Chapter 346 - 338: Expansion_1

Jeff Bezos appeared in the public eye again 48 hours after the space capsule landed.

First, he clarified the rumors: there was nothing wrong with the space capsule, Jeff wasn’t dead, and "New Shepard" was very safe.

As for why Jeff had been out of sight for so long, the reason was that the world’s second-richest person, who bravely traveled to space on his own rocket, had a broken chair during the space capsule’s landing, resulting in a fractured coccyx...

The interior of the "New Shepard" space capsule featured six swivel chairs arranged in a ring. It seemed that one of them was of lesser quality. When it touched down, it broke, and the unfortunate Jeff Bezos was hastily rushed into the operating room.

After the surgery, he was in no serious danger, but obviously, this could also be considered a space flight accident. Therefore, Blue Origin tried to cover it up, but they weren’t entirely successful.

But regardless, Jeff indeed proved his courage, and Blue Origin began to vigorously promote their tickets:

$25 million.

It was $3 million cheaper than the original timeline, but this price-performance ratio didn’t seem to be that high, especially considering it was for experiencing just a few minutes of weightlessness.

Not to mention competing with Xinyuan Company, but next to them, the "Crew Dragon" spacecraft manufactured by Texas SpaceX was also about to conduct its test flights; last year, Ma had advertised the tickets for only $15 million.

...

"This is the ’Feitian III’ lunar surface working spacesuit developed by us."

At the headquarters of the Aerospace Agency in Capital, the person in charge was introducing Lin Ju to the displayed red and white spacesuit sample.

"In the past, our extravehicular spacesuits did not consider lower body movement. Feitian III has a semi-rigid design, supporting eight hours of activity. Astronauts could operate lunar rovers, collect samples, and build camps among various tasks;

Moreover, Feitian III marks an important technological advancement. Although its material is soft, it will not overinflate and excessively hinder limb movement after being pressurized..."

Feitian III, since the Dawn project was initiated, the development of lunar spacesuits synchronously began, with Aerospace Agency directly developing a series of sub-models under the "Feitian" name.

Although Feitian III boasts many technical breakthroughs, in fact, non-powered spacesuits are just that, and they are inconvenient to use once donned.

Because an astronaut inside a spacesuit needs air and pressure, and outside the spacesuit is close to a vacuum, the significant pressure difference from inside to out causes the spacesuit to inflate like a balloon. It’s like wearing the mascot costume of Mixue Ice Cream, limiting movement far more than it would otherwise, despite better visibility.

Astronauts performing light tasks wearing such spacesuits are okay, but for tasks that require precision and complexity, even if one can manage to perform them, it takes a significant toll on their stamina.

"Okay, okay, let’s not boast in front of Mr. Lin."

Academician She, who accompanied Lin Ju, stopped the person in charge from continuing and instead said:

"Xinyuan’s hard... I should say exoskeleton, this is much more advanced than what us old fellows have developed, even stronger than Artemis’s."

Academician She referred to the Artemis program’s "ares" spacesuit as semi-rigid too, but it has added rotational joints at the lower limbs, and the upper body also has a hard-shell vest design with many improvements, which indeed made it much more flexible than traditional extravehicular spacesuits and more advanced than Feitian III.

There was no helping it; the design work for Feitian III was rushed, and playing it safe was necessary for security. Adjustments could be made gradually later on.

Xinyuan Company was also designing its own lunar spacesuit. They were not in a hurry and, based on the foundation of the "Warrior" series, decided to develop the hard spacesuit "Pioneer I" with a mechanical exoskeleton in one go.

Pioneer I, while still primarily a woven one-piece suit, had the upper and lower arms, torso, and legs all encased in fitted metal/non-metallic hard shells. This constrained expansion due to air pressure differences, allowing astronauts to move more freely and flexibly.

It also came equipped with an exoskeleton design, divided into a basic type with passive exoskeleton and an A type with active power exoskeleton.

The passive exoskeleton primarily dispersed the upper body’s load through sensible support design and could also protect astronauts from injuries like falls; the active power exoskeleton was quite powerful, even equipped with jet-propelled RCS, which gifted astronauts the ability to hover and move quickly on the Moon or Mars and make full use of the low-gravity advantage. It could also be used for heavy manual labor.

Of course, developing these two types of exoskeletons was also challenging, especially the hard-shell design. The aerospace community had long considered it, but it was not achievable with current technology, as there were numerous technical issues to overcome.

The space agency likewise invested an initial seventy million for the project, and who knows, after Pioneer I was completed, it might just be registered as Feitian IV there...

Lin Ju’s sudden flight back to the Capital was naturally for the No. 304 Injection; visiting the spacesuit was completely a pretext.

However, Academician She was clearly very pleased with Lin Ju’s visit, and after chatting for a while, Lin Ju finally began to steer the conversation.

"Mr. She, when Institute 507 studied superpowers back in the day, did you really find anything?"

"Superpowers?" Academician She was taken aback, being well-informed of the events at Institute 507 at the time.

"That, heh, it’s complicated to explain, there are so many factors involved that I can’t give you a clear answer straight away, but one thing I can tell you unequivocally is that there are no superpowers.

There certainly are stories of strange individuals, but the most true is that of exceptional memory; indeed, they had photographic memories. Everything else, like walking through walls, being impervious to knives and fire - it’s all false or at least not any kind of superpower. Are you curious about this? Sir Qian has a book that mentions these things; I’ll find it for you later...

Why are you paying attention to these now? Such mysterious stuff leads nowhere."

Lin Ju: "Not exactly, but we’ve had some new findings at the base, and it made me think."

"Findings, superpower findings? Right, I should have thought of it, with your rocket’s frighteningly high success rate; but what kind of superpower could..."

"Cough cough!" Lin Ju hurriedly interrupted Academician She, who appeared to be "on the verge of uncovering the truth," and quickly started explaining (fabulating):

"Here’s the thing, we’re working on the Forward Space Station, right? We collaborated with colleges on a side project, researching how to prevent or delay osteoporosis and muscle atrophy in zero or low gravity. Naturally, this involved using pharmaceutical treatments.

Around the end of last year, they accidentally discovered something, and I plan to continue with this project but wasn’t sure about how to manage it, so I came to seek some advice."

"Oh." Academician She sounded disappointed; he thought it was going to be something extraordinary. Similar research had long been done by the space agency.

But now, he realized that this was probably why Lin Ju flew over, and he grew somewhat interested.

"What’s so impressive about this finding that you bothered to come over personally?"