Chapter 561 - 549 Dawn_1

If Lin Ju had to use a metaphor to describe the difference between riding a spaceship and other spacecraft, he thought the most similar experience would probably be on a roller coaster.

Unlike rockets and planes, Chapter 9 countered gravity with four air spike engines at the bottom; the two engines at the rear mainly provided thrust for horizontal movement, but both could be obtained simultaneously through attitude transformation.

For conventional space shuttles and rockets, the thrust source is relatively fixed, and the trajectory also needs to follow certain rules, most of the time Lin Ju could predict how the attitude would change in the next second.

But Chapter 9 was different; it was more like a quadrotor drone, with the four air spike engines providing a wide range of thrust vector adjustment, capable of flexibly switching attitudes under AI control.

Although Chapter 9 operated in a vacuum environment, it inherited the design shape of the XN90; even without wings, it had considerable aerodynamic performance, with the fuselage and the propulsion modules on both sides forming a central lift body configuration, generating significant overall lift at certain angles of attack and speeds.

The XN90 was designed with sudden malfunctions (non-human) in mind; with sufficient initial height or speed, it could even support an unpowered emergency landing, illustrating its aerodynamic capabilities.

During Chapter 9’s takeoff to the Renshou supply point, it would maintain an altitude of over 3000 meters, flying at a supersonic speed with an angle of attack greater than 10 degrees, reaching a top speed of over Mach 2.

Sitting in the cockpit of the spaceship, Lin Ju could only see the sky rapidly receding behind the porthole while feeling the astonishingly loud noise inside the cabin.

One of the unavoidable problems of a multiplicity-shaped supersonic object was intense body vibration because of the larger cross-sectional area, the sound and motion were much more terrifying than that of an airplane of the same class; the combined thrust of the six engines was only 180 tons, but the intuitive feeling on the ground was comparable to that of a thousand-ton heavy rocket.

At the Renshou supply point next to the Min River, the base engineers had been timing the launch of Chapter 9 from there.

They had temporarily borrowed an abandoned factory building by the river and cleared out a large area; the original ground was made of concrete, covered with a layer of steel plate.

In fact, the thrust of Chapter 9’s engines was only about 25 to 30 tons each, and the concrete ground could completely withstand it, but they needed to consider aging factors to prevent the ground from being blown into chunks hitting the spaceship.

About two minutes later, the supply point saw a black irregular flying object appearing in the sky, from the ground the silhouette of Chapter 9 at 3000 meters height was not small.

Hu Dong stood on the open ground with acoustic earmuffs in hand, ready to put them on at any moment, silently calculating the time it would take for the supersonic shockwave to reach the ground.

However, what entered the ears before the sonic boom were the shouts from the distant fishermen and the local people taking a walk nearby the Min River; they had also spotted the unidentified flying object suddenly appearing in the sky, each trying to take photos with their phones held high.

Hu Dong finished counting down quietly to five and immediately put on the earmuffs; in seconds, he felt the ground begin to violently shake—the shockwave had reached the ground.

Those without earmuffs could only feel the continuous thunderstorms being generated by their ears; the originally calm surface of the river was broken, and the curses of the fishermen rose but were then covered by the air’s explosive shock.

They were somewhat used to the sonic boom, after all, the frequent flights of Cloud Ascend often made such noises, one could hear it every few days.

Of course, what most intrigued them was the unidentified flying object in the sky that clearly did not look like a plane; just as people were recording amidst the noise, they found the unidentified flying object began to gradually decrease in altitude—was it actually attempting an emergency landing?

But Chapter 9’s movements were faster than their thoughts; after all, it only had enough fuel for six minutes, 150 kilometers was the maximum distance for a single atmospheric jump flight, and before people could fully understand, it descended in a spinning motion from the sky almost without any hovering, continuously decreasing altitude, with the high-temperature gas spread by the tail flame dispersing in all directions forming gusts of wind.

This spaceship, which seemed to have traveled through time from a science fiction movie, landed in the center of the abandoned factory, enveloped by clouds of dust, as if it had just gone through an intense battle.

The fire trucks that had been prepared in advance quickly moved out to spray mist water over the spaceship to cool it down; after the steam and dust veiling the spaceship dissipated, the side door of the cockpit opened downwards, and a figure in a spacesuit climbed down, pulling off the face mask and breathing in the fresh air deeply.

That was undoubtedly Lin Ju himself; although he was also a practiced pilot, the overloads of Chapter 9 were not simply directed backward but were irregular, making it very easy for someone to feel dizzy from the shaking.

The mere five-minute flight was comparable to a roller coaster supplemented with a rotating mechanism, with both acceleration and deceleration being too intense.

The engineers all gathered around ready to check the spaceship and refuel, while Lin Ju suddenly heard his mobile phone vibrating.

"Hello?"

"Where are you now, are you on the spaceship?"

