A few days later.

With the authorization and consent of Rivi, Dark Space Company and Xia Guo Space Agency have reached a strategic cooperation to build a giant outer space station.

Dark Space, which provides the funds and technology, has absolute ownership of the space station.

Xia Guo Space Agency has the right of priority to apply for use, and gives a batch of free places to work in the giant space station.

And in the process of cooperation, Xia Guo Space Agency also obtained a lot of aerospace technology for free, and then used it to engage in its own space projects.

All in all, it's a win-win cooperation, and there's no one who takes advantage and who loses.

And after the cooperation agreement was reached.

On July 15th.

Five of the 10 "Worm-class" transport boats on the transport ship "Intrepid Bank" were sent down and landed at the Wenchang Space Launch Base in Qiongya Province of Xia Kingdom, where a batch of materials was loaded and then ascended into space.

Although the "Worm-class" traffic boat may not sound big and small, in fact, the cargo space of this type of traffic boat is equivalent to that of a Y-20 large strategic transport aircraft, and with the power of a power furnace, it can carry up to 150 tons of materials into space.

Five transport boats working together, in one batch, can transport 750 tons of supplies to high-orbit space.

This is equivalent to the payload that can be achieved by 30 launches of the Yuanzheng-5 large launch vehicle, and if it hits a higher orbit, it will need to launch 50 or 60 pieces.

Last year, in 2022, the humans of Blue Mercury sent a total of more than 800 tons of payload into space, which is only slightly more than the full load of five "Bug-class" traffic boats.

The more than 500 tons of materials transported into space by the Celestial-class transport boat, fuel and oxidizer accounted for about half, and there were four orbital propulsion modules, as well as a batch of hundreds of tons, enough for ten human astronauts to use more than half a year's living materials, stuffed into two huge material compartments.

In orbit around the earth at an altitude of more than 300 kilometers, these materials were unloaded by the armored people, and then all of them were replenished to the "Sky 3" space station.

The Sky 3, which originally weighed just over 300 tons, quickly more than doubled in weight.

Then, the five insect-class transport boats, each took out a slender rope, tied it to each key force node of the "Sky 3", and started the plasma engine at the same time, each of which output hundreds of tons of traction, carefully and slowly, began to pull up the orbit of the Sky 3.

From the original average of more than 300 kilometers of low-earth elliptical orbit, it has been lifted to a high circular orbit of more than 20,000 kilometers.

Anyway, what are you doing with "Sky Three" so high?

The reason is that the "Vegetable Garden Plan" and the "Power Plant Plan", which were established a few days ago, need a group of "people" to help and participate, either as "workers" and do the work by themselves, or supervise or supervise the work on the sidelines to avoid being destroyed by other forces.

The problem is that in the vacuum environment of space, there is no way to recruit people to help, so they can only hit the idea to the astronauts in the "Sky No. 3", so that these astronauts can temporarily put down what they are doing and work here.

When the "Vegetable Garden Plan" and "Power Plant Plan" are completed, the Worm-class traffic boat will tow the "Sky 3" back to low earth orbit and continue to carry out its original mission.

……

Zheng Xiaofeng, male, 48 years old, is an astronaut on Sky 3.

As an astronaut, or an old astronaut, he is very proud of the job he is engaged in, and even regards it as the glory and belief of his life.

In order to wait for this day, in order to enter the sea of stars that I have always dreamed of.

From the day he was selected to join the national astronaut corps at the age of 28, he persevered for 20 years...... His entire youth was spent in boring training and waiting.

His assessment results in every subject are among the best, and his theoretical knowledge level is enough to teach those young astronauts who are more than 20 years younger than him.

Most of his teammates who joined the astronaut team in the same batch as him have the experience of going into space to perform missions, and they have even been written into textbooks, full of honors.

Only he stumbled all the way to the age of 48, and it was not until the Sky No. 3 space station was completed and put into use that he had the opportunity to take the "Xianzhou" series of manned spacecraft and become the oldest astronaut in Xia Guo to enter space for the first time.

He was unspeakably excited, in the video call of heaven and earth, when his daughter asked him why he insisted on not giving up for so many years, his answer made many people cry, and countless netizens were moved by his spirit.

Of course, although in the past 20 years, due to cost considerations, Xia Guo's manned space missions have been extremely limited, with an average of less than once in two years, and only 18 astronauts have been sent to space in total...... On average, less than one person per year.

Among the multi-approved astronauts who participated in the astronaut training, one-third went to space after being selected and eliminated at various levels.

But it can't be said that the superiors didn't give Zheng Xiaofeng a chance, his excellent performance is in the eyes of everyone, and there is no reason to hinder his dream and go against his conscience.

It's just that God always doesn't want to go with him, and three opportunities in front of him, he has suffered the flu twice and a car accident once...... All missed, many old comrades-in-arms think that he didn't have that life, and his luck was too bad, so it was better to choose to retire and shine in other positions.

But he doesn't!

He just wants to persevere, and he will never give up.

Fortunately, his persistence was not in vain, after 2020, the country suddenly increased its investment in the aerospace field, the space station program was accelerated, and the "Sky 3", which was originally planned to be put into service in 2025, was completed and used two years ahead of schedule.

He also caught up with his dream and turned it into reality at the age of 50, when astronauts must be forced to retire.

Hey, he was full of emotion, and he was able to see the moon when the clouds opened, describing the feeling in his heart.

Fortunately, the country has money and increased investment, otherwise he may really become "the most regrettable astronaut in history", and decades later, he will definitely not be blind.

But what does he see now?

Five spacecraft with huge carrying capacity go back and forth to the world once a day, and continuously transport the box-like modular structure into space.

On average, five modules were "carried" per day, plus other weapons, and more than 500 tons of supplies per day, converged into the vacuum in front of him.

Today, the total mass of the "Sky No. 3" is only six or seven hundred tons, but the items transported by those spacecraft are more than five hundred tons per day.

It is equivalent to one "Sky 3" space station a day.

And depending on the situation, this kind of transportation frequency will be maintained for a long time, and even the volume will be increased in the later stage.

In about a year, the "Vegetable Garden Project" and the "Power Plant Plan" will be basically completed, and not only will there be many intelligent robots active in these two giant space structures, but it is said that there will be thousands of "astronauts" who will be invited to be responsible for planting vegetables.

At present, the Dark Space Company and the Space Administration are recruiting a large number of people for training, and all those who have sufficient academic qualifications, reasonable physical fitness, and qualified basic theoretical knowledge can apply to work in the vegetable garden factory.

It is not even required to be a pilot, not to bear a load of more than 8G, and to pass the theoretical exam...... The screening criteria are very low.

This really stimulated Zheng Xiaofeng a lot.

"God, you must be fixing me again, right? I finally realized my dream, but the astronaut suddenly became worthless, and I had to arrange thousands of people to go to the sky at once, a wish that took me twenty years of youth to realize, and now ordinary people can reach it with a little effort. ”

His persistence for more than 7,000 days and nights seems to have lost most of its meaning at once.

Zheng Xiaofeng smiled helplessly, and his heart was deeply speechless.