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

That's true. While Song Xingye was tossing and turning and couldn't fall asleep, she was drinking cola the whole time.

"You're such a jerk, Mira," he teased irritably.

She grinned at him: "By the way, I know you're feeling awful right now."

"Really?"

"Of course, you're feeling dizzy, right? I know what's going on, it's zero gravity. All the blood is rushing back and piling up in your chest and head. Listen, if it's really uncomfortable, you'll have to take some medicine."

"I'm fine."

"Whatever you want, is there anything else that's bothering you? Your back hurts, right?"

"Yeah." He rubbed his lower back. "How did you know?"

"Want to know where back pain comes from? Let me tell you, in a sleeping bag, you can never be completely still; there will always be slight movements. You'll drift this way and that way, and do you know how your body instinctively reacts to that?"

"What was the reaction?"

"Your toes will involuntarily curl up tightly."

Why?

"Because even though we're heading to Mars, deep down we're still apes, and subconsciously we're always worried that we might fall off a tree at any moment. That's why you have back pain."

"What should I do then?"

"Don't be so tense," she said with a smile. "Relax, don't push yourself. And Song Xingye, wear an eye mask and earplugs if necessary. Who cares what others think? I certainly won't laugh at you."

He returned to his sleeping bag, perhaps he should give up the idea of ​​sleeping and start his day's work like Mira did. But he crawled back into the sleeping bag, feeling the long-lost warmth, turned off the overhead light, and stretched out his body once more.

He deliberately relaxed, stretching out his tense toes, and the soreness in his back immediately lessened considerably.

Hey, guess what? This guy is actually right.

He closed his eyes.

……

【Task execution time [day/hour:minute:second]+004/21:38:11】

The daily execution document package was uploaded from the mission control center overnight, and the printed telex file was as long as twenty meters. The file contained a suggested schedule and a few personal text messages. Song Xingye tore off his own list and put it in a binder, threw away yesterday's old watch, and began to plan the day's work progress.

He quickly scanned the list, picking out projects with tight deadlines, items that needed advance preparation, and non-solo tasks that required teamwork.

Rather than a detailed schedule that early astronauts had to strictly adhere to, it was more like a "to-do list." Compared to the meticulous, minute-by-minute scheduling of the Apollo moonwalks by Country A back then, mission planning today is much more relaxed. Song Xingye secretly breathed a sigh of relief. After all, he and his team members were now seasoned experts and no longer needed a think tank in some remote conference room in Jingzhou to guide his every move.

To keep track of time accurately, he carries a small "personal alarm clock" with him, which is an exquisite mechanical watch that he found. In today's highly electronic world, he is fascinated by its pure mechanical texture and precision.

His main task today was to activate the "Search God" transfer orbit science platform, and he slowly floated upwards along the cylindrical mission module.

The mission module's design is based on the already operational Tiangong space laboratory. Thanks to the powerful carrying capacity of the Great Wall-5 carrier rocket, the mission module was launched into orbit in a "dry" state, meaning it carried no fuel, and all internal bulkheads and equipment were already in place. The astronauts' living quarters were converted from a former liquid hydrogen tank. This is a giant cylinder with a diameter of 4.8 meters, domed at both ends. Hidden at the bottom of the liquid hydrogen tank is a much smaller liquid oxygen tank. This spherical container, originally used for storing supplies, now serves as a solar storm shelter for the astronauts, providing crucial radiation protection should a solar flare occur during the mission.

The interior of the liquid hydrogen tank was divided into three layers by triangular metal mesh panels. Song Xingye wore specially made "triangular-soled" buckle shoes, the V-shaped protrusions on the soles allowing him to be securely fastened to the metal mesh floor on both sides of the cabin. In the center of the cabin stood a sliding pole similar to those in a fire station, and safety belts, guide ropes, and other securing devices were visible all around.

