Chapter 153 - 149 Escape_1

"Is this the profound foundation of the Celestial Empire!"

Mae Mayu and Masashi Okada stood together on the beach outside the launch tower, the latter mumbling to himself.

On May 8th, at the Qiongzhou Space Launch Site, launch pad 3 hoisted a New Yuan 5B rocket, atop which sat the Chang’e 4.

The New Yuan 5B rocket... well, it looked somewhat scruffy.

This particular New Yuan 5B was a true workhorse, having already conducted three satellite launch missions and one H1 launch mission this year, making it the seventh reusable flight including last year’s.

A seven-flight rocket, due to repeated atmospheric re-entry ablation, each time the surface would be left with marks akin to scorching, which became somewhat troublesome to deal with even with a fresh coat of paint.

Thus, the stains on the rocket’s surface grew increasingly severe until last year, when New Yuan’s insulating paint formula changed, lightening in color to near transparency and becoming cheaper, resulting in the reusable rocket’s appearance deteriorating further.

Fortunately, as the launch frequency of reusable rockets gradually increased, the media’s initial surprise faded to indifference, now only occasionally making a jibe.

This was not an isolated case; all the world’s recoverable rockets looked the same way.

Let’s not even talk about Ma Yilong’s Falcon 9, which, after joining NACA’s Artemis program and securing more funding, was launched and recovered so frequently that no one bothered to clean its surface anymore; its charred exterior could be mistaken for black paint from a distance.

The space agency once made some futile efforts. Following the successful mission of the CZ-6 Yaosi rocket, they carried out four consecutive recovery missions using their "Cloud Open" recovery control system, resulting in one failure and three successes.

At first, of course, they followed China’s management approach and cleaned the rocket immaculately, but by only the third launch, they found that the intensive cleaning, while not exceedingly costly, had no impact on performance, so they simply gave up and let it be.

Dirty or not, as long as it works, it’s fine.

After the successful recovery of the CZ-6, the space agency was shocked by the substantial cost reduction brought by recoverability and could never again abandon it.

For a rocket like CZ-6, it could be readied for a new launch in just four to five days, with costs reduced directly by 60%, which was unthinkable in the past. Research and development costs were no longer an issue.

It’s as if the space agency had opened the door to a new world. Now they are pondering how to achieve second-stage recovery, even contemplating salvaging fairings from the sea to try reusing them, which would mean recovering an entire rocket from top to bottom, reusing 90% of its components, and further reducing costs.

But I digress...

Although the New Yuan 5B did look a bit, well, shabby, the Firm spacecraft, which had undertaken the first commercial manned launch mission on May 10th, was a recently flown unmanned top-notch aircraft, brand new looking, which is a kind of compensation, perhaps?

The Firm spacecraft could carry up to 10 people, but this mission only had 5 passengers: Xin’an professional astronaut Hu Dong, Xin’an Automobile senior executive Chen Jun, two coal tycoons, and Island Country magnate Mae Mayu, as well as 800 kilograms of supplies and five sets of extravehicular spacesuits.

Mae Mayu had finished training and was keeping a low profile together with Masashi Okada from JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the chief designer of the H3 rocket, who had sneaked into the country.

Masashi Okada had been eager to see firsthand the tremendous achievements China had made in space over the past two years and spontaneously decided to witness it without any official reporting, secretly entering the country under the guise of tourism.

Mae Mayu hosted him, and invited him to Qiongzhou to watch the rocket launch and see him off into space.

"Okada-kun, look at this, China has turned Qiongzhou into a massive aerospace base; by comparison, the Seed Island Space Center is just too modest,"

In continuous space launch missions, New Yuan found it necessary to increase the number of engineers in Qiongzhou to facilitate inspection and adjustments after rocket recovery, eventually reaching a scale of over 100 people, and with other personnel, the total exceeded 200 people. So, they simply established a sub-base there.

They even transferred some of the industries there, and this sub-base could complete some manufacturing tasks.

All these were just direct impacts; Qiongzhou’s economy now relies on tourism and aerospace, both stable and swift. The local area could really feel these features, with elements of aerospace present in every street and alley.

Seeing all this, Masashi Okada could only sigh; JAXA was not even well-regarded at home.

Perhaps due to historical reasons, they have a sort of abnormal obsession with "size," insisting that a rocket weighing over four hundred tons be called a "large rocket," and they also strive to develop truly large spacecraft.

But for some reason, these plans always fail, no matter which scientific research aspect it is.

The Islanders’ scientific research often performs exceptionally well in certain areas, even advanced in several directions, but when it comes to integration, it turns out to be third-rate, which is baffling.

Take, for example, their large transport aircraft project C2, which used CF6 engines provided by America, with each delivering 26 tons of thrust, making a total of 52 tons for two, while the Y-20’s four engines only produce 62 tons of thrust.

The Y-20 has a maximum payload of 66 tons and can fly 2000 kilometers when carrying 53 tons of cargo.

The C2 has a maximum payload of 37 tons, but in reality, loading that much would lead to structural issues, and at most it could carry 20 tons, barely achieving a range of over 1000 kilometers.

This performance made one wonder if the design was done by an imbecilic army mule.

Rockets were no different; the H-series rockets’ hydrogen-oxygen engines were decent in terms of parameters, but they started with an old-fashioned open cycle, only 140 tons of thrust, which was hardly advanced. The launch mass relied entirely on bundled solid rocket boosters.

Even so, the H-series rockets were prone to launch failures, and the success rate never allowed JAXA to stand tall in front of the media.

Masashi Okada did not believe that the H3 would be successful, even though it received a budget of 1.9 billion US dollars last year.

1.9 billion US dollars, that could buy an entire H1, so in what way could the H3 rocket compare with the H1?

Just over twenty days ago, the An-1250 made its maiden flight. As Asia’s largest, and the world’s largest, super airliner was unveiled, countless island nation youths wept overnight.

Worldwide, the Island Country always believed it represented Asia and the Asian people, so there was always a sudden and strong sense of identification from them in unexpected places.

Like in sports or technological achievements and so on. In 2003, when the first Asian to ride a domestically made rocket went to space, the Islanders were elated, feeling the glory of Greater East Asia.

The An-1250 was the same, the world’s largest super transporter, nicknamed "The Flying Yamato" by the Caucasian public. Many people petitioned to buy one from China, and they were even inquiring about the exact location and time the second An-1250, with the tail number B4143, passed over the southern part of their country. They ran to the Chinese internet, leaving messages hoping the flight would be lower to admire the glory of the Asians to their hearts’ content.

Masashi Okada felt the same sense of identification in his heart. As the person in charge of the H3 rocket, he was painfully aware that the H-series rockets were destined to be fraught with difficulties and devoid of significant achievements. The real stage was in the East.