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

Nevada Air Force Test Base.

Dr. Freeman stood on the lawn in the warm sunshine, looking at the black aircraft being towed out of the hangar not far away - the famous SR71 "Blackbird" reconnaissance aircraft.

Although the SR71 has left a mark in history, it only delivered 32 aircraft to the Air Force from its first flight to retirement, which is not a large number.

In 1998, the Air Force retired all "Blackbirds" in active service. However, not all of these aircraft, which were still cutting-edge at the time, were taken to the aircraft cemetery to be dismantled. Most of them were in good condition and were properly sealed.

More than two months ago, the Air Force required all of these aircraft to be reactivated, and some of them were to be returned to active service.

The pressure on the Pacific Fleet is not light now. Not to mention the H-10, which has just shocked the entire Western Pacific. The first batch of J-H-9 modified from the C810 has also been gradually delivered to Hainan Airlines and began to appear in front-line patrols.

These "part-time" fighter-bombers modified from civil aviation airliners have quite good performance. They can fly faster, higher and further than the civil aviation version, often teasing their opponents with speeds above Mach 2.8.

Of course, the most troublesome thing for the Pacific Fleet is not the high speed. The first one is the powerful jamming capability of the JH-9 electronic warfare model. Coupled with its high-altitude and high-speed characteristics, it is simply wanton.

The only one that can compete with it is the "Blackbird". Although the latter cannot carry weapons, it can always catch up. Now the only one in the Far East that can barely intercept the JH-9 is the Alaskan F22.

Now there are more than a dozen Blackbirds at the Nevada Air Force Base undergoing maintenance again, and the relevant crews need to be retrained, but two of them were requisitioned by NACA.

Although the SSTO plan has been set to use a combination of J58 + traditional rocket engine + booster, NACA quietly launched the more advanced "LASRE" plan.

"LASRE" is actually more suitable to be called a restart, because NACA seriously considered the issue of aerospace aircraft in the 1990s.

For Tengyun Engineering, NACA mainly believes that there are two success points: a thin and strong body, and an air tip engine with extremely high specific impulse.

The airframe needs to rely on materials science to come up with a solution, but the air tip engine NACA has something to say.

After the space shuttle suffered a series of tragic accidents, NACA had realized its limitations and began planning to build a more advanced single-stage space shuttle into orbit. At that time, they considered an important technology to be the aerospace engine.

After continuous efforts, Rocketdyne finally produced an air tip engine prototype code-named "LASRE", which gave birth to the Lockheed Skunk Works X-33 "Venture Star" suborbital vehicle.

The X-33 is a reusable aircraft that uses a lifting body layout and a "LASRE" air tip engine. Although it only has the ability to fly to suborbital space, if it succeeds, a true single-stage aerospace aircraft will definitely not be able to enter orbit. distant.

However, due to technical limitations at the time, although "LASER" was installed on the SR71 and conducted multiple rounds of flight tests, it never conducted aerial hot ignition.

The X-33 demonstrator affected by this even completed 90% of the final assembly of components on the ground, but in the end both were dismantled and delayed until the end of 2001. Even the Edwards Air Force Base where the test was conducted at that time was closed.

The "SSTO" plan shown to Congressmen is to solve any problems as soon as possible. Robert's goal is to conduct the first test flight before the end of 2018, and the reactivated "LASRE" plan is the real aerospace in NACA's heart. airplane.

"LASRE" will be directly benchmarked with the Tengyun Project. It is a true aerospace aircraft that uses a lifting body layout, variable circulation-air tip dual combined power, and can fly into space without relying on any boosters. It is expected to be launched in 2020 The first flight plan was completed before.

Fortunately, those verification machines and experimental results were still well preserved. More than two months later, NACA had basically restarted the entire plan, and research work was in full swing.

A few days ago, Rocketdyne inspected and repaired an air tip engine, but it exploded during a test run, causing damage to the test bench and serious injuries to two staff members...

This gave Freeman, who was ready to cooperate, a sudden thought, but today it seems that Rocketdyne was not intimidated. An SR71 equipped with an aerospace engine took off smoothly on the runway and carried out the next test without stopping.

The NACA official responsible for supervising the "LASER" project was named O'Reilly. He pointed at the blackbird taking off and said firmly:

"Aerotip engines are not new to us. It will take less than a year to have a reliable model used in rockets or aircraft."

Freeman: "I have studied its structure a little bit, and it seems that the material requirements at the nozzle are very high."

O'Reilly nodded without hesitation: "Yes, especially in terms of temperature, it was not possible 20 years ago, but now we have many options."

Freeman: "Can it withstand the temperature of the gas coming out of the core?"

After saying this, the expression on Ole's face condensed. He originally thought that Freeman was just here to watch the fun because he was doing research in Nevada, but he didn't expect that he wanted to combine this ghost thing with a nuclear engine.

O'Reilly's expression immediately turned serious:

"Doctor, if you plan to spray radioactive gases everywhere in the atmosphere, I'm afraid we will have nuclear bombs dropped by the IAEA."

"..."

"In the atmosphere, but not here."

Freeman found his position in the sky, pointed in a direction and said:

"On Mars and the Moon, if you want to simplify the Ares program process as much as possible, nuclear power is a good option."

…

Cape Caraveral.

The first SL-X rocket has been filled with fuel, and the white mist caused by the low temperature moves in the direction of the wind like a fluttering flag.

The Kennedy Space Center began expanding half a year ago and has now established an LC-39C heavy-duty launch pad, but SL-X is still launched from LC-39A.

The official codename of this launch mission is "Origin", which is also the name Blue Origin gave their new improved lander.

After several months of major improvements, the original "Blue Moon" of "Origin" has considerable differences, and the engine has also become an improved BE-7A, but it still retains the most original mechanical control system.

Before the Artemis 2 mission, no one thought that mechanical backup would actually be used, but Victor proved with practical actions that the human brain is still very reliable at its limit.

Different from the last time that additional fueling was required, the "Origin" mass of this launch reached 44 tons, and a large cargo hold was added, which greatly enhanced the practicality.

But the corresponding fuel refueling module is also ready. As long as "Origin" conducts a successful unmanned landing mission, it will fly to the moon on another Falcon Heavy to provide space for another manned landing of Artemis 3. month to prepare.

Robert looked at the somewhat abrupt SL-X nervously, praying that this was a successful launch.

The first and second stages of the SL-X rocket obtained by transplanting the ICPS second stage look completely incompatible. The top is still the milky white color of a traditional rocket, but the bottom is a stainless steel background. However, the frost on the surface of the first stage also makes it look white. .

"Ten, nine, eight...peripheral engines start, lift off!"

The 33 liquid oxygen methane engines began to ignite sequentially from the outside to the inside, but there was no spectacular cloud and fog like the one at Musk's Starship launch pad. The diversion trough of the Kennedy Space Center discharged most of the gas aside. , and did not cover up the rocket itself.

This time the ICPS second stage plus payload is lighter than the Starship spacecraft, so the rocket climb rate is quite good, and it begins to rise rapidly after ignition.

“MAX-Q (maximum dynamic pressure point)“

"B11 separation!"

The booster successfully separated when the fire was hard to see with the naked eye from the ground. In order to adapt to the deep space launch mission, the first-level throttling program was adjusted and the working time was longer, but the mission was still reliably completed.

Seeing the separation footage captured by the camera next to the secondary engine, Robert pulled off the headphones on his head.

Although United Mining is almost sprinting towards the moon, NACA is at least taking small steps.

The power was out all morning... there will be an update in the evening!