The lower deck is the core living area, containing the command center, sleep chambers, and waste disposal system. The middle deck is the command and control area, responsible for managing the subsystems, environmental control, and flight operations of the entire spacecraft. This area also features a circular runway surrounding the bulkhead, specifically for experiments and physical training. The fitness equipment was securely fixed to the pressure bulkhead during launch. The top deck, closest to the bow of the "Search God" hull, houses the science platform.

In Song Xingye's view, the entire compartment resembled a giant submarine engine room. The curved bulkhead was densely packed with heavy tanks and storage boxes, and under the yellow plastic sheeting, crisscrossing cables and pipes wrapped the walls like tree roots, making them airtight.

As he slowly ascended to the science platform, it felt as if he were inside an octagonal cave. The curved walls were crammed with bulky equipment racks and storage cabinets. One side of the octagonal structure served as the ceiling, adorned with several high-definition observation windows resembling dark discs, as well as small scientific airlocks—doors with sturdy rotating wheels that looked like miniature safes. All the scientific instruments lay intact in their packing crates, neatly stored away.

He shifted his body to the right bulkhead, his feet precisely wedged into a pair of stirrups. Before him lay the display and control console: a long row of toggle switches, an old-fashioned cathode ray tube display, and a numeric keypad and a standard full keyboard. He toggled the switches one by one, activating the science platform's main computer, and then began powering up the remaining equipment and performing self-tests.

As the cramped science station hummed as it operated, Song Xingye thought it resembled the bedroom laboratory of a bespectacled geek teenager—compact, miniature, and even somewhat cute.

The experiments undertaken by the "Search God" are part of long-term microgravity research projects, including protein crystal growth and bacterial diffusion under microgravity conditions. Among them is a large-scale device test called "Heat Pipe Performance Experiment," which is a tedious pure engineering experiment aimed at studying the diffusion characteristics of heat in pipes and ducts under microgravity.

However, the unique orbit of the "Sorcerer's Seismograph" provides an exceptional observation opportunity. According to the plan, the probe will simultaneously observe major solar activities such as sunspots and flares from two vastly different perspectives, alongside Earth. To this end, the platform is equipped with multiple dedicated observation instruments, including a coronagraph, a solar spectrometer, and a spectroscopic telescope. To conserve fuel, the "Sorcerer's Seismograph" module automatically maintains solar orientation during flight; therefore, all observation equipment is fixed to an instrument tray. When the probe deploys, these instruments will flip and extend outwards from the main body of the mission module, much like a car's rearview mirror.

However, equipment debugging took far longer than expected. The Lenovo-manufactured microcomputers were sluggish, and the hardware on board the "Search God" was outdated. After all, the overall design of the platform had been frozen a decade ago, and the custom-designed lightweight, low-power devices were relics of the past. Although Lenovo and other computer suppliers had assured that they would provide technical support indefinitely as long as NASA's flight hardware remained in service.

What's even more frustrating is the weightless environment. Anything not secured floats around aimlessly. Large equipment is manageable, but small, loose items like notebooks, pens, pencils, and handkerchiefs constantly disappear, forcing him to waste countless hours searching. Every time he wants to move something, he has to consciously stabilize himself, either wedging his feet into the restraints, gripping the edge of the frame tightly, or wrapping his legs around the support rods. Otherwise, even a simple press of a button on the control panel will send him tumbling backward at a full 180 degrees.

It felt like working on a giant, invisible, three-dimensional ice rink, where small objects would suddenly slip off the surface and drift away along bizarre straight trajectories, while he himself was constantly in a state of disorientation, as if he were about to lose his balance.

When Song Xingye floated back to the lower deck along the slide bar, Sheng Tianhong was already busy preparing lunch in the kitchenette, with several lunch boxes and trays floating quietly beside him.

A camera was fixed to the bulkhead, its lens pointed directly at Sheng Tianhong. Song Xingye then vaguely remembered that they had a public television broadcast today, and he couldn't help but wonder how many people on Earth were watching it at that moment.

Sheng Tianhong looked up and glanced at Song Xingye. "You're starting to look more and more like an astronaut, Lao Song."