"Ah? Sir She, I’m shopping in the city."

"Bullshit! You’ve been filmed on TikTok!"

Only then did Lin Ju notice that many citizens and vehicles had gathered outside the abandoned factory, continuously raising their phones to shoot in this direction; at this distance, they could already see the grey "XAP" logo on the side of the spaceship.

Many even recognized Lin Ju’s figure, and he turned around and waved as a greeting, then stood farther away from the spaceship.

"Don’t rush, Sir She, next time I’ll invite you too; the kind that goes straight to space, even to the Moon if you like.

Not talking anymore, my phone’s out of liquid hydrogen."

After hanging up the phone, Lin Ju also opened the front-facing camera and took a selfie with the Chapter 9 spacecraft, posting a copy each on Weibo and Twitter.

...

Site 507.

To prepare for the year-end United Mining exploration campaign, the five astronauts and payload specialists selected by the UK had all arrived here for adaptation training.

This included nuclear expert Jamie Stevenson and aerospace specialist Anthony Hopkins, who had earlier come to participate in negotiations. After receiving a period of theoretical training at the European Space Agency, they had transferred here.

In fact, they were only required to master the most basic space knowledge; the main point was to get to know the crewmates they would be working with in their flight mission and to familiarize themselves with each other for better communication.

Such a short time wasn’t enough for them to learn Chinese, but University Information Communication provided them with a simultaneous translator that wasn’t available on the market, which could even capture individual voice timbres. The results were very effective.

And now, Stevenson was discussing the structural composition of the Moon’s geological layers with Academician Zhou, who was also planning to go to the Moon—this was a crucial basis for formulating preliminary plans.

The two were passionately exchanging views when Hopkins approached with cheers, holding a cup of coffee and walking briskly toward them.

"Jamie, we’re going to ride on a real spaceship!"

"Hiss~"

Stevenson and Academician Zhou both widened their eyes as they watched the short video shot by the citizens of Renshou City, especially the scene where Chapter 9 descends from the sky and Lin Ju jumps off the spacecraft.

Anyone who had watched a science fiction movie could almost imagine such a scenario: humans of the future arrive at a new planet, then descend to the surface in an advanced landing spaceship to begin their exploration.

Such an event had actually happened in reality, and more than an hour after Chapter 9 had landed, it took off again towards the docks in Yizhou. The ascent was even more shocking than the landing; it was hard to believe what was happening before one’s eyes was real.

Naturally, Stevenson and the others could recognize this as the landing spaceship United Mining would use. Site 507 had built a wooden model based on its structure for training, which everyone was familiar with.

However, looking at a picture was one thing; the actual flight process of the Chapter 9 provided an entirely different sensation. The impact the Chapter 9 made was perhaps even stronger than that of a mega-tonne super rocket.

If the experts didn’t know for a fact that the technology used by Chapter 9 was not too advanced or secretive, they might have been tempted to suspect it was a UFO.

"Damn, I can’t believe I ever doubted its authenticity."

Hopkins had even publicly criticized Chapter 9 before, arguing that according to traditional astronautics, its ideal design should be cylindrical like a rocket, simple in structure, and highly mass-efficient, with empty weight only half or less than that of Chapter 9.

But having seen the seemingly unscientific craft with his own eyes, he immediately discarded his previous thoughts. Just based on the appearance and landing posture alone, he had become a staunch supporter of the spaceship faction.

Stevenson: "CZ-18 seems to be launching in half a month. We should rent a helicopter to see what it looks like as that super rocket sends this spacecraft into space."

Hopkins: "But I feel like the rocket’s backwash may flip the helicopter, or even cause a tsunami."

"You worry too much, Anthony."

Although Stevenson wasn’t knowledgeable about spaceflight, he was very clear on the power of an underwater nuclear explosion; at least, the impact generated by a rocket would not be stronger than that of a nuclear bomb.

The UK had many nuclear materials shared with America, so their experience was not limited.

Hopkins: "Alright then... But we should go to Qiongzhou tomorrow. There’s a new spaceship launching there, and I want to see it."

"It seems to be a passenger spaceship used between the Tiangong Space Station and the Black Rabbit Space Station, called... um..."

"Dawn One."

Academician Zhou completed the name for him. The "Dawn" was the name for the spaceship fitted with the A100 nuclear engine. It looked similar to the Dawn Spaceship, only somewhat longer, but its mass was much greater, nearly 30 tonnes.

The Dawn spaceship was scheduled to be launched unmanned on November 19 in Qiongzhou by a New Yuan-2, and after docking with the Tiangong Space Station, it would conduct its first manned round-trip test, delivering 1.5 tonnes of supplies and three astronauts to the space station in lunar orbit.

Hopkins: "Yes, Dawn One. I thought I could ride on the Storm."

Stevenson: "I’d rather go on the March. That’s way cooler than a space shuttle."