Nevada Air Force Test Base.

Dr. Freeman stood on the lawn in the warm sunlight and watched the black aircraft being dragged out of the hangar not far away—the famous SR71 Blackbird.

Although the SR71 has left a strong mark on history, it itself has only delivered 32 aircraft to the Air Force from its first flight to its retirement, which is not a large number.

In 1998, the Air Force retired all the "Blackbirds" in active service, but not all of these aircraft that were still sophisticated at that time were pulled to the aircraft cemetery to be dismantled, and most of them were properly sealed in good condition.

More than two months ago, the Air Force demanded that all of these aircraft be reactivated, and some of them should be returned to active service.

Now the pressure on the Pacific Fleet is not light, not to mention the H-10 that has just severely shocked the entire western Pacific, and the first batch of J-9 modified from the C810 has also been gradually delivered to the HNA and has begun to appear in the front-line patrol.

These "part-time" fighter-bombers, which were adapted from civil airliners, performed quite well, flying faster, higher and farther than the civil version, often teasing their opponents at speeds above Mach 2.8.

Of course, in fact, the biggest headache for the Pacific Fleet is not the high speed, the first place is the powerful jamming capability of the J-9 electronic warfare model, which is simply reckless with its own high-altitude and high-speed characteristics.

The only one that can fight against it is the "Blackbird", although the latter cannot carry weapons, but it can always catch up, and now the Far East barely has the ability to intercept the J-9 only Alaska's F22.

More than a dozen Blackbirds are now being re-serviced at Nevada Air Force Base, and crews are being retrained, but two are requisitioned by NACA.

While the SSTO program had been set to use a combination of J58 + conventional rocket motor + booster, NACA quietly introduced the more advanced "LASRE" program right after.

"LASRE" is actually more suitable to be called a reboot, because in the 90s of the last century, NACA seriously thought about the issue of aerospace aircraft.

For Tengyun Engineering, NACA mainly believes that there are two success points: a thin and strong body, and an air-tip engine with extremely high specific impulse.

The airframe needs to rely on materials science to figure out a way, but the air-tip engine NACA has something to say.

In the wake of the space shuttle's devastating accident, NACA recognized its limitations and began planning to build a more advanced single-stage orbital spaceplane, a technology they considered important at the time to be the Air-Tip Engine.

After continuous efforts, Lockdyne finally built a prototype of the air tip engine, codenamed "LASRE", and gave birth to the Lockheed Skunk Works X-33 "Adventure Star" suborbital vehicle.

The X-33 is a reusable vehicle with a lift-body layout and a "LASRE" air-tip engine, and although it only has the ability to fly to suborbit, if it succeeds, a true single-stage in-orbit aerospace aircraft will certainly not be far away.

However, due to the technical limitations of the time, although the "LASER" was mounted on the SR71 for multiple rounds of flight tests, it never carried out hot spots in the air.

The X-33 demonstrator was even 90 percent of its final assembly on the ground, but both of them were dismounted and dragged on until 2001, when even Edward Air Force Base, where the test was conducted, was closed.

The "SSTO" program for the congressional lord is to solve the problem as soon as possible, and Robert's goal is to have the first test flight before the end of 2018, and the reactivated "LASRE" program is the real aerospace aircraft in NACA's mind.

"LASRE" will be a direct benchmark with the Tengyun Project, and is a real aerospace aircraft that can fly into space without relying on any booster by using a lifting body layout, variable cycle-air tip dual combination power, and is expected to complete the first flight plan by 2020.

Fortunately, the demonstrators and experimental results were still well preserved, and after more than two months, NACA had basically restarted the entire project and was in full swing.

A few days ago, Lockedyne inspected and repaired an air-tipped engine, which exploded during a test run, resulting in damage to the test bench and serious injuries to two crew members......

This made Freeman's heart burst when he was ready to come over, but today it seems that Lockedyne was not frightened, and an SR71 with an air-tip engine took off smoothly on the runway, and the next test was carried out non-stop.

The NACA officer in charge of overseeing the "LASER" project, named O'Reilly, pointed to the blackbird that took off and said firmly:

"The air-tip engine is no stranger to us, and it won't take more than a year to have a reliable model for a rocket or aircraft."

Freeman: "I've studied the structure a little bit and it seems to be very demanding on the material at the vent. ”

O'Reilly nodded without hesitation: "Yes, especially when it comes to temperature, it didn't work 20 years ago, but now we have a lot of options." ”

Freeman: "Can it withstand the temperature of the gas coming out of the core?" ”

After saying this, the expression on Ole's face froze, he thought that Freeman was just coming to see the excitement because he was doing research in Nevada, but he didn't expect to want to combine this ghost with a nuclear engine.

O'Reilly's face immediately became much more serious:

"Doctor, if you're going to spray radioactive gas everywhere in the atmosphere, I'm afraid we're going to be dropped by the IAEA as well."

“……”

"It's in the atmosphere, but not here."

Freeman looked for a spot in the sky, pointed in one direction and said:

"Mars, and the Moon, if you want to make the process as easy as possible for Project Ares, nuclear power is a great option."

……

Cape Calavellar.

The first SL-X rocket had already been refueled, and the white fog caused by the low temperature moved in the direction of the wind like a fluttering flag.

The Kennedy Space Center began to expand six months ago and now has an LC-39C heavy-duty launch pad, but the SL-X is still launching at LC-39A.

This time, the official code name of the mission is "Origin", which is also the name of Blue Origin for their newly improved lander.

After several months of major refinements, the original "Blue Moon" of the "Origin" has already undergone considerable differences, and the engine has also been changed to an improved BE-7A, although the most primitive mechanical control system has been retained.

Before Artemis II, no one thought that mechanical backups would actually be used, but Victor proved that the human brain is still reliable at its limit.

Unlike the previous one, which required additional refueling, the mass of the "Origin" for this launch reached 44 tons, and a cargo compartment of considerable volume was added, which greatly increased its practicality.

But the corresponding fuel filling chamber is also ready, and as soon as the Origin makes a successful unmanned landing mission, it will fly to the moon aboard another Falcon Heavy in preparation for another manned landing of Artemis III.

Robert looked nervously at the somewhat abrupt SL-X and prayed that it would be a successful launch.

The first and second stages of the SL-X rocket obtained by transplanting the ICPS second stage look completely incompatible, the top is still the milky white of a traditional rocket, and the bottom is a stainless steel background, but now the frost on the surface of the first stage also makes it look white.

“ten、nine、eight…… peripheral engines start，lift off！ ”

The 33 liquid oxygen methane engines began to fire sequentially from the outside to the inside, but they did not form a spectacular cloud like at Musk's Starship launch pad, and the deflector at the Kennedy Space Center sidelined most of the gas and did not cover the rocket itself.

This time, the ICPS second stage plus the load is lighter than the Starship spacecraft, so the rocket's climb rate is quite good, and it begins to rise rapidly after ignition.

"MAX-Q"

“B11 separation！”

When it was difficult to see the fire with the naked eye on the ground, the booster was successfully separated, and the first-level throttling procedure was adjusted to adapt to the deep space launch mission, and the working time was longer, but the task was still reliably completed.

Seeing the separation footage captured by the camera next to the secondary engine, Robert ripped off the headphones he was wearing on his head.

While United Mining is almost sprinting toward the moon, NACA is at least taking small steps.

The electricity went out all morning...... There will be updates in the evening!

(End of chapter)