"How so?"

"Just look in the mirror and you'll see."

The nearest mirror was fixed above the sink. Song Xingye floated over and examined himself. His disheveled hair had exploded around his head like dandelions, forming a comical halo; the skin around his eyes looked unusually swollen, as if he had just had a good cry. This was one of the side effects of microgravity—fluid shifting to the head, causing facial edema. He reached out and pinched the skin around his eyes; the skin was taut and felt slightly numb to the touch.

Mira was hanging upside down on the slide bar, slowly spinning like a leisurely top.

A hissing static noise suddenly came from the communication panel fixed to the bulkhead. "'Search God,' this is Jingzhou. Tianhong, I see you have a box of snacks over there." Today's ground communicator was Yang Gang again.

Song Xingye keenly sensed the sudden tension in the cabin. Yang Gang's deliberately lighthearted joke was the coded signal to switch to the public live broadcast. "Guys, it's our turn to perform."

Sheng Tianhong held up an unremarkable brown plastic bag and said to the camera, "Hello, Yang Gang, can you believe this contains stewed chicken? I just push the bag into this sliding drawer, like this, and the machine automatically adds water and heats it. Then I pull it out, knead it a few times, and ta-da! A delicious stewed chicken feast is ready." He placed the stewed chicken back on a floating tray beside him, which already held four food bags, a can of nuts, and a packet of flavored beverage, all securely fastened with Velcro. Sheng Tianhong pushed the tray, letting it float towards Mira, "Dinner's ready."

"Thanks." Mira tore open the bag of stewed chicken and picked up a spoon, squeezing the food into her mouth one spoonful after another. She waved at the camera and grinned. From Sheng Tianhong's perspective, she was eating the meal upside down.

Sheng Tianhong casually introduced the food to the camera: "Humans have been in space for over twenty years, and we're already very skilled at producing space food. To put it simply, what we eat now is not much different from what our colleagues who travel to low Earth orbit and lunar orbit do. Our menu rotates approximately every six days, and the staple foods are mostly dehydrated and rehydrated foods, such as the noodles and chicken I'm holding." He pointed to the tray and continued, "Because dehydrated foods provide the highest nutritional value for the same weight, of course, we also have heat-stable foods, which..." Foods cooked before launch and stored at room temperature include stewed tomatoes and ground beef with kimchi sauce. Some snacks are kept in their natural state, like this jar of almonds, as well as freeze-dried pear slices and strawberry powder… Although we don't have a large refrigerator and freezer like the Tiangong laboratory, we have a new magic weapon: a miniature oven with forced ventilation and heating. Since hot air doesn't rise and convection automatically in zero gravity, it must be circulated by a fan. Not only that, even our mini water tank can provide hot and cold water directly.”

Mira muttered in a low voice, "Old Sheng, why don't you chat with them about farting while you're at it?"

Oh, of course you can't mention that bastard.

In fact, farting is a real problem here. The drinking water system originally had a centrifuge to filter out excess hydrogen from the fuel cell byproduct water, but this lousy device was incredibly ineffective, causing everyone to swallow large amounts of gas when drinking. This gas, once in the stomach, would quickly be expelled intact from the other end.

"'Search God', this is Jingzhou." Because the spaceship is so far from Earth, radio signals take a full six seconds to travel one way, so Yang Gang's reply came late. "Tianhong, I heard that the number of viewers watching online today is enormous."

"We are honored to hear this news."

"So, Tianhong, to be honest, are you truly completely satisfied with the catering service in the space capsule?"

Sheng Tianhong hesitated for a moment, which was uncommon. "It's really hard to say. Even those unprocessed natural foods just don't taste quite right here. I guess it's probably due to some subtle physiological changes, a series of chain reactions that the human body produces to adapt to the microgravity environment. We still haven't fully understood the mechanism. Besides that, there's the packaging problem. Rationally, I know that these bagged paste-like foods have many advantages, such as minimizing the risk of food residue drifting into precision instruments."