Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

Currently reading: Chapter 114, Search God's Number. Find the latest chapters here.

The Earth was like a giant wall of blue light, blindingly bright, like a piece torn from the tropical sky. When he looked away, the light still burned in his eyes; as his pupils slowly dilated, the sky in his field of vision suddenly sank into an endless blackness.

Although the portholes in the command cabin were covered in scratches, they still couldn't block the aggressive blue light. The cabin was brightly lit, with light and shadow everywhere.

"Jingzhou, it's unbearably hot here." Sheng Tianhong tapped the thermometer with her gloved index finger. "It's already twenty-five degrees."

"Received, Search God." Yang Gang's voice came through the headset. "I suggest injecting coolant into the secondary cooling circuit."

"Received," Mira replied, then paused. "Uh, Jingzhou, the water meter reading here is a bit erratic, fluctuating between 60% and 80%."

"Received, Mira. Investigating..."

Sheng Tianhong suspected that helium bubbles had gotten into the fuel tank of the attitude thruster. Yang Gang suggested performing several exhaust ignitions to clear out the bubbles, and Sheng Tianhong immediately began the operation. At the same time, Yang Gang also found the root cause of the water level meter problem. The preliminary investigation results indicated that the sensor was probably faulty.

One problem after another, small issues rained down on him, all of them trivial quirks. Song Xingye had to keep a close eye on his checklist. He quickly flipped through the yellowed pages, repeatedly flipping the circuit breaker and fiddling with the switches, while loudly announcing the operating instructions to Sheng Tianhong and Mira.

He felt as if he were immersed in the hissing air inside his helmet. The hum of the command module instruments, the running of the water pumps, the rustling of papers, Yang Gang's voice from the ground, and Mira and Sheng Tianhong's whispers as they checked the orbital parameters filled his ears.

They had practiced this routine hundreds of times in the simulator. But only now did he truly realize how powerful this "routine" was, not because they were stuck in the boring ground training cabin, but because they were actually in space.

As long as he turned his gaze forward on the spaceship, he could see the outline of Earth. It was a blue and white arc, and above the arc was an abyss as thick as ink. When he looked down, the surface of Earth covered the entire porthole, slowly passing by like a colorful map scrolling on a computer screen.

He marveled at the clarity of the atmosphere. A mysterious depth lay hidden within that layer of gas enveloping the Earth; its three-dimensional texture dazzled him. Clouds swept across the sea, casting shimmering shadows beneath their surface. The closer he got to the equator, the thicker the clouds became; as he gazed at the horizon, he saw walls of clouds rising in layers, as if the "Searching for Gods" were crashing headlong into a high wall of mist.

On land, the gray, blocky cities and main roads were vaguely discernible. The bright orange-brown of the desert was glaringly obvious, while the vegetation of the tropical rainforest and temperate zones was difficult to see clearly; their colors had less penetrating power, revealing only faint green hues against the gray-blue backdrop. He felt somewhat disappointed, sensing that something vibrant green was missing.

He saw a contrail on the sea, like an arc drawn by a paintbrush on a blue canvas, slowly spreading out.

Mira sat in the middle seat, leaning slightly towards him. "The view is nice, isn't it?"

He turned his head, immediately filled with regret. His mind felt like it was half-filled with water, and he felt dizzy with the slightest movement. He tried his best to steady his head and waited for the dizziness to subside, but he still couldn't help feeling uneasy about the strange sensation churning in his stomach.

He was acutely aware of the spatial adaptation syndrome his body was experiencing. In weightlessness, tiny calcium particles on the sensitive hair cells of the inner ear float randomly, causing the brain to lose its sense of "up" and "down." This symptom usually subsides on its own after a few days. But right now, it only made Song Xingye feel incredibly embarrassed.

He tried to draw his attention back to the window. They were flying over layers upon layers of thunderstorm clouds, the clouds like towering cliffs, lightning crackling deep within the sea of ​​clouds, the flashes of electricity moving like living things, stretching for thousands of kilometers through the storm system. The interiors of the clouds were illuminated, glowing with a purplish-pink neon light, like dazzling sculptures.

"Look at this formation, those thunderclouds look like they're about to pounce on us."

"We've only flown a tenth of the way," Mira said gently.

"The cabin pressure is normal," Sheng Tianhong said, and began to take off his gloves and helmet.

