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

"Maybe I should wear a pair of sunglasses."

As soon as Robert walked into the satellite assembly workshop, his eyes were stung by the reflected light and he immediately turned his head.

The assembly worker following him quickly closed the door, and the outside light was immediately blocked. Under the indoor special diffuse lighting, the huge cylinder in the middle finally stopped shining.

The "artificial sun" that has lost its concentrated light source looks like an oversized mirror, but its surface looks a little blurry at this time and is not as smooth as imagined.

Robert stepped forward and confirmed that its surface was not much different from ordinary aluminum. It was purely caused by the external sunlight being too bright and the reflective area being too large.

The outside brightness on a cloudy day is also tens of thousands of nits, much brighter than most artificial light sources.

"It looked like an oversized roll of aluminum foil."

This is Robert's first impression of "Artemis". This super cylinder is 52 meters high, more than 7 meters in diameter, and weighs 157 tons. It is named after Artemis, the sister of the sun god Apollo, who controlled the night in ancient Greece. Named by God.

Its reflective main body is aluminum foil with a thickness of less than 0.0045mm, but it is not a common ultra-thin aluminum foil. It is embedded in a synthetic fiber braided mesh during rolling, which has extraordinary toughness and is difficult to tear.

In order to develop this roll of aluminum foil, NACA invested 6 billion US dollars in just 4 months, testing material combinations at any cost. When converted into the amount of "Artemis", each gram of woven aluminum foil exceeds 46 US dollars. Counting the total The cost exceeded 60 US dollars, which is already equivalent to gold.

When John came to visit a few days ago, he joked that if the anchoring effect of gold was not considered, it might be more labor-saving to directly use gold foil as the material of Artemis.

But for Robert, this is really not a joke. Softer gold is of course a more ideal material. Even if it is now linked to currency, gold also plays an irreplaceable and important role in aerospace and precision electronics.

Artemis is more expensive than gold, and the cost of using it is also quite high, but the voice supporting it is not small, and the whole United States is looking forward to the launch of Artemis.

Artemis has a fully expanded diameter of more than 1,100 meters and a usable reflection area of ​​993,400 square meters, equivalent to 100 hectares or 247 acres. It is definitely the largest man-made object in human history.

This is equivalent to the combined deck area of ​​54 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, or the floor space of five Bird's Nest stadiums, which is larger than the Forbidden City.

According to calculations, the effective illumination area of ​​Artemis reaches 320,000 square kilometers, and the brightness level is 12 times that of the moon.

What does this mean? Except for the four states of Alaska, Texas, California, and Montana, the other 47 states in Amerika have an area of ​​less than 320,000 square kilometers.

There are 129 countries in the world with an area smaller than this number. Even the island country and Germany only cover an area of ​​more than 300,000 square kilometers. Regardless of the shape of the territory, Artemis can basically cover the entire territory.

When Artemis shines on the Earth, it will form a spot of light with a diameter of 315 kilometers.

If the center of the light spot is placed in Harrisonburg, Virginia as planned, it can cover most of the six states including Washington, DC, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia, allowing 17 million people to Benefit.

This is a real macro project, so the pressure on Robert is unimaginable.

Of course, the pressure on Artemis is greater. When it expands, the light pressure it receives is equivalent to 4,400 Newtons of thrust. If ignored, Artemis will fly past the orbit of Mars in more than 90 days...

According to NACA's calculations, at least US$1.2 billion is invested each year to maintain Artemis, which is more than 10% of its cost.

"Mr. Lightfoot, this is our control team."

The person in charge of the assembly center introduced several young people. This is the control team specially formed by NACA for Artemis. They are responsible for keeping an eye on Artemis' orbit after it goes to heaven.

Robert greeted them, and the Artemis team was about to take on an important mission after launch next month.

As a giant object of more than 150 tons, the SLS Block2 that launched it can only send it to an orbit of 400 kilometers, which is still far from the synchronous orbit of 36,000 kilometers.

At first, NACA planned to launch another thruster to raise it to orbit, but as the research deepened, someone came up with a simpler plan: let Artemis fly up by itself.

