Chapter 285 - 278: Immediately Following_1

December 11th, Qiongzhou, wind at level 3.

Deng Lei and Zhang Zhiguang, donning the specialized H2 next-generation space suits, smiled and waved to the media before striding onto the transfer vehicle within the launch site, heading for the launch tower.

Glory was assembled with its airplane and rocket at Xinyuan Launch Site’s position one, on the same day that Pioneering No. returned, and the launch preparations were ready.

This year’s weather has been exceptional, with significantly less rainfall compared to previous years, which also meant more suitable conditions for rocket launches.

It was now 10 a.m., and the strong sun made Deng Lei squint, but he still reveled in its warmth.

"Thud!"

With a muffled sound of steel, the elevator came to a stop.

The two walked down the long corridor and entered the belly of Glory.

They were well acquainted with the interior structure, as Glory had conducted numerous flight trainings with its jet engines, which had now been removed.

Unlike the H1 series, the H2M’s fuselage was much taller, so the hatch couldn’t open as low. With the H1, astronauts only had to be careful and they could step down directly, but the H2M required a boarding ladder.

The space inside was considerably large, with an external width of 10.8 meters, ample for accommodating three rows on each side, or even four rows if squeezed together, already surpassing the XS-62 series space station in size.

The interior space of Glory was divided into two sections, the conical nose part held the crew cabin with an interior height of over six meters, consisting of two levels; the upper level with the cockpit and toilet, and the lower level featuring a 12 square meter living area, where five astronauts could live very comfortably – the space was significantly larger than that of Tiangong No.2.

The remaining 50 meters of the trapezoidal fuselage was divided with 15 meters allocated for the fuel storage tanks, and the rest was a 35-meter-long, 8.4-meter-wide maximum cargo hold.

From the crew cabin, one could enter the cargo hold through an airlock and a 1.5-meter diameter circular dock for extravehicular activities.

If docking with a space station was required, a docking chamber with a 1.5-meter circular port could be placed in the cargo hold to connect with a 2.5-meter circular port of the space station.

The reason why it didn’t have an external docking portal like the H1 was because the smooth surfaces were all devoted to the cargo hold; the crew cabin in the nose part had a complex shape and was not easy to design, so they simply went with an internal design.

Another benefit of designing it inside the fuselage was the possibility of adding chambers in the cargo hold through the docking port, accommodating more people for longer survival times and allowing for flexible adjustments.

The future nuclear-powered version could add a living module, with the remainder of the cargo hold space used for a Moon Lander, thus completing a moon landing operation.

However, Deng Lei felt he might still prefer piloting the XN90, although the latter wouldn’t officially finalize its base design and enter the manufacturing stage until next year.

Climbing into his seat and fastening his seatbelt, the wide chair immediately adjusted its position intelligently, tracking the astronaut’s eyes to optimize the view.

Zhang Zhiguang relished this process because the width of Glory was almost the same as that of the An-1250, so the cockpit was exceptionally spacious. The human-machine ergonomics were optimized, making flying such a space plane an enjoyable experience.

"01, 02, the hatch will close soon. Please manually turn on the internal air circulation system and confirm it’s working properly!"

"Roger!"

Inside the command center, Italian and French astronauts, Luca Christopher and Alan Duras, watched enviously at the footage transmitted from inside Glory.

The two were part of the tri-nation Moon and space station cooperation plan, with France and Italy each sending an astronaut to China for training, who may go to space around 2017 after Italy Arianespace’s Space Hotel launches and docks with Tiangong Space Station.

The tri-nation’s Lunar Research Station cooperation project was also unaffected, although the European Space Agency had launched the Selene project – but it’s always good to have a backup plan, right?

Sending French and Italian astronauts to space, the price was the exchange of some patents and technologies in certain fields, as well as each country building one lunar scientific experimental and detection module.

This deal was acceptable to both parties, and the aim of the space agency was not to strengthen control over Europe through the Artemis program like America, but to try to win them over – getting some good stuff in the process was definitely a bonus.

But Luca and Alan didn’t think that much; they were just drooling over Glory.

Luca, "According to the plan, we should enter space around next June along with the space station of Alenia Spazio. I really want to ride a beast like the H2."

Alan, "It would be great to have our own some day. France’s Hermes won’t be able to fly until at least 2018, and it’s much more beautiful than Glory."

Luca, "You should say it’s the European Space Agency’s. Maybe we’ll end up flying to the Moon in it?"

Alan, "Then I want to go find Armstrong’s footsteps and make my own next to his."

Luca, "I would rather try to see if I could lie down – a body print seems much more interesting than a footprint."

...

"The world’s largest space shuttle launches into space."

"Glory’s intelligent unloading chairs have ten functions and are surprisingly heavy."

"The Artemis I mission is about to launch."

After the successful launch of Glory, the focus was on the two seats for the pilot and co-pilot.

These two seats integrated some of the controls and were designed to be very comfortable due to the vast space in the cockpit, resembling single-person sofas – simply looking at them made one feel relaxed.

The new-style space suits also featured HUD display functions, allowing data to be projected onto the visor using lasers during the piloting stage – a small achievement from the laser laboratory at the base, which had now been authorized for use by Xin’an Automobiles on car windshields.

After Glory reached orbit, Deng Lei and Zhang Zhiguang reported to the ground that the biggest sensation of the flight was "extremely comfortable."

The H2, with a slower ascent rate, experienced a maximum overload of just over 3G within the atmosphere, mostly above 2G, which was virtually no pressure for the astronauts. With the unloading chairs and pressurized space suits, they could barely feel the overload.

Even a commercial airliner might experience more overload during a sharp takeoff or landing, highlighting how the H2M had reduced the physical demands on astronauts to a very low level.

To ordinary people, it meant they could go to space comfortably without anti-overload training, needing only to learn how to move in a weightless state – the physical barrier had been broken.

Glory was set to operate in orbit for around two days, mainly testing the spacecraft itself without docking with a space station and then returning to Earth to fully prepare for next year’s March components’ launch and installation mission.

The launch date of Glory happened to be a coincidence, or you could say that December was again a month packed with space launches.

Kennedy Space Center, Launch Pad 39B – the SLS rocket bearing the Artemis I mission Orion spacecraft was ready for launch, with the countdown at: 19 hours.