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

February 25, Florida, Kennedy Space Center.

It’s been a pretty good start to 2018 for Aramco.

First, the "Gravity Dragon" spacecraft allowed two astronauts to experience gravity life for four days safely, and returned safely to win the title of the first artificial gravity spacecraft.

Immediately afterwards, Endeavor passed the ground test, marking the imminent first flight of Aramco's first nuclear-powered large-scale manned aircraft, which can be regarded as benchmarking against Storm.

And now, another moon landing rocket stands on the launch pad.

This is the third SL-X. It carries the entire crew of Artemis 4 and will carry out the first lunar landing mission of the new year.

Compared with the first two SL-Xs, this SL-X has made major improvements to the upper stage. The original ICPS upper stage of two RL-10 engines has been replaced with three RL-10 Centaur VI upper stages. level, the lunar orbit transportation capacity is increased to 55 tons.

What can the additional 9 tons of transportation capacity be used for? Coupled with the 20-ton surplus that SL-X already has when launching the Orion spacecraft, the OSS fuel tank used for the Origin lander can also be used.

The OSS fuel tank is placed on top of the Orion spacecraft, just like the position of the lunar landing module in the Apollo project. After overlapping, the entire rocket is higher than the original, but it is still lower and lighter than the starship assembly. , obviously no center of gravity problem will occur.

The replacement of the new upper stage was done under the strong urging of Director Robert and the Congressmen. The original ICPS upper stage was not high enough, and the spacecraft and the OSS needed to be launched separately. It took at least two launches to wait for a month.

Now the simplification means that the expenditure will be reduced by more than 400 million US dollars each time, and it will also be more convenient for the moon landing mission.

There are still four astronauts carrying out this mission, but one of them is actually the lead astronaut.

According to the original regulations, NACA would not open seats to Europe until Artemis VI, but now it has been moved forward twice.

Astronaut David himself knows why. Originally, Europe was counting on the Artemis Project to bring him along, but now not only has ESA advanced the Selene Project, but it has also added China as a new option.

Through the Sky Curtain series of missions, six countries have now completed the moon landing!

Coupled with NACA's determination to vigorously develop the "Centaur" program on the moon, the number of lunar landing places is far less tight than before, so it "generously" gave up one to the leader, and it was included in the three people who landed on the lunar surface. inside.

Three months after the launch of the Artemis 3 mission, Ami will land on the moon again.

The reliability of the much-questioned super-heavy booster has been fully tested. Together with the SS starship assembly, it has been launched 6 times in a row. The last four first-level boosters have had no problems. Multiple aircraft in parallel are no longer " Apostasy."

However, in order to show the importance of the first launch of the new year, Deputy Director Jim still appeared at the scene to be interviewed by the media, and then watched SLX take off amid the cheers of people, sending four astronauts on the journey again.

…

Washington, D.C.

Different from the positive situation seen by the outside world, Robert was not infected by this emotion, but felt more and more heavy.

The Artemis 2 accident in July was a disaster, but it was actually a good thing for Aramco.

After the accident, NACA gradually woke up from the overheated pursuit atmosphere and began to regain its past rigor and seriousness.

Everyone thought that this would greatly slow down the progress, but in fact, because various chaotic plans were reorganized, resources and manpower were allocated more rationally, and external interference factors were reduced, the development momentum became higher after the trough of the first half of the year. From the SLX rocket Started to advance all the way.

But while progressing, most people have ignored that their counterparts on the other side of the ocean are also making progress. They have only been quiet for a while, but will usher in a more violent explosion.

According to intelligence information collected through public channels, China's four major banks are jointly preparing for a new investment bank. Rumors say that it will mainly focus on space development investment with the purpose of raising funds for the aerospace market.

There is no doubt that the only company worthy of such a big battle is United Mining. With the latter's strong promotion, the lunar infrastructure is beginning to expand rapidly like a balloon, far beyond what traditional aerospace routes can match.

It is also said that the second and third aerospace planes will also be put into use, and the Guanghan Palace base promoted by the Huayin organization has also confirmed its launch plan.

There are also wireless power transmission, hypersonic aircraft... NACA has established benchmark projects one after another for them, each of which is a huge plan, leaving Robert with insufficient energy.

In addition, he also has to participate in meetings organized by Office 13 from time to time. Although the leader of the latter, David, is questioned by many people, it is undeniable that he is really capable.

The Thirteenth Office has even secretly launched a new subject: extraterrestrial sociology, which has attracted the participation of thirty scientific elites and will become a "cosmic sociology think tank" in the future.

