Chapter 429 - 420 North Carolina_1

"The 21st century is an era of rapid changes and rapid development, and space is the most important topic of the 21st century. Whoever takes the initiative in space will have control over the future."

—— Media excerpt from the opening address of the Huayin Conference.

This statement, along with the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation’s headline "Two rockets, two skies, one Moon," became a popular catchphrase at the beginning of July.

Of course, John was not to be outdone and announced that on July 4th, roughly when Artemis II was scheduled to arrive at the Moon for the landing mission, he would host a joint conference on international space cooperation and planetary defense, inviting all member countries of the Artemis program and all allies to attend.

The conference was to take place near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, with the agenda expected to continue until July 20th.

Comparing a state to a county-level city fully demonstrated John’s emphasis on the Huayin Treaty Organization.

Moreover, it was expected that the number of member countries at the North Carolina conference would exceed 27, more than double the membership of the Huayin Treaty Organization.

"This North Carolina conference? What’s the purpose of it?"

In Qiongzhou, Academician She sincerely expressed his confusion.

Lin Ju shook his head; John was really something, always coming up with new ideas. If this was meant as an answer to the Huayin Treaty, the many organizational agreements they had signed should have been enough.

Frankly, he wasn’t optimistic about the Huayin Treaty either. Of its twelve members, only four possessed space technology, three had independent launch capabilities, two had manned transport methods, and one had large-scale space launch capabilities. The remaining eight comprised half financiers and half liabilities.

But... one had to say that it was still a first step taken.

From the surface, the entire world’s public opinion seemed to be in an excited state.

Although the second space race had substantively arrived, it hadn’t led to a confrontational Cold War; instead, global trade continued to rise, economists were very positive about the future trend, and it seemed that the space competition was a peaceful one.

Twenty-four hours had passed since the launch of the two rockets, when CCTV first tallied the domestic viewership data:

The viewership rate was 45%, with the cumulative number of views exceeding 1.12 billion and more than 800 million on online video platforms (including repeat users), estimating a global rebroadcast viewership exceeding 2 billion. Most of these viewers were from Asia, particularly from Korea, the Island Country, and the Southeast Asian region, where viewership rates even surpassed those within (China).

The global viewership data released by Artemis II also exceeded 2 billion, with YouTube peaking at over 24 million concurrent live viewers (through NSF’s broadcast channel), setting a new historical record.

Even if Bloomberg published an eye-catching report claiming "NACA has already lost the Moon," the public showed little reaction.

The launch interval between CZ-10 Yaosan and SLS was less than 30 minutes, and they reported practically simultaneously when entering the Earth-Moon transfer orbit—it would not be an exaggeration to say they set off at the same time.

Now, people around the world were curious: Whose astronaut from which spacecraft would first leave a footprint in this new century?

According to publicly available content, the media speculated that the first person descending from the Dawn III lander would be Zhang Zhiguang, while on Artemis II it should be the African American, Victor. Betting sites had already opened wagers online, attracting over a hundred million in funds in just one day.

Before the landing phase began, the public’s attitude was unanimous: celebration.

The base had already received a message from Rong City Air Force instructing Tiger Mountain Airport to suspend flights or restrict flight regions temporarily because it was possible that fireworks might suddenly rise from the ground day or night, which could be fatal for most low-flying propeller aircraft.

In the middle of the year, in July, the fireworks market throughout America was vigorously prospered by the Dawn III mission. It was said that all major urban areas had set up checkpoints at important entry and exit points. Almost half of the time, fireworks could be found in the trunks of private cars entering the city.

Meanwhile, the originally planned flight show at the flight school was forced to be delayed because of this hidden danger; it is now tentatively scheduled to take place after the successful lunar landing.

America, too, seemed to have the momentum to rekindle the spirit of the last century. The frantic chase from the previous year was temporarily set aside, and the general public believed that the launch of Artemis II would return them to the peak of the last century—right?

Artemis II launched without any issues during its launch phase, but the hasty and chaotic changes to the launch plan were evident to the global aerospace community.

Out of humanitarian concerns, Big Shot had Lin Ju issue a preemptive warning, taking the moral high ground early: It was your prideful insistence on competition, so don’t blame us if there’s an accident.

After the launch of Dawn III, the Aerospace Development Committee urgently analyzed the Artemis II mission and found many doubts.

Firstly, from leaked sources, it was revealed that the "Blue Moon" lander had frequent failures during its development in the first half of the year, even experiencing severe malfunctions like engine shutdowns with its small-thrust BE-7 engine. Moreover, evidence suggested that its design was significantly altered to accommodate the Heavy Falcon launch, resulting in a major change to the overall center of gravity.

In just two or three months, how could it transition from a problematic verification phase to a stable formal production process?

Secondly, there was the on-orbit refueling technology, which involved over 20 tons of fuel and a significantly higher level of technical difficulty. How long did the Raytheon Company spend to develop that fuel tank?

Third, the landing site survey. Apollo had conducted seven "Surveyor" soft landings for its unmanned survey plan, while the Aerospace Development Committee sent numerous robots to Krum Impact Crater. America only sent one "ISIS," could it obtain accurate landing data?

The Aerospace Development Committee had severe doubts about the entire landing phase, believing there was a high probability of accidents.

Although the Apollo lander hadn’t undergone practical tests either, its development period was at least twice as long.

If problems occurred during the landing phase, losing control on the atmosphere-less Moon meant certain death, and no one would be able to save them.

What kind of changes would occur in the situation if Artemis II were to experience casualties?

...

Houston Space Center.

The SLS rocket had completed its mission. Even with the manufacturing and testing time compressed several times, it still managed to successfully send Artemis II into transfer orbit—though not as smoothly as the outside world saw, there was a minor issue.

The problem occurred in the SRB, where one would least expect issues. The SLS rocket’s solid rocket boosters were improved from those of the space shuttle, increasing from four combustion chambers to five, which for solid propellants was considered a routine operation with low risk.

It should have burned for 126 seconds before separating, but during yesterday’s launch action, at the 98th second, an anomaly with the pressure alarm from the sensor on the outer shell of the right booster was detected. Claire decisively ordered the early abandonment of both boosters, leading to their separation at the 110th second.

The SRB functioned 16 seconds less than it should have, meaning the rocket had 16 seconds and 3200 tons of thrust less than expected.

Fortunately, the design redundancy of SLS Block1 was substantial. With the potential to send payloads of over 130 tons to low Earth orbit, the Block1 version had a LEO capacity of only 95 tons. The first stage relied on its excess fuel to operate a bit longer and still managed to get the second stage into orbit.

After salvaging the right-side SRB found in the sea, a noticeable crack was discovered on its casing, along with signs of an explosion. If separation had been delayed by just a few more seconds, the fuel would have burned through the casing. The direction of the flames was straight at the core stage’s orange tank. At that point, the entire SLS rocket would have turned into a gigantic firework under the combined effect of liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen, and polybutadiene-acrylonitrile, and if the escape tower hadn’t been activated in time, not even the ashes of the four astronauts would have remained. Instead, they would have become just a part of the atmosphere.