"It's a wonderful thing to be back here again!" Chief Commander of the Manned Mars Exploration Program. It was the second astronaut to enter the "Prince Barnett", and he followed Tang Feng into it. And as an astronaut who has entered the "Prince Barnett" three times, Han. Naturally, there is such a feeling.

Follow in Korea. Behind him is Alexander. Comrade Borisov, "Han, you are very right in what you say, since the last time I came back from the moon, many times I have dreamed of returning to this beautiful spacecraft again"

Tang Feng, who was floating in front, turned his head and smiled: "This is as you wish!" ”

Alexander smiled and nodded.

One by one, the astronauts in the back entered the spacecraft from the launch bay through the airtight door of the "Prince Barnett". As he was instructed, they each floated towards their seats. Just over twenty minutes later, the twelve astronauts, including Tang Feng, were already sitting in their seats.

"The palace, the palace, this is the Prince Barnett, we have safely entered the Prince Barnett, everything is fine, and then we will be ready to start the main engine and start accelerating for the ship." As the commander-in-chief of this expedition to Mars, Han . After everything was ready, he began to contact the command center on the ground. The "royal palace" in the mouth is the code name of the ground command center of the Princess Belle Island Space Center, since the name of the large spacecraft for the expedition to Mars has the word "prince" in it, then as the nest on the ground, it is naturally called "palace".

"Prince Barnett, this is the palace, your request has been received, and you can accelerate based on the current orbital position of the Prince."

After receiving an order from the ground command center, Han. A series of orders are being issued. How to control this huge Martian spacecraft, these astronauts have been training in the training camp on the ground I don't know how many times, so soon, the three huge jets outside the main power module at the back of the "Prince Barnett" began to spray blue ion flames outward.

At this time, the "Prince Barnett" has been located at the farthest position of the geosynchronous transfer orbit, about 35,800 kilometers away from the earth, and the "Prince Barnett" starts to accelerate from this position, which can allow the spacecraft to accelerate with the help of the earth's gravity, reach the maximum speed with the minimum consumption, and let the spacecraft reach escape speed when the spacecraft reaches the perigee, so as to break away from the earth's gravity and fly to the vast space.

This process is actually the simplest application of the "gravitational slingshot" effect, and in the past, human spacecraft flying to the moon or other planets used this process to get rid of the gravitational pull of the earth.

The huge "Prince Barnett" is fully propelled by three 1800 mm caliber ion thrusters, accelerated by the earth's gravity, and rapidly moving towards the earth. Through the glass mask of the core cockpit, the twelve astronauts sitting in the core cockpit can clearly see the Earth "rushing head-on".

The speed of the spacecraft is getting faster and faster, and when it reaches the perigee of 632 kilometers, the speed of the spacecraft has exceeded the second cosmic speed, and then the huge "Prince Barnett" successfully broke free from the gravitational pull of the earth at this point and flew towards the vast space at full speed.

However, at this time, the spacecraft also needs to further accelerate, but this acceleration does not rely on ion thrusters to continue acceleration, but relies on four recoil rockets installed in the tail of the spacecraft to accelerate the spacecraft.

Although the caliber of these four recoil rockets is not very large, because they use chemical fuel, the vacuum thrust is still quite considerable. Twenty minutes into the four recoil rockets is enough to consume two tons of chemical fuel, but their acceleration is quite strong.

Fueled by these four recoil rockets, the massive Prince Barnett can increase its speed to 40,000 km/h in just twenty minutes in a vacuum. When Prince Barnett reaches this speed, the four recoil rockets will stop working, and then the three ion thrusters will continue to accelerate the spacecraft, and after four days, Prince Barnett will reach the third cosmic velocity, heading for Mars at a speed of 60,000 km/h.

Everything was no different from the design, when the four recoil rockets were accelerated, the powerful push back feeling also disappeared, and for the next fifty days, the spacecraft relied on the three ion thrusters for continuous acceleration.

However, by this time, the control of the spaceship had been handed over to the main control computer. During the long journey, it is impossible for the spacecraft pilot to control the direction, attitude and speed of the spacecraft all the time, and it is more important for the main control computer to control this huge spacecraft. As for the astronauts, after entering the automatic control, they can go to the rim cabin to rest.

Of course, because it was the first time to do a long period of acceleration, Han. As the chief commander, he did not leave the core cockpit, and he had to continue to stay at his post to monitor the operation of the main control computer. with Han. Also staying in the core cockpit was the deputy commander, the American George Brown. Anthony and two other Americans, Robin. Coloro Bob. Arnold. Because the latter two jointly served as the power experts of the "Prince Barnett" and were responsible for the power of the entire spacecraft, they also stayed together at this time.

The remaining seven people, led by Tang Feng, floated along the unimpeded cabin of the "Prince Barnett" towards the wheel cabin behind.

The pressure in the "Prince Barnett" is no different from that on Earth, so the astronauts who are active in it do not need to wear spacesuits, they just wear their daily work clothes, and float in the cabin until they reach the rim cabin along the connecting channel, so that they can stand on the ground of the cabin safely.

According to the "O'Neill cylinder theory", the wheel cabin can form about one-third of the earth's gravity with the help of centrifugal force at a speed of 4.22 revolutions per minute, which is almost comparable to the gravitational force of Mars.

Although all of these people have been on the "Prince Barnett" experience before, this time is not the same as before, so this is a real trip to Mars.

The rim cabin is made up of twelve identical cabins, each with a diameter of 4.4 meters and a length of 38 meters, in an arc, each of which is spliced together with four compartment components. These 12 compartments are connected to each other by airtight doors, and the airtight doors between these cabins are usually open, so astronauts can go to any of the rim compartments through the airtight door, but if any of the rim chambers leak or other accidents, the airtight doors can be locked in the first time.

The 12 functional cabins of the rim cabin are the main areas where astronauts usually live, because there is gravity here, which can make astronauts live here very comfortably.

Among the twelve cabins, one of the special cabins is used as a galley and dining room, which allows the twelve astronauts to cook cooked food by electrically heating in this cabin, because there is gravity here, so there is no need to worry about accidents when cooking. There are also two cabins for astronauts to sleep, one for fitness and recreation, and seven of the remaining eight for space plants, and the last one for space fish. (To be continued.) )