"The ADC will launch the largest unmanned probe ever to Mars."

On January 17, B4043 launched the lightning again in the South China Sea, successfully putting the fire probe into orbit.

The Aviation Development Commission only informed the international community of the launch a short time before the launch, but before the "nuclear power" in the content caused waves, the P3C taken off by the island country found out that something was wrong.

The battle of each launch of the Inazuma is large, because the transport planes are very flexible in air-launching, so they are launched on the high seas in search of the most fuel-efficient places, and each time it comes out, there are two to four fighters to escort it.

The An-1250's huge radar launch area can appear on the USAAF's radar as soon as it flies, and this time is no exception, a P3C performing a routine cruise quickly approaches, and then the pilot realizes that something is wrong.

Although the P3C is an anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, it carries a variety of payloads, including extremely sensitive radiation detectors.

Although the external radiation of the reactor is in the safe range during operation, it can be detected from a distance by the instrument, and nuclear experts can even know the power and type of reactor based on the amount and volume of radiation.

The B4043 moved quickly, turned around and returned to the mainland after launch, and then the Hexagonal exploded.

Before getting the international notification from the Aviation Development Commission, they thought that the Lightning was carrying a nuclear reactor, and the nuclear-powered version of H2 that Xinyuan had advertised to the outside world, so they naturally thought that the Lightning had been modified to be nuclear-powered, and it was a shrunken H2.

What's more, the world hasn't launched a nuclear-powered spacecraft for decades.

The isotope power generation of RTG is not counted, it is simply small in size and small in power, and the reactor is different, and the huge power supply capacity is enough to support a variety of space weapons conceived by AAF.

Therefore, before the Aviation Development Commission had time to issue a message announcing the successful launch of the Lightning mission, the Hexagonal Bureau took the lead and strongly condemned the Commission's act of launching militarized spacecraft into space......

Although it was only found out a few hours later that it was an oolong, after all, it was impossible for Lihuo to fly to Mars to be a militarized weapon, but it still made the world nervous +10.

The two sides of the Pacific began to spit on each other again, and Xinyuan 5 A launched the comet thruster at the Xinyuan launch site as fast as possible in such a chaotic atmosphere, so as not to expose the flaws.

And only two hours after the launch, it was docked into low-earth orbit, otherwise it would be embarrassing if a country's remote sensing satellite happened to sweep the comet thruster in solitary space and ask the question "why is there so much heat and radiation in a conventional power propulsion section?"

Fortunately, there were no accidents, and after docking into a combination, the remote sensing satellite could not distinguish two heat sources in one shot, and even if something was found, it would not be suspicious.

However, the existence of "leaving the fire" still adds a lot of pressure to the world.

……

"Why is their probe so big, and it weighs 20 tons, and we have launched more than a dozen probes to Mars, which adds up to this mass."

John questioned Director Claire, who was still in awe of the man who was about to become the boss one day.

"Mr. John, this is the advantage of a latecomer, in the past we did not have a repeatable launch of rockets, so we naturally have to consider the cost performance, and their detector mass is only 10 tons, deducting half of the reactor mass, it is only 5 tons.

Now we have Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and we can also launch such heavy probes to Mars cheaply. Moreover, the first part of the 'Portal' is about to be launched, which is the first space station to orbit the moon. ”

John's face softened at the mention of "Portal", and SpecaX knowingly adjusted the launch date to January 22, after his inaugural speech, as with the Dream Chaser mission.

At the beginning of my tenure, I carried out two consecutive space launch missions, who dares to say that I do not support aerospace and the development of science and technology?

Seeing that John's mood was much better, Claire took out the carefully prepared "God of War Ares" plan demonstration results and budget test evaluation report.

Although the cowhides were one after another during the campaign, it took more than two months for John to sober up, and he successively found many agencies to evaluate the God of War Ares plan, and finally let NACA summarize.

Although Claire is worried about the current national capacity, it is impossible for NACA and the military-industrial complex to give up this order that will last at least a few decades, so a lot of modifications have been made.

In the revised God of War Ares program, in addition to striving for the honor of being the first to go to Mars, it is more important to break through more than 60% of new technologies and achieve the goal of taking astronautical science to a higher level.

The specific content of the plan is still being discussed, but several indicators have been set:

1. The Mars spacecraft must have a device that can generate artificial gravity of more than 0.3G to ensure the ability of astronauts to live for a long time;

2. The power of personnel exchange is determined to be nuclear power, so as to save fuel and provide abundant electricity;

3. The first batch of landing personnel is at least 3 people;

4. Rockets above heavy must be reusable to minimize costs;

5. The manned Mars spacecraft will depart from Earth no later than 2024.

As for the investment in the God of War Ares program, NACA estimates that the total investment will be about $120 billion in eight years, and no less than $10 billion per year for the first three years.

$120 billion, which seems to be quite a lot?

This is, of course, Aramco's usual method of applying for budgets, and the actual cost of a project is usually several times or even ten times the amount initially reported.

John naturally knows it, but he doesn't care much about the numbers, even if it is $300 billion, it is only a small part of his next series of actions.

He nodded, "NACA is doing a great job, I see, um, Moon, you're going to get back to the moon next year, right?" ”

Claire: "The launch date of the third SLS will be no later than March 2018, I can tell you, yes. ”

John: "Can you tell me how much the Artemis Project has cost so far?" ”

Claire: "Maybe...... Is it tens of billions of dollars? ”

John stopped talking with an "oh", was silent for a while, and then let Claire leave, flipping through the more than 100-page NACA report and finally putting it with his speech.

He had already made up his mind about the plan of the god of war, Ares, but Congress also threw a hot potato over: the ternary.

Traditional electronics manufacturing giants have sensed the malice of the ternary and smelled the risk of losing their dominance in the chip market, submitting a proposal that would seem crazy to senators.

From hardware to software, the implementation of restrictions without dead ends from any angle, if it is really implemented, it will definitely cause a strong shock, but it has to be admitted that it can indeed deal a devastating blow to many downstream manufacturers and the consumer electronics market.

John was also slow to make up his mind about the proposal, but he had to react or Wall Street would bounce back uncontrollably.

With 24 hours to go before his inauguration, John finally felt the weight of authority.

(End of chapter)