Looking for the Tiangong space station?

After hearing this explanation, the four people on the dragon spaceship thought for a while, and felt that it seemed to be about the same.

Changing orbit is a complicated process, and perhaps the Storm just wants to stay away and slow down, after all, the tail flame is so long that it may affect the Advance, which makes sense.

The rich man with a head full of UFOs was so disappointed that he watched the footage again, but he could barely make out the shape of the space shuttle.

Musk and the two engineers were interested, not to mention that the tail flame of the Storm was "so cool", long and bright, it was simply the tail flame of a spaceship.

Wait, it seems that the Aviation Development Commission has not yet announced the start of the Storm nuclear engine, and the information he took is likely to be a first-hand picture!

Director Jim on the ground also realized this, in fact, from the moment the Storm entered space, NACA and the Air Force tried their best to reconnoiter it, but never got such a direct and clear picture, it is estimated that the Hexagoon gang must be extremely excited.

Director Jim also has an understanding of nuclear propulsion, and the temperature of the working fluid can be deduced from the color of the tail flame, and the approximate power and performance can be determined by combining the length, and then the overall technical level of the engine can be preceded.

He congratulated the four people who were lucky enough to explode in the sky, and then asked them to download the original video, which took about half an hour.

But just as he was about to contact the Air Force, Director Claire called first.

Claire: "Houston, who's here now?" ”

Jim: "It's me, Mr. Director, I have something to tell you. ”

Claire: "Coincidentally, I've got something to do, Jim, mobilize the ground antenna array immediately, and then the Air Force will cooperate with the open satellite network."

Storm left the space station thirty minutes ago, and we need to lock its trajectory right away, right now! ”

Jim: "That's what I'm going to say...... The C209 Dragon spacecraft used a telescope to capture the Storm leaving the space station, but it wasn't a big deal, they were supposed to be preparing to go to another space station. ”

"No, it's not." There was a pause on the other end of the phone:

"The Air Force noticed it when it set off, and until now it has been accelerating, and now it has passed over Central Asia, and I suspect that they are going to the moon."

"What!"

Jim got up from his chair and yelled at the dazed staff:

"Immediately, immediately look for the 'Storm', we need to know its trajectory!"

……

Capital.

"Storm, report the current state."

"Report to the commander-in-chief, the engine is running well, the body feels normal, the air pressure is normal, it's over!"

Academician She retracted his gaze on the big screen, which was a real-time simulation animation, refreshing the orbital changes of the Storm.

"For a long time, Storm was probably the fastest way we could get to the moon; Go fast and return fast. ”

Shen Zuozhou: "It's faster when I return, after all, the gravitational deceleration of the earth is much stronger than that of the moon, and I estimate that it will only take half the time." ”

Academician She: "And it's more comfortable, the time to come and go has been shortened by nearly 70%, which is a great progress, not to mention the fact that there is still a lot of fuel to bring back." ”

After he finished saying this, he looked at Lin Ju with a smug face, and suddenly thought of something:

"Otherwise, we can change the Dawning spacecraft and use an A100 for the third stage, which can at least save several tons of weight, and install the A100 on the propulsion module, not only to send the spacecraft over but also to come back."

Shen Zuozhou: "......"

She Lao's flexible and flexible behavior reminded Lin Ju of the rapidly changing ideology of the other party in the original world line, and initially thought that the rocket vertical recovery technology could not succeed, but after the success of the Falcon 9, he did not hesitate to switch to the recovery camp and engage in recycling rockets.

Now when I see the good performance of the A100, I immediately think of loading it on my own spaceship, and there is no psychological pressure at all.

"Then you can use the spacecraft as a ferry, and the command module will not enter the atmosphere, just fly between low-earth orbit and the moon, and the astronauts will use another spacecraft in Tiangong when they go back, which will save money."

Lin Ju hurriedly perfected and supplemented this idea, and Shen Zuozhou simply joined in:

"Yes, it is better to directly subdivide the round-trip tasks between the earth and the moon, and directly build a special ferry boat without changing the Dawn spacecraft, so as not to waste a Long March 10."

"How big? 20 tons to 30 tons? Bring the lander with you......"

The three of them talked nonsense for twenty or thirty minutes about this sudden inspiration before stopping, after all, it was a conceptual discussion, so Lin Ju also seemed to be at ease in it.

In just a short period of time, the three of them planned several ferry boat designs and three types of reusable landers, which were projects that would be launched later anyway.

When they ended the topic unsatisfied, Academician She had time to understand the assistant who stood silently next to him for a long time.

"Commander-in-chief, the IAF (International Astronautical Federation) just asked us if the Storm was on an unscheduled flight."

"Report? Have we reported it? ”

Lin Ju immediately raised his own questions, and Academician She explained:

"Nuclear-powered aircraft, when they were launched, they were announced, what does it matter to them to fly in space? Regardless, do not reply. ”

Sending the assistant away, Academician She imagined that Ami Guy must have fallen into chaos, and couldn't help but smile a little.

"You say, will NACA think we're sneaking to the moon?"

"It would be strange if we didn't, isn't that what we're doing this for?"

Lin Ju also smiled, the Storm's lunar flight test really passed after entering space, in order to catch NACA off guard.

It doesn't matter if it's really rushing, but as long as it can add a little pressure to the world's aerospace, Lin Ju is happy to push it.

……

Claire didn't know it was a targeted operation, but he was really disrupted at the moment.

Not only him, but John in the big presidential palace couldn't sleep, got up, and urged them to figure out the situation.

It has been 100 minutes since the Air Force's reconnaissance satellites spotted the Storm's movements, and NACA has secured the Storm through ground-based antenna arrays and satellites around the world, while the latter is still accelerating.

By this time, the answer was already obvious, it was impossible for Storm to go to planets other than Earth, and the purpose of such acceleration was only the Moon.

The measured acceleration shows that the A100's data does not lie, and the speed of the Storm has now exceeded 9.5 km/s, and if I guessed correctly, it will stop accelerating in just over an hour and enter a transfer orbit.

This is really a terrible contingency, and the Hexagoon is very suspicious that since the Storm will suddenly fly to the moon, it is entirely possible to sneak the lunar module aboard, after all, the exaggerated cargo size of the H2 is completely sufficient.

While Claire thinks this is highly unlikely (after all, Advance did build new trusses), there is no conclusive evidence for the time being, and even if they only orbit the moon once, it would be a big problem.

“damned！”

(End of chapter)