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

"One hundred billion dollars? Mr. Director, are you kidding me?"

Claire took her phone away in time to avoid the big boss's sonic attack, and sighed helplessly.

He was woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night to analyze the possibility of a space power station, which directly destroyed his only adequate sleep this week.

John had a whimsical plan to build a two-hundred-acre (800,000-square-meter) solar power station to overwhelm the other side, so Claire had no choice but to bite the bullet and make rough calculations sleepily.

800,000 square meters. According to the quotation of Spectrolab (a famous supplier of solar cells to Aramco), mass production and a super discount of 100,000 US dollars per square meter, that is 80 billion. The launch... Assuming that Starship is successful, $100 billion is really not that much.

This number is far from what John imagined. He thought that it could be done with up to 10 billion, or even several billion.

Knowing that John must be thinking nonsense again, Claire could only comfort her:

"Boeing is developing a new solar cell with a power generation capacity of more than 1,000 watts per square meter. It is expected to be successful in five years. If we start construction at that time, such a large area can generate 800MW of electricity. Mr. President, the power generation of the Hoover Hydropower Station is only 1,300 megawatts.

The Hoover Dam cost 50 million U.S. dollars, which was 50 million U.S. dollars in the 1930s. It accounted for almost one thousandth of our GDP. Last year, one thousandth of our GDP was already 20 billion U.S. dollars. Are you using the Hoover Dam? If the dam is launched into the sky, 100 billion is really not much. "

John was silent, not because the expenditure was too much than he imagined, but because he felt that Claire seemed to be more useful than his group of staff. At least all the data was at his fingertips and sounded much more professional.

Although that bastard Pio was more popular, he didn't offer any useful advice. He was worse than a NASA director.

But the power station... the cowhide has been blown out.

"What! You just tweeted that the world's largest man-made structure will be built during your term, over 200 acres?!"

Claire almost fainted when she heard this explosive news. Although the previous Xiao Hei knew nothing about it, he didn't interfere blindly. This one came purely based on his preference!

"Don't make such a fuss... I know NACA has something to offer, right?"

"..."

Rubbing her temples vigorously, Claire hoped that this was just a dream and that she wouldn't be dominated by phone calls in the middle of the night.

"This... is not completely impossible. Let me think about it... it should be cheaper and as light as possible. I understand."

The two words artificial moon appeared in his mind:

"NACA had a plan in the last century to build 90,000 square meters of reflectors to provide lighting. Its main structure is metal foil, which can be retracted and expanded like an umbrella. 1 million square meters... is the possibility of a reflector the size of 250 acres. It's only 100 tons, and it can be easily loaded, and the cost will be reduced by more than ten times.

If the launch cost is not included, it should be completed with US$10 billion. "

"This is it!"

John responded eagerly, 250 acres, twice as big as the one opposite, very good.

"Can it be seen? It must be obvious, right?"

"Well, it may be more than 10 times as bright as the moon, so it will be very bright and it will be the brightest celestial body."

The brightest, the biggest, John's mood suddenly improved a lot, and he quickly compiled Claire's words and posted them on Twitter before forgetting them, as if he was an aerospace expert.

Whether it is the Artemis or Ares project, in his opinion, there is no artificial moon, especially since the latter was proposed during his term and will definitely be completed during his term, which is simply the best.

Even if he leaves office in the future, as long as the Ameri- can people look up, the light they see will bear John’s name!

He has decided in his heart that he must push this plan forward to the end, and call it the John Sun Project...forget it, the Second Sun Project! One step further than day by day!

…

Florida.

The 1:2 scale "micro" Blue Moon lander started its engine on the test site and used flexible swings to stabilize its attitude at an altitude of 25 meters. The strong engine airflow quickly blew a pit into the ground.

This is the last test machine verification before the delivery of the "Blue Moon" lander.

Since the gravity of the earth is six times that of the moon, the BE-7 engine mounted on the complete lander cannot be pushed at all and cannot be tested. Therefore, the actual machine test uses a scaled model with the same layout. With the addition of electronic technology Also enough for use.

The BE-7 engine is an upgrade based on the BE-3 and is relatively reliable. A previous accident was confirmed to be caused by human error. NACA engineers have solved these problems.

The HLS prepared by NACA for lunar landing will start construction in May and is expected to be completed by the end of June. If the scaled-down demonstrator passes the test, it will be sent to the moon to prepare for the first lunar landing mission.

In order to catch up on the already crazy progress, "Blue Moon" has removed most of the functions that are temporarily unavailable.

For example, inside the lander's cabin, the air circulation system was severely cut and can only maintain the demand for 30 hours. Counting emergency devices, it can only be said that the redundancy has reached the minimum requirement;

Other decorations of little significance, such as chair interiors, etc., can be cut off if they can. If they cannot be cut, their functions can be reduced and used. The mass of the cabin will be reduced by one ton.

Even if this mission does not bring a lunar rover, it still has half a ton.

The significance of reducing functions is not only to reduce weight, but also to reduce risks as much as possible. After all, the law that fewer functions are more reliable is the Bible in engineering.

Under the premise of not exceeding the extreme time limit, the huge development team of "Blue Moon" has made every effort to ensure the safety of the astronauts.

The crew of the Artemis 2 mission also knew the risks of this trip to some extent, and almost all stayed here outside of the training plan to become familiar with the various operations and emergency matters of the lander.

Christina Koch is particularly serious. She and Victor Glover, a black man, will be the two astronauts who land and are the only two passengers on the lander.

In fact, she regrets it now. She is a former engineer and her role in this mission is as a payload expert, so she did not have to take risks.

Such a dangerous operation should be done by a man, but if she didn't go in this time, the outside world would be criticized for not paying attention to women, so it could only be her and Victor.

Cursing the damn female O organization in her heart, Christina picked up the more than 300 pages of "Human Login System (HLS) Operation and Emergency Maintenance Catalog" and started chewing on it. These things might save her life.

Next to him, Victor was still undergoing manual landing simulation training. The joystick that completely simulated real feedback made the strong black man sweat profusely from exhaustion.

"Damn it, I really don't know how Neil used this thing to land on the moon. It's obviously very laborious, but it still requires precise control without making any mistakes."

Christina raised her head: "Learn from Grover, otherwise we will have to wait until next year's Artemis III to take him back in a body bag."

Victor: "Don't the Chinese also want to orbit the moon? Maybe I can say on the radio, 'What's the divination medicine? Come to your hometown, unload it.' Then they will drop the lander and take us back to the prisoner of war camp."

Christina: "Maybe they'll just drop a bag of vacuum curry from the orbit, oh, no."

Victor: "I am still a registered disciple of the Shaolin Temple laymen. I even shaved my head for it. The host will definitely intercede for me. They believe in Buddhism."

Christina: "Shaolin Temple? When did you become a disciple of Shaolin Temple?"

Victor: "A Korean introduced it to me, and I got a black satin disciple certificate for US$3,000."