"Theoretically, we should stand like this, and the floor should be the wall."

Meng Forest "stood" on the bulkhead at the tail of the Storm's cockpit, facing the floor in a normal flight attitude, with the portholes and several other astronauts above him.

Now, 260 minutes have passed since Storm left the space station.

The three engines were still accelerating, and after about 40 minutes of data from the flight computer, they were temporarily shut down, and then the entire shuttle turned around and began a nearly 13-hour deceleration process, at which point the acceleration experienced by Meng Forest was completely reversed.

It stands to reason that a manned spacecraft cannot allow astronauts to move freely during acceleration or deceleration.

But Storm is in a special situation, and although it will set a world record for the fastest time to fly to the moon, it will not allow the astronauts to stay in their chairs for 18 hours without going anywhere, and the acceleration is not very high.

The Apollo spacecraft will also be slowed down by the gravitational pull of the Earth as it flies to the Moon, averaging almost 0.0347 meters per second, which is so small that it is almost negligible, while the acceleration of the Storm is nearly ten times that of the Storm - 0.3 meters per second.

Meng Forest experienced the gravity of this 0.03G by observing the working conditions of the tail engine, and it felt pretty good, and his body really began to "fall" after leaving the seat, and his body also recovered a little bit of a sense of falling that he had never felt in space.

It's tiny, but it's already enough to make the body react, and the gravitational acceleration of the moon is ten times that of now.

"Lao Meng, then we finally don't need to turn on the vacuum machine when we go to the toilet, why don't you try it now?"

A conjecture by Hu Dong came from the radio, but it was immediately denied by Zhuang Dai, the deputy commander of the Dawning 4 mission.

"I don't think it's good, the toilet is still installed on the floor, so the acceleration is backwards, will it be a piece of paste now?

If you want to experience the feeling of not having a vacuum machine, you have to use a disposable poop bag. ”

Meng Linlin: "......"

Hu Dong: "......"

Ground Command Center: "......"

The spacious Storm is equipped with a suctionable sealed toilet that not only ensures gravity-free cleaning but also prevents odors from escaping, and the only slot is that the irregular vacuum suction will make people have an indescribable wonderful experience.

But this is the optimal compromise in the current situation, and the only way to go further is the toilet on the Advance space station, which is similar to that on Earth, but it will have to wait a long time to enjoy.

Lin Ju, who was dozing off in the command center, was in high spirits when he heard the conversation in the sky, and quickly picked up the tablet and began to write a memo:

"Design a changeable toilet for the Storm."

Shen Zuozhou, who was peeking: "......"

Meng Forest and Zhuang Dai had a heated exchange on whether to use a poop bag in order to experience gravity, and finally decided to give up to avoid the smell from dissipating.

Then Meng Linlin confirmed that the air pressure in the cabin was stable and there was no air leakage, and carefully removed the helmet.

The slight change in air pressure at the moment of the gap opening made his ears feel like the earbuds were pulled out, and at the same time, the "humming" noise of the space shuttle, which had been isolated by the active noise cancellation of the spacesuit, could finally be heard.

When the engine is not turned on, only a small part of the equipment in the cabin can be heard inside the H2 shuttle, and most of the mechanical noise is blocked by thick soundproof cotton, so as long as there is a little movement, the sound of the cabin itself will not be noticed.

The Storm was different, the reactors of the three A100 engines were running regardless of whether they were in propulsion or not, and there was an extremely regular low hum that became more pronounced the closer to the tail.

At this time, they were working at full strength, including the tail vents, and the other six people were wearing masks and did not make a sound, and the only thing left in the cabin was this louder and more powerful noise than usual.

Meng Linlin didn't find the sound uncomfortable, on the contrary, he liked it, like the huge lungs of a Mongolian horse galloping and rolling in its chest, or the diesel locomotive he saw on the platform at dawn as a child: dull, but with a sense of great power.

The three reactors brought the entire aircraft to life, generating a steady stream of wind that made the aircraft vibrate slightly.

"Meng Forest, Meng Forest!"

Hu Dong shouted a few words on the radio but didn't respond, turned his head and saw him take his helmet and close his eyes behind him in a daze, and directly pulled down the mask before waking him up.

Meng Linlin realized that the headset didn't know when it came out of the cochlea, and hurriedly put it back.

"We're going to get ready to make a U-turn in ten minutes, come on!"

……

Hexagon.

It was here that Claire was tracking the Storm with the Air Force, and the intelligence officer brought the latest photo.

"This is a photo taken by Keyhole 12, and it only took four minutes to print it out."

The "Keyhole" series is the military's ultra-high-precision reconnaissance satellite, and it was very creative to use it to track and photograph the Storm.

The photograph has been exposed, and the stars in the background are revealed, and in the center is a slightly larger than normal star, with three overlapping bright spots and a somewhat blurred light cluster.

In the upper left corner of the photo is the satellite number, time, and pixels, and on the right is the velocity measurement and azimuth data of the ground antenna array.

12.7 kilometers per second, 70,000 kilometers from the earth, and the acceleration is about 0.3 meters per second.

It flies 70,000 kilometers in an hour and a half from the start of de-Earth orbit, which is the fastest speed of human travel to the moon, with an average of 12 kilometers per second.

It is unknown whether it will be faster, but the trajectory of the Storm is obviously different from that of a normal ship, it has already exceeded the second cosmic velocity, and is actually correcting its direction at any time, and it is easy to lose it.

For Claire, the biggest shock to him was not that the Storm ran away, but that the nuclear engine actually worked in space for almost five hours, which was a dimensionality reduction blow to all traditional power.

Both SLS and Starship are far behind, and there has never been a manned space vehicle that has been able to accelerate for such a long time and fly such a long distance.

Claire was stunned for a long time, until John called.

"How's it going?"

Claire: "I still don't think Storm has any plans to land on the moon, and I don't know exactly how long it will take to get to the moon, but with the acceleration capabilities that we are showing now, it could be there in 15 hours." ”

John: "Does it have to be the moon?" ”

Claire: "Definitely. ”

On the other end of the line, there were a few faint words like "not the moon landing", and then John's voice was slightly louder:

"The Aviation Development Commission has just admitted that this is a planned flight around the moon, and this news has been announced to the media, do you understand? The Senate is going to have a hearing soon, and you must be there. ”

Claire: "(takes a deep breath) Your Excellency, I hope to be in office at least until the end of Project Artemis, and to have Jim or Wallace take over as little as possible, otherwise it will be very disadvantageous." ”

John: "No, they're not going to let you resign yet, but NACA has to do something. ”

(End of chapter)