Song Xingye also unfastened his gloves, pulled them out from his cuffs, and stuffed them into the storage pocket on the side of the seat. He gripped both sides of the helmet with both hands, unlocked it with a "click," and pushed it forcefully over his head.

The movement was too sudden. In an instant, his mind went blank again, and saliva uncontrollably gushed into his mouth. The helmet slipped from his hand, but instead of falling down, it hit a row of switches, making a crisp sound before bouncing away.

She was wearing an intravehicular pressure suit, which made her appear petite, compact, yet relaxed. She tossed her helmet into the air, and it tumbled around two axes, bobbing back and forth in mid-air.

Song Xingye felt both embarrassed and clumsy. He stared intently at the helmet, when suddenly his stomach churned violently.

"Oh, bro." Sheng Tianhong frowned in disgust and quickly handed over a plastic bag.

Song Xingye hurriedly took it and plunged his head into the bag. As he gagged violently, a green sphere, about the size of a tennis ball, slowly rose from the bag's opening. The sphere's surface shimmered, and intricate, constantly trembling patterns were interwoven on it.

Song Xingye stared at it blankly. He really should have filmed it; it was a perfect demonstration of zero-gravity fluid dynamics. He wondered, somewhat dazed, if this wave pattern dominated by surface tension could be accurately simulated by a computer.

Suddenly, the vomit split in two; one half drifted toward the bulkhead, while the other half flew straight toward Mira.

"Oh my god!" Mira turned to dodge, but it was too late.

The object struck her chest lightly, instantly flattening itself on her spacesuit like a fried egg in a pan. A thought flashed through Song Xingye's mind absently: it was surface tension again.

"Oh my god," Mira said helplessly, "this is terrible."

Sheng Tianhong reached for a wet wipe and handed it to Mira. "Come on, guys, whoever made this, we need to clean up the mess quickly."

So the three of them started bustling around the cabin, using tissues and plastic bags to catch the floating bits of vomit. Song Xingye found that once the churning in his stomach subsided, things didn't seem so bad. This feeling of "catching" vomit in mid-air was actually a bit like chasing butterflies.

"NC-1 stage ignition," Sheng Tianhong said, continuing to press the thrust control button while his eyes were fixed on the instrument panel.

Song Xingye felt his body tense up by a force. The acceleration wasn't great, but it was swift and decisive, firmly pressing him back into his seat. Through the porthole, he saw the nozzles of the attitude control thrusters spewing steam outwards. Those nozzles resembled springs gushing ice crystals, with tiny ice particles drifting slowly from the spaceship's exterior along precise straight trajectories.

The blinding light gradually faded, replaced by a gloomy darkness that enveloped the Earth's night. The planet seemed to be slowly receding, as if it were leaping into the air, hovering above a vast, dark, frosted glass. The outlines of the continents were delineated by glittering points of light, like city streetlights seen from above, but these were not streetlights; they were towns with their myriad lights.

He turned his head, his gaze fixed on the front of the spaceship, looking out at the edge of the planet. He stared at the ionized oxygen layer at the top of the atmosphere, a bright glow like a phantom dawn. As his gaze lingered, a blue light gradually appeared in the sky, spreading along the horizon.

More colors converged, painting the rising sun with dazzling spots of light, the Earth's arc tightly encircled by this brilliant spectrum. The dawn's light pierced the atmosphere, and he glimpsed the shadows of clouds sweeping across the orange sea—a breathtakingly beautiful moment. The sun rose higher, illuminating the peaks of the sea of ​​clouds. The sea rippled with crimson, pale blue and pure white intertwining, surging towards him from the horizon.

On a whim, he took a small tuft of dried grass from the pocket of his pressure suit, rubbed it gently in his palm, and a fresh, grassy fragrance wafted out, mixed with a faint scent of vanilla. It was porin grass, wormwood that grows everywhere on the Kazakh steppe.

Sheng Tianhong completed the ignition. He released the button, and the switch snapped back onto the panel under the action of the spring.

"It increases by 63 meters per second," he reported to his supervisor.

"Exactly accurate," Mira murmured. "Apogee 195, perigee 201."

"Roger that, Yang Gang, prepare for NC-2..."

The astronauts' spacecraft, "Searching for Mars," has successfully entered orbit. It consists of a command module, a service module, a Mars Expedition Module (MEM), and a mission module, which is their habitat for this journey. Other components of "Searching for Mars," including the main thrusters and their massive fuel tanks, have already been assembled in orbit and are awaiting docking.

