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

Beijing.

Three 777 passenger planes landed one after another. In order to allow them to land together, the tower spent a lot of effort to adjust the flights that occupied the time.

But they deserved to do so, because the passengers on these three planes were all of extraordinary status.

Led by Jim Freeh, deputy director of NACA, there were six senior NASA officials, several active astronauts, and representatives from several aerospace companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Grumman. There were more than 100 people in total, and there were even more entourages. They chartered a full three passenger planes.

It was really difficult to make a correct judgment to conduct this visit just a few days after the lightning night and when the outside world's heat had not yet dropped.

There was news from the outside world a month before this visit. After such a change, it was still unchanged and the specifications were not reduced at all, as if nothing had happened.

The domestic welcoming team was also quite luxurious. The Aviation Development Commission, mainstream private aerospace companies, and official reception staff were all gathered on the tarmac.

Reporters rushed to take photos, strangely observing the scenes of the two sides shaking hands happily.

Lin Ju was next to Zhong Cheng, and his right hand was firmly clasped with Jim's. After greeting, he smiled and said:

"Give my regards to Mr. Robert."

Jim's smile froze slightly, and he just nodded without answering.

Several senior officials of the Aviation Development Commission understood instantly that Robert was the leader of the two sides' docking, and now it can be basically confirmed that the latter is finished.

However, Amei did not take the initiative to report, and there was no public information showing that Robert was arrested.

In addition to the fact that this matter itself was too embarrassing, there was another important reason that NACA's personnel changes were frequent enough:

If the change of personnel was announced publicly again, it would mean that the director of NACA would be changed three times in two years. No matter what, it would be difficult to convince the public, and it would make the outside world and even NACA itself think that there was a problem, leading to instability.

This time, the NACA delegation did not mention any information about Robert throughout the whole process. If they really couldn't get away with it, they said that the director had important matters to attend to and couldn't be busy. In short, it would be fine for Deputy Director Jim to make the decision for the time being.

Robert's arrest was completely expected. Although the intelligence agency has regressed more and more in recent years, it is still easy to do such trivial things as social software monitoring.

Since Amei didn't want to make a big scandal, she pretended not to know about it. Except for changing people, she still followed the pre-prepared schedule.

On the day of welcoming the plane, they mainly appeared in public and took photos, and there was no substantive communication.

A few hours later, the NACA delegation went to the reserved hotel to stay, and there was no secret talk arrangement.

After all, the Aerospace Development Commission shared almost all the data of Firefly 1, and NACA also understood that there was nothing worthy of special attention. The main thing was to discuss cooperation on Earth.

...

A foreign-funded star hotel.

Jim returned to his room and met with several attachés from the 13th Office to discuss the next contact plan.

Robert was right. He was indeed not suitable for this kind of work. Jim was a typical professional technical bureaucrat. He could go to the moon, but this kind of visit was very brain-consuming and a bit difficult for Jim.

But the director of NACA has been secretly arrested. The former director Claire can only indirectly control the operation of this huge organization when she returns, and can only send Jim out.

The lightning night did not have no impact on the contact plan, but it has not been reflected for the time being. The NACA delegation must be prepared to make adjustments at any time.

"Anthony, how can we convince those Chinese people?"

Jim asked painfully. Before leaving, he received a very difficult task: to find a way to establish a real-time Mars monitoring system with the Aerospace Development Commission. Simply put, both parties share the data of all Mars probes at any time.

It is not just asking for it. Amei's several probes can also open channels to them, but it is still difficult to think about it.

After all, the Chinese have launched more probes, and the key is that the ground detection capability is very strong. If you want to obtain first-hand data on alien civilization detection, you can only rely on the "Tianwen" series of tasks.

It is obviously unlikely to persuade with the righteousness of human civilization. NACA can accept a certain price and let Jim decide which ones, but this only makes the latter feel heavier pressure.

Anthony from the Air Force Intelligence Office has now transferred to the Ames Space Force, but also belongs to the 13th Office and followed as an attaché.

He did have some ideas, and answered without much thought:

"We can cooperate on Artemis, and the Chinese will definitely be tempted, but in which specific aspects..."

"Knock knock"

The knock on the door interrupted his words, and then the voice of the assistant who arranged the itinerary came:

"Please open the door, the itinerary has changed."

Jim hurried over, and then several people looked at the assistant and said:

"Just now, the docking personnel of the Aerospace Development Commission told us that due to some failures, Firefly 1 stopped returning signals. The scheduled trip to their Mars Monitoring Center will only see the previous content. I hope to postpone it for one day. They will try to restore contact first."

"Failure?"

Anthony responded immediately, frowned and said;

"We worked efficiently for a week in a row, and then a failure occurred when we came? Why is it such a coincidence!

What happened again or are they too sensitive and decided to reject the agreement we reached before?"

Assistant: "We can't confirm it for now. The Aerospace Development Commission only gave us a notice, but the tone was not bad. It should not be a rejection of us. There was not much else to say."

"We need to find out for ourselves."

Jim waved his hand. He also thought that it was unlikely that the other party would be fine during the day and suddenly turn hostile at night. It is very likely that something unexpected did happen.

Anthony: "If it is true, it would be worse than directly rejecting us."

Jim was stunned, and then immediately understood what he meant.

No one can deny that the Chinese aerospace technology is quite good, and generally speaking, there will be no serious accidents.

The environment on Mars is much better than that on the moon, and Firefly 1 is also equipped with high-power isotope batteries, which has a very high insurance factor.

The power of its isotope batteries is enough to provide sufficient insulation for the core components. Even during the months of traveling in space, there was no disconnection. After arriving on Mars, it could not send back signals. It was either due to external impact or poor quality.

But a few days ago, Firefly 1 was still desperately transmitting a large amount of data. The bandwidth is several times higher than that of Curiosity, and the possibility of a sudden breakdown of the antenna or controller is relatively low.

Then there is another possibility that it was caused by alien civilization. If that is the case...

The problem becomes difficult. If there is an alien civilization on the car, Jim doesn't know what to do. NACA has no right to make a decision on its own. I am afraid that the federal government will have to make a decision and carefully consider it.