preparatory meeting of the Aviation Development Committee and came to the test site of the Manned Lunar Exploration Office to wander around.

The Aviation Development Committee will hold another meeting in March, but all important content will be finalized before the meeting, and the meeting will only serve as a notice.

Lin Ju, who had no plan, found a manual simulator here for training astronauts to land on the moon. It was a machine that used ropes to hoist a simulated lander. The rocket engine was placed according to the layout of the real lander, and a real person could sit on it to simulate the moon landing. Manual control situation.

Lin Ju saw that the machine was idle and wanted to give it a try. However, he did not expect that in order to truly simulate a low-gravity environment, the feedback sensitivity was several times higher than normal. After all, Lin Ju was also a reserve astronaut with advanced professional training, so he was caught off guard. If you make a mistake, the machine will be destroyed.

The supervisor here came over to pay attention to Standing Committee Member Lin's condition. He was a little dizzy and relieved when he saw that nothing serious was wrong. He thought to himself that this Lord can neither go against him nor be hurt. This is really a small temple to welcome the big Buddha.

"Commissioner Lin, the simulator is designed to reflect real emergency situations, so it is relatively difficult. Under normal circumstances, even if the computer fails, there is an auxiliary semi-automatic system. This kind of full manual operation is only encountered in extreme situations. Our astronauts have to train It’s also difficult.”

Lin Ju knew what he was worried about and hurriedly waved his hand: "I'm fine. I haven't trained for a long time and my head just shook a little... yikes, cough cough, I just need to sit down and rest."

"Then I'll ask Secretary Chen to help you take a rest..."

"No, no, no, it's so inconvenient for a girl to do this. I'll get up now!"

Seeing Lin Ju struggle to get up and walk away quickly, the supervisor and Secretary Chen who was not far away looked at each other and made helpless expressions.

Lin Ju often comes to the capital. The Aviation Development Committee originally assigned him a security guard and temporary assistant, Xiao Zhang. For some indescribable reasons, he was replaced by a young and beautiful secretary, Xiao Chen. As a result, Lin Ju had a completely business-like attitude. No behavior will be performed that might enhance the relationship.

However, little did they know that Lin Ju had noticed something was wrong a long time ago. Recently, whenever he left the base, he could meet young and beautiful girls, and the positions he often needed to contact were replaced one by one.

It turns out that Assistant Xiao Zhang is a good person who can fight and do things well. But if he changes to a female secretary, he can't help but be more reserved when walking together. It's really scary.

Society is too complicated, so the base is the safest place.