Chapter 530 - 519 New World Line_1

Since the nearby area had already been declared a no-fly zone, Cloud Ascend broke the sound barrier at an altitude of less than 10,000 meters, and the entire city could hear the tremendous disturbance from above, followed by a white contrail that kept stretching out.

The extreme supersonic aerodynamic design allowed Cloud Ascend to accelerate very quickly, so much so that the accompanying J-20B had to engage its afterburners just to keep up, unable to take many pictures.

However, this only lasted for less than three minutes. Once Cloud Ascend reached an altitude above 25,000 meters, it began to inject its own oxygen into the turbine pump, ensuring the engine’s turbofan portion continued to operate at maximum efficiency while also cooling powerfully. The thrust did not fade at all despite the increasing altitude.

The media photographers next to the ground airfield clearly had not been to many airshows. Lacking experience in tracking planes, they lost sight of the aircraft several times and could only see a dim light on the horizon minutes later, like a flaking point against a deep blue background.

Only the skies still echoed with deafening aerial booms. Xuehu had previously had a design for supersonic silence, but Cloud Ascend didn’t need it, so its auditory signature was extremely raucous.

Cloud Ascend’s rough course was southeastward, angled towards the equator, which granted the southern populace, who had missed Xuehu’s flight, the fortune to experience the vibrations of high-speed flight, even more intensely.

The Yuanwang III Measurement Vessel, which had been positioned early, was looking forward with great anticipation. They received Cloud Ascend’s takeoff signal within ten minutes and radar had already detected the target, but many crew members were waiting to hear the sound.

Finally, about sixteen minutes after takeoff, Cloud Ascend had flown over their heads, at that point nearing an altitude of 72 kilometers, the final operating zone for the turbofan mode.

In the boundless expanse of sea and sky, a sudden peal of thunder rumbled like endless firecrackers, lasting a full three minutes before totally fading away. The ruckus was no less than that of a rocket launch, although it had weakened considerably by the time it reached them, and the ship’s structure no longer felt significant vibrations.

However, unlike the turbulence on the ground, Chang Lihai had the illusion that he was sitting in a simulator because the silence inside the cockpit was nowhere near as exaggerated as he had imagined.

Perhaps concerned about the vibration coupling issues brought about by the ten engines, Xie Liaofu had put a great deal of effort into the damping system. The high-speed atmospheric flight turned out to be unusually quiet. While still not insignificant, it was a far cry from the characteristics of a rocket.

This process would last only about half an hour and the time was almost up.

Chang Lihai moved his body slightly to fit more snugly into the offloading chair and confirmed via radio:

"Our current speed is 4845m/s, altitude 74900;

we will enter pinhead flight mode in 30 seconds. Get ready!"

"Understood! (!!)"

Chang Lihai pressed the button to switch the working modes, then gently pulled back on the yoke until the pressed button lit up red.

This signaled manual confirmation of the angle of attack readiness for orbit entry, leaving the subsequent orbit entry process to the computer, which would only be used manually in an emergency.

And that would be one of the absolute worst scenarios—one where either manual orbit insertion or return would mean all electronic devices were done for. The pilot could rely only on the primitive mechanical-hydraulic control system and a single mechanical navigator, as well as the co-pilot’s visual observations, a difficulty second only to Gagarin’s experience.

After the computer took over, Chang Lihai’s hand left the yoke, which was slowly retracting forward.

Seconds later, the turbofans disengaged from all ten engines simultaneously, the earlier sensation of acceleration abruptly stopped, and the entire cabin became quieter than ever before, with only the faint sound of the air conditioning whooshing and the slight vibration of the fuselage penetrating the sound insulation.

But all four astronauts immediately started tensing their muscles, bracing for the upcoming acceleration.

It felt like a minute had passed, but actually after only 15 seconds, liquid oxygen was first pumped into the pinhead combustion chamber through the pipeline, followed by methane, and the convergent nozzle ignited naturally due to the high temperatures.

The thrust of the rocket engines immediately gave the astronauts a traditional sense of acceleration, but it was still much gentler compared to rockets. Even at its peak, it would not exceed 2.5G, a force that any regular commercial airline passenger could withstand, and it was incredibly easy for fully equipped astronauts.

Chang Lihai turned his gaze to the sky on his left, where the sea had turned a deep blue below, dotted with several huge cyclones. Ignoring them, there was almost no difference compared to normal ocean flight.

The sky was the only thing that had changed, now inching infinitely close to blackness, the lower half that had just been a deep blue exuded a soft, milky white glow, masking the brightness of the stars.

Cloud Ascend’s altitude rose steadily, and its angle of ascent gradually decreased until the Earth’s scenery slowly became confined to just the edge of the atmosphere, with the rest shrouded by stars.

About six minutes later, the engine shut down.

Sunlight streamed in through the porthole, sliding across the faces of several astronauts in turn as the spacecraft rotated, the computer not wanting the sunlight to shine directly into the windows.

The view in the porthole went from the nascent starry sky back to the ground, with the entire aero-space plane now flying in reverse along its orbit.

The status indicators on the control panel turned from red to green, and the force of the acceleration chair on the astronauts vanished, replaced by the sensation of weightlessness.

Chang Lihai gently unbuckled his safety belt, then watched the straps and buckles float about haphazardly.

minutes, where he once would have just reached the patrol area, he had now passed over Hawaii, patrolling the Earth from a higher and more distant place.

"Reporting to Commander, this is 01, I have reached the designated orbit, flight is normal, crew status is good, over."

...

At B-level Base, as Lin Ju’s mind wandered while trying to get cozy with his female assistant, a piece of information flashed through his mind:

[A single-stage spacecraft has entered low Earth orbit; number of astronauts onboard: 4

Under the guidance of the system, your base has successfully produced a spacecraft of historical significance in the annals of space travel.

This marks a tremendous advance, cutting the cost of traveling to space by an order of magnitude once again and is currently assessing the technological level of the spacecraft... Assessment complete:

Overall evaluation: Excellent. Although some of its processes and designs are not the optimal solution, they indeed take into account cost-effectiveness and performance, exceeding the norms of the era with higher durability, demonstrating maturity beyond its time.

Based on the base’s level of involvement, you will receive the following rewards:

Academic paper: "A Potential Method for Implementing Quantum Synchronous Communication （by Zhang Xueyou)"

Appendix: To solve the problem of latency in interstellar communication, the renowned experimental physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, Zhang Xueyou, published this paper in 1954. Over the next seven Earth years, he unfolded related research and successfully provided a delay-free synchronous communication device for humanity’s first Mars landing mission in 1969, for which he was awarded the Hermann Mayer Prize in Physics that year.

Note: Quantum entanglement-based long-distance synchronous communication is of great help to space exploration and is considered to some extent a prerequisite technology for interstellar travel, so please work hard to realize it.]

"..."

"What’s wrong?"

Yu Man felt the shoulder she was leaning against suddenly tremble.

"Nothing... Uh, almost forgot, we’ve got some new technology, just a small portion though.

Damn, why is the world line from which this technology comes so skewed."