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

"Arrange for me to see the president immediately, immediately!"

When Sullivan met Claire, she had just gotten off the plane. After more than ten hours of intercontinental flight, he rushed to the Presidential Palace without even having time to catch up on the jet lag. It was obvious that he had something important to do.

Claire's original travel plan also included going to India to discuss manned space cooperation, but now she will definitely have to postpone it or send someone else.

But Sullivan knew the reason for his temporary change of schedule and understood it very well.

"plz follow me."

The two walked quietly and quickly into John's office. There were four or five people sitting inside, all of whom John had frequent contacts with and trusted.

Claire's first words when she sat down were:

"We're five years behind."

"Purely from a technical perspective, in order to reach the technical level of the Long March 18 and the 'Nine Chapters' spacecraft, NACA will need to work hard with all-round federal support for at least 5 years to barely achieve it, and it may even take longer.

This is not just a matter of them building bigger rockets, it means that their overall aerospace technology level and ideas are nearly a generation ahead of us, perhaps just like we were to the Alliance in 1969, but the roles are reversed. "

This was the first time that Claire had concretely and sincerely acknowledged the fact that aerospace technology had been surpassed. Although everyone else present had been mentally prepared, they still felt their breaths suffocate.

There is no need to doubt that under the increasing pressure that has lasted for the past two years, everyone has unconsciously begun to be more pragmatic, not to mention Claire herself is an extremely professional aerospace expert.

His opening also made the atmosphere in the office instantly tense, and everyone was silent and didn't know what to think.

The Long March 18 successfully made its first flight the day before yesterday. According to subsequent statistics, approximately 2.7 billion people around the world watched the live broadcast of the launch through different channels, accounting for almost the entire population of major economic and cultural regions.

One of the most popular related pictures on Twitter recently is the Yuanwang-7 survey ship taking a close look at the core stage recovered from the splashdown. The latter is almost half the size of the 27,000-ton ship. Lin Ju is standing on the mast with It's just a small black spot in comparison.

Others include close-up shots of the sea surface taken by an unmanned ship approaching the launch area. When the rocket was launched, dense and regular ripples appeared in the sea area for several kilometers around it, giving people an exaggerated sense of power.

Before Long March 18, the external nickname of "Mosasaurus" was quickly replaced by "Sun God" because it was launched just before sunrise, and its tail flame was as bright as a rising sun.

But this is more due to the four solid boosters that provide more than 11,000 tons of thrust. The movement, sound and light effects of the solid rocket motor are indeed very shocking.

But the greatest significance of Long March 18 lies not in these, but as a symbol of a new milestone in cutting-edge aerospace technology.

Unlike those on the Internet who are optimistic that the golden age of space has arrived, real aerospace practitioners are more confused.

Although the upper limit of the development of all other space agencies except Yu Sanjia - to be precise, Yu Erjia - is the same, seeing their colleagues take the lead in achieving the ultimate in chemical rocket technology means that most of them are Continuing on a dead end is very dangerous for the space industry, which values ​​ideals and beliefs.

Of course, there is also a sense of powerlessness. Just like the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969, the launch of Jiuzhang also demonstrated an insurmountable technological gap, and the whole world will be unable to replicate similar achievements.

And unlike previous space shuttles and recyclable rockets, Jiuzhang and Long March 18 are in a completely new field. There will be no similar things in the limited history of human spaceflight. If it were not for the limitations in deep space exploration, There is almost no achievements in the foundation, and the title of Light of Civilization can even be transferred to CADC.

"It was too fast and we were unprepared."

Sullivan spoke his mind, and the others expressed their agreement with their eyes.

It was really too fast, just like 1966 to 1967. This year was a watershed in the Cold War space race.

Prior to this, the alliance had achieved many honors such as the first artificial satellite, the first astronaut, the first space walk, etc. NACA was completely chasing after them in disgrace.

But in 1967, when the first Saturn V rocket appeared on television, the alliance's aerospace advantage was quickly narrowed and finally surpassed by NACA, and it remained in the overall lead until the end of the Cold War.

For the alliance, they perceived the time to be almost two years. When the fourth N1 rocket exploded, they almost gave up the idea of ​​​​comprehensive competition with NACA.

John nodded the most. He has only been in office for more than ten months. Before the election, he was still in the overall lead. But now, it has completely changed. Sometimes he even thinks he is dreaming.

This is different from what I thought!

NACA was completely unprepared to get involved in the competition, and was completely rushing to get on the shelves. As a result, it almost led to the worst aerospace disaster in history. The Congressional investigation of the Artemis 2 accident has not yet ended...

John: "So what do we do? Give up?"

The others shook their heads in unison, and even Claire, who was the most pessimistic, quickly persuaded:

"This difference is nothing, we have experienced this a long time ago.

Think about it, more than fifty years ago the Alliance said our Mercury spacecraft was a ‘grasshopper’s leap’, but what happened after that?

The Gemini program allowed us to launch 12 spacecraft from 1964 to 1966, carrying 20 astronauts into space, performing a manned launch every 8 weeks, increasing our space flight time to 2,000 hours, while the Alliance only 500 hours.

With our current capabilities, we should be able to catch up just like Project Gemini. "

"Oh, now we can carry out a manned launch every four weeks, and the number of crew members each time is 3 to 5 times that of the Gemini spacecraft."

John's mind immediately thought of Aramco's current manned launch capabilities. There are as many as three Dream Chaser space shuttles in active service, and there are also three Dragon spacecrafts, all of which are reusable. Even if they are not deliberately pursued, they far exceed the Gemini project.

"..."

"Of course what we should be doing now is not just launching people into space."

Claire was very suspicious that John was deliberately pretending to be stupid, but she still expressed her true thoughts:

“Our current goal should be the moon. The missions from Apollo 11 to 17 lasted 42 months, with an average of one manned lunar landing mission every six months.

What we need in the future is to carry out a lunar landing mission every two months. We now have reusable spacecraft and cheaper rockets, so two months is reasonable.

I ask you to approve our new plan, just like the Gemini plan, to conduct comprehensive familiarization and pre-development preparations for lunar missions. Starting from March 2018, Aramco astronauts should land on the moon every two months.

I call it: Project Centaur. "