"I didn't expect this new plan, there is a Martian landing module on the front of the starship, this thing...... It's not a match! ”

"Indeed, the 'starship' of the space fork looks like futuristic technology, and this official Mars lander looks like retro technology from decades ago, and the two things are assembled together like a combination of a horse-drawn carriage and a Lamborghini sports car."

"There's no way, the time for this manned landing is too rushed, but the two landing projects are not ready, so we can only carry out a combination, otherwise the timing of the next landing will have to be postponed to two years later."

"In the final analysis, it is still the level of human aerospace science and technology, and we can only transfer the inter-Martian distance between the Earth and Mars in this Martian window."

At this time, we have to mention the navigator.

As far as the senses of ordinary people are concerned, the navigator is already the leader in the field of earth aerospace, and its technology is of course the most advanced.

If even the technology of the navigator is not recognized, then the human space technology is real...... Not so good anymore.

"Hey, when it comes to interstellar flights between Earth and Mars, didn't the Navigator have an unmanned spacecraft before? Can't the ion thruster on it be used on a starship? That's good, you don't need to carry much fuel, you have a long flight time, and you have a long acceleration time. ”

"That's Tianxia, how can it be installed in Merrican's aerospace equipment, although the last time 'broke the ice', but their relationship is not good enough to use space equipment interchangeably, and how many years has the starship been researched, how can it be possible to temporarily change the engine?"

"That's right, this is not the same as changing the engine of the car, the car can also go with a smaller engine, the engine of the spacecraft is the most important, and even the entire spacecraft is around the engine, most of the parts are in order to match the existing engine, suddenly change the engine, you may not even be able to fly."

"Now that we're talking about the Navigator, does it really say nothing about this Martian window?"

"How could it not be said that how did Merriken's plan to get on the fire came about, it just popped out suddenly, the navigator and Tianxia must be doing this, and they will definitely announce their plans in two days!"

"I think so too, Merriken's plan this time proves the speculation of some netizens, they just hide a lot of things, such as this private fire mission, and it will not be made public until it is approaching, and it must be similar on the Tianxia side."

There is no way, Merriken has made a "good start", no matter how other countries pretend, people don't believe it, and they unanimously believe that all countries have hidden big space projects.

Even those countries that really don't have big space programs are included.

Nowadays, people are "rather believe what they have than believe what they don't have", whether there is or not, first think that there is something and then talk about it.

After Merrican announced the plan, it was in full swing, and the Starship rocket began to be pushed out of the factory and ready to be assembled on the launch pad.

This starship rocket is different from the previous starship rockets, although they are all "starships", they are actually divided into several versions.

At present, there are earth orbit cargo vehicles, earth orbit manned vehicles, moon landers, fire and oil carriers, as for whether there will be other strange branch rockets in the future, it is not known.

And except for the Earth orbit cargo, other versions are being verified or tested, and have not yet been officially put into service.

Even the current "starship" for landing on fire has only been manufactured for a short time, and only some tests have been carried out, and it is not directly flying to Mars this time, after all, it is a new vehicle, and it still has to perform a very important mission, so it will first circle around the earth's orbit with no load.

After all, it is to fly to Mars, and other tests should be saved in the province, and the test of facing space still needs to be done.

This is one of the benefits of reusable rockets, which can be tested "in the field" before performing an important mission.

Recycling and reusing rockets are not like those that are not recycled, and the test flight of the non-recycled rocket can only prove that there is no major problem with the type of rocket, but it cannot guarantee that every rocket is okay, because theoretically, every rocket that is not recycled is a brand new rocket that has not been tested.

The test was unmanned, but people were still curious about the six astronauts.

The first astronauts of various countries basically came from the military, and most of them were "pilots" by profession, because they were very disciplined, very careful to keep secrets, and they were already familiar with flying, so it was suitable to train as the first astronauts.

However, after the development of manned spaceflight technology, manned spaceflight is no longer a purely political task, and professionals such as scientists and engineers have begun to become astronauts, and the proportion is increasing.

This time, Merrican has put the mission astronauts directly into the "retro configuration", and it is more complicated than the retro configuration, which is also no one.

Marine, naval, air, and marine, as well as the Space Force, six astronauts, involving five branches of the military.

If it weren't for the space force occupying two places related to aerospace, maybe it would be able to put out one person, and then stuff a military force in other fields.

