Rewind the clock 2 hours ago:

"Today's plans are a bit hectic." Li Min is the leader of the working group of the permanent Infinite Future Company dispatched by the Air Traffic Management Bureau, and he looked at the record form of the landing plan that day and said casually. There are several key words in this filing form document, marked with "improved spacecraft test flight" and "a total of 4 batches"......

Infinite Future has received the approval (default) from the top, coupled with the good relationship formed by the continuous technical output of the military, especially the Air Force, the high level of authority in the use of airspace, coupled with the fact that the airspace above the company's headquarters and nearby is not a popular route area, and out of various factors such as the encouragement of high-tech enterprises, the air traffic control department has adopted a special quasi-reporting system for the aerospace business of Infinite Future Company - as long as it does not fly long-distance routes, then each flight only needs to be 2 hours in advance, It is enough to file with the air traffic control bureau, and as long as it is not explicitly notified of the veto, it can take off on time.

This saves a lot of application time for Infinite Future, which is still optimizing cargo spacecraft, has a large number of daily test flight needs, and arranges at least two spaceships a week after space tourism is accepted by the public. Generally speaking, when the project testing schedule is more intensive, it is more common to take off and land 2-3 batches a day.

According to the normal process, intra-atmosphere flights need to apply and submit various materials first, and then wait for approval opinions, and a round of approval process takes at least 2 days. And the kind that flies out of the atmosphere has been out of the management of the air traffic control bureau, and there is no competent department for counterpart approval.

After the state liberalized the private space market, several private companies tested the rocket launch business (the existing technology is relatively mature, and the technical threshold is relatively low), and before the launch, they were embarrassed to find that they could not find a competent department with the right to approve it. How to solve it in the end? Basically, it is launched first, and if the launch is successful or fails and crashes but does not hit anyone, the people will not be held accountable, and if there are casualties, then it is another matter. Fortunately, the current business scale of these companies testing the waters is very small, and they are careful enough, and there have been no accidents that hurt people or goods.

Therefore, the above-level special affairs and acquiescence to the Infinite Future Company are also exploring how to manage private aerospace science and technology companies to a certain extent. It's too difficult to manage and not die......

It's just that what Chen Wenhao is going to do next may make the relevant departments make a more dilemma.

Soon, the filing and reporting time reached 2 hours. The two spacecraft that came out of the hangar occupy two runways respectively, and their shapes are a whole circle larger than ordinary space tourism spaceships, which can be distinguished by normal people, not to mention the professional staff in the tower.

Li Min didn't even look at the monitor, and when he left his seat, his glasses were almost on the floor-to-ceiling glass window, "This is a new one made by your company?" ”

The few employees of the company in the tower were unaware, and no one could answer, but they all subconsciously straightened their chests: Look, what our company is doing, is it bull or not.

Li Min also reacted, looked at it a few more times before returning to his position, and gave a thumbs up, "Amazing!" ”

The aircraft produced by Infinite Future have always been unmanned, which is also a black technology that makes the outside world, especially global peers, feel incredible, aside from other benefits, at least at this moment, so that the communication before take-off becomes concise and efficient. After the ground sent a take-off request, and after being confirmed by the tower, the two aircraft ignited at the same time, accelerated and taxied along the two parallel runways at the same time, and after taxiing a distance of about 1,500 meters, they suddenly lifted off the ground and drew an inconspicuous arc straight into the sky at a very fast speed.

This is another performance that is markedly different from the past. The cargo ship is electrically powered and takes off and lands in a vertical manner similar to that of a helicopter, without the need for a taxiing runway. And the space tourism spacecraft, which has been manned many times, needs a runway when taking off because of the twin-engine architecture, but the length is only 500 meters. This time, the distance on the runway is tripled, and the load capacity has been significantly increased, assuming the same power.

Why did the test flight carry such heavy cargo? Out of professional sensitivity, this was the first thought that came to Li Min's mind. According to common sense, shouldn't the test flight of a new aircraft be carried out simply? In addition to the pilot and the necessary test equipment, other can be saved, even for military fighters, the fire test is scheduled to be after the model test is stable.

Today was destined to be a day to break his routine. Less than 5 minutes after the first two spacecraft took to the sky, the second batch of two more spacecraft were again synchronously towed from the hangar to the runway. Taxiing, accelerating, taking off......

And that's not all, the third batch of ships came to the runway again.

"2 planes per batch, 8 planes in 4 batches? It's dangerous! Li Min picked up the tactical tablet, "I want to find Mr. Yan to confirm, don't put the traffic signal first......"

Outside the tower, the third group has begun to taxi, accelerate, and take off.

"What's going on?!" Li Min put down the tablet and raised the volume of his speech.

"No, it's not me, I didn't give a signal." The operator in charge of the output signal looked innocent.

