Tang Feng retracted his gaze, pressed the cigarette in his hand into the ashtray, and dragged a newspaper of the day to read it.

To Tang's surprise, the headline in the local Kaichikan newspaper was also a report on the successful completion of the recyclability experiment of "Star One".

It has been three days since Tang Feng returned to Gravina Island, and during these three days, the media, newspapers, and websites around the world have been overwhelmingly reporting the successful completion of the recycling experiment of "Starry Sky One", and even the limelight of the G7 summit has been covered by Starry Sky One.

It's no wonder that these media have such great enthusiasm, and it's really amazing that Star Discovery has done this action.

This is a real heavy-duty launch vehicle in the recycling technology! Since the discontinuation of the U.S. Space Shuttle, there has not been a real reusable spacecraft in the world.

Neither Blue Origin's New Shepard nor SpaceX's Falcon 9 are truly reusable spacecraft.

New Shepard is too small to take on the task of sending large quantities into space, and Falcon 9, although it has a strong LEO capacity, its GTO capacity is still too small, and it is still too small to help humanity realize its desire to go into deep space.

But Starry Sky One is different, once the recovered Starry Sky One can actually complete the second liftoff and successfully return, then it means that mankind's dream of building a large spacecraft in outer space has taken a crucial step.

Star-1 has a GTO capacity of 21 tons, which means that if people want to build a large spacecraft in geosynchronous transfer orbit, Starstar-1 will be lifted off once, which is enough to top the Falcon 9 five times.

If humans want to enter deep space, the starting orbit of a spacecraft cannot be in low-earth orbit. Because that would make the spacecraft consume a huge amount of extra fuel to get rid of the gravitational pull of the Earth. Therefore, the minimum starting orbit of a spacecraft to enter deep space is in a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Low Earth orbit (LEO) orbit is a near-circular orbit, so it is very difficult to accelerate away from the Earth with the help of the Earth's own gravitational pull, which requires a lot of fuel to change orbit. And it needs to circle the Earth for an unknown number of times before it is possible for the spacecraft to enter an elliptical orbit free from the Earth's gravity.

The geosynchronous transfer orbit itself is an elliptical orbit, and the spacecraft operating in this orbit only needs to consume very little fuel to accelerate the spacecraft, so that the spacecraft can gain enough speed to accelerate faster with the help of the earth's own gravity, and finally reach the speed of getting rid of the earth's gravity. The so-called gravitational slingshot effect is achieved with the help of this elliptical orbit.

That's the difference between the two tracks.

And if human beings want to carry out deep space exploration, especially manned deep space exploration. Then the size of the spacecraft must be large enough, because the life-sustaining system on the spacecraft alone is not something that ordinary detectors can withstand. You know, the International Space Station is so big that it can only sustain six people living together on it.

Therefore, for a manned spacecraft to go into deep space, the spacecraft must be large enough.

Exploring deep space is not the same thing as going to the moon, and deep space exploration takes much more than landing on the moon. The time for humans to survive on a spacecraft is also much longer than the time it takes to land on the moon, therefore. A spacecraft for manned deep space exploration must be large enough.

In order to build a large spacecraft, and at the same time a large spacecraft that can easily escape the gravitational pull of the earth, it is necessary to place the spacecraft in a geosynchronous transfer orbit, and now after the United States has stopped the space shuttle program, it can take on the task of building a large spacecraft in the geosynchronous transfer orbit. Almost no more, neither Russia nor the United States, nor ESA, can afford such a large launch cost alone.

Although the United States, Russia, and ESA all have heavy-lift launch vehicles with a GTO capacity of more than 20 tons, the launch cost of such heavy-lift launch vehicles is too high, and a single launch cost will cost nearly $100 million. Combined with other costs, it would cost $200 million to launch a heavy launch vehicle to deliver more than 20 tons of supplies to geosynchronous transfer orbit.

And if you want to build a large manned spacecraft, it must at least be smaller than the International Space Station. In other words, the mass of a large manned spacecraft must be at least 400 tons, and in order to build such a large spacecraft, it will take at least 20 launches just to transport supplies on heavy launch vehicles!

But the successful recovery of Starry Sky One turned this near-impossible task into an easy one. If Star-1 can successfully recover the first-stage core rocket again in the second experiment three months later, then the construction of a large spacecraft in geosynchronous transfer orbit will not be a mere plan on paper.

As long as the launch cost of a heavy-lift launch vehicle can be reduced, even if it is only reduced to 10 million dollars, then the construction of a large manned spacecraft will soon be put on the construction agenda.

Manned deep space exploration is not comparable to those unmanned probes, which can only rely on preset programs to execute dead orders, and cannot respond to specific things on the spot, so unmanned probes can only be used as human exploration pioneers to open the way for human exploration of deep space.

In order to truly make deep space exploration realistic, it is necessary to send people into deep space.

The recyclable and reusable Starstar-1 heavy-lift launch vehicle has made the ideal of sending humans into deep space more realistic, and although this experiment is only halfway completed, there is no doubt that the second experiment will still be successful three months later.

It is no wonder that human beings are so eagerly looking forward to the success of the Starry Sky 1 experiment, because manned deep space exploration is too important for human beings.

Mother Earth is now overwhelmed, and no one knows when Mother Earth will not be able to withstand the rapid development of human beings and completely collapse, so the search for immigrant planets has become the consensus of human beings around the world.

Not to mention other planets, it is extremely difficult for even humans to land on the moon, even the International Space Station, which has been built at a huge cost, can only play around the earth in circles, and it is simply unable to bear the heavy responsibility of human beings going to deep space.

And now, the recyclable and reusable technology of heavy-lift launch vehicles is about to succeed, which undoubtedly opens the door for mankind to enter deep space

Although this crack in the door is still very small, it is enough for humans to see the wonderful and infinite scenery outside the door! (To be continued.) )