Chapter 268 - 261: Deja Vu_1

Although both H2M shuttles were among the first batch to leave the factory, their missions were distinct.

The Pioneer was directly transported by B4043 to Qiongzhou, where it was paired with the specially modified New Yuan No.2 Rocket to form a launch assembly, awaiting launch. The Glory, on the other hand, underwent flight tests at B-level Base.

Within the atmosphere, the space shuttle had no propulsion, but Xie Liaofu, who hailed from the Union, had a simple and rough solution. He strapped two XW-9 jet engines to each side of the Pioneer’s tail, and after slight modifications, the Glory gained the ability to take off and land autonomously within the atmosphere.

This way, the Glory could take off from the runway by itself and complete at least 20 test flights before manned missions commenced.

Although the aerodynamic test aircraft at Ulanha Mountain Base had already glided hundreds of times, there was still a significant difference. To save time, the Pioneer was sent directly for unmanned test launches, while the Glory stayed at B-level Base for flight testing. If problems arose, they could be addressed more readily.

The Xinyuan No.2 Rocket that was to launch Pioneer also needed special modifications. The two universal core stage boosters could be taken directly from the first stage of the New Yuan-2, but the central Core Stage One required completely new manufacturing to strengthen the body, adding a lot of steel structures, in order to withstand the lateral stress of over 100 tons without cracking.

All preparations had been completed, and the first launch date for Pioneer was tentatively set for November 28th, aiming for the maiden flight at the end of December and allocating half a month for inspecting the assembly.

Theoretically, the significance of H2M was no less than that of super rockets like New Yuan No. 3, but at the moment, the spotlight was on America.

"... Space is humanity’s ultimate dream ... America will start changing from now, becoming great again ..."

Having spent a night at the base, the Big Shot woke up early to see a trending alert pushed by TikTok: John George had been elected as the 45th boss of America with 302 votes.

Trembling, he opened TikTok— it was evening in America, two hours after John had given his speech.

In the video, John looked far less vigorous than before the election, instead he appeared somewhat constrained, the speech was standard without any highlights.

The Big Shot’s intuition told him that John was also unprepared, rushed, and probably had not even readied himself for the possibility of winning.

He suddenly found himself unable to understand the American people. How could they whimsically abandon the traditional elite, Diana, and choose a redneck like John?

Stuck on this question for quite some time, the Big Shot finally emerged from the storm of political change to contemplate another issue: Could the God of War Ares project really be happening? Was CASA really going to be dragged deeper into the space race?

No way, right?

Even as Lin Ju and others found him, the Big Shot was still somewhat in a daze.

"It’s indeed the inertia of history..."

"Lin, how on earth was John George elected? It doesn’t make sense!"

The Big Shot interrupted Lin Ju’s rumination, unable to hide his perplexed expression.

The others echoed him as well. They were all high-ranking members of the Aerospace Development Committee; logically, their judgment shouldn’t be flawed. How had the least likely candidate won the election?

"Ahem, it’s normal that we don’t understand America’s internal affairs; after all, we’re not Americans."

Lin Ju deflected with a few words, as the topic was sensitive. He decided to change the subject:

"Leader, regardless, the reality is what it is. Should we... start considering a Mars exploration mission?"

"Hiss... That’s right. John’s inauguration is next January. If the God of War Ares project does kick off, we’re the ones falling behind."

The Big Shot immediately realized that if the race shifted to Mars, his side would be at a disadvantage.

America had already conducted numerous Mars exploration missions, from last century’s flyby explorations, Mars orbiters, surface landers, to roving robots; they had a whole list of probes at their disposal.

In 1971, NACA launched Mariner 9, which became the first artificial satellite to orbit Mars; in 1997, the Sojourn Mars Vehicle landed on the Martian surface via the Mars Pathfinder lander, becoming the first Mars ground explorer, followed by others such as Smart, Phoenix, Courage, Curious, and so on.

Adding to these were Mars orbiting probes from the Island Country, Europe, and other Union countries. With their comprehensive and sophisticated exploratory methods, they had just about provided the preliminary groundwork necessary for a manned landing on Mars.

