Cape Calavellar, Kennedy Space Center.

"Billy, I seriously doubt right now that the purpose of the circle is to make this day."

Spanish astronauts Pedro Dick and Billy Shen passed through the corridor of the launch tower, while at the other end was the Falcon 9 rocket and its Gravity Dragon spacecraft.

Pedro returned to Earth last year after a three-month short mission on the International Space Station for one simple reason: NACA is aggressively expanding the number of new astronauts, and the best way to do that is to live in space for a while.

With the Dream Chaser Space Shuttle and Dragon spacecraft, NACA flew a total of six manned missions last year, the most in recent years.

And Pedro, who had been resting happily for a few months, suddenly received another task: to achieve the "gravity dragon" into space, and conduct artificial gravity experiments, survive in the spacecraft for 3 days, and become the first astronaut to experience gravity in space with Shen Billy.

Pedro is a foreigner and Billy Shen is an employee of SpecaX, and the combination makes him suspect that NACA is just using them as cannon fodder or guinea pigs.

But doubt is doubt, Pedro can't resist the temptation to become the number one in this field, and the adaptability training is also very active.

Billy Shen, who is in the same situation, is looking forward to the "excretion test" item in the program manual, which any astronaut who has ever lived in space takes extremely seriously and has some kind of obsession.

"Pedro, now we're literally in the drum washing machine."

"But the chips of this drum washing machine are so powerful that they won't throw us into space, right?"

"Perhaps, let's hope the apple tree bless us"

The two completed the preparations for the launch in the mutual teasing, and 40 minutes after the hatch was closed, the launch center confirmed that the weather and other conditions were good, and gave the ignition order to the second-hand rocket under them.

About 10 minutes later, the Gravity Dragon-2 test ship "Isaac Newton" went into orbit.

……

"Dick, you check the relay in the service pod again, that's our last guarantee."

"Of course you can, but I'd prefer you to call me Pedro."

"Isaac Newton" has been in orbit for five hours, and the two astronauts began their work after entering space, mainly to carefully check the status of each part and arrange the command module to prevent accidents during rotation.

The spacecraft, named after the gravitational discoverer, bears the same expectations as his name, and the mission is codenamed "Apple Tree" to bring gravity into space.

Pedro and Shen kept talking to Houston while following the process of preparation, and after about three hours, the two were seated in the center seat again, and their seatbelts were firmly fastened.

Although today's work time was almost exhausted, NACA did not intend to put it off until the next day and immediately began the spin test.

The first thing to do now is to adjust the orientation of the spacecraft, which will determine how the Earth moves as seen by the astronauts from the portholes.

If it were in the tangent direction of the orbit, the Earth they saw was a rotating blue plane; If it is perpendicular to the tangent direction, the Earth is seen from the bottom up or from the top down; If it is in any other direction, the movement is unpredictable.

While astronauts perform rigorous spin tests on the ground, they won't be able to function properly if they don't adjust to mean they have to be nervous all the time to combat vertigo.

At Space Center Houston, engineers built several simulation modules to represent a variety of situations, allowing different groups of people to experience them, and finally determined that rotation along the radius of the orbit would cause minimal dizziness and less displacement.

It took about 20 minutes for the Isaac Newton to complete the precise orientation adjustment process and then begin to release the cables like the first verification vessel.

According to the test plan, the length of the first cable release was set at 220 meters, which rotated at a speed of 2 revolutions per minute, generating a stable gravity of 0.5G.

NACA will then gradually increase the rotational speed to test where the astronaut perceives the obvious limit, as for the length of the cable of 220 meters, it is already the limit, and the gradual increase will be considered later.

The main problem is the trade-off between stiffness and flexibility of the rope, which will become more and more severe as the length increases, too little stiffness will lead to poor stability in the rotational state, and poor flexibility means that it is easy to get tired in the curl, and some parts must be discarded before the new generation of materials can be developed.

"Billy, Pedro, are you all right?"

The two parts of the Isaac Newton spacecraft each pulled the cable and flew hundreds of meters in opposite directions, locking the cable at a set distance, and Houston appropriately sent a greeting.

"We're good, Houston, to start the spin!"

The radio fell silent after Pedro answered, and then he saw the "FGD" indicator light on the console come on, while feeling a slight push back coming from behind.

Of course, this may also be his delusion, the soft gravity system starts is a slow process, and the initial acceleration is so low that an astronaut in a pressurized suit may not feel it at all.

In addition, the rotation process does not accelerate all the time, and every time the acceleration reaches a certain point, it will stop for a few seconds to check it, and if there is a problem, the rotation state will be released immediately.

Shen Billy has been constantly sensing whether the pressure on his ass has changed, but Pedro is smart enough to fix a bottle in front of him

The pure water, which had been in a clear plastic bottle, adhered evenly to the inner wall without restraint, but soon after the gravity system was activated, it began to gather downward rhythmically, falling like water leaking from the corner of a wall, and faster and faster.

After about two minutes, Pedro saw the water bottle as it was on Earth, and he tried to raise his hand, immediately feeling the attraction from the "ground".

But the force was not great, he easily reached out and shook the water bottle, and then saw the water inside swaying in the bottle, but he could see the process clearly as if he had pressed the slow release button, and the amplitude of the fluctuation of the liquid level was even more exaggerated.

"Pedro, we've got to get the organs used first."

Billy's voice interrupted his movements, and Pedro nodded obediently and gently put his hand back on the armrest.

Only then did they begin to adapt to the weightless organs and suddenly enter the gravity environment, if the amplitude of movement is too large, it is likely to cause the organ to work disordered, especially the blood pressure, both of them have obviously abnormal heart rates, but according to the Houston study, it should be within the normal range.

They had been in their seats for a full 40 minutes, and finally got the instruction that the ground allowed them to move, and Pedro carefully unbuckled his seat belts, recalling the movements on the ground and standing lightly on the floor.

The centrifugal force perfectly replaced gravity to reorganize his physical state, and he was indeed standing firmly on the blanket-covered floor of the command cabin.

He looked at the porthole on the left, and the large blue picture was slowly flowing down at a slight angle.

(End of chapter)