THERE WERE NO SURPRISES, AND THE TWO AXIAL MODULES OF THE ENARY SPACE STATION SUCCESSFULLY ENTERED 500 KM OF LOW-EARTH ORBIT.

Xinyuan-3 had enough capacity to simply launch the module into a higher orbit with a thinner atmosphere, so that the advance could consume less fuel to maintain orbital altitude.

Four hours after entering orbit, the trusses that fixed the two modules were disengaged, and the pilot module and the node module automatically docked, forming a 120-ton giant assembly.

It is worth mentioning that the two Xinyuan-3 launched this time both used recyclable two-stage rockets, and the blackened two-stage rocket on September 2 was launched on the 20th of last month.

Guo Shen's recovery method is still successful, in the second recovery test, the modified two-stage rocket body perfectly fell into the sea at a speed of 5m/s, the engine was almost not wet, and the condition of the arrow body was also quite good, so it was pulled back and washed and continued to be used.

This also makes Xinyuan-3 the world's first rocket with both the first and second stages recovered, and the five hydrogen-oxygen engines of the second stage have successfully saved Lin Ju 100 million.

Today's second stage was also successfully recovered, and the ablation of two atmospheric frictions did not have a fatal effect, and the tugboat dragged it back offshore 4 kilometers from the coastline.

Seeing this scene, Lao Ma silently flipped up the starship PPT.

Last month, the technologically advanced specaX built the first test prototype of the Starship SN1, which exploded in a liquid nitrogen stress test before it could be made public......

This cannot be said that there is a problem with the design of the star ship, it can only be said that the quality control needs to be strengthened.

Because the SN1 is used for ground testing, the appearance is far from what I imagined, it is ugly, and the volume is much less.

But he is still confident in the full body Starship, because the Starship replaces the upper stage of the traditional rocket as a two-stage rocket, with unprecedented recovery quality, and can also carry 120 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, with interplanetary travel potential.

The most important thing is that it is cheap, and it is certainly much cheaper than the space shuttle Xinyuan.

But as he confidently pushed the plan forward little by little, several companies, including specaX, received a message from NACA: they were asking for designs for an artificial gravity spacecraft to land on Mars.

Lao Ma looked at the starship that he was about to use to board the fire, and it was obviously unrealistic to expect it to rotate and generate gravity like the Advance.

But in his heart, that kind of rotating space station or spaceship has a complex and fragile structure, where is there a starship that can be used as both a lander and a spaceship?

But gravity is really important, and the right gravity can save a lot of things, so how do you make a starship generate gravity as well?

Musk fell into deep thought, finding two models of the Starship spacecraft made of plastic, and thinking about a retrofit plan.

……

"Hermes? Lockheed is watching too many space movies, right? ”

Three days after the functional module was also launched into orbit by Xinyuan-3 and successfully docked with the node module, Claire finally received centrifugal spacecraft design proposals from several companies.

The first is Lockheed Martin's plan, which is amazing, that is, to move the Hermes spacecraft in "The Martian", which was released last year.

Except for the nuclear fusion ion thruster changed to fission propulsion, the rest of the part is basically unchanged, and it is also composed of axial docking of multiple node compartments, and a centrifugal ring is added to the middle of the hull, and the mass is even more outrageous than that of the Advance, weighing 4,500 tons.

The name is copied from "Hermes", lest Claire lack imagination and attach a movie poster......

Claire can't complain, and then look at Boeing, this is more pragmatic, simply put, it is to copy the advance number, 12 interconnected centrifugal cabins, but the cabin design has been changed according to Aramco's rocket capacity, with a mass of 1,200 tons.

Grumman, Grumman is a bit perfunctory, their scheme is a dumbbell-type spacecraft, 150 meters long, with two large structures at each end, one for the main engine and one for the living module.

The spacecraft first accelerates axially to the specified speed with the main engine, then shuts down, and rotates around its center under the action of the attitude engine, which can generate 0.34G gravity at a speed of 2 revolutions per minute.

I looked at the designs of a few more houses, and they were all good, but Claire was a little dissatisfied until he saw the specaX plan.

Claire was silent for a long time, not knowing what to say for a while.

What Musk took out was a starship.

It is the starship he showed before, which does not rotate the gravity ring, but can generate 1G gravity, which is the strongest gravity of all schemes, and it is also adjustable, and can be freely selected in the range of 0.2 to 1G.

So, what is such a magical design?

First of all, the specaX's boarding scheme is for two starships to be combined together through side docking ports, and then refueled and refueled in low-earth orbit to form a combination weighing about 2,000 tons and carrying 5 to 15 crew members.

This is good, there is no problem, and low-earth orbit resupply can also be done.

The combination, that is, the two starships docked side by side, also accelerated into Hohmann's orbit first, and then in the next 7 to 9 months of the trip, the two starships separated, and then the top cover of their heads was opened, and a special rope was pulled out of one starship to connect with the other.

By adjusting the attitude, the two starships become head-to-head, and the distance between them can be adjusted by the length of the special rope release.

Then the outrageous comes, the length of the special rope can be released up to 380 meters, and then the two starships connected by the special rope head to head start their engines and start to rotate around the center of the special rope.

Theoretically, as long as it rotates at a speed of 1.5 revolutions per minute, it can generate about 1G of gravity, and even adjust the length of the special rope according to the needs of the astronauts to live in the most comfortable gravity.

When it is time to slow down, slow down and tighten, re-merge, perfect.

It may sound unreliable, but when you think about it, there are some possibilities.

At least for Claire, he knew that there were many kinds of materials that could withstand the strength of the material, even if it was a steel cable, and now there were many kinds that could meet the requirements.

The starships on both sides are only 1,000 tons each, and the rotation speed is 1.5 revolutions per minute, this centrifugal force is not large, as long as the rope can withstand 5,000 tons of tensile force, it is enough to have 10,000 tons of tensile force, and there are not many materials that can meet this standard.

The most important thing is that the solution is simple, it does not require the construction of a complex centrifugal mechanism, it can also generate good gravity, and the investment cost is small.

Even without a starship, the current Orion spacecraft can even be used for experiments, separating the spacecraft return capsule and service module, the quality is not too much, and the tensile test of the rope is less than 50 tons, any ordinary steel cable is fine.

The investment is small, the transformation cost is low, and relying on advanced computer technology, some uneven weight can also be adjusted in real time.

Looking at the proposer of this plan, it turned out to be Musk himself.

Could he be a genius?

(End of chapter)