Qiongzhou, Tengyun Airport.

At the beginning, after experiencing the "rubbing" airport stage of take-off from the space launch site and the transformation and adaptation of ordinary airports, the Aviation Development Commission closed down a dual-use airport in Qiongzhou and transformed it into a special service for aerospace aircraft.

Now there are two aerospace planes stationed here, Tengyun and Liuyun, and next week, Xinyuan's "Ruiyun" will also be put into service, and three aerospace planes will be put into operation together.

"Tengyun" has carried out 31 flight missions so far, and there is still a long way to go before the overhaul, so after Ruiyun is also in service, the three aerospace aircraft can achieve a very safe sortie every two days, even if you count the regular maintenance and return to the factory for overhaul inspection, each aircraft can perform more than 60 flight missions a year.

And now it is the Liuyun that flies, which belongs to the Air Force, but is also used to serve space missions for the time being.

The post-manufactured Liuyun has been optimized again, and can carry 2+14 passengers, and the economy has also increased slightly.

This is the first mission of the Skydome 4, and the goal is to send the first group of 15 teams into space from five blasting device suppliers, again three from each side.

Several more missions will follow, and all 25 members of the demolition project will be sent aboard.

Current Congressman Bill Nelson took a closer look at the interior of the Drifting Cloud before looking back at NACA astronaut and engineer Matthew Dominic.

"Matthew, what do you see the ceiling doing?"

Matthew first looked around, and the foreign astronauts sitting in the back were all in the front, and the Chinese were all in the front, and then he lowered his voice and said:

"I'm looking at the interior of it, which can be used as a reference for our aerospace aircraft."

"But don't you study physics, why do you know how to design aircraft?"

"Your Excellency, it is necessary for me to state that fluid mechanics is a very widely applied discipline."

"Okay, okay...... I haven't been to space in almost forty years, and I just want to see what the moon looks like. ”

"But it's more fun to watch the moon blown up by a hydrogen bomb, isn't it?"

"Maybe that's the case, I hope that the hydrogen bomb of the Guoyan will be more reliable and not shoot down the spaceship we are on."

Bill was referring to yesterday's launch of the Ariane V rocket, ESA's last one-time large launch vehicle in Guiana, which sent a 2-ton orbiting probe,—— Peregrine Falcon and a 300-kilogram, 1.5-million-ton hydrogen bomb.

As a veteran senator, Bill knew that it was an earlier batch of equipment for the Royal Air Force, which should have been retired according to the procedure, and now it was time to be reused.

The decision to detonate on May 9 was not only the result of discussions among experts, but also a strong urging: the hydrogen bomb was in maintenance at the beginning of July, and they did not want to spend another unjust amount of money.

They have even hinted to the Aviation Development Commission that they can provide a lot of nuclear warheads with a yield of between 30 and 5 million tons, most of which are "redundant" equipment that is about to reach the maintenance period, and it is cheaper to throw them directly to the moon than to destroy and maintain them.

In fact, the Hexagon has a similar idea, according to public data, Aramco still has nearly 6,000 nuclear bombs, but some of them are atomic bombs, some are aerial bombs or nuclear mines and nuclear artillery shells from Cold War stockpiles, and so on.

There are only more than 1,000 missile warheads that can be used for strategic deterrence, and at least 1,500 hydrogen bombs can be "disposed of" without affecting strategic security, and they can also save a lot of money, and the benefits are very considerable.

After the explosion of the three hydrogen bombs on Toshima, everyone found that the public reaction was not as strong as expected, and the hearts of all countries slowly relaxed, and they were less cautious about using nuclear bombs outside the earth.

However, United Mining does not want so many cheap nuclear weapons to open mines, too many nuclear bombs, especially small yield nuclear bombs, will cause excessive radiation residues and affect the ore grade, and limited use of some is enough.

The test-detonation nuclear bomb provided by the belt is installed with the "Peregrine Falcon" probe, and when it needs to be used, the Jiuzhan or Dawn 1 will go to capture and dismantle it.

There is no doubt about safety, and the fuse with the modification of the belt is very safe, and there is no need to worry about the orbital explosion affecting all spacecraft.

In fact, the impact of the hydrogen bomb on the lunar program is still quite large, and two of the three modules of the expansion of the Wutu space station have been built, but they are waiting for the results of the nuclear explosion impact assessment before launching and docking, and most of the moon-related exploration programs have also been suspended.

Bill couldn't help but think of the near-unanimous resistance of the scientific community to the hydrogen bomb when he was younger, and if they had known that the hydrogen bomb would one day be used to exploit resources cheaply, they would have a very different attitude.

……

Hexagon.

"Anthony, Colonel Anthony, please come out for a moment."

At the door of the office area of the Air Force Intelligence Office, a stranger, accompanied by the director of the Intelligence Office, shouted Anthony's name loudly, causing the unknown young colonel to look around a few times before standing up and walking quickly.

The visitor looked at him, and then introduced himself:

"I'm David Usno, and I'm here to confirm one thing: you tracked the UFO codenamed NX17 this time last year, right?"

Memories of a year ago instantly came to mind, NX17 had always been a rock in Anthony's heart, but after the disbandment of the special office, it was difficult for him to call on satellites and no longer be able to investigate, and when he heard this code name again, he instantly became excited.

"Yes, of course, NX17 is ......"

"I know it all."

David interrupted him with a wave of his hand, then continued:

"All your conclusions are in the report, I read those, and I'll tell you one thing now: NX17 is here again."

"Where is it and when!"

Anthony's mood was a little out of shape, but he immediately understood where he was and hurriedly lowered his voice, and said with wide eyes full of surprise:

"I knew it, I knew it was still there, it must have a secret!"

"Yes, it's still there."

The discovery of NX17 was a complete surprise for David, who was authorized by the president and the top military of the Hexagonal to investigate all relevant information about XAP, and naturally discovered NX17.

His intuition told him that NX17 must have a big secret, and he hurriedly asked the intelligence agencies to collect it with all their might, and then found that NX17 had "entered the atmosphere and crashed" more than half a year ago.

In order to leave no blind spots, the intelligence agency called on the general artificial intelligence developed by the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in cooperation with OpenAI to conduct a large-scale search in the Hexagon's vast information database.

The surprise happened, on December 16 last year, a reconnaissance satellite in synchronous orbit and a low-orbit satellite logs, both appeared a beam of signals that Anthony was looking for, because of the records of two satellites, it can be roughly determined that the launch source is around the reconnaissance satellite and the rough direction at that time.

Only artificial intelligence can patiently rummage through the vast amount of information, otherwise it is impossible to know by manual means.

So the question is, if the signal is still NX17, what is it that fell into the atmosphere, and why does a "counterweight" float all the way from low-earth orbit to synchronous orbit, with a difference of more than 30,000 kilometers in between.

"Colonel Anthony, I now invite you to join the Thirteenth Office and relaunch the investigation into NX17."

"Of course...... Well, can't I refuse? ”

"Colonel, when you hear this name, you have lost your choice."

(End of chapter)