At an altitude of 12,000 meters in Texas, the Starship SN5 prototype reached the highest point of the flight and attempted to make an ignition vertical landing.

However, unlike the fifth successful Long March 6A, the SN5's luck is obviously not very good, and the nozzle swing of the three "Raptor" generation engines is a little worrying.

The computer did everything to bring the SN5 to the position of the landing site, but its descent rate was excessively high and completely unbearable for the SN5, which weighed several hundred tons.

In Musk's raised eyebrows, the built-in landing gear of the SN5 broke off when it touched the ground, and the strength of the stainless steel arrow body could not support such an impact, and it quickly collapsed and deformed, and the remaining fuel leaked out, turning into a fireball emitting billowing black smoke that wrapped the wreckage of the SN5.

The old horse patted Tom Mueller on the shoulder and said encouragingly:

"It's okay man, you've done a great job, we've got more data, and we're one step closer to success.

Starship is the goal of the future, it's hard, and this little bit of failure is insignificant. And we've outdone our opponents in some ways. ”

The "beyond" Musk refers to the first phase of the "Gateway" lunar space station construction mission on the 22nd of last month, where the 13-ton HALO and PPE modules were successfully launched by a Heavy Falcon rocket and successfully delivered to lunar orbit.

Because of its light weight, the launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket recovered two general-purpose core stage boosters, and the middle core stage worked longer and eventually burned out in the atmosphere.

The combination successfully reached lunar orbit on the 26th, and NACA is now updating the images and images sent back by the two groups every day.

Although they are not lunar surface probes, these two modules have high mass, high communication power, and large power generation, and can also be used as powerful probes to assist the lunar landing mission with the LRO.

In contrast, although the progress of the space shuttle on the opposite side is quite fast, the current progress of the moon landing is still not comparable!

And in the past few days, NACA and European scientists have determined that there should be ice in the vicinity of 100 kilometers through some information released by the Aviation Development Commission and the LRO's concentrated detection of the Qom impact crater, but the difficulty of mining varies.

First of all, international law has stipulated that no one can claim ownership of the external territory, that is, the actual control area shall prevail.

Actual control, then the international recognition will only be unmanned or manned camps and robot activity areas, otherwise it will not count.

Therefore, it is very urgent for unmanned detection NACA, but it is not so urgent for the time being, as long as the person goes up first, the priority is definitely higher than that of the rover, and it is enough to concentrate on the manned landing on the moon first.

Tom Muller barely squeezed out a smile at the old horse's relief, as the chief designer of the starship, he knew very well that the seemingly stupid and thick stainless steel starship was just more difficult, and there were many revolutionary designs on it, which could not be achieved overnight.

The Starship ship is slightly better, but the envisioned super-heavy booster with 33 Raptor engines is a bit more cumbersome. The 3 engines with a thrust of 185 tons are even more terrifying than the 29 150-ton engines of the N1, and are definitely a nightmare for any traditional rocket expert.

"Toot ~ Toot ~ "

Lao Ma took out his mobile phone, and the users he followed on the little blue bird posted new content.

Open it and take a look, it's the Aviation Development Commission:

“New year，new life，new rocket！”

Underneath the text is a picture of a crane at the port placing a 50-meter-long widened container on a semi-truck, painted in red, white and blue, with the CASA and MLEP logos.

Tom Mueller glanced at it and subconsciously spat out a "damn!" (damn it)".

Musk: "This is their new rocket? ”

Tom Mueller: "No, this is the booster or core stage of the Long March 10 rocket, this is the second Long March 10!" ”

Elon Musk: "But NACA says that the second Long March 10 will be built in June or July. ”

Tom Mueller: "Obviously, we all underestimate the determination of the world's first industrial country...... God, it's been less than 6 months since the last rocket was launched, so they can build at least two rockets a year, and they will be able to go to the moon this time next year, and the SLS rocket that we should be on the moon may have just started! ”

Elon Musk: "Director Claire should be going crazy by now. ”

……

February 3, the first day of work in the new year.

Seryov got up calmly, then sat down at the table in the living room and let the woman pour him a freshly ground coffee.

Among the six gentlemen of the ball, Seryov was the first to fall, and at a glance he fell in love with Linna, who was half Russian, and the latter's father was an old intellectual in the Northeast with an innocent background.

But Seryov got Linna to sign a contract for work after bringing her to the base, and he now enjoys having someone next to him.

Linna: "Liov, when are we going to move to another place?" ”

Seryov: "......"

Well, the ability of the Systems Research Institute is to ensure the loyalty of personnel to the base and not to divulge secrets, not to turn people into thoughtless slaves, and life habits, hobbies, etc. will not change at all.

Because of his different backgrounds, Seryov has no pursuit of personal life, and the environment of the base is very comfortable for him, but the woman's mind is obviously different, and the base full of hurried researchers is not an ideal living environment for her.

"It's almost time, I'm going to report to the boss today and choose a place in the city......"

Seryov didn't dare to stay any longer and pick up his bag and go out after finishing his coffee in one breath, Lin Na looked down from the balcony, and the unmanned electric car in the base was already waiting below, sensing that Seryov would automatically open the door after going out.

The latter got into the car, and the electric car started immediately without hesitation, driving to the office building in the distance, where Lin Ju was already waiting.

When Seryov walked in, he found Lin Ju and Ye Changsi discussing the design of the space station around the moon.

Why did Aramco's "portal" launch the first part, and Xinyuan has not moved? Because they're still struggling.

The reason for the entanglement is the design of the circumlunar space station, the purpose of which is to cooperate with the lunar landing and the development of the moon, not a simple human living module.

One of the most critical links is to serve as an energy supply station, but this is not a functional design, but a set of systematic tasks for unmanned fuel collection and transportation from the lunar surface to orbit, and every link needs to be sorted out.

Ye Changsi saw that Seryov just raised his head and said hello, and then continued to discuss with Lin Ju:

"The most basic design parameter is that we assume that the space station can support a refueling mission from the Earth and the Moon once a month, whether it is for H2 or XN90, it needs to have at least 20 tons of fuel storage capacity.

Therefore, the lunar surface must be able to ensure that about 20 tons of fuel are delivered every month, and if it is delivered by a rocket, then an additional 10 tons of fuel will be consumed, so the lunar surface must have the ability to produce 1 ton of fuel per day. ”

Lin Ju: "Assuming we use oxy-hydrogen fuel, then we can produce at least about 1,250 cubic meters of hydrogen per day and 50 cubic meters per hour. ”

Seryov, who had already swept the handwriting on the table, interjected without raising his head:

"At 50 cubic meters per hour, or about 4.7 kilograms of hydrogen, such a device would weigh at least 50 tons and consume about 300 to 400 kilowatts of electricity, which is not a small device."

Ye Changsi: "Technically speaking, if it is made into a monolithic Xinyuan-3, it can be transported at one time, but a set of systems that can be used from mining to hydrogen production, transportation and storage will cost too much, and the cost of building them may exceed 5 billion yuan." ”

Lin Ju: "But this fuel station is very useful, especially when traveling to Mars and other places, it is much easier to get drinking water and fuel on the moon than on Earth, and it is very suitable as a port for future spacecraft to depart." ”

(End of chapter)