And he is now reading the latest research results provided by the Thirteenth Office. Every word in it needs to be carefully analyzed and the response strategy can be adjusted in time.

Under the joint action of the top brains of the whole country, the "alien civilization" finally has some of the roughest outlines:

First of all, there is great good news - judging from the level of signal technology, the technological level of alien civilization should be no more than 50 years higher than that of humans;

Then there is the bad news: aliens must not be in the solar system, so it means that they have mastered the minimum interstellar navigation capabilities, which is at least 50 years ahead of humans.

Summary: Alien space technology is 50 years ahead, and other technological levels are yet to be determined. It should (emphasis added) belong to a civilization that has just entered the interstellar threshold, so its home, base, or spaceship will not be too far from the solar system.

It is much stronger than humans, but it is not so strong that it is unimaginable to just give up the struggle, so it is very likely that the elites do not need to flee collectively to survive, but can try to develop and struggle hard.

But this does not mean overturning the original deep space plan, because struggling means the need to establish a defense network within the solar system—at least the Kuiper Belt—to build a strong defense force.

The giant planets outside the asteroid belt are natural fortresses. The future space fleet (if there is one) will need to rely on them to exist, so they still have to work.

In addition, the report also attached some possible statements that are not recognized by most members or lack sufficient evidence to support them:

Some optimistic scholars believe that aliens are not necessarily malicious, and David’s energy threat theory may not necessarily apply to all civilizations. Aliens may have already integrated into human life.

The strongest support for this statement is the "fifth man" incident of the Artemis 2 mission. After careful study, Office 13 only gave two possibilities:

Either the Chinese secretly added a shady person, or they had some other conspiracy; or the aliens were up to something, they had tampered with the facts or they had already hooked up with the Chinese!

Although the latter may be infuriating, it also shows that aliens do not necessarily have to exterminate humans. If they can communicate, there is room for maneuver.

Maybe they're just spying on humans out of curiosity or some other harmless purpose, but it's not as bad as having to eliminate humans anyway.

The optimists' view only gained a very small share of support. After all, David's energy threat theory is based on biological instincts and scientific foundations. The foundation is much more solid. The optimists still have too many ideal elements.

But no matter what, the senior management no longer has to worry all the time.

Another request put forward by the 13th Office was also approved: the construction of a super space telescope with an aperture of 60 meters.

The largest space telescope currently in orbit is the Hubble 2 telescope, with an aperture of 2.4 meters; the Chinese "Sky Survey" telescope planned to be launched this year has an aperture of 4.2 meters.

The diameter of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is under development and is expected to be launched in May 2020 (formerly December 2021), has increased dramatically to 6.5 meters, making it the world's largest space optical astronomical telescope.

The main purpose of the 60-meter super optical telescope that Office 13 hopes to build is to monitor and defend the entire solar system. It can also be used to observe stars in free time.

Such a super telescope is even enough to observe the surface conditions of planets in nearby star systems.

If used for the defense of the solar system, it can display all the details people want in extremely large sizes and provide considerable warning capabilities.

Of course, the processing difficulty is also conceivable. Just a mirror of that size is enough to give optical companies a headache.

In large-aperture optical telescopes, conventional lenses, that is, transparent glass lenses, are not widely used. What is widely used is the Ritchie-Kretchen hyperboloid reflector, which uses a curved mirror instead of a lens for focusing.

No matter how pure and good the lens is, it will inevitably be affected by diffracted light and scattered light unless the light transmittance can be 100%.

Curved mirrors are made of very rich materials, such as the beryllium reflector used by the Webb telescope and the silicon carbide reflector used by the survey telescope, which are more accurate than lenses for imaging.

Manufacturing a mirror of this scale is actually not a big hassle. Europe is already developing ground-based observation observatories with a diameter of 40 to 50 meters. It is not impossible to work hard.

Moreover, the reflector does not need to be designed in one piece. For example, the main mirror of the Webb telescope is composed of 18 hexagonal reflectors. Of course, a 60-meter super telescope can also be used, but the number cannot exceed 30, otherwise the control system will be too sophisticated and complicated. Not reliable anymore.

The 13th Office temporarily calls it "Hope" and it is expected to be put into use before 2025.

However, this is only part of their envisioned solar system warning network. In addition, there are plans to build a gravitational wave observatory on the moon or in space to detect possible gravitational wave communications or other abnormal manifestations.

Until humans have the power to counterattack in space, these tasks will at least not require humans to react until death is imminent.