Chapter 480 - 471 Air Disaster_1

Presidential Palace.

John watched the CBS YouTube live broadcast expressionlessly, which was showing the detachment of the Storm spacecraft from the Tiangong Space Station.

Owing to the commercial nature of the Skylight 2 mission, the flight was teeming with commercial atmosphere. Apart from the domestic advertising sponsors that had been predetermined, advertising bids were also opened to overseas companies five days before the takeoff.

It wasn’t just the physical advertisements during the mission, but also the commercials inserted intermittently during the live broadcast. Moreover, they were priced exorbitantly.

As for the product endorsements made personally by the astronauts, they had to go through strict scrutiny, after all, although the mission included pure commercial astronauts, improper actions could still affect the status of this profession in people’s minds.

Interestingly, CBS spent a whopping 400 million dollars to acquire the exclusive broadcasting rights for the Skylight 2 mission in the Americas, which significantly increased the mission’s viewership abroad.

After all, even though there had been two Moon landings a month ago, the Moon had not yet become as routine as near-Earth travel, and the audience’s enthusiasm had not diminished.

The Skylight 2 mission was even more intriguing than the Dawn and Artemis missions. The seven astronauts on board were quite willing to interact with the viewers through the internet, and it wasn’t just about watching them float around.

"...To our viewers all around the world, the Storm spacecraft is currently in the process of acceleration. Let’s do a little experiment."

In front of Liu Ming, a tablet was fixed by a movable support. He took a water cup with a conspicuous Yibao logo, released it in the air, and it immediately drifted backward before being caught in time.

"Right now, the acceleration of the Storm spacecraft is as high as 0.24 meters per second, so this limited-edition water cup... Oh, we have a viewer from England asking if it’s available overseas? Of course, you can follow the official XAP and C ’Estbon accounts on TikTok, and click on the little yellow car under the latest video to purchase it for home delivery...

Cough cough, let’s talk about why I’m not affected by acceleration? This is because Storm has undergone a special modification. Look at the soles of my shoes—they’re made of a high molecular fabric, which generates sufficient adhesive force when in contact with the floor. Why not use magnetic force? That’s because..."

The lander carried by the Skylight 2 mission had reached a mass of 30 tons due to some improvements, which was a full 20% heavier than the version used by the Dawn mission. Together with two satellites and some experimental equipment, the total weight exceeded 115 tons, which meant it would take about 23 hours to arrive.

The entire flight was to be broadcast live, and this was also the reason CBS was willing to pay such a high price. The astronauts taking turns in interactive live streaming made the deal seem like a bargain.

Even John found himself engrossed in the video for over an hour before being interrupted by Sullivan, who was there to report work.

Noting the President’s obvious addiction to the video, Sullivan sighed softly:

"Sir, there’s something you need to know—there’s just been a plane crash."

"A plane crash? Where? Was it one of our planes? How many casualties were there?"

An air crash was no trivial incident, especially one that warranted a personal report from Sullivan.

Sullivan: "It’s not a commercial airline, but a transport plane. On board were the investigators you sent to the Bagram Overseas Base for an investigation.

They crashed in the Abe Sea on their way from Lamonir Base, and the Lamonir Base is currently investigating."

John sprang to his feet immediately, located the site on a map, and then burst into anger:

"Was this an accident or not? They were protected by our Air Force everywhere they went. How could the plane just crash all of a sudden!"

He looked at Sullivan, but the latter just gave a noncommittal expression and continued:

"There’s more. Two days ago, a major general from the Army’s Logistics Department said he wanted to turn himself in to the Pentagon. You said it was a smokescreen and had him detained. Half an hour before the plane crash, he committed suicide in his cell."

John’s pupils shrank at the news. He knew all too well what the so-called "self-surrender" meant—it was nothing but a scapegoat stepping forward to take the fall for everything, hoping to pass the blame. But if that was enough to fool everyone, how was he going to cut overseas spending?

Yet, the major general was dead. He committed suicide in a solitary confinement room that was closely guarded around the clock, hosted numerous elite agents, and where he was under surveillance for less than half a minute!

In that damned place, even belts were not allowed, and yet he died silently under such circumstances.

Cold sweat covered John’s body along with the goosebumps, as he now clearly understood that the power behind the scenes was telling him: Stop investigating, too many people are involved, it’s enough.

Looking at Sullivan’s meaningful gaze, John was stunned for quite a while before he slowly sat down, wiping the fine cold sweat from his forehead.

The old man was so frightened he was almost at a loss for words. Sullivan leaned over considerately and asked,

"Do you need me to oversee the accident investigation?"

"Go... go, we must find out the reason. The logistics investigation, let’s just put it on hold for now—it’s not the right time."

...

Shangjing.

Two Y-20 aircraft landed at the airport, then a series of trucks carried away 10 enlarged and shortened containers from their cargo bays.

Escorting the trucks were several SUVs, each with different insignias.

There were XAP, XUGONG, ZOOMLION, CASA, and HUAWEI—each marking the convoy’s uniqueness.

The convoy drove directly to a temporary camp built with prefabricated huts in the suburbs, then uncrated the goods from the containers one by one.

Some could be easily identified: wheel excavators, trucks, unmanned vehicles, and some boxy square equipment that also had sizable wheels underneath, indicating from the tow hook that they were non-powered and required towing. All of the equipment’s folded dimensions were within a very standard range of about 5 meters by 3 meters by 3 meters cuboids.

This was the complete ground verification system for the "Lunar automatic unmanned energy extraction system," including wheeled unmanned excavators, unmanned ore transport vehicles, crushing and purification machines, electrolysis hydrogen and oxygen equipment, methane synthesis equipment, mobile cryogenic fuel compression and storage stations, trailers, nuclear-powered vehicles, and more.

All the validation equipment was designed to have the same structure as the Lunar environment, with only minor modifications made for ground testing, but still fully capable of simulating the entire process from ice collection to fuel storage on the Moon.

The new equipments included a methane synthesis system, which could synthesize methane from dry ice or carbon dioxide in the air combined with hydrogen, applicable to both the Lunar South Pole and Martian environment.

However, there is no dry ice around the Krum Impact Crater, so for now, it can only serve as a technological reserve.

This set of systems consisted of mechanical manufacturing, equipment fabrication, automation design, and other subsystems, bringing together multiple domestic manufacturers to minimize the costs, and had just been prototyped.

Since the XH40 had been confirmed as the lander, the requirements for the equipment’s size were somewhat relaxed, and it was decided to launch it to the Moon by the end of the year, leaving half a year for experimentation.

The vast expanse of the northeast along with artificial adjustments could still simulate an environment similar to the lunar surface, which was sufficient to test the stability of this whole set of systems.

The only concern was the nuclear-powered vehicle, which contained not isotopic power sources, but a proper miniature reactor using high-concentration uranium rods. A dedicated Chemical Defense Troops watched it day and night.

In order to fully simulate the actual conditions, after the containers were opened, no more human intervention was allowed; everything was controlled by AI, slowly driving the equipment and engineering vehicles down to the demarcated "worksite."

The research and development team from Zoomlion watched intently as their own excavator flexibly used the shovel to land, then lumbered to the front of the crushing and purification machine, attached the tow hook, and began towing.