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

p; Tianwen

"Hah...I am back!"

Bill Nelson stood at the side hatch exit of the Chapter Nine, holding his hands tightly, looking excitedly at the gray-white lunar surface close at hand, and then jumped from a height of 1.3 meters.

For young people, it will be fine if they are prepared for this height. On the moon, it is only equivalent to a higher step. But Bill is 76 years old, and this action completely exceeded other people's expectations.

Fortunately, he made a perfect force-receiving posture while in the air. At the same time, the spacesuit sprayed gas downward from the waist, making the old man's landing extremely smooth.

"Mr. Bill, you must obey the command of the commander and don't make such dangerous moves!"

Matthew, who came down before him, was the most excited. This old man is a powerful representative of Ami, and he is 76 years old, only one year younger than the previous record holder John Glenn.

That is to say, this old man is in good spirits and body, and even has several excellent training results.

"Don't be like this Matthew, trust in technology!"

Bill shook his arms nonchalantly, showing off the attached exoskeleton protruding from the outside.

This is the "Kuo Pioneer II" active-powered exoskeleton spacesuit that has been mass-produced. In addition to the six team members, the first batch came with 5 sets of customized exoskeleton spacesuits.

Originally, there were four sets for the four astronauts stationed for a long time, but considering that Bill was a high-risk person, Xinyuan made up another set for him to use.

"Kuo Pioneer II" has just been finalized and produced. It is expensive and in small quantities. It requires professional training to achieve maximum performance, so it cannot be used by everyone.

Each set of "Kuo Kao II" is actually a semi-finished robot. The control system is the same as that of a robot, so that it can perfectly cooperate with the user.

For old people like Bill, you can also turn on the active safety mode and force him into a protective state when necessary, just like you just helped him land softly.

Deng Lei and Liu Ming had already been familiar with the space station in advance and were not too worried, but the others were completely shocked. The medical conditions on the moon are not very good.

But fortunately, Bill was jumping around without any problems. With the help of the exoskeleton space suit, he adapted to the gravity of the moon faster, making the other four people still wearing "Pioneering I" very envious.

Before the nuclear bomb was detonated, the Tianmu-4 mission had three take-off and landing inspections. Each time was a combination of 5 team members + 2 resident astronauts, which expanded to a team of 7 people.

However, the duration of each landing was only less than three days, and it was too far from the Yushu base, so they were unable to experience the good accommodation conditions of the established base for the time being, and could only make do with the Jiuzhang spacecraft for a few days.

"Jon, Zhou Heng, remember to bring the flaw detector with you when you come down. We don't seem to have taken it off!"

"roger!"

Deng Lei shouted over the radio to the two people who were still on the spacecraft. The five team members who came this time were composed of Ami and Huaguo team members. They were not only just taking a look like last time, but also setting up test equipment.

The "test device" is naturally the verification plan designed by He Fei's two teams for the super hydrogen bomb. All four test machines combined weigh less than one ton and are installed in the "Dawn 2" spacecraft that has been launched.

Dawn 2 is the cargo version of Dawn 1, but with the added ability to dock and push other large cargo modules. After being launched into low-Earth orbit by the Long March 7, it flew directly to the moon.

Among the five test parties involved in the blasting, each of the equipment required to be placed around the test blast site was installed inside. Some were directly identifiable as measuring instruments, while others had unknown purposes. The entire cargo placement and launch process were subject to joint supervision.

After their placement is determined, they will be placed uniformly by the four resident astronauts, and it is expected to be completed on May 6, which is one week later.

Except for Dai Ying and Mao Guo, who only had measuring instruments that they could recognize at a glance, the other three companies all had a lot of things and were a little complicated, and they were all trying to get some hints from each other.

After everyone came down and took inventory of the equipment, Deng Lei tested several lunar rovers driven from the Yushu base by explorers. After confirming that they were intact, he waved his hand and immediately entered into an intense working state.

…

"Starship successfully entered orbit for the first time."

"The fifth starship launch failed, and the attitude was out of control and unable to be adjusted."

"Our country is about to conduct its first fire detection mission."

"A large number of insulation tiles fell off, and experts said that the starship's insulation tiles did not have the ability to re-enter the atmosphere."

"Tianwen No. 1, let's go!"

"..."

April 29, Beijing Command Center.

At 14:00 this afternoon, the Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission will be launched in Qiongzhou, and Xinyuan Base will be responsible for controlling the launch process.

The Beijing Command Center only conducts connections, leaving a small number of people to watch.

While others were still nervously concerned about the Mars launch mission, Lin Ju was communicating with Zhong Cheng about the fifth launch of the starship.

Two days have passed since the launch of the Starship, but the media is in a dispute over how to define this launch mission.

Good news: The Starship spacecraft is in orbit.

Bad news: The insulation tiles fell off in large areas and spun slowly and uncontrollably.

In the live broadcast of the launch of SS-5, the starship indeed completed a historic moment, successfully entering the second stage into orbit and entering an orbit at an altitude of 150 kilometers. There was no explosion or other accidents in the middle, and the first stage booster tried to land in a controlled manner. Sea, but the deceleration terminal attitude caused an out-of-control explosion.

But the biggest problem is still in the second level. Judging from the camera on the outside of the starship, at least 10% of the insulation tiles on one side of the insulation layer have fallen off, which is completely insufficient to meet the needs of re-entry into the atmosphere.

In addition, it spins along a non-axis axis after entering orbit, and it runs out of fuel and cannot make maneuverable adjustments.

Not to mention that the orbital altitude is too low and has serious limitations. In short, there is progress compared to the previous launch, but it is still stuck at the 90% to 95% threshold.

But if we let people in the industry evaluate it, the best summary would be to say that the starship is one step closer to success and has a brighter future. There is a future for full reuse of the first and second levels.

Zhong Cheng basically had this idea and couldn't help but tell Lin Ju that the Aviation Development Committee was very optimistic about this plan and suggested that a similar project should be launched.

However, Lin Ju was never very enthusiastic. When asked why, the answer was:

"It is good to have complete reuse of the second level, but the XN90 can be used as a whole without separation, and the nuclear-powered aerospace aircraft can also be used."

Zhong Cheng: "What about bigger ones? It is still very difficult for these two things to achieve the transport capacity of a starship. Although our recyclable rockets are also very mature, this can indeed reduce a lot of costs, especially for low-Earth orbit construction."

Lin Ju: "Chemical rockets are a sunset technology and not worth investing in. In the future - not too long, within ten years, a revolutionary technology will completely end it, and it can easily transport millions of tons of materials into space."

"What technology?"

"The space elevator and the electromagnetic orbital mass projector are both technologies worthy of development."