Chapter 1089 Chang'e Project

People must first pursue material things, after all, when they have enough food, they will know etiquette. But when the material things reach a certain level, they will definitely pursue higher-level things, that is, spiritual enjoyment and ideal realization.

When Armstrong stepped on the moon, he left a famous saying known to the whole world: This is just a small step for me, but it is a big step for mankind.

Two people went up together, and Aldrin, who went down second, became unknown. When facing the questions of reporters, he could only laugh at himself: I am the first person to come back from an alien planet, because when the lunar module came back, Aldrin was the first to climb out.

But there were three people who went together, and there was another Collins who stayed in orbit. What is there to promote about him? Am I the first person to see the moon up close, or the first driver of the lunar shuttle?

Everyone wants to go to the moon, and they also want to be the first, after all, this is a return to the moon.

If in the past, no one thought about returning to the moon, after all, the original moon landing plan was a national effort, a space race, and now it is normal business development, but Max did it! Starship Corporation has been established for less than ten years, and it has taken several big steps in succession.

No matter who goes to the moon, Max will be famous.

At this time, hearing everyone say this, Max is also full of enthusiasm: "Within three years, we will definitely step on the moon!"

This is not only his promise to the astronauts, but also a promise to the people who support Starship Corporation, and even more a promise to mankind. What's the point of always fighting over a small broken ball? Let's expand the pattern. Our goal is the sea of ​​stars!

"Are you hungry? Let's go eat?" Qin Tao looked at everyone and said that he came here to take a look. In fact, he just looked from the outside. The rocket is about to be launched. Don't go up to see it on a whim. If you damage something, it will be a big deal.

"Boss Qin, we have been eating astronauts' food these days. Do you want to try it together?" Zhao Dong continued.

So, Qin Tao thought of the small packaged meals again and nodded immediately: "Okay."

Qiao Bushiye went with them. After all, during this period, he had to stay with the astronauts, eat together, sleep together, and go to the toilet with someone to supervise him in using the space toilet.

Everyone came to the cafeteria, each with a few packs of astronaut rations. Qiao Bushi picked up one of them: "Fish-flavored pork shreds, this tastes the best!"

Over the past few days, Qiao Bushiye has fallen in love with oriental food.

"It would be even better if there was a duck neck." Qin Tao said. This thing will definitely whet your appetite.

"Things with bones are not allowed, but things without bones are still okay." Max nodded: "Let them try next time."

"We are developing too fast, I am afraid the national team can't keep up?"

Hearing Qin Tao's words, Max smiled: "Yes, your national team can't keep up, and other countries can't keep up even more, especially NASA. Seeing that we are going to start a manned lunar landing plan, they are also anxious and have launched a series of plans to get ahead of us in manned lunar landing. Humph, NASA's best talents are here, and their plans have no chance of success at all!"

"Then did our national team say anything?"

"Yes, they came to observe our launch."

The two are not on the same level.

The national team emphasizes safety, one step at a time, and there can't be any problems. Once a major accident occurs, the entire project may fail, while private aerospace emphasizes speed. Only when the speed is fast enough can they seize the market, so they are like racing on the track, speeding at lightning speed.

Now, the national team has just completed the experiment of manned spacecraft and is building a space station, while Starship is already working on manned lunar landing. According to the plan of the national team, the manned lunar landing project is scheduled to be delayed until after 2020. Now it is only 2004, and Starship has been busy launching the manned lunar landing plan.

After eating the special food for astronauts, Zhao Dong and Deng Ming took Qiao Busi to continue training and familiarize themselves with the space environment. Max also went to work. Qin Tao strolled in the launch base and happened to meet the person in charge of the national team.

Forty-year-old Xu Qiang and Wu Sheng, who is one year younger than him, have grown into the backbone of manned space engineering. This time they came to Starship to observe the manned lunar flight plan throughout the whole process.

After seeing Qin Tao, both of them greeted him.

"Mr. Qin, you are here too?"

"Mr. Qin, the development of your private aerospace power makes us ashamed. Compared with you, we are nothing."

Everyone was very emotional.

Qin Tao smiled: "Don't be so modest, everyone. Now that you have seen the development of our space force, you should speed up your pace."

Xu Qiang smiled: "Boss Qin, we do need to speed up our pace, but our plan has changed."

"Changed?"

"Yes, our mid-term manned spaceflight goal is to build a manned space station, and the moon landing activities will be left to you."

We?

Qin Tao was very curious: "Don't our national team want to step on the moon? You know, this is a matter of great significance. Even Ah San has made a plan to land on the moon."

In the Age of Discovery, various developed countries were enclosing land everywhere, planting their country's flag on a strange land, declaring their sovereignty over this land, and treating the original residents as slaves or even massacred them. The Western The history of development is nothing more than a history of robbery and plunder.

