Chapter 184 - 180 Reaction_1

"XAP to Build Interstellar Spaceship for Star Travel"

Musk awoke with a start, then picked up the buzzing phone and saw the clickbait news headline sent out by the media, groggily clicked on it to read through.

Rotating space stations, fifteen hundred tons, nuclear-powered free shuttling—none of the exaggerated information haphazardly stitched together by the media fooled him, and Ma Yilong quickly figured out what had happened.

Once he was fully awake, he realized the true nature of the Forward Space Station, and finally understood the real purpose of New Yuan No. 3.

Ma Yilong took a deep breath and tossed his phone onto the bed with a tense mouth.

Aboard the Forward Space Station, he saw a supremely ambitious space program and felt Lin Ju’s belief in the stars.

At least equal to his own, and executed even better on a grander scale, the Forward Space Station and the Starship might have been two different approaches, but it was clear that the Forward Space Station had much more substance than the Starship, and it was capable of long-term self-sustenance, with enough supplies to live on for a year or two with no issue.

Moreover, the ability to create gravity alone put it head and shoulders above all other manned spacecraft humanity had ever built, able to solve numerous problems.

He had hoped to leapfrog the competition with the SSN Starship, outdoing the current space shuttles in terms of economy and practicality, and to be on par with the nuclear-thermal powered H2 spacecraft, but now, it seemed, he was already behind before even starting.

The development of the Starship would encounter many difficulties, something already clear within SｐｅｃａX, and Old Ma had hoped to resolve these issues and achieve practical application within about two years, but even if the timeline didn’t exceed expectations, it still wouldn’t match the plan for the Forward Space Station.

Thinking about the nuclear-powered Forward Space Station turning into a ship, carrying landers for interplanetary voyages and exploring within the Solar System, Ma Yilong felt his scalp tingle with the thought.

The Starship couldn’t do it, with power being the biggest issue, and even if it could be forced, the necessary preparations would be enormous, unlike the Forward Space Station, which could carry over two thousand tons of payload and set off fully loaded.

He needed a plan that could rival it, and so did America.

...

In China, the public’s reaction was also extremely enthusiastic.

An incredibly hot project such as this was announced right after the launch of New Yuan No. 3, shocking people’s eyeballs.

The initial response from everyone was disbelief, or to put it another way, skepticism that it could be completed within two years.

Within the public’s simplistic value judgments, although the centrifugal space station had been proposed by Von Braun (Saturn V Chief Designer) in the last century, everyone was convinced that it was something that might appear only in the middle of this century and should remain in novels and science fiction movies until then.

Both the structure and the weight made it hard for people to believe that this was a space project proposed by the Chinese People.

Even America would be hard-pressed to swallow such a tale!

Enterprises and universities associated with New Yuan, on the other hand, were ecstatic. Such a high-profile project definitely meant financial and technological upgrades, a mega project that could provide long-term benefits.

The employees at New Yuan were filled with doubts, wondering if the boss’s vigorous training of staff and students and the claim to build a 6000-person team capable of space exploration within three years meant that it was really starting?

Doesn’t that mean they could potentially set up a colony on an alien planet and establish space factories within their lifetime?

The importance of the Forward Space Station was immense, with 12 centrifuge modules including 6 service modules and 6 crew modules, and the possibility for axial expansion. Clearly, it was the prototype of a spacecraft.

Spaceships traveling at the speed of light and space battleships might still be a bit far off, but the Forward Space Station essentially met people’s expectations of a space ship that could be realized within this century.

Online, there began a groundswell of discussion, with the top pinned hot thread on the Baidu Aerospace forum being:

"How long before humanity colonizes the Solar System?"

"This post was inspired by the ’Forward’ Space Station. I am a student majoring in nuclear propulsion at Southern Aeronautical and Astronautical University. I am about to pass the assessment and get my solo flight license. I visited the New Yuan No. 3 launch the day before yesterday during an event organized by my school and New Yuan, so I was inspired to post this. With our current capabilities, if we give our all, how long will it take to colonize the entire Solar System? How many resources will it take to construct the Forward Space Station?"

2nd floor: "Real name envy, I envy you guys who can just fly an airplane into space whenever you want, even model airplanes are regulated here... I feel like the ’Forward’ Space Station is too sci-fi. With current technology, wouldn’t it cost at least one or two hundred billion? Most of the technology would need to be developed from scratch."

3rd floor: "I agree, the axial cabins being 14 meters probably max out New Yuan No. 3’s diameter, and the square cabin’s side length is also 11.8 meters. For such large integrated cabin segments, just the shell alone would cost 1 billion, plus equipment, it would be about 150 billion, which is not expensive for this scale."

4th floor: "I’ve actually run into an alumnus (funny), I don’t know when we can conquer the Solar System, but we will definitely have a chance to board the Forward Space Station. Have you seen ’Space Odyssey’? Let’s smash Europa to bits!"

5th floor: "I feel like Factory Manager Lin is about to transcend Earth, become ruler of the Solar System. While the space agency is still preparing for a lunar landing, he is already planning to colonize the Solar System."

6th floor: "Has the lunar astronaut been confirmed? Is Li Wei going up?"

7th floor: "I agree, +1"

8th floor: "+1"

"..."

1086th floor: "The previous floors have gone off-topic, but I’ll still answer the main question: What’s the point of colonizing space? It’s desolate and far away. I’d rather go to Africa and show my teeth to baboons than go to Mars."

...

"Academician She, when can we start the manned Mars landing project?"

Inside the senior official’s office, Academician She and several other experts were seated on the sofas, called over for a roundtable discussion to inquire by the senior official.

The senior officials were already aware of the Forward Space Station and had recognized its ultimate purpose: landing on Mars.

Or rather, any planet in the Solar System that could support human landings.

The biggest issue with the manned Mars landing project and other manned exploration missions had always been the health of the personnel. Although astronauts who had lived for over a year consecutively in the ISS Space Station and the "Peace" Space Station without significant physiological deterioration, having gravity was clearly better.

Without gravity, astronauts had to spend the majority of their energy on exercise and there was no guarantee that each astronaut’s body would remain absolutely normal. A little gravity was very beneficial for maintaining human physiological functions.

To be absolutely sure, a landing on Mars required a ship capable of creating gravity; otherwise, what to do if a few months’ delay became unbearable for the astronauts?

Academician She: "Technically speaking, we already have this capability; but in a practical sense, perhaps it makes more sense to develop the Moon at this time."

The senior official nodded, which was also the answer he had in mind. He only called them over to inquire in order to prepare for the future.