By contrast, CASA’s first attempt at a Mars exploration mission was in 2011, with the creation of the Firefly One satellite, launched aboard a Russia rocket alongside the "Forbes-Soil" detector to Mars.

Then... the upper stage main engine of the rocket failed to start, and the "Forbes-Soil" crashed into the Pacific Ocean along with Firefly One in January of the following year.

After that, CASA resigned to fate and never again cooperated with Russia on Mars exploration missions.

The Union had begun its Mars exploration program as early as 1960, in contrast to NACA, which started in 1964. However, from the Union to Russia, from 1960 to 2011, a total of 51 years and 20 probes, all failed.

Some malfunctioned en route without even leaving Earth’s orbit, some lost signal, some flew by Mars and disappeared without a trace, and some, after finally landing, failed within minutes.

It seemed as though Russia was naturally afflicted with ill fate regarding Mars, unable to achieve a single successful mission.

China, undaunted, played the role of an atheist and gave it a shot, only to realize that some things are indeed mystical.

In January of this year, five whole years after Firefly One, the Aerospace Agency once again planned a Mars exploration mission named "Questions to Heaven No. 1".

Although the timing was the same as in history, because New Yuan had been causing a stir for over a year, the plan had changed significantly.

The initial idea was still to launch around 2018, drawing on the experience of Chang’e 3 to send an orbiter, lander, and rover to Mars all at once, with a total mass of about 5 tons, using the CZ-7A Rocket roughly.

Questions to Heaven No. 1 would be CASA’s first exploration probe to Mars, nothing more.

So if a manned mission to Mars were indeed to proceed, it would mean that CASA would need to spend an additional launch window to send probes, at least to confirm a suitable landing site first.

Because Mars is unlike the Moon—it has stronger gravity and an atmosphere—it is highly inefficient to carry fuel from Earth to Mars for the return journey; locations capable of synthesizing fuel (identified broadly as methane) must be found.

Lin Ju: "The timing issue of landing on Mars is enormously troublesome. There’s only one launch window every 26 months, and during the rest of the time, even if we launch, the time it would take due to the great distance is similar to waiting for the launch window. We’ve already missed this year’s window, and the next one isn’t until May 2018. We have almost 16 months to plan the 2018 Mars exploration mission."

Big Shot: "Then Questions to Heaven No. 1 won’t do. The probe we launch this time must have the capability to find a suitable landing site and provide basic environmental detection on Mars.

One launch window is too few. Oh dear, we should have planned Questions to Heaven No.1 earlier. Launching it this year would have been perfect—about ten months to arrival, leaving more than a year for exploratory work."

Big Shot felt a bit of self-reproach because, compared to lunar missions, Mars missions had been given a lower priority, so the Aerospace Agency hadn’t taken them very seriously, focusing instead mainly on Chang’e projects.

Thus it led to a five-year gap after the failure of Firefly One before initiating the second Mars exploration plan. Even though it was more aggressive, it couldn’t make up for the lost time.

But nobody had expected that the Aerospace Agency would soon be plunged into a Mars landing race right after lunar missions; it was just that the plans couldn’t keep up with the changes.

At that moment, Xie Liaofu, who had been standing silently to the side, finally spoke:

"One launch window does not mean just one rocket launch. The Mars orbital carrying capacity of New Yuan No.2 can reach up to about 10 tons, and we now have as many New Yuan No.2 rockets as we have launch sites."

"You’re saying..." Academician She recalled the early days when the Union competed to launch the first detector. Due to uncertain success rates, they prepared three to four rockets and the same number of detectors at once for a concentrated series of launches during the window, with the rationale that at least one would succeed. This multiple redundancy was enough to bet on just one success.

And now, the number of Xinyuan No.2 rockets had reached six, exactly corresponding to the six capable launch sites in the country—does this mean we could potentially send up to 60 tons of material to Mars during a one-month launch window?!

Academician She looked at Xie Liaofu, feeling the determination and confidence on his face, and suddenly experienced a sense of déjà vu.