Deploy Artemis directly in low-Earth orbit, obtain thrust by receiving the sun's light pressure, and adjust the reflecting surface to adjust the thrust. The operation can be completed in 5 to 7 days by itself, and it does not require much fuel consumption.

This process is very important. If a mistake is made, a large amount of fuel will be lost, or at worst it will directly cause Artemis to fly to nowhere and start wandering, and no one can catch it back.

It is now September 4th, and Artemis will be transported to the launch site in 20 days. Robert does not want any more surprises.

…

"What, what the hell is this!"

In the President's Office, Robert, who had just flown over, looked at the documents in front of him and couldn't believe his eyes.

He suddenly received a notification in the afternoon and flew to Washington. He thought it was information about alien civilization, but the result was unexpected, but it shocked him no less than the aliens.

"It's hard for us to believe it, but the radar doesn't fool us, and there's a lot of public information, and it's true."

Colonel Anthony in the air intelligence room pulled out the key documents to prove the authenticity of the news to Robert.

There were two generals with him, which shows the shocking power of this information.

"It took off at 10 o'clock in the morning, starting from the northwest to the south, and finally broke through the atmosphere in the South Pacific. The ascent rate was not high, it was slower than the aerospace plane, and the speed was much slower.

Nothing was abandoned during the entire flight. It was a single-stage orbiting vehicle. We currently speculate that it is nuclear-powered. "

"Of course it can only be nuclear powered!"

Robert's full attention was already on the document, scanning each line of information and the blurry photos taken bit by bit.

Unbelievable, unbelievable!

It was the Enterprise, the third shuttle. Originally, NACA and the Air Force thought it was the same as the Jiuzhang and Zhurong, but it turned out to be a big joke.

It is absolutely impossible for the Jiuzhang and Zhurong to take off on their own and escape the gravity of the earth and enter space. Although SSTO has appeared in the form of a space plane, the angular and boxy appearance of the Enterprise still makes it difficult to believe that it has such capabilities. performance.

Robert simply couldn't imagine how much fuel could be packed into such a body, and what kind of engine could provide the power to launch it into space. Even nuclear power was too exaggerated.

Neither does the A100. That kind of engine cannot be used in an atmospheric environment, and it is also very heavy and bulky.

Moreover, according to the data from the Air Force's emergency take-off radiation collection machine, no radiation-filled clouds were detected near the flight trajectory. The sample radiation value was slightly higher than normal, but that was a normal value for a passing nuclear reactor, so there was not much in the ejecta. of pollutants.

For a moment, Robert even thought of UFOs, feeling that this method of propulsion was more like some fantasy anti-gravity engine.

"We are also deeply shocked. The Air Force is temporarily unable to judge its propeller performance, and we are already wondering whether it used some unknown means."

Anthony continued to describe the analysis of the Air Force Intelligence Room:

"The Enterprise's body is roughly similar to the previous two. It is impossible to hold all the fuel inside. If the necessary cargo hold is left, it can only carry more than a hundred tons of fuel at most. This is... very amazing."

"I even suspect that the Chinese have obtained alien technology from some source."

Former NACA Director Claire stood up, and his current attitude was no joke:

"It's too advanced. Although it's not the route of the A100, if we want to do this with our current technology, we can only stay in theory. This is already too advanced to belong to humans.

Gentlemen, it is true that there are no flying saucers in Area 51, but there may be some in the northwest desert. "

"..."

Perhaps it was the Enterprise's astonishing performance, or perhaps it was Claire's astonishing words, but the office of more than a dozen people was silent without making any sound.

After a while, John waved his hand to break the silence:

"Okay, we won't discuss technical matters here. We don't have many technical experts among us. NACA and the Air Force can do their own analysis.

This is just part of the discussion today, David, tell them. "

David Usnow stood up. He just returned to China two weeks ago and stayed in China for more than half a month, trying to get more information from the other party.

He pushed over a whiteboard from the other side, with a real photo of Mars pinned on it, and an enlarged image of the area below, which was marked with a marker.