"Mr. Yan, hello. I'm Li Min from the tower, and today's test flight plan ......" Li Min turned his attention to the tablet, which had already connected to Yan Guoping's call.

"Hello, Team Leader Li. Yes, the plan is not wrong, all 8 aircraft are new models, and they will go into space in four batches. Don't worry, the flight path has been calculated repeatedly. Now everything is going well, the first batch is almost out of the atmosphere. ”

"Send a signal." Li Min was entangled for a while, seeing that the fourth batch of aircraft had already left the hangar, and he was ready to fly at this moment, he felt that even if he chose to stop it at this moment, he might not be able to stop the aircraft from going to the sky, just like the previous batch of aircraft. Without pilots, everything is unmanned, and the disadvantages of intelligent driving are here.

Seeing the fourth batch of flying machines disappear into the sky, Li Min left his seat and walked out of the control room of the tower. He took out his mobile phone and dialed his direct leader in the Air Traffic Control Bureau, "Hey, Director Fu, I'm Li Min, I have a situation to report to you......

******

"There's suspicion on the other side of the tower." Yan Guoping stood next to Chen Wenhao and spoke in a low voice.

"As expected, don't think about keeping a low profile when this formation is released." Chen Wenhao didn't care, on the virtual screen in front of him, 8 small green light dots represented 8 spaceships in the center of the circle, moving along almost the same orbital line, in the form of an arrangement of equal distances.

As he spoke, the two small green dots in the first array suddenly turned blue, and there were a few more freehand wind sketches on the edges. "The twin engines are working at the same time, and they are accelerating to the second cosmic speed." Glancing at Yan Guoping, who was puzzled, Chen Wenhao shrugged and explained, "A little optimization made by Xiaoka is more vivid." ”

Launching a vehicle to the moon is not a difficult task for humans on Earth. The most direct way is to calculate the window time and flight path, take off on the earth and then fly through the atmosphere and directly to the moon, without the need for orbit. This is in line with the imagination of ordinary people about the flight of the earth and the moon, and it is also the goal pursued by many aerospace scientists. However, this requires very high thrust and fuel for the aircraft, and the cost of realization is too high and very uneconomical with the current level of aerospace science and technology.

Therefore, several major space powers on the earth have achieved lunar exploration by allowing their vehicles to change orbits many times. The scheme adopted is much the same: first let the vehicle enter the earth's orbit, fly around the earth for a period of time, then gradually accelerate to the second cosmic speed through the booster, and rely on the gravitational pull of the moon to enter the earth-moon transfer orbit, only then can it be regarded as truly stepping on the road to the moon. Let's talk about the details that may not be completely accurate: If you want to understand the comparison of the level of space power of each country, you can directly compare the time it takes for each aircraft to accelerate to the second cosmic speed.

Compared with the above schemes, it is necessary to fly dozens or even hundreds of hours in the Earth's orbit to accelerate to the second cosmic velocity. This period of time has been shortened to about an hour for the Circle Center Spaceship with the twin engines of the small card Momo.

The powerful engine thrust, coupled with the accurate calculation and clever borrowing of part of the force generated by the slingshot effect of the Earth-Moon orbit, drove the spacecraft into the Earth-Moon orbit, and gradually slowed down when approaching the L1 region of the Lagrange point of the Earth-Moon line, and finally stayed relatively stationary in the fixed-point area of the Earth-Moon gravitational equilibrium. The journey is expected to take about 30 hours.

Staying in the Lagrange point area of the Earth-Moon line can save the engine's energy to the greatest extent, and you can easily keep yourself in a relatively stationary position between the Earth and the Moon. Compared with several other Lagrangian points, L1 has more obvious advantages: the shortest distance to the moon, only 65,000 kilometers, which is convenient for subsequent exploration and development of the moon, and the shortest distance to the earth, less than 320,000 kilometers, which can reduce the time and cost of material transportation.

It is no exaggeration to say that L1 belongs to the "throat" position on the Earth-Moon communication line.

Because of this, as long as the intentions of these aircraft are determined by other countries, it is impossible to not react. There has been no controversy before, because no country has the ability to be stationed there, but what if there is? Excluding the vast majority of countries that are unable to fly out of the earth, the remaining countries (commonwealth) are the strongest countries (commonwealth) on the planet. How will these countries respond? What kind of decisions will the country make?

"I'm really looking forward to it!" Chen Wenhao suddenly burst out with a sentence.

"Will it be stopped halfway?" Yan Guoping not only understood, but also asked questions that seemed to have no logical connection.

"This has to ask Xiaoka if he agreed, the flight procedures are all preset, even me, I can't stop these halfways now."

[Do you want to answer the call of the director of air traffic control? Retina projection pop-up window for small cards.

"Plug it in." Chen Wenhao took a deep breath and was ready for the follow-up scene.

Anyway, it's absolutely impossible to stop halfway.