The mission module is a short, stout cylinder, with a slender, silver, conical command module mounted at its front, while the more robust, truncated conical MEM is fixed at the rear. The bottom of the MEM's fairing houses the Orbital Maneuvering Module (OMM), a large, ring-shaped structure equipped with a modified service module propulsion system. The OMM will be jettisoned before docking with the booster group, but before that, Sheng Tianhong must use it to complete four orbital correction ignitions.

"Ready for Mid-Course Correction (NCC)," Sheng Tianhong announced.

"Received," Yang Gang replied. "Ninety kilometers away, about to shut down."

The attitude correction ignition was exceptionally crisp, accompanied only by a slight hiss. Sheng Tianhong said in a low voice, "Song Xingye, you should be able to see the booster now, it's right in front of you."

Song Xingye pressed his face against the porthole. The brief ignition had propelled the "Search God" into a gradually widening orbit. Along this new orbit, the spaceship would eventually catch up with the booster assembly. Its current altitude was significantly higher than when it first entered orbit; the curvature of the Earth was becoming more pronounced, and he could see the entire landmass dotted with clouds in its entirety.

Suddenly, a silver light hovered above the horizon, and they saw it.

"I can finally breathe a sigh of relief." Sheng Tianhong said calmly, "Jingzhou, prepare to execute the elliptical combination ignition at eight meters per second."

"Received, Search God."

The spaceship shuddered violently again, and Yang Gang's voice came through: "Insufficient thrust, Search God, only 1.6 meters per second."

"Received." Mira replied, smacking her lips at Sheng Tianhong in a teasing manner.

Yang Gang continued to guide them: "Your current orbit is 10 kilometers below the booster, a relative distance of 63 kilometers, and you are approaching it."

"Received," Sheng Tianhong replied. "Initiate the terminal rendezvous procedure."

Song Xingye could hear the crisp clicking sound of the solenoid valve, which was Sheng Tianhong manually operating the dial of the reaction control system cluster.

"What's the situation? Should we switch directly to orbit one?"

"Well done, Search God," Yang Gang praised. "It's approaching at a speed of forty meters per second."

Sheng Tianhong made two more fine adjustments and completed five deceleration and braking maneuvers. When he was about half a kilometer away from the booster, he had the command module conduct a short-distance flyby check.

He watched silently as the colossal machine slowly swept past the window, its boosters filled with propellant. At its core was a modified MS-II booster, the second stage of the Great Wall-5 rocket, specifically designed for orbital propulsion. The MS-II's front end was fitted with an MS-IVB booster, a modified third-stage rocket, with two external fuel tanks strapped to each side. These tanks were identical in size to the MS-II stage, gleaming silver cylinders with a metallic sheen. These auxiliary fuel tanks contained over a thousand tons of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the very power needed for the Search for the God of Mars to escape Earth's gravity and journey to Mars.

MS-II and its fuel tank are strapped together side by side, while the slender MS-IVB protrudes from the middle. Once docking is complete, the remaining parts of the "Search God" spacecraft—the mission module, MEM, and command module—will be connected to the front of the MS-IVB, creating the first Mars spacecraft in the history of modular construction, with a total length exceeding 300 meters.

The entire assembly was now facing the sun to minimize the evaporation loss of the cryogenic propellant in the fuel tanks. The shadows of the support rods and attitude thrusters were stretched long in the sunlight, projected onto the pure white outer wall of the fuel tanks. On the back side of the boosters, only the soft light reflected from the Earth could be seen.

He could even clearly make out the solar panels on the assembly; those massive folding wings were tightly fitted to both sides of MS-IVB, and they would automatically deploy once the "Searching for the Gods" lander safely entered its Mars transfer orbit. A bright red flag was painted on the side of MS-II, and the logo of the Dongkuo Space Agency was clearly visible, with tiny characters extending along the protective shield covering the solar panels. He could also recognize the support rods securing the external fuel tanks and the explosive plugs, as well as the gleaming nozzles of the four engines at the tail of MS-II.

The booster gleamed in the unobstructed, blazing sunlight, like an artificial star slowly streaking across the Earth's sky. This intricately designed, massive, and brand-new machine was a perfect embodiment of industrial art. He suddenly realized that after the spacecraft successfully docked, for the next long year, he would never again be able to view this magnificent conglomerate from space in such a panoramic view as he did now.