Now, the earth has formed a definite pattern, and the distant moon is still an uncultivated virgin land. When the Americans saw that the East was going to land on the moon, they immediately became anxious. Although they did not have the ability to return to the moon, they requested that many places on the moon be zoned out. Under his own name, he even recruited a few younger brothers to start a land enclosure movement. Even Europe could not stand this shameless action. Countries such as Germany and France did not join such a shameful plan.

After all, Starship Company is a private company, and their moon landing is unofficial. It is very important for the national team to return to the moon.

Xu Qiang smiled: "Of course we want to go to the moon, but we don't have that much money. We can't sell our tickets. Even if we sell them, we probably won't be able to sell them if we don't have influence. However, this is far away. We don’t have the ability to complete the space station yet. However, in order to support your starship company, our national team has sent a large number of technical personnel to help you complete this project.”

The country does not have so much funds, so plans can only come one by one. However, although the national team did not take action, they came to help. So many technicians helped the Starship Company. In the future, they can return to the national team at any time to build the carrier. A project to land a man on the moon.

Now it is equivalent to reserve technical strength.

"Yes, we can only provide some technical help for the time being. By the way, we also need to provide some other technical services. A few months ago, we launched the Queqiao relay satellite, which can provide Starship Company's After this exploration service, we will also launch the Beidou navigation system on the moon to provide a reliable navigation service for activities on the lunar surface and travel between the earth and the moon. "

Qin Tao's eyes sparkled: "We also launched a relay satellite?"

The moon has been revolving around the earth, and its rotation and revolution periods are still the same. This results in that one side of the moon is always facing the earth, and the other side is facing away from the earth. If you want to fly around the moon, half of the period must be On the far side of the moon, due to being blocked by the moon itself, the lunar probe was unable to communicate with the earth half the time. If an accident occurred on the far side of the moon, no one would know what happened.

Forget it if it is an unmanned spacecraft. The manned spacecraft must maintain communication with the ground at all times. This requires launching a relay satellite somewhere outside the extension line of the Earth-Moon connection. This satellite always faces the back of the moon. , and at the same time, it can avoid the obstruction of the moon and send radio waves back to the surface of the earth.

Queqiao Relay Satellite is such a project! Its emergence has completely solved the communication problem on the back of the moon and made the lunar plan much simpler.

However, the development of such a satellite is not easy, even just the orbit design is complicated enough.

When launching communication satellites above the ground, you only need to consider the gravity of the earth. In an orbit of 36,000 kilometers above the equator, you can obtain a stationary orbit position relative to the ground. However, it is difficult to find a suitable orbit on the back of the moon. easy.

This not only needs to consider the gravity of the moon, but also the gravity of the earth, and even the gravity of the sun. The three factors work together to form a three-body problem. This problem is very complicated and difficult to find a general solution. However, Swiss scientist Ou Lagrange and French scientist Lagrange solved five special solutions to the three-body problem, namely L1-L5 points, also known as Lagrange points.

The Queqiao communication satellite also uses this Lagrangian point. Specifically, it is the Earth-moon L2 translation point Halo orbit on the far side of the moon.

Unlike the circular or elliptical orbits of ordinary satellites, Halo orbits are also called "halo orbits". The orbit shape is a non-coplanar three-dimensional irregular curve. It is very difficult for the Queqiao communication satellite to make such irregular movements. The designers specially designed a set of quasi-periodic movements to maintain orbit stability through regular orbit control.

"Although our national team has not launched a lunar exploration plan, it is not easy to help launch such a satellite." Qin Tao said with emotion: "On behalf of Mingzhou Group, I would like to thank you for your support."

"We also have selfish motives. Although we have not explored the moon, our satellite also allows us to experience the feeling of launching a probe to the moon. Moreover, any user who wants to rent our satellite will have to spend money. Our offer to Starship Company is US$3 million at a time. If others want to use it, it will cost at least US$30 million at a time. It doesn’t matter if you like it.”

Qin Tao nodded: "Yes, you can make money this way. After the Starship Company launches the spacecraft, other countries will definitely launch it as well. If you want to maintain communications, you have to rent our relay stars."

Launching a satellite costs hundreds of millions, and maintenance also costs money. Therefore, for many countries, although there is a need for lunar exploration, launching such a satellite specifically for lunar exploration is a bit too luxurious and not worth it. Although Queqiao The rental price of relay satellites is also very expensive, which is less than that of individual launches. Moreover, it is not easy to position the satellite orbit at the L2 point. You must know that this point is not constant. It is the extension of the earth-moon connection. Online, the distance to the moon is constantly changing from 65,000 kilometers to 80,000 kilometers. The average national aerospace system does not have this capability.

