Chapter 300 - 293: Nomination_1

The attending physician conducting the medical examination on Ye Changsi thought it was a miracle that this patient had woken up seven days after suffering a severe head injury.

However, it was also good news. It was said that the professor had studied abroad in the ’90s and was quite an esteemed figure. His loss would have been unfortunate.

Ye Changsi cooperated with the doctor to complete the examination. By then his wounds had mostly healed, and his greatest concern, the brain, showed no sign of problems. The doctor told him to rest well before leaving.

Ye Changsi, aged 42, went overseas to study in the ’90s, worked on spacecraft design at Rolls Royce. Two weeks prior, he had been secretly recruited by New Yuan and returned to China to visit his parents’ graves, only to accidentally fall down the stairs and injure the back of his head, risking high-level paralysis and stroke.

Fortunately, he had miraculously regained consciousness after the emergency treatment, which of course was good news to outsiders.

But in reality, Ye Changsi knew that the real Ye Changsi was already dead. However, coincidentally, although the surnames differed, Changsi’s given name was the same as in his previous life.

He remembered that right before the plane crash, a security officer had tried to cushion him by holding onto him, while he clung desperately to his briefcase, hoping the documents wouldn’t be lost.

Thankfully, he knew that the plane crash didn’t have catastrophic consequences, so he felt secretly relieved. He only regretted the fate of the others on the plane, wondering if they had encountered something as extraordinary as he did.

Ye Changsi made a slight movement with his head, still feeling the pain, so he carefully laid back down and began to rest and digest those extraordinary experiences.

As for reporting to the base, he’d think about that once his injuries healed. It was a time of great peace, and he should enjoy life a bit.

...

"Nine astronauts from various countries will head to the International Space Station together on January 21st."

On January 3rd, one week after the Dream Chaser completed its first manned mission and safely returned, the ISS officially announced that the Dream Chaser would carry nine astronauts to the International Space Station on January 21st and bring back an equal number of personnel in what would be the station’s single biggest personnel swap.

As for the commissioned launch fee... it remained undisclosed.

Yuri Borisov felt things were going terribly wrong upon reading this news.

Even though he’d heard through the grapevine that multiple countries within the European Space Agency were very dissatisfied with the launch fee for the Dream Chaser, they reluctantly accepted it.

Because launching these nine astronauts using the Union spacecraft would cost 522 million US dollars, even if the single-launch cost of the Dream Chaser was 7 times the claimed 69 million US dollars, it would still be under 500 million US dollars, much cheaper than the Union spacecraft.

Though Russia, as an important member of the ISS, had received other compensations, such as additional supply missions awarded to Russia and a reduction of Russia’s ISS maintenance fees for the following year, those amounts were trivial!

As long as the ISS didn’t have its own high-safety manned spacecraft, they would have to keep using the Union spacecraft and could continue to charge a lot more money!

But even without the Dream Chaser, Russia’s good days wouldn’t last, as SpaceX’s Manned Dragon Spacecraft had undergone another test launch, planning its first manned flight in May. In August, NACA’s Artemis II mission would take astronauts to orbit the Moon with the Orion spacecraft. America was on the verge of having two reusable manned spacecrafts, both bigger and more advanced than the Union spacecraft.

A major reason for Director Yuri’s unease was the progress of the Energy 2 restart.

The booster was fine; the Energy 2’s recoverable glideback booster had already been prototyped and was basically ready to use, which was great.

The trouble was with the Energy 2’s core stage, an 8-meter diameter recoverable rocket body requiring heat-resistant tiles to be installed all around, like the Space Shuttle. After launching into orbit, it would have to re-enter the atmosphere and land by gliding.

Although the technical requirements could be relaxed as it was unmanned, cost control remained a trouble, and the seamless opening at the top of the core stage required high precision.

Miklin, the chief designer of Energy 2, had gathered all the research data from the Union era, and there were no technical barriers. The problem was money; a preliminary investment of over 15 billion Rubles was needed, and the timing of the first flight was uncertain.

Even if they could scrounge a great deal of money from the emerging powers of the Island Country and India, it would still be a struggle for Russia, which had already embarked on multiple projects. Funds were clearly tight.

We can only hope to skim some money off other areas to support RKA’s aerospace endeavors.

...

"My God, how much time have I wasted, Suka! Buret!"

At Moscow State University, Valery was perusing through China’s publicly available trinary basic circuit and programming materials, both surprised and annoyed.

He had been oblivious to worldly affairs and missed precious time, failing to read these materials at the earliest opportunity.

There were also the various journals and academic papers continuously published by New Yuan and Yellow River Semiconductor. Although they all covered basic aspects, the content was exhilarating, hinting at a broad future for trinary systems!

Others who had a similar reaction were several elderly men of similar age. They were researchers who had been involved in the Union’s research on trinary computing technology and were still alive and gathered here.

Also present were integrated circuit and software experts from Europe and America, who too were looking for breakthroughs from Russia.

Valery had spent a little over two days skimming through the publicly available trinary chip achievements, which was much better than working in isolation.

He lamented, "If it weren’t for the more advanced content being on China’s aerospace development journals, I’d want to keep reading indefinitely. Abandoning trinary research was Russia’s biggest mistake; we should have persisted."

A semiconductor expert from Germany nodded in agreement. He privately enjoyed experimenting with circuits of various notations and was thrilled by the advent of the trinary chip.

"Even the content that has already been made public is enough to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. Its significance is no less than the invention of the integrated circuit—it’s an extremely important breakthrough."

"However, as far as I know, the Nobel Prize committee is still struggling over who the actual inventor is."

"..."

Valery found it difficult to locate a lead researcher among these journals; it was mostly lab teams. But if that’s the case, with only three people allowed to win the Nobel Prize in Physics each year, it would take several years to award everyone involved, which is probably causing them distress.

At that moment, an official from America raised a question.

"Professor Valery, let’s get back to the main issue. In your opinion, what are the differences between Yellow River Semiconductor’s technological approach and your research direction, and which do you think is better?"

Valery hesitated for a moment, but ultimately shook his head.

"I cannot make a judgment. Although both are symmetrical trinary, the Union’s research is still in its early stages and has not reached the integrated circuit phase. However, I believe our direction was correct and has potential equal to theirs."

"So you’re saying we can’t bypass these patents or, in other words, catch up by taking shortcuts?"

"No, some of the fundamental aspects are very difficult to circumvent."

The other party shook their head regretfully.

"This is terrible, it seems we can only hope that applying pressure might yield some breakthroughs.

But Professor Valery, we will still fund your research and hope that one day there will be good news."

Valery: "Then you might need to step up your efforts. I’m already nearly 70 years old, but I still have the confidence to continue."