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

"Hurry, or we won't be able to catch up."

While checking the lunar rover, Victor urged Wiseman on the radio who was getting the telescope.

"Right now...Okay, let's go!"

Wiseman held the camera and sat on the co-pilot of the lunar rover. Victor stepped on the accelerator before he could grab the roll cage in front of him, and rushed out straight to the sand dunes in the distance.

The named geographical locations on the moon are basically famous craters or significant geological structures, but now there is another "Friendship Mountain".

"Friendship Mountain" is where the two lunar landing teams officially came into contact yesterday. After a short negotiation between the two parties, the unknown hill received an official name and existed as a public area.

Friendship Mountain is higher but has a flat open space, and is at the midpoint of the "Columbus" camp where Artemis 3 landed and the "Yushu 1" base. From there, the two camps can be well observed. status.

After Operation Friendship, Houston immediately realized that an excellent observation point could be set up there to monitor the movements of the Chinese.

However, there are no corresponding conditions for Artemis 3, and for the time being the astronauts can only go there on their own.

The distance from Friendship Mountain to Columbus Camp was only five or six kilometers. Victor drove the lunar rover around and reached the top of the mountain in seven or eight minutes.

Wiseman immediately jumped down, fiddled with the stand and set the telescope on it for adjustment.

Victor on the side was holding an MFT (Multi-functional fast interactive terminal) similar to a military tablet, operating the telescope and turning on the real-time recording function.

Wiseman soon found their target: Chapter Nine, which was undergoing final preparations before takeoff.

This is a task specially assigned by NACA. They are very interested in the Jiuzhang and hope to obtain its actual flight video.

However, the two astronauts were also very curious about this "battleship" and were happy to perform this task.

Seen from a few kilometers away, the Jiuzhang looks like a huge black shadow. This is because the moonlight has just begun and the angle of the light is not very good.

But even like this, the Jiuzhang looks extremely spectacular, even larger than the Yushu No. 1 base that has not yet been tidied up.

"Damn, they must enjoy living in it like a beach house. Everyone may have a separate cabin, and what we are sitting in is just an enlarged drum washing machine."

Victor was very envious of the four astronauts on the Tianmu-3. When they met yesterday, he learned that the Jiuzhang had independent bathrooms and restaurants. The entire spacecraft was equivalent to a small mobile base. It's so comfortable.

This allows Jiuzhang to land anywhere on the moon and carry out long-term missions without having to consider too many logistical issues.

"We will have one soon. Before departure, I heard Jim say that they have asked SpecaX to develop a new lunar lander based on the starship. The internal container and living space will be larger than the Nine Chapters."

"It sounds good. I hope the 'blueprint' doesn't blow up the day after tomorrow, otherwise we won't be able to experience it after we retire."

Of course Victor remembers the Starship, and he also knows that the fourth Starship will be launched on December 29. Musk’s expectation is that if it can successfully enter orbit this time, the recovery plan and the space station construction plan will be immediately launched.

However, even if everything goes well, the lunar lander based on the starship will not be seen for at least two years, and Victor is not sure that he can still participate in the lunar mission by then.

"...hey, it took off!"

Reed suddenly shouted, and then immediately leaned in front of the telescope to focus and turn on automatic tracking. Victor also looked at the MFT again, and sure enough he saw the Jiu Zhang shaking off the ground.

The light blue tail flame of the hydrogen-oxygen engine is almost transparent under the light. The telescope can only see the airflow rolling up the lunar dust on the ground, but surprisingly there is far less lunar dust than imagined.

"They leveled the area."

The two of them thought of the answer at the same time, and then saw the Jiuzhang quickly climbing diagonally upward at an extremely high speed. At an altitude of one thousand meters, the telescope lost focus and failed to track, and in the end they only saw a blurry blue halo.

Victor, who witnessed the quick and concise take-off process, opened his eyes wide and murmured involuntarily:

"It looked like a UFO. It was really similar to the UFO videos I had seen online."

Wiseman also stood there and stared at the dark sky for a while, but he finally came back to his senses to check whether the video was complete. After saving it, he began to pack up the equipment and put it back on the lunar rover.

They came out not only to observe Chapter Nine. NACA speculated that the unmanned vehicles harvesting ice had entered the interior of the Qom impact crater, and they also had to go and see those little guys.

The Qom impact crater is a "mini" impact crater, with a maximum diameter of less than 5 kilometers. It is not difficult to find them.

In addition, there is the secret mission to find the "Fifth Man" on the moon. However, the caves where Artemis 2 crashed are far away from the Columbus camp. If you want to go there, you have to go around 20 kilometers, so we are not able to go there at the moment. Investigate carefully.

After simply packing up their things, the two were ready to set off again. Due to the lack of precise navigation instruments, they used to rely on a detailed electronic drawing and needed to constantly correct their coordinates based on the actual situation.

The lunar rover also carries several less heavy detection instruments, and they also want to detect easily exploitable ice resources.

This can also be used as a cover for "peeping" operations. Whether it is Yushu Base No. 1 or those unmanned engineering vehicles, there are cameras. NACA is not so low-ranking as to touch others when they are not around. Even if they really intend to do so, the astronauts will not perform such tasks.

Wiseman planned a relatively smooth route in advance, and Victor recognized the surrounding terrain and started the journey again.

Behind a highland one kilometer away, the Explorer II-9 robot slightly rotated its photoelectric detector and transmitted its movement trajectory to the satellite in the sky in real time.

No human being is more responsible and patient than a machine when it comes to surveillance, and these spider robots, whose flexibility has been greatly reduced, are very suitable for performing similar tasks.

This work will last for a long time. There are no powerful optical reconnaissance satellites on the moon, and the work of ground robots cannot be replaced.

In fact, the impact of the lunar blasting project on the lunar spacecraft is not small. When a nuclear bomb explodes, a space station like "Black Rabbit" can adjust its orbit to fly to the back of the explosion side to avoid being affected, while the satellites have to resign themselves to their fate.

The loss of a few satellites currently operating in lunar orbit is acceptable, but if the loss is increased, it will be very painful. Therefore, the satellites that have recently hit the moon are cheap cube satellites, which have weak functions and can only be used if they break. It's a matter of millions.

This inconvenience has been realized by all parties involved in the lunar operation, and they have begun to promote adjustments to the nuclear explosion plan.