Technological power starts with upgrading lenses

After the press conference, Musk accepted some media interviews separately.

About an hour later, the 120-meter-high behemoth finally roared, and successfully took off amid cheers, and soon disappeared from people's sight.

However, according to SpaceX's usual style, netizens can still see the current status of the starship through the live broadcast screen,

"Super Heavy is turned off, and the booster is separated."

"Starship spacecraft ignites."

"Everything is normal at present, and the launch pad is ready for booster recovery."

"..."

As the command room issued one command after another, the entire launch process went very smoothly.

Two minutes and forty seconds after the launch, the first-stage booster separated and successfully returned to the launch pad to complete the chopstick recovery.

Fifteen minutes after the launch, the second-stage starship spacecraft successfully reached a low-Earth orbit of 234 kilometers, and then it took about a day to catch up with a refueling starship that was sent into low-Earth orbit in advance to replenish the boosters needed for the next long journey.

Seeing all the normal data on the screen, Musk finally breathed a sigh of relief, but when he was about to join the employees' celebration, a female secretary suddenly walked up to him and whispered a few words.

"CIA?"

Musk thought for a moment, had to give up the celebration, and followed the female secretary to a reception room.

After seeing him come in, the three men in suits sitting inside immediately stood up, and the leader stretched out his hand to Musk: "Mr. Musk, congratulations on the successful completion of the launch mission... Sorry to disturb your celebration."

Musk did not stretch out his hand, but just said lightly: "I hope you have enough reasons."

"Of course." The man took back his hand without any concern, and showed his ID according to the procedure, "I am Eckhard Dean, an agent of the Intelligence Agency, you can call me Dean directly."

Musk glanced at the ID and continued expressionlessly: "Let's get down to business."

"OK."

After Dean put away the ID, the assistant next to him immediately took out an A4-sized color photo from the file bag.

The photo soon reached Musk's hand.

He casually glanced at the satellite color photo and asked in confusion: "What is this?"

"Just half an hour before your rocket was launched, our satellite detected a heavy truck escorted by the Chinese military leaving Daming Deep Space."

"Daming Deep Space?"

After hearing the name, Musk lowered his head and carefully observed the photo. As expected, he found the heavy truck that Dean mentioned, but because the image clarity was too low, he could only vaguely see an outline...

This is not because their satellite accuracy is not enough, but they obviously took some anti-shooting measures. In addition to wearing conventional light-resistant clothing camouflage, they also installed high-power laser beams on the roofs of the entire fleet, so that the satellite lens showed obvious glare.

"I believe you have realized that what they are transporting this time is definitely not simple." Dean further explained, "But based on the general shape of the cargo, we can roughly determine that this should be a rocket made by Daming Deep Space."

"Puchi——"

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing..."

After Musk restrained his smile, he sneered: "You are so exaggerated, I thought it was some kind of earth-to-sky system, but it turned out to be just something we left over... So you called me here at this time just for this?"

"Yes, we hope you can help us make a technical assessment of this, after all, you and your company are the most professional in rocket manufacturing."

"What is there to evaluate?" Musk did not dispel his dissatisfaction at all because of Dean's flattery, "No matter how amateur you are, the ruler will always be Use it?"

"If this is really a rocket made by Daming Deep Space, then we can only say that their speed is really fast."

"But the problem is that according to the reference objects next to it, the size of that thing will obviously not exceed 40 meters. Even the Falcon 9 booster is taller than it. Tell me what is worth evaluating about this small rocket?"

Faced with Musk's ruthless sarcasm, Dean just said calmly: "The size of the rocket and the technical level are not necessarily completely linked..."

"No, it is linked!"

Musk directly retorted, "Larger size means more and larger engines, fuel tanks and loads, but also means that it has more stringent requirements on rocket materials and structures. This theorem is as unquestionable as the conservation of energy."

"..."

Hearing Musk's firm tone, Dean had to end the conversation in a hurry.

"I have to say, he is really an arrogant guy..."

"Well, but maybe he is right. Are we too sensitive to Kang Chi's name..."

"Sensitive? Hasn't he shocked us enough in recent years?" Dean took out his memo pad, "Next stop, Cleveland Glenn Research Center."

...

Gansu Province, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

As the wheels raised rolling yellow sand on the Gobi Desert, a fully armed convoy slowly drove into this "ancient" space city.

Although China has many space launch sites, if it is for test launch experiments, Jiuquan Launch Center is definitely the best choice,

There is little rain here, so launches can be carried out most of the year. The most important thing is that the land is vast and sparsely populated, so even if an accident occurs, no one will be hurt.

As the motorcade slowly stopped at the launch site, a man in military uniform immediately jumped out of the car, smiled at Kang Chi, who had already arrived at Jiuquan by plane in advance, and stretched out his hand: "Academician Kang, we meet again. ”

Kang Chi also stretched out his hand to shake his hand and said, "I didn't expect that a small transportation task would alarm Chief Jian."

Jian Jingsen immediately shook his head and said: "Academician Kang has nothing to worry about, not to mention that in addition to transportation, he also has to launch."

Does this mean that he is also responsible for the security of the launch?

Well, but Jian Jingsen was originally a warrior in the Western Theater and was an old acquaintance of Kang Chi. It was reasonable for his superiors to assign the task to him.

It just feels like...

The formation is a little too big.

When Kang Chi arrived at Jiuquan yesterday, he discovered that there were basically one post every five steps and one sentry every ten steps. The chilling atmosphere made him a little nervous.

"Then I'll trouble you, Chief Jian." Kang Chi said and pointed to the sky, "Actually, such a big move as launching a rocket has been under their noses for a long time. There is no need to go to such great lengths to fight, as long as the test launch can be guaranteed to be normal and safe. Just carry on, anyway, after our plan is completed, it will definitely be made public. "

"Then let's wait until it's completed." Jian Jingshen just smiled: "And we are just ensuring that the launch proceeds normally."

After saying that, he returned to seriousness and turned to look at the subordinates beside him.

"Recheck the five kilometers around the launch site again. Don't let me see any irrelevant personnel appearing nearby!"

"yes!"

Kang Chi: "..."

Kang Chi was almost numb to their fuss.

Since it's useless to say anything myself, I just let them go...

In fact, the leaders didn't know that the test launch of the rocket would definitely not be hidden for a long time, and there was no need to hide it.

But in their opinion, Kang Chi's test launch this time was too hasty and risky. They couldn't stop him or persuade him, so they had no choice but to let him do it.

What they can do is to block the news as much as possible first, so that if the test launch unfortunately fails, Kang Chi can reduce the pressure from the outside world.