[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil":3,"chapter-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-635":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","You were told to build a tractor, but you're building a rocket?",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1306242,1735,"Chapter 635 - 620: The Fourth Cycle","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-635",635,"\u003Cp>Gulf of Mexico, Boca Chica.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Starship Spacecraft SN25 combined with Super Heavy Booster B20 stood on the launch pad, it was the fourth Starship prepared for the full-stack launch test.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the latest naming standards issued by SpaceX, the complete system will be named as SS (StarShip) + number, so this one should be called SS-4.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first SS-1 launch date was May 28, and in the span of 7 months, SpaceX launched four combinations at the most insane speed, yet such astonishing efficiency was not at its limit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Including the first-stage SL-X rocket delivered to NACA, they produced a total of 301 Raptor V1 engines this year, averaging a Raptor engine coming off the assembly line every 29 hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All of this, apart from Musk’s bold slogan \"one Starship a month,\" was more importantly due to the covert technical support and large number of orders from NACA since last year, with the Starship Town manufacturing Starships about to complete its second major upgrade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to the plan after January 15, the Starship Factory will have the capacity to produce 30 SS Rockets and 900 Raptor V1 Engines annually, but in reality, there certainly won’t be that many.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if replacing testing with launching, the improvement of Starship still needed time, and the Raptor V1 engine had completely stabilized in the continuous launch tests this year, with Tom Mueller thinking about how to upgrade it on the existing foundation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The new Raptor V2 Engine will increase the thrust from 185 tons to 225 tons, on the premise of reducing the weight by 20%, only second to Bezos’s bald BE-4 engine with 250 tons of thrust, expecting to completely replace the V1 engine by this time next year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If all the engines of the SS Rocket are switched to Raptor V2, the thrust will increase from 6100 tons to 7400 tons, allowing the lift-off mass to increase from 4800 tons to around 5300 tons, which could increase about 30 tons of payload capacity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for Tom, to achieve all this, a premise is the reliability of the SS Rocket, at least the reliability of a one-time launch, proving that the configuration of complete two-stage reuse is correct.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The goal of the SS-4 combination is for the upper stage SN25 to successfully enter orbit, which means that Starship could at least carry out one-off launch tasks, at the very least sending a payload of 120 tons to space.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even the price for a one-time use SS Rocket launch will not exceed 500 million US Dollars, which is definitely an exciting piece of good news. Moreover, with a little effort, it’s not impossible to replicate the feat from six months ago when XAP threw 500 tons of payload into space within a week.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Tom prayed for everything to go smoothly with SS-4 in the control room, he suddenly heard footsteps coming from behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Thank heavens, I’m not late.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A traveled-weary Musk had just flown back from Washington, just in time for the launch of SS-4.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The news he got from the space agency was too stunning and needed time to digest, he had to come and think about countermeasures together with Tom.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An unaware Tom obviously hadn’t thought that much and was excitedly telling him the latest news:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"You definitely don’t know what Rockdain has done recently, they revived that antique F1 for the NOVA rocket, and they plan to develop an F1R that can throttle down to 10%.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Good lord, throttling down from 700 tons of thrust to 70 tons! They performed the first test yesterday and after throttling it failed to ignite successively more than a dozen times, I have a friend there who told me, the media must have been bought off!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the time they sort this out, we probably would have launched SS-20 already! Haha...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Musk managed a forced smile and then countered:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Tom, what do you think we are missing if we want to land on the moons of Jupiter or Saturn?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Uh...\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tom scratched his head, although not quite understanding the significance of the question, he still answered seriously:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Power, an excellent and reliable nuclear engine, just like XAP’s nuclear engines, their technological strength can already do this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Didn’t DARPA reach an agreement with us? If it’s possible to convert the Starship Spacecraft to nuclear power, and solve the gravity issue, disregarding other issues not considered in deep space travel, theoretically it’s already feasible.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As he said this, he stretched out both hands and waved them a few times, putting on a scared expression:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Of course, this would need lots and lots of money, so much that we cannot even begin to imagine, and there’s also the fuel issue. If liquid hydrogen is used, it’s like a super bomb liable to explode at any moment, with such high risk that astronauts would be unable to buy insurance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These should be tasks for the second half of the 21st century. Mars and the Moon are already enough to keep us busy throughout the entire first half.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Tom, Korolyov used to think the same way,\" said Musk, his expression turning serious:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"After Gagarin went to space, we initiated the Apollo program, but the Union scientists believed that landing on the Moon could only be possible after 1980, considering the Apollo program as nothing but a scary distraction, it wasn’t until 1967 that they realized and started catching up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What if I told you the President demands we land on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn within 10 years, and complete an unmanned landing survey of Neptune’s moons, what would you think?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Without hesitation, Tom answered: \"If I were the NACA Director, I would resign.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Musk: \"And what if he said that if you can’t do it, you have to go eat sand in the Middle East?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Tom: \"Then I would go eat sand.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Musk: \"Buddy, the NACA Director doesn’t want to eat sand.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"?!\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Starship’s fourth launch failed, having passed the Karman line.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Musk: The malfunction may be due to excessively high fuel flowability.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Starship’s fourth consecutive failure in 2017, dim prospects for full rocket reusability.\"\u003C\u002Fp>",1022,"2026-06-05T18:21:12.932Z",1,"novelbin.me","cf6ce15e2fbe9c238e7a471be5758ee013130b7ed114fb94e79c1451b87ffbaf","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-636","you-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-chapter-634",804,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fyou-were-told-to-build-a-tractor-but-you-re-buil-cover.jpg"]