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

Luca Christopher and Alain Duras walk on a pedestrian bridge specially designed for the space shuttle.

They are the first foreign astronauts to board the Tiangong space station and the first batch of foreign astronauts to board the H2 series of large space shuttles.

On March 17, the Qixinyuan Launch Site took out one of the three No. 2 rockets in preparation and took the time to launch the "Vienna" to the Tiangong Space Station and dock with the "Yungong" core module as the two complete docking stations in the future. Tourist section open to tourists.

At the same time, in accordance with the agreement made more than a year ago, two Italian and Chinese astronauts will also enter the Tiangong Space Station after the "Vienna" launch to conduct scheduled space science experiments.

The space agency's Shuguang spacecraft was scheduled to arrive in April, so Xinyuan simply added two seats to the Glory launched on the 21st, and first sent the two gringos to the Tiangong Space Station and then maneuvered to the Advance.

Although the H2M's crew cabin only occupies a small part of the whole, the space is also extremely huge. The plan of adding seats was considered during the design. It can be expanded to a maximum passenger capacity of 15 people with only minor modifications. The only loss is Negligible upward freight capacity.

However, the maximum take-off mass of H2M exceeds 130 tons, which is far from the limit when operating in low-Earth orbit, and the fuel is quite sufficient. There is no problem in "stopping" midway.

The Glory took much longer to go up this time. It has already launched a living module, and its cargo hold is equipped with a connecting channel and the corresponding part of the truss.

According to the design of the Qianjin space station, the six spoke cabins are connected to the six service modules respectively. The six living modules are fixed by connecting channels and trusses, so the service module should be launched first. However, Xinyuan really couldn't wait and decided to launch the service module first. The living cabins were launched one by one.

Glorious and Pioneer can guarantee a 20-day launch interval when the launch site is at full capacity, which is enough.

Even if there are a third and fourth aircraft, it is unlikely to increase the speed. The power of the two launch sites is limited.

With the permission of Xinyuan, after entering the cabin, Luca and Alan first raised their mobile phones to take a few selfies of themselves.

Their seats are on the lower level. Although there are no portholes, the space is very spacious, so even temporarily adding seats does not seem rushed. The floor space of the chairs is larger than that of common airline sofas.

Sitting in the seat were professional astronauts who had already been in space. The flight process of both of them was very smooth. Luca even felt that the Glorious, which had a lower G value than the Soyuz spacecraft and entered a tilting state from the moment it took off, was too relaxed. The whole process was very relaxed. In the mood for some fun on the radio.

Since the Xinyuan-2A rocket can only send the space shuttle into low orbit, it has to fly on its own power for a while, and the weightless time before entering rendezvous and docking is less than that of ordinary spacecraft.

For the Tiangong Space Station, H2M is a giant object weighing more than 100 tons, which is heavier than the two core modules. Therefore, both sides must be very careful when docking, otherwise a collision may destroy the space station.

When the docking port inside the cargo bay of Glorious was successfully docked with Tianhe, more than a dozen astronauts from the two spacecrafts warmly celebrated their meeting with each other and spent an hour visiting each other briefly.

The crew of the "Glorious" with a mission brought lettuce, bean sprouts, tomatoes and other materials grown in "Tiangong". They did not stay long and separated and closed the cargo hold. They adjusted the direction and began to ascend the orbit in preparation for docking with the "Forward".

The first thing Luca Christoph did after entering the space station was to enter "Vienna", and then opened the hatch with a symbolic small key during the online meeting of the Eastern International Board of Directors, indicating that Alenia Space officially handed over the main operations to the space hotel of luxury class.

NACA's shareholder representatives who came in with white gloves applauded most enthusiastically, even though their shares were less than 4%.

However, the Oriental International Space Hotel is about to be listed on Nasdaq. With Oriental International’s exclusive and huge space assets, this small amount of equity can also mobilize a large amount of funds, allowing some big figures in NACA to make a fortune. From now on, I will have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of my life.

…

"President Xie, this is indeed the limit of what we can do."

At the B-level base, an engineer from a technology company in the country was sweating profusely. In front of him was a cylindrical machine slightly larger than a family car.

As a traditional industrial power, China also has unique advantages in certain aspects, such as hydrogen and oxygen high-purity fuel production and container manufacturing, and is at the forefront of the world.

When Serev set out to promote the lunar fuel production system, he first thought about whether he could get some good stuff from ESA in addition to his own research.

The result is true. These engineers brought their rich experience to participate in the manufacturing of the core components of the electrolytic hydrogen and oxygen production machine. They successfully controlled the quality of the equipment within the six tons required by Serev, and the electrolysis capacity also successfully met the requirements.

The power consumption is a peak power of 35 kilowatts, which is almost the limit of a nuclear power train.

Serev was actually very satisfied, but in order to squeeze out some good things as much as possible, he kept putting pressure on the hair team. Now it seems that they can achieve this level with their technology.

Of course, this is just a prototype, and the version that will actually be launched to the moon is the one that Xinyuan optimized according to the Mao Guolao Technology Utilization System Research Institute and confirmed its reliability, but this does save a lot of money.

In the rest of the production system, there is no technical pressure on the compression and storage equipment, and the crushing and purification equipment requires a little money. Ice excavation and transportation were finally divided into two parts, and everything was OK.

The MTV transport rocket with an upward fuel transport capacity of 13 tons is still somewhat difficult to study, and the rest are minor problems.

Of course, along with the establishment of the lunar fuel production/transportation system, there is also the long-awaited lunar orbital space station.

The first two parts of the "Gateway" of the Artemis program, PPE and HALO, have been running in lunar orbit for almost a month. Now NACA is wildly bragging about the advancement of the first lunar orbit space station "Gateway" every day.

For example, the three 13KW "world's first" Hall thrusters on the PPE, the ultra-large-capacity remote communication system, etc., are not worth mentioning in Serev's opinion.

For spacecraft, mass and volume are the representatives of capabilities.

The lunar orbital space station decided by Serev consists of two modules with a total weight of 67 tons.

One part is used to store the fuel produced by the lunar surface and can store up to 100 tons. The other part is naturally used to provide daily supplies and dock around the moon. It has a mass of 50 tons and can support eight people.

It can be done with one No. 2 rocket and one No. 2 A rocket, and the cost is not high. It has been reported to the Aviation Development Commission and is ready to be completed within this year. It can easily steal the limelight of the "Gateway".