Chapter 670 - 651: Moving Forward

The day before Artemis IV was to fly to the Moon, the last shuttle, Storm, detached from the Forward Space Station, bringing back to Earth the last seven astronauts including Li Sheng.

After the Pioneer spacecraft detached, only one shuttle was left on the Forward Space Station. To bring down all 26 astronauts, the H1 Type Firm spacecraft was used ahead of schedule, sending down 19 astronauts in two batches.

It wasn’t until the early hours of February 24 that the last seven astronauts left on the shuttle after a thorough inspection, which was four days later than the planned schedule.

Through rounds of stringent checks by humans and robots alternately, the Forward Space Station had finally met the conditions for rotation.

Aside from its initial configuration, all other docked spacecraft had detached. Including the various experimental equipment and a large amount of materials it brought on later, the Forward Space Station’s current mass was about 1695 tons.

Since its full construction was completed, 113 days had passed. It took nearly four months for the ground team to inspect this unprecedented man-made celestial body and for the astronauts to adapt to life on board.

Now, after a long period of testing, it was about to enter its first operational test run.

Inside the Capital Ground Command Center, Ye Changsi, as Commander, was simultaneously directing engineers from both the space agency and the New Far Base.

The initial design of the Forward Space Station was completed by Androff, with Xie Liaofu taking over in the official construction phase, and later, Ye Changsi also deeply involved.

In theory, Xie Liaofu would have been more appropriate to be present, but he was still eating dust in the Northwest Gobi Desert, so for the time being, Ye Changsi would direct the trial operations.

Besides him, Xie Liaofu, He Tang, and Shen Zuozhou were assigned as deputy commanders. Currently, only Shen Zuozhou was actively collaborating with him.

Shen Zuozhou’s involvement with the Forward Space Station project wasn’t extensive; this originally should have been Academician She’s role, but the latter had officially decided to step back from front-line work and enter a substantive semi-retirement state after March.

In terms of operational quality, technological level, and configuration, the Forward Space Station could be considered unprecedented. Even though the space agency had been involved in constructing six critical service modules, its understanding of the station could not be described as profound.

Previously, when the Forward Space Station had just started its construction, there was a unanimous skepticism and resistance within the space agency, because the design time was far too short, and New Yuan had no experience designing and operating a large space station.

Building a space station is not just a technical issue; it’s also about the accumulation of experience, very similar to designing a warship.

The tonnage of a destroyer is only a few thousand tons, while a long-distance cargo ship easily reaches tens of thousands of tons, but in terms of design difficulty, the former is definitely greater.

Warship design must consider protection, anti-flooding capabilities, redundant power, balance of speed and endurance, and maneuverability, which already far exceeds the complexity of civilian ship design.

What’s more important is the various radar, electronic equipment, and weapon systems required by modern warships. Just the electromagnetic compatibility testing of a modern warship’s equipment can take a year.

The same principle applies to space stations. The technical difficulty of large cabins used solely for space tourism lies mainly in materials and processes. But for a massive structure like the Forward Space Station, every detail must be considered for the overall functioning of the operating space station.

This is absolutely a complex mega project that is difficult to measure, requiring rich experience and ample preliminary validation tests. The risk of moving straight to construction as the Forward Space Station did is high enough to make one’s scalp tingle.

The reason why the space agency invested a huge sum to get involved in this project was largely to "save" this super expensive mega-project and to avoid the biggest space accident in history due to elementary mistakes.

However, as the space agency’s involvement deepened, things started to get strange.

In the construction blueprints handed over by New Yuan, there appeared a large number of designs that they couldn’t understand, either not knowing what function they served, or knowing the function but not understanding why such design solutions were adopted.

Then engineers sent by New Yuan would explain the reasons, and the space agency was astonished to find that the original design of the Forward Space Station was not rough, but rather excessively exquisite, considering almost every detail.

Shen Zuozhou had participated in the manufacturing of the service module’s noise reduction and the cabin’s gravity/weightlessness adaptability ergonomic equipment. He then realised in shock that the noise reduction and gravity-related optimizations of the Forward Space Station’s main cabin were far more refined than those of the Tiangong Space Station.

After the Forward Space Station’s main body was fully constructed, he was constantly under a strong illusion:

It seemed impossible that the Forward Space Station could have been designed by one person or a dozen people in a short time. It felt more as if they had obtained an existing blueprint and followed it, which could have made it nearly flawless upon completion.

The design and construction were completed smoothly in one go, so much so that it was hard to believe.

Although there were "rumors" that New Yuan was backed by a group of overseas Chinese highly skilled in technology, not even by emptying NACA’s archives could such detailed blueprints be found.

In the end, he had to believe that the researchers’ capabilities were insanely strong and the few leading ones were geniuses in science and engineering to have accomplished such a miracle in such a short time.

The space agency had been involved for so long, but no one dared to guarantee they fully understood the space station, so much so that Shen Zuozhou was known as the deputy commander but, in fact, was still desperately learning about the space station from Ye Changsi.

As for He Tang, who joined the work in Beijing later, he was even more in the stage of diligently studying.

And now, Ye Changsi was focusing on the most core rotation control module that was being remotely transmitted from the base.

The control console of the Forward Space Station’s pilot cabin was also synchronously displaying the same information, further illustrating its high level of autonomy.

What Shen Zuozhou saw was a three-view diagram of the Forward Space Station’s framework, with different shades of blue filling each part. A red dot at the center of the front view was flashing, overlapping a slightly larger green dot.

"Green represents the geometrical center of the Forward Space Station, determined from the factory data of each cabin and structural framework.

We measured their mass, dimensions, and center of gravity distribution in advance and entered them into the computer. A completely empty Forward Space Station, once installed in place, would have its center of gravity deviate from the rotational center by no more than one-thousandth.

And you know all the supplies we provided for the Forward Space Station had to be strictly packed in a specific manner, so their data can also be seen as nearly standard and entered into the computer to correct the current center of gravity.

Of course, all these are only theoretical references, not rigorous, and are merely used as a basis for adjustment after rotation. The actual situation is far from this simple."

Ye Changsi was not only explaining to Shen Zuozhou and He Tang but also indirectly imparting knowledge to Li Sheng, the captain of the Forward Space Station.

The latter had just come down and still needed time to adapt, but he never stopped his journey towards becoming a qualified captain of a space vessel.