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

"Aerospace planes are more convenient and economical than rockets, and they are also very friendly to crews. They must be the direction of future development."

National Security Advisor McMaster expressed the determination of the federal government in one sentence, and all companies present immediately agreed.

Putting aside the horrific pressure and mental torture from across the sea, these companies participating in the tender are actually in a good mood.

Because constant pressure means constant competition, the military-industrial complex, which had been downsizing for years, suddenly received unprecedented project funding support. In the past two years, there has been a faint trend of returning to its former glory.

In addition, it is easier for the military's budget to be approved, and the stock market response in the entire Aramco military and aerospace industries has been quite good.

Of course, it’s not a good thing to be too backward. What if the master of Congress falls flat? So you still have to pursue it.

Regarding the SSTO plan, McMaster, who is relatively familiar with equipment technology, first raised several directional questions. The first one is: single-stage orbit or graded orbit.

The first round of resolutions eliminated the graded orbit entry scheme. In addition to the fact that graded orbit entry is not as high-end as single-stage orbit entry, the biggest reason is that graded orbit entry is not easy...

Graded orbit entry also requires the following carrier aircraft to fly above Mach 8. Since Tengyun can achieve single-stage orbit entry at this speed, why do we need to engage in lower-end graded orbit entry?

Second question: What power is used for the space flight segment?

There were some slight differences of opinion this time, but in the end it was unified as liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen fuel, which has the highest specific impulse and is the best. As for the aerospace engine, it directly copied Tengyun’s leaked annular air tip engine. Aramco has a lot of technical reserves in this area. There is still some confidence;

Then there are the indicators: How quickly does it start the space segment engine?

There are two schools of thought this time. One side thinks that Mach 8 to 10 is needed, and the other side thinks that Mach 3 or above is enough.

The aviation flight phase consumes very little fuel. If you can fly as fast and high as possible, you can greatly reduce the fuel usage in the aerospace phase and increase the load factor.

People who support high speeds above Mach 8 have this reason: Mach 3 is too slow and consumes a lot more fuel.

Pratt \u0026 Whitney believes that Mach 3 speed is sufficient. The reason they insist is that a ramjet engine that supports hypersonic speeds takes a long time to develop. If it can fly Mach 3, they can immediately come up with a ready-made one - the J58, which is the Blackbird. Used variable cycle engine.

As for the load factor issue? Pratt \u0026 Whitney looked at Northrop Grumman.

Grumman’s participating designers gave a straightforward answer:

"GEM63 solid booster, the one used by Atlas V, has a diameter of 1.6 meters, a length of 20 meters, and a weight of 49 tons. It can provide a maximum thrust of 165 tons for 98 seconds. I want to place one or two GEM63s on the fuselage. enough.

If you think it's too heavy, Grumman can reduce it a little more, so that shouldn't be a problem. "

Musk, who has been watching:...

The special skills of the military-industrial complex are firmly rooted in the divine religion, but I didn't expect that they could be brought to the aerospace plane.

But I have to say...it is a method, and Gutui is very suitable for this.

Due to urgent practical needs, the indicators of SSTO were quickly determined: atmospheric flight stage speed of Mach 3, maximum take-off mass of 280 tons (including two boosters not exceeding 80 tons), variable cycle engine acceleration, solid rocket Acceleration, SSTO's own liquid hydrogen engine accelerates three times to complete orbit, and can carry 20 people or 10 tons of payload.

McMaster simply selected the most conservative options and combined them with as little risk as possible.

It wasn't until the technical indicators were completely confirmed that he noticed that Musk didn't say much during the whole process. This was not normal. It was impossible that he flew to Washington in person just to observe?

Others also realized this and looked over.

Faced with everyone's gaze, Musk first said something unexpected:

"Everyone, three minutes ago, the third combined launch of the starship failed. The second-level starship had an abnormal attitude and was computer-controlled to self-destruct 15 seconds after separation."

Everyone was a little unresponsive, and then they all showed expressions of pity. Only Robert thought for a while and asked:

"What about level one? How about level one."

Musk: "The super-heavy booster B10 successfully separated as planned at an altitude of 82 kilometers, and we tried to control the separation attitude. Although it was not recovered, it can already be used for a one-time launch mission."

The person in charge of Boeing, who had been expressing sympathy for Musk just now, immediately looked ugly. Doesn’t this mean that SLS has completely lost hope?

But Robert was beaming. With the speed of SpecaX, at least two to three super-heavy boosters can be delivered this year. NACA can finally carry out lunar missions again!

…

Class B base.

On October 3, the Tengyun aerospace plane, which had been in orbit for 68 hours, landed on the runway at the base.

The reason why it landed here was because of logistical factors. After all, Tengyun is not an ordinary aircraft. Maintenance and overhaul require aerospace qualifications. It can land at an ordinary airport, but transporting it for inspection is more troublesome.

H1 and H2 can also be transported by air, but Tengyun is so big that it is really not possible. Temporary maintenance is not something that should be done in the prototype stage. It is safer now.

The surface of the "Tengyun" aircraft, which uses the base's latest generation of advanced insulation tile technology, is still as it was when it took off, with no trace of ablation at all. The huge improvement in technology can be felt with the naked eye.

A few minutes after the ground crew moved the gangway up, the cabin door opened from the inside, and then they saw Chang Lihai, who had opened his mask and walked down the gangway.

They were all wearing lightweight spacesuits, which were almost the same as high-pressure flight suits. If it weren't for the different helmet designs, it would be impossible to tell that they were astronauts.

Chang Lihai walked up to the leader who greeted him, saluted, and then hurriedly took him down to rest with the other three astronauts.

Compared with the current greeting lineup when taking off, the surrounding ground staff are putting on trailers to pull the aircraft back to the hangar for maintenance, which is not much different from an ordinary flight.

Zhu Bingguang and Yang Xinjun, along with several others, wanted to get closer to observe the details on Tengyun's surface and kept looking up and down.

As two competitors in the lunar highway project, the core R\u0026D teams they led had been training for several months. However, after Tengyun's first flight, their training plan was changed: directly take a ride on Tengyun. , the fastest growing in practice.

And the date is set for the end of October, and there will be many people joining them by then.

Since Tengyun's performance is extremely good, the Aviation Development Commission plans to arrange three more flight missions in October, with an interval of more than 7 days each time. Counting one or two days in flight, about 5 days will be used for ground maintenance. It's more than enough.

If the five-day maintenance cycle in October is qualified, we can try to compress it to three days. After next year, there may be an aerospace aircraft taking off every day.