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

May 25th.

Li Sheng stared expressionlessly into the deep darkness outside the porthole window, silently enduring the acceleration coming from the seat.

Now he is the co-pilot of the Ruiyun aerospace plane and is flying to space on it, to the Advance space station to be precise.

Since the end of February, Advance has conducted unmanned rotation tests in space for three months and restarted many times, fully verifying the reliability of the gravity system.

For safety reasons, the 26 original crew members were still deployed for this mission. In a sense, they can be regarded as professional crew members of this giant space station, which is completely different from the roles they played in previous similar missions.

Due to too many launch missions some time ago, several launch sites are temporarily unable to launch large space shuttles. This mission also requires the participation of Tengyun and three H1s, namely Lightning, Unity and Progress. The space shuttle will send all the astronauts up, and the rest will transport supplies and equipment.

The three aerospace planes Ruiyun, Liuyun, and Tengyun were the darlings of the Aerospace Development Commission and the military. They could not bear to be idle for a moment, so they launched the remaining three H1s as the common round-trip vehicles of the Advance.

The Lightning can only transport cargo, and must return to Earth after replenishing supplies. Unity and Progress are docked on both sides of the space station's functional module to ensure that the center of gravity remains roughly unchanged and serve as emergency vehicles.

This is also a shortcoming of the current space station structure. In addition to its own components, if it is docked with other spacecraft and rotates, trimming must be considered. It must be placed symmetrically, and the mass error cannot be too large.

It will be more troublesome to board the H2 in the future. For example, the Pioneer and the Glory can dock together, but not the Storm. Because the Storm is equipped with a nuclear engine, its center of gravity and weight are different from the conventional version, which will cause a lot of trouble to the trim system and consume a lot of money. Too much fuel.

Solving this problem will have to wait for the future modification plan of the Advance, which will use an extremely strong and extremely airtight oversized electromagnetic bearing race to prevent the center section of the space station from rotating, but that will be a long time later.

For the first crew of the Advance, they did not consider these troubles at all. In this era, the Advance represented the forefront of technology and scale.

Just like serving as a sailor on the battleship HMS Dreadnaught in 1906, it may have various flaws and maladaptations, but in general, it was the best choice for its era.

Moreover, the mission of the Advance is very heavy. Just like the four-person team who have been on the moon for half a year, this group of Advance astronauts may have to stay for the same or even longer time.

Not only is it necessary to fully familiarize yourself with and utilize the full potential of this space station, but more importantly, it is to verify how long humans can survive in space in a gravity environment.

The "Isaac Newton" three months ago can only be said to be a flash in the pan. Subsequently, Aramco only conducted two tests lasting no more than 20 days in total, because the "Gravity Dragon" based on the Dragon spacecraft was too small.

The potential of the Qianjin to be filled with supplies is terrifying. Theoretically, the maximum full-load operating mass can reach more than 3,800 tons, which means there is still a full 2,100 tons of load redundancy.

The fuel storage limit of the Advance is based on the calculation of 6 A100 running at full power for 72 hours, plus 20% redundancy, which requires a full 1,000 tons of fuel. The actual limit storage capacity reaches about 16,000 cubic meters of liquid hydrogen and about 1,130 tons of fuel. Most of the solvents in the six service bays are used to store liquid hydrogen.

Excluding 300 tons of other consumables, this also means that nearly 700 tons of material storage can last for 90 months, or 7 and a half years, based on the daily consumption of 10 kilograms of oxygen, water, food and other rations per astronaut. .

Even if the number of people is increased to 50 and the material consumption is increased to 15 kilograms, it will still be 30 months.

Regardless of the psychological problems of the astronauts, the limit of the Advance is enough for it to complete the exploration of the eight planetary systems. It is definitely a truly epoch-making product in the history of spaceflight.

Of course, psychological problems are the real big problem. In the Age of Discovery, sailors on ocean-going ships could not bear the loneliness and committed suicide by jumping into the sea. Living more than one billion kilometers away from human beings for several years can be imagined as a test of the will of astronauts.

According to the instructions Li Sheng received from Shen Zuozhou before departure, at least 8 to 10 of the 26 crew members must participate in the "long-term mission" this time. They can persist as long as they can without returning to Earth. They need to test the limit of normal working ability. duration.

Now only he and the young doctor of psychology are the calmest among everyone. Even though they can't hold back their excitement, they have already realized in advance how the situation will change in the next few months.

But besides that, Li Sheng thought about more.

"Captain, what are you thinking about?"

Since the Aviation Development Commission decided to change the stay system of the "Forward", others have gradually changed the title of Li Sheng to "captain", and he himself also expressed his acquiescence.

Lian Xinwei's voice woke him up from his thoughts, but Li Sheng just shook his head gently:

"nothing."

Lian Xinwei is the only one with a doctorate in psychology. He also serves as a psychologist on the space station and is the pilot of the Ruiyun on this mission.

He was keenly aware that Li Sheng was thinking about other things, but his intuition prevented him from continuing to ask.

In fact, what Li Sheng was thinking about was that there was something unusual about the Aerospace Development Committee and the Space Administration these days. Zhong Cheng and several core figures were absent in the past few days, and Lin Ju also disappeared.

Of course, it is normal for these leading figures to disappear for a few days, but what is strange is that their missions have also been adjusted to a large extent. As the astronauts who should be the most concerned in recent times, Lin Ju and Zhong Cheng should logically appear.

Moreover, the content of the tasks remained largely unchanged, but the style had undergone a big change. It was even more radical than before, as if they wanted to make them mature quickly and then be busy with some tasks.

But this kind of doubt was only suppressed in his heart. After all, judging from the current situation, as long as his side plays steadily, it is impossible to face any threats.

He returned all his attention to the mission. At this time, a medium-sized semicircular creation could be seen in the porthole of the Ruiyun, which was the Advance, which was mostly illuminated by the sun.

In the past three months, the Advance has consumed almost no supplies except for electricity and RCS fuel, and the electricity is almost unlimited, so it does not actually require a lot of preparation for astronauts to station again.

The missions of the three H1s were completed three days ago, and Li Sheng could already vaguely see the outlines of the Unity and Progress.

"Captain: Major General Li Sheng, No. 2101's life steward "Wen Xin" would like to say hello to you, long time no see.

I heard that the supplies brought this time include a newer generation of NPU computing units. I hope that I can provide you with better services. "

The soft female voice synthesized by the robot came from the encrypted channel, which made Li Sheng smile a little.

It seems that even the ground recognized the title of "Captain" and actually changed the settings for the robot.

"Thank you for your concern, I will change it for you as soon as possible."