“I have communicated a lot with Chinese people, and although we all found signals, they may actually have collected more information:

They determined that the source of the signal was on the surface of Mars, in the area around the South Pole. "

David placed his hand around Plain Zero, and everyone's attention immediately focused here, trying to find some clues from this unremarkable place.

David: "Our Mars orbiter is not professional. The Chinese probe was equipped with very powerful radio transmission equipment because its working distance was much farther. It happened to be facing the emission source at that time, so it roughly determined the direction of the signal.

According to the position of Mars at that time, the signal was sent from the South Pole, with an error of no more than 15%.

Tianwen-1, Tianwen-3, and Tianwen-5, also known as Zhurong, will land in the surrounding area and carry out large-scale detection. The landing is expected to be completed in November. "

"Too far!"

Claire immediately discovered the problem:

"Our Mars rovers are all concentrated in the Utopia Plain in the north of Mars, and they can't get there at all!"

"That's the problem. I don't think the Chinese will joke about their massive investment, but the problem is that we only have satellites, and the Chinese have shuttles that can go back and forth, robots, nuclear-powered detectors, they have everything.

If the Chinese discover anything, we have absolutely no way to intervene. "

David spread his hands and looked at the two astronaut administrators with wide eyes.

"Gentlemen, we cannot do nothing."

John knocked on the table hard:

"All the compromises I make have a premise: Ami must be able to participate in controlling the future of mankind, instead of being reduced to a spectator at the mercy of others."

Robert: "In such a large place, satellite observations have not found any abnormalities. It will be difficult for just a few detectors to find anything. They may land there for several months and find nothing."

"But we all know that if there is an eventuality, alien civilization is there, and the Chinese will always find it."

John stopped here, tilted his chair half-lying down, and gave the order in an unquestionable tone:

"Think of a way for Chinese people to land on Mars as early as 2020. We can't be later. We start building Mars spacecraft and selecting astronauts for landing now. I need to see your progress every second that passes.

Don't leave room for procrastination, think of a plan, and then do it. "

David appropriately added in a whisper in Robert's ear:

"No one wants to wait. Something unexpected happened recently, and Ami needs to be prepared."

Although he knew it was inappropriate, Robert still subconsciously asked:

"What accident?"

"One of our agents was caught trying to steal Styki-DM information to use to speed up our laser weapons, but Lucia was more defensive than imagined."

Robert was stunned for a moment, and then said with emotion:

“That is the most precious and most treasured treasure in Broken House, so of course it must be well hidden.

I know what you are worried about, but please give me the authority to continue to expand NACA. I need countless employees and funding. "

…

On September 9, the third nuclear explosion occurred on the far side of the moon.

A total of more than 60 million tons of equivalent was released. Due to the temporary lack of necessary equipment, the burial depth of the hydrogen bomb this time was only 10 meters, and it was still a surface blast.

The four nuclear bombs expanded the maximum depth of the explosion crater to 890 meters in one fell swoop. The expected rich steel ore had been completely exposed, and a gap hundreds of meters deep was opened. After that was the rare earth layer that United Mining was obsessed with.

Now they are preparing a large number of professional mining equipment. The fourth operation will be a large-yield blasting below a depth of 300 meters, directly touching the rare earth layer.

But the fourth operation will take much longer than the previous ones. The timetable disclosed by Xinyuan has already reached 2019, which is at least three or four months later.

Of course, this period of time will not be idle. United Mining will devote all its efforts to building the Yushu base during this period, starting preparations for smelting ore, and preparing to build the lunar highway.

At the same time, news began to spread in the aerospace industry: The country plans to build a super spaceport weighing tens of thousands of tons. Because it is too large, it is preparing to solicit proposals from private aerospace companies and the whole society, and select partners. It is likely to be named "Nantianmen".

This news immediately aroused a heated discussion, but most people suspected that this was a hype rumor such as "artificial moon". After all, the Advance spent a lot of effort on more than 2,000 tons, and it is still undergoing intensive testing. The idea of ​​a space port has not yet been Not realistic.

Moreover, neither Xinyuan nor the space agency has made any statement on this news, which makes people question its reliability.

However, contrary to them, the response from foreign space agencies has been quite positive.