Chapter 386 - 378: Teasing_1

Looking for the Tiangong Space Station?

The four people aboard the Dragon Spaceship pondered this explanation for a while and felt it was almost plausible.

Changing trajectory is a very complex process, and perhaps the Storm just wanted to move farther away before decelerating, after all, with such a long rocket tail flame it might affect the March. This explanation seemed reasonable.

The tycoon who had UFOs on his mind was greatly disappointed. He watched the footage again, but could barely make out the shape of a spacecraft.

Musk and two engineers, on the other hand, were intrigued. Never mind anything else, the tail flame of the Storm was "so cool," long and bright, exactly like the tail flame of a spaceship.

Wait, the Aerospace Development Committee seemingly hadn’t released what the starting of Storm’s nuclear engine looked like; the footage he captured might very well be exclusive material!

Director Jim on the ground also realized this. In fact, ever since Storm had entered space, NACA and the Air Force had tried every means to surveil it, but had never been able to obtain such direct and clear footage. The people at the Pentagon would probably be thrilled.

Director Jim had some understanding of nuclear propulsion as well. By the color of the tail flame, you could infer the temperature of the working fluid, and by combining this with the length, you could determine its approximate power and performance, thereby gaining a preliminary understanding of the overall technological level of its engine. This footage was indeed very precious.

He congratulated the four incredibly lucky people above, then asked them to download the original video, which took about half an hour.

But just as he was about to contact the Air Force, Director Claire called first.

Claire: "Houston, who’s there right now?"

Jim: "It’s me, Mr. Director, I have something to tell you."

Claire: "Coincidentally, so do I. Jim, immediately mobilize the ground antenna array, the Air Force will cooperate to open the satellite network soon.

The Storm left the space station thirty minutes ago, we need to lock onto its trajectory immediately!"

Jim: "That’s what I was about to say... The C209 ’Dragon’ Spaceship captured footage of Storm leaving the space station with a telescope, but that’s not a big deal, they are probably headed to another space station."

"No, it’s not that." The other end of the phone paused for a moment:

"The Air Force noticed when it departed, and it’s been accelerating ever since, and it has now passed over Central Asia. I suspect they’re heading to the Moon."

"What!"

Jim jumped up from his chair, shouting at the bewildered staff:

"Immediately, find Storm, we need to know its trajectory!"

...

Capital.

"Storm, report current status."

"Reporting to the Commander, engines are running well, physical sensation normal, air pressure normal, over!"

Academician She withdrew his gaze from the large screen displaying the real-time simulated animation updating the trajectory changes of the Storm.

"For a long time, the Storm is probably our fastest way to the Moon; quick there, quick back."

Shen Zuozhou: "The return trip will be even faster, given that Earth’s gravity will slow us down considerably more than the Moon’s. I reckon it will take only half the time."

Academician She: "And it will be more comfortable too. The time for the round trip has been reduced by more than 70%, which is a remarkable progress, not to mention the substantial amount of fuel remaining."

After saying this, he looked at Lin Ju’s face brimming with pride and suddenly thought of something:

"Why don’t we modify the Dawn Spaceship too? Just use a single A100 for the third stage; that alone could save us several tons of weight. Mounting the A100 on the propulsion module not only allows the spacecraft to go there but also to return."

Shen Zuozhou: "..."

Sir She’s adept adaptability reminded Lin Ju of the original world line where the counterpart changed their perspectives rapidly. Initially, they had thought rocket vertical recovery technology was impossible, but after Falcon 9’s success, they had no hesitation in joining the recovery camp to work on reusable rockets.

Now, seeing the A100’s stellar performance, they immediately thought of attaching it to their own spacecraft without any mental reservations.

"We could totally use the spaceship as a ferry. The command module wouldn’t even have to enter Earth’s atmosphere; it would just travel between low Earth orbit and the Moon. When the astronauts need to return, they can just use another spacecraft to descend from Tiangong. It would be even cheaper."

Lin Ju quickly improved and expanded on this idea, and Shen Zuozhou readily joined in:

"Right, we could simply separate the Earth-Moon transit tasks. Instead of modifying the Dawn Spaceship, we should build a dedicated ferry, to avoid wasting a CZ-10 launch."

"How big should it be? 20 to 30 tons? It has to carry a lander..."

For twenty to thirty disorganized minutes, the three of them discussed this sudden flash of inspiration before finally taking a break. Since it was a conceptual discussion, Lin Ju handled it with ease.

In just a short time, they planned several ferry design schemes and three types of reusable landers—it was a project for the future, after all.

As they concluded the topic with passionate reluctance, Academician She finally had time to pay attention to the assistant who had been standing silently by their side for quite a while.

"Commander, the IAF (International Astronautical Federation) just inquired whether Storm was conducting a flight that wasn’t registered in our filing plans."

"Filed? Have we ever filed one?"

Lin Ju immediately expressed his doubts, to which Academician She explained:

"Well, it’s a nuclear-powered spacecraft; we did give a brief notice during the launch, but why should they care how it flies once it’s in space? Ignore it; don’t reply."

After dismissing the assistant, Academician She couldn’t help but smile, imagining the chaos the Americans must be in over there.

"What do you think, will NACA believe that we’re stealing a march on the Moon landing?"

"If they didn’t think so, it would be strange. Isn’t that the very reason we’re doing this?"

Lin Ju also chuckled, "Heh, heh," given that the plan for Storm’s lunar flight test was actually formulated after entering space, precisely to catch NACA off guard.

Whether it was a real race or not didn’t matter, but as long as it could add a bit of pressure to global space exploration, Lin Ju was pleased to give it a push.

...

Claire was unaware that this was a targeted action, but at the moment, his plans were indeed disrupted.

Not just him, even John at the Presidential Palace had abandoned sleep, eagerly pushing for clarity.

It had been 100 minutes since Storm had been detected acting unusually by the Air Force’s reconnaissance satellites. With prior tracking in place, NACA had Storm in its grip through a global network of ground-based antennas and satellites, and it was still accelerating.

By now, the answer was clear - Storm wasn’t headed to any planet beyond Earth; the only destination that made sense with this acceleration was the Moon.

The measured acceleration rates confirmed that the A100’s data hadn’t lied. Storm’s speed had already exceeded 9.5km/s, and if the predictions were correct, it would stop accelerating in a little over an hour to enter a transfer orbit.

This was an extremely bad development, and the Pentagon strongly suspected that since Storm was suddenly heading to the Moon, it might very well have secretly taken along a lunar lander—that H2’s exaggerated cargo size was certainly sufficient.

Although Claire thought this likelihood was low (since March had indeed been undergoing new truss construction), there was no concrete evidence at the moment. Even if they were merely going to circle the Moon, it would still create big trouble.

"Damned!"