This is the case with Meiruken, which has always achieved "fairness!" Fair! Or is it a horse-riding ...... Fair! ”

It turns out that even if astronauts are selected from the navy, they are also selected from naval pilots, but this time the navy is really a navy.

With the exception of the two Space Force and the Air Force, who were involved in flying, the remaining three were purely combat professions, particularly proficient in firearms and methods of warfare.

Coupled with the weapons they carry, many people think that they are enough to beat the aliens on Mars to scum.

Some people did not express any objection to the fact that Merrican landed on Mars to carry weapons, and even felt that they had brought less, and they should have brought tanks to Mars and directly bombed the aliens into slag.

Aliens or something, they should be destroyed.

But the other part of the population doesn't think so, and they have a lot of objection to it, thinking that Merrican is bringing things from Earth to Mars.

What's up?

Of course, it is a bad thing that Merriken will fight and rob whoever he sees, and this move will definitely lead to war and disaster.

With aliens, you should have a good exchange, even if it is a salute before a soldier.

In any case, these people's doubts and objections will not affect Merriken's journey to Mars at all.

Time was fast-paced, and their tests were proceeding at a rapid pace, and soon the day was approaching for them to set off for Mars.

When they launched the tested Mars spacecraft into space again, there was a disagreement within the Merriken spacecraft.

On the one hand, it is necessary to use several starships to send fuel from the earth to orbit and fill it up for the Martian spacecraft little by little.

Note that this is the consumption of several thousand tons of fuel to transport more than a hundred tons of refueling fuel.

And they also plan to fly a faster orbit, so they need to fill up the fuel of the Mars landing ship, so that the thrusters can be sprayed for a while to accelerate, and they can reach the Martian orbit in about four months.

Instead of being "clumsy" on the other side, there is a good idea.

Isn't the Merriken Space Agency having ice-breaking intentions with the Tianxia Space Agency, so why not let the other party take the lead and do a business with the Navigator?

Is there a more suitable place to refuel in orbit than the refueling station of the Heavenly Court Space Station?

These fuels come from the moon, and the cost of hydrogen and oxygen fuel is about the same as that on Earth, and the production of methane is a little more troublesome, after all, getting carbon on the moon is more troublesome than getting ice, and the cost will be higher, but counting the transportation cost, it is still much cheaper than transporting it directly from Earth.

If the Mars landing ship can directly use the fuel here, it can not only reduce the fuel filling time, reduce the number of refueling, but also reduce the risk, and greatly reduce the cost, which is very cost-effective.

The only thing to solve is ...... Mirrican is willing to refuel at the other side's place, and whether the other party is willing to let the Starship rocket use the fuel from the orbital refueling station.

The first is to damage some of the face of Merrican, and the second is that the other party does not necessarily want to cooperate with Merrican.

After intense discussions within them, their opinions were...... Ask first.

But the technician told the officials, "Don't move, we're here this time." ”

Soon, the Tianxia Space Agency saw that the Miricon Space Agency took the initiative to contact, and the person responsible for the contact was not a purely political official, but a high-level technical staff of the Space Agency, and the posture was slightly lower, and it looked like a technical exchange, and notified the navigator of the performance of his duties.

In this regard, Tang Chao had no opinion, and said generously: "Yes, just pay the money normally, since we have opened a fuel supply station, there is no reason not to sell fuel." ”

Upon hearing this, all parties reacted differently.

Outsiders don't know about the Navigator's plan, but the top management of the Tianxia Space Agency does, because they also participate in the Navigator's new program.

During the fire-going window, of course, there will be Mars-related projects.

Like Merrican, Tianxia and Navigator have collaborated on a manned mission to Mars.

After all, whether it is simply landing on Mars, or aiming at aliens on Mars, Tianxia has to send someone to Mars.

It's best to get ahead of Merrican.

It's just that unlike the cooperation on Merrican's side, Tianxia's landing mission is completely dominated by the navigator, and Tianxia only needs four astronauts.

Whether it is an astronaut, a soldier, or a scientific researcher, there is no limit, anyway, there are only four astronauts.

For the rest, the navigators are all round.

And most of the information about the project, the navigator is still confidential.

But it was guaranteed that he would definitely get to Mars before Merriken's side.