"Yes, we also have to follow the market economy and make money through space launches." Wu Sheng said: "The development of this satellite is very difficult. In addition to the positioning of the orbit, its antenna design is also very difficult. We are in this satellite An umbrella antenna with a diameter of 5 meters is installed on it, which is the largest in the world. "

The farther the distance, the more difficult the radio contact, and the larger the size of the antenna needs to be. During the development process of this Queqiao relay satellite, the antenna was one of the biggest difficulties. After all, its flight is still related to the sun. For a period of time, It will fly into the shadow of the moon, and the temperature will reach more than 200 degrees below zero. It is not easy to keep this kind of umbrella antenna usable during the coldest time.

"Our technicians have worked hard. Our Eastern aerospace technology is also the strongest in the world." Qin Tao nodded. Of course he knew how difficult this thing was.

"Yes, our aerospace technology has become more and more powerful. After the end of the Cold War, Mao and the Americans have reached many cooperation projects in the space field, but they do not want to bring us with them. The European navigation satellite project wants to win over us. They just want our money and have no intention of giving us technology.” Xu Qiang lamented: “We have been squeezed out everywhere, but we have also developed the habit of being self-reliant. Now, we have become the strongest in many fields.”

Navigation satellite project, Europe's Galileo satellite is still in dispute, our Beidou II has begun to network, smoothly transitioning to the global positioning and navigation system! Europe has no relevant technology for manned spaceflight, but we have successfully completed it! The space station project, the International Space Station does not take us, we will do it ourselves! When the International Space Station project is completed, our space station will be the only space station in orbit in the world!

You cannot rely on others, you can only rely on yourself!

"Speaking of the navigation satellite project, our next step is to launch navigation satellites over the moon, and strive to establish a navigation satellite network on the moon within ten years." Wu Sheng said: "When your Mingzhou Group establishes a lunar base in the future , we can also provide navigation services, but there is a charge for this service.”

"Of course, we can afford it."

Qin Tao nodded with satisfaction. Of course he knew the significance of this project.

Satellite navigation technology is already very common on the earth. No matter where you go, you can find your destination as long as you turn on the navigation on your mobile phone. Technology is developing so fast!

What about on the moon?

There must be a need for navigation on the moon. After all, if humans want to move around on the moon, they have to know where they are on the moon. There is no magnetic field on the moon, so there is no way to use a compass. We can only rely on inertial navigation and terrain matching. With satellite navigation, The accuracy will definitely be higher.

Although the motherland is lagging behind in the earth's satellite navigation system, we must be the first in the moon's satellite navigation system!

Qin Tao also understood the mission of the national team. After discovering that they were destined to lag behind the Starship Company, they took a step back and put in place safeguards. Since they could not be the first to return to the moon, they would be the first to return to the moon. Lunar communications satellite, the first lunar navigation system!

Qin Tao gave a thumbs up to these actions of the national team. Our national team cooperates with private enterprises to jointly develop the moon! As for other countries? Want to develop the moon? Okay, at least you have to fly here first. If you don't have this ability, what are you still doing?

The day passed like this. Although the launch was not until the evening of the next day, the base became busy starting from the morning of the next day.

The starship was moved to launch pad 101. With this launch pad as the background, a rostrum was set up a few hundred meters away. At this time, countless reporters appeared below.

"Dear reporters and guests, today, on behalf of Starship Company, I solemnly announce to everyone that our Starship Company's first manned flight around the moon is about to begin! This is another new journey for our Starship Company, Our footsteps finally left the earth and began to take steps towards the moon, and in the future, we will also set foot on Mars!”

Max is the most excited. He has to give such a speech. After all, he needs more funds. This rocket launch will definitely make Starship Company’s stock rise again, and at the same time, there will be more donations. For space exploration, you have to look at Starship Company!

"Our company decided to name all lunar projects the Chang'e Project. In the East, there is an ancient legend that Chang'e flew to the moon. Our starship is Chang'e. When we go to the moon, we will build the Guanghan Palace, and also I’ll bring a few rabbits up there.”

Qin Tao, who was standing in the distance and listening to Max's talk, was suddenly stunned. Chang'e plan? Has Max fallen in love with Eastern culture? Why did he give such a name to the manned moon landing program? This name is not bad, but if you use it, what will our national team use it in the future?

"The moon is just a transit station for us. Our goal is Mars. The moon is just our springboard. I believe that in my lifetime, I can realize the dream of landing on Mars!"

There was warm applause below.

This is a historic moment worth remembering. After the Apollo program was terminated, no country has proposed a plan to land on the moon. Now, Starship Corporation under the Minnesota Group is going back to the moon!

This is a great turning point in the history of human spaceflight!

The news spread all over the world. Some people were excited, some praised, and some were dissatisfied.

The most dissatisfied, of course, was NASA. They are the boss in the field of aerospace, and now, they are actually behind? How can this be? They will never admit defeat!