Chapter 546 - 535 Shipping_1

"It seems you were well-prepared in advance."

Academician She now understood why the March’s central axis segment required a super-large diameter of 14 meters. It wasn’t due to an excess of lifting capacity to spare, but to provide ample space for future modifications and upgrades.

After Phase II of the renovations, the March would resemble a space vessel more than it did currently, indeed an ideal configuration for upgrades.

Lin Ju: "The March’s commissioning will take about a year. We’ll use this entire year to plan the contents of Phase II upgrades, then spend another year completing the transformation. By the end of 2019, we should be done, and there will still be eight months until the next Mars launch window. We could even take a trip there in that time."

"That’s rushing it."

Academician She cautioned:

"Landing on Mars is a systemic issue; a single spacecraft alone won’t suffice. Other preparations also need a launch window. The earliest the Mars spacecraft could depart is in 2022."

Lin Ju: "What if we don’t wait for the launch window? We have reliable nuclear engines and Hall Thrusters. Even outside the launch window, the nuclear engine could make a round trip in four or five months, allowing us to continuously embark on Mars missions."

Academician She: "For an unmanned mission... that might be feasible, but wouldn’t that be an excessive burden?"

Lin Ju: "The nuclear engine can be used for a long duration, just like the Moon shuttle. We can build a specialized spacecraft, and to catch the trend, it could already be considered an interplanetary cargo spacecraft."

"No, no, that’s not right. You almost had me fooled."

In the end, Academician She came to his senses. The coming years were already packed with space missions, and adding Phase II upgrades to the March as well as non-stop Mars missions might just prompt the Finance Ministry to come overturn the Aerospace Development Committee building.

The Tianwen-5 mission plan had also been approved. Next April to May, the country will carry out at least five Mars exploration missions; the responsibilities are already quite vast.

Since a large number of private enterprises now possess mid-to-large size reusable rockets capable of lifting over 500 tons, and many universities are attempting to piggyback small microprobes to Mars, the number of domestic probes during the next window period will definitely increase exponentially.

Despite China’s late start in Mars exploration, the launch was vigorously aggressive...

Seeing that his persuasion had no effect, Lin Ju didn’t get discouraged and instead switched the topic:

"Sir She, the New Yuan No. 4 rocket is completed. There will be a rollout ceremony tomorrow. Let’s go back together tomorrow."

Academician She squinted his eyes: "You rascal, don’t you make me put on a spacesuit as soon as I get off the plane. I warn you, I covered for Yun Hongjun’s incident. Important people have restrictions when flying; you’re taking too big a risk with this stunt."

"How could that be? The Cloud Ascend just landed yesterday; it can’t possibly fly again now."

Only then did Academician She relax a bit. Although he was also eager for space, at his age, suddenly pulling a stunt like Yun Hongjun might just result in a heart attack.

But just when he had eased his concerns slightly, Lin Ju raised his anxiety again:

"The World Things Association is almost over. I’m thinking of inviting those scientists to experience space as well, as a way to repay their support for the accelerator, you see?"

...

October 26, B-level Base.

Before the plane had even landed, Academician She caught sight of the spectacular rocket segments below, with the New Yuan No. 4’s first stage being the most conspicuous, its 95-meter length and 18-meter width clearly visible even from the air.

Seen from a different angle, it looked like a 30-story skyscraper laid on its side, almost as large as the adjacent factory building.

"Hey? Did you get it sorted out? What is the Water Resources Department doing?"

Beneath the tall body of the first-stage rocket, Xie Liaofu frowned as he watched the city official ranting into the phone, and then he said with a troubled expression:

"Mr. Xie, the ferry point has narrowed the river’s width by a few meters due to blockage, so there might be some trouble when the semi-submersible ship departs later."

The ferry point he mentioned was a narrow choke point where a tributary next to the base joined the Min River before flowing into the Yangtze River. Since it was rarely used for navigation, there hadn’t been much traffic, and only last month did they dredge it to facilitate the transportation of rockets by semi-submersible ships.

But unexpectedly, it got clogged again last night. The maintenance staff along the navigation route immediately organized a clearance operation, but due to poor conditions, many machines couldn’t be brought in, and so far, no significant progress has been made.

Luckily, Xie Liaofu had considerable experience dealing with enormous rocket transportation issues and immediately asked:

"Do we have aerial drone footage?"

"Yes, I’ll have someone send it over right now."

Xie Liaofu scrutinized the aerial photos for a while, by which time Lin Ju’s C810 had already landed and was walking in his direction.

After a brief contemplation, he dialed a number.

"Hello? This is Xie Liaofu. A choke point on the route for the rocket transport ship is blocked. Can you think of a solution... Right, artillery might not work and would be too slow. Would dropping a couple of iron bombs do?

... I have the authorization. Okay, good."

After hanging up the phone, he looked up to see Lin Ju and Academician She striding over.

"What’s the matter? It’s already 11 o’clock, why is the rocket still here?"

Xie Liaofu shook his phone:

"The semi-submersible ship and the heavy-lifting crane have arrived at the floating dock. It won’t be long before the core stage is transported, but the channel is blocked. I’m seeing if the air force can blow it open, but we still have plenty of time."

The New Yuan No. 4 definitely couldn’t be shipped out today. The temporary floating dock is located about 3 kilometers away from the base, and transporting it the distance by road would take half a day. The hoisting operation and inspection by the four cranes would require another one to two days. Transport would likely happen on the 29th.

Then, it would take approximately seven days to arrive in Modu City, where it would meet with the assembly container shipped from Huludao, assemble the entire rocket inside the container within seven to ten days, and then spend 12 days to reach Qiongzhou, roughly being around November 30th.

The launch in December, just in time.

Three weeks earlier, the base had also shipped out five 11-meter diameter, 54-meter long cylindrical zero-boil-off liquid hydrogen tanks, each capable of holding 7,356 cubic meters, about 521 tons, of liquid hydrogen fuel.

These zero-boil-off tanks took almost three months to manufacture and have been delivered to Jiangnan Shipyard to be installed on a 100,000-tonne bulk carrier. Then after filling with nearly 300 million yuan worth of liquid hydrogen, they will head to Qiongzhou.

The spherical tank scheme originally proposed was too inefficient in production. Thanks to OGAS2.0 implementation, the base took advantage of the explosive production capacity and worked day and night to complete so many tanks. The two An-1250s also kept busy with back-and-forth flight missions.

In fact, the cost of these five tanks was almost equivalent to half the price of a single New Yuan No. 4. Xie Liaofu once contemplated the idea of directly fuelling the rockets at the dock before launching—after all, the New Yuan No. 4 was a zero-boil-off tank and didn’t have to worry about explosions due to localized excessive pressure within the tank. However, this wild idea was unanimously vetoed by the Aerospace Development Committee.