Originally, the Aerospacer on Merriken's side was about to be launched, and there was no news from the Navigator Aerospace side, Tianxia was already very anxious, and now the fuel navigator of the Merriken Fuel Supply Station had agreed, and Tianxia was even more anxious.

In this regard, Tang Chao is still calm.

"Don't worry, let them fly for a while!"

"Even if we let them fly a month first, we will still get to Mars before they do!"

If the Navigator Company said this, Tianxia would definitely not agree, but Tang Chao said so, and Tianxia immediately agreed.

So he went back to prepare with peace of mind, ensuring that the four astronauts could board the spacecraft to Mars at any time.

As for Merriken, the officials were surprised that without their participation this time, the cooperation with Tianxia and the Navigator was reached so quickly.

It's magical.

NASA scientists didn't want to say anything, and they didn't want them to mix in more, so they urged them to hurry up and carry out the refueling mission as planned.

When the fuel was filled, the Mars landing ship and the Mars landing module had docked, and the six astronauts drove the starship to the side of the filling station and then entered the Mars landing module to wait.

Avoid surprises.

This cooperation is very limited, just a normal purchase of fuel, so it is not suitable for either side to go to each other's space facilities.

The starship was equipped with weapons, and the astronauts were all Merrican soldiers, and Tianxia and the Navigator would definitely not let them land on the Heavenly Court space station.

And the starship has all kinds of secrets of Merrican and Space Fork, so they don't want Tianxia and the astronauts of the Navigator to enter the starship.

So the greeting was carried out in the communication channel, and there was no need to meet.

After the starship was moored, the refueling station stretched out several robotic arms to make some simple fixations to the starship, and a fuel filler "drove" the fuel port and flew to the starship's thrusters with the fuel delivery pipe.

The starship's orbital supply port is near the thruster, which is equivalent to the butt, and when it uses the oil-carrying version of the starship for refueling, the starship's butt docks with the butt of another starship, and then inserts the fuel pipe into the receiving pipe.

How to say this posture, it is very similar to ...... That's what.

Ah, but anyway, if you can refuel.

When it comes to refueling, all six astronauts are in the Mars landing module, and if something happens, the Mars landing module can immediately separate from the starship and wait for rescue.

Although the astronauts were asked to sit in their seats and fasten their seatbelts, they were not prevented from getting a closer look at the industrial area of the Tianting space station through the portholes.

Even if they can't see the porthole, they can control the external camera to see it.

"The scale of this industrial zone is really big, it feels like it's several times bigger than the International Space Station."

"In fact, its solar array wingspan is 120 meters, and the length of the capsule is 100 meters, which is not much different from the length of 110 meters and the width of the International Space Station of 80 meters, but its cabin diameter is too large, generally more than ten meters, thicker than a starship with a diameter of 9 meters, so it feels very big."

"Indeed, the International Space Station, which is 9 meters in diameter and 50 meters long, is only 3 or 4 meters in diameter for the starship docking module, which is definitely a giant, but it is parked next to the industrial area, and it is so thin and small in comparison."

"It's just that it's big, you look at that rotating simulated gravity capsule, what I envy is that thing, if the starship is also equipped with that, we will feel a lot better along the way, and even enjoy it a little."

If the thinking of the four astronauts from the traditional military is still more like regular astronauts, then the two full-time astronauts of the Space Force are different from them.

"What about envy, we can't grab it, although we carry weapons, but after all, this is not the law of the earth that can't control Mars, and the other party is Tianxia, we can't act rashly."

"Hmph, Tianxia hasn't moved yet, and it seems that there is indeed no Mars landing mission, so as long as we go to Mars this time to catch aliens, and then get alien technology, then the earth, and even the entire solar system, will belong to Merrican!"

To be selected to be an astronaut on a mission to Mars, none of the six people is a fool, but everyone knows that in the current situation, Tianxia and Merrican cannot have any disputes on Earth, so the four traditional military branches don't matter, and they can look at the Tianting space station from the perspective of normal astronauts.

But the Space Force is different, and many people believe that space will become a new battlefield, and the Space Force was born for this.

This is also the case within the Space Force.

So things like orbital shuttles, Yishan rockets, Tianting space stations, moon bases, etc., no matter what they are in the eyes of others, are all military facilities in the eyes of the Merriken Space Force!

And it's an evil military facility that will attack Merrican at any time!

Well, that's what they told the higher-ups, and if they don't say that, they don't want military spending.