Chapter 680 - 661: Return to the Jianghu

Qiongzhou, Tengyun Airport.

After initially experiencing a period of piggybacking at space launch sites and undergoing adaptations at regular airports, the Aerospace Development Committee shut down one of Qiongzhou’s dual-use military and civilian airports and refitted it exclusively for aero-space plane services.

Now, the two aero-space planes "Cloud Ascend" and "Liuyun" are stationed here, and next week, "Ruiyun" from New Yuan will also be commissioned, bringing the operation of three aero-space planes into full swing.

So far, "Cloud Ascend" has carried out 31 flight missions and is still far from a major overhaul. Therefore, once "Ruiyun" is in service, the three aircraft will be able to safely manage a flight every two days. Even accounting for routine maintenance and major factory overhauls for inspection, each plane could perform over 60 flight missions a year.

Currently in operation is "Liuyun," which belongs to the Air Force, but is also temporarily serving for space missions.

Liuyun, manufactured later, underwent some optimization and can carry 2+14 passengers with a slight increase in cost-effectiveness.

This is the first flight mission for "Skylight Four," aiming to transport the first group of 15 experts from the five vendors of the explosive devices to space, still three people per party.

There will be several more flights to transport all 25 members involved in the blasting plan to space.

The current congressman Bill Nelson scrutinized the interior of "Liuyun," and then turned to look at Matthew Dominick, the NACA astronaut and engineer who was examining his surroundings.

"Matthew, why are you looking at the ceiling?"

Matthew first looked around, noting that the foreign astronauts were sitting at the back, while the Chinese were at the front, before he spoke in a lowered voice:

"I’m observing its interior design; it can provide references for our aero-space planes."

"But you studied physics, right? How come you understand plane design?"

"Congressman, I must stress that fluid dynamics is a subject with a very broad range of applications."

"Alright, alright... I haven’t been to space in almost forty years; I just want to see what the Moon looks like."

"But isn’t it more interesting to see the Moon blown up by a hydrogen bomb?"

"Perhaps it is. I just hope the British people’s hydrogen bomb is reliable and doesn’t knock down the spacecraft we are on."

What Bill was referring to was yesterday’s launch of the Ariane 5 rocket, the European Space Agency’s final one-time large carrier rocket, which took off from Guyana Hair Branch to deliver a 2-tonne circumlunar probe "Peregrine Falcon" to the Moon—along with a 300-kilogram hydrogen bomb with a yield of 1.5 million tons.

As a veteran senator, Bill knew these were among the earlier batches equipped by the Royal Air Force and were supposed to be retired by procedure, now serving as a way to recycle waste resources.

Choosing May 9th for the detonation was not only the result of discussions among experts but also urged by the UK. The maintenance cycle for this hydrogen bomb was due in early July, and they did not want to waste more money on it.

They even hinted to the Aerospace Development Committee that the UK could provide a lot of nuclear warheads, with yields ranging from 30 to 5 million tons, most of which were nearing maintenance and "excess," less costly to detonate on the Moon than to dispose of or maintain.

Indeed, the Pentagon also entertained similar ideas. According to public data, America still possesses nearly 6,000 nuclear weapons, some of which are atomic bombs, others are aerial bombs, or nuclear landmines and artillery shells from the Cold War stockpiles.

The genuinely strategic deterrent missile warheads only totaled over 1,000, leaving at least 1,500 hydrogen bombs that could be "dealt with" without affecting strategic security and providing enormous cost savings.

Following the explosions of three hydrogen bombs in Fukushima, when authorities realized that public reaction was not as strong as anticipated, countries gradually relaxed their minds and became less cautious about nuclear bomb usage outside of Earth.

However, United Mining had no desire for an excess of cheap nuclear weapons for mining, as too many bombs, especially low-yield nuclear weapons, would cause heavy residual radiation that impacts ore grade. Limited usage of some was sufficient.

The nuclear bombs provided by the UK for testing were installed with the "Peregrine Falcon" probe, to be captured and disassembled by "Chapter 9" or "Dawn One" when needed.

The safety was undoubtedly secure—as the UK had modified its fuse to be extremely safe, there was no need to worry about orbital explosions affecting all spacecraft.

Indeed, the hydrogen bomb had a significant impact on the Moon mission, with two of the three new modules for the expansion of the Black Rabbit Space Station already built but waiting for the results of the nuclear explosion impact assessment before being launched and docked. Most of the lunar-related exploration programs were also suspended.

Bill couldn’t help but recall the near-universal resistance of the scientific community to hydrogen bombs in his youth. If they knew that one day hydrogen bombs would be used for cost-effective resource extraction, would their attitude be different?

...

The Pentagon.

"Anthony, Colonel Anthony, please come out."

At the entrance to the office area of the Air Force Intelligence Room, a stranger shouted Anthony’s name, accompanied by the head of intelligence, prompting the puzzled young colonel to look around before standing up and walking over quickly.

The visitor looked him over and then introduced himself:

"I’m David Usno. I’m here to confirm something with you: last year, around this time, you tracked and observed an unidentified flying object codenamed NX17, correct?"

Memories from a year ago instantly surfaced from the depths of his mind. NX17 had always been a thorn in Anthony’s side, but after the dissolution of the special office, it was difficult for him to access satellite data and continue the investigation. Hearing this codename again sent a surge of excitement through him.

"Yes, of course, NX17 is..."

"I know all about it."

David waved his hand to interrupt him, then continued:

"All your conclusions are in the report. I’ve read those. I’m here to tell you something: NX17 has appeared again."

"Where is it, when!"

Anthony got somewhat emotional, but quickly realized where he was and lowered his voice, his eyes widening with surprise as he said:

"I knew it, I just knew it was still there—it must have a secret!"

"Yes, it’s still there."

Discovering NX17 was a complete surprise for David. Having acquired authorization from the President and the military leadership at the Pentagon, he was able to investigate all materials related to ’XAP’ and naturally came across NX17.

Intuition told him that NX17 must hold a big secret, so he quickly had the intelligence agencies collect all the information they could, only to find out that the ’counterweight’ codenamed NX17 allegedly ’entered the atmosphere and crashed’ more than half a year ago.

To cover all angles, the intelligence bureau utilized the general-purpose artificial intelligence developed in collaboration between the MIT AI lab and OpenAI to conduct a broad search within the vast information database of the Pentagon.

The breakthrough came when, on December 16 of the previous year, a geostationary reconnaissance satellite and a low Earth orbit satellite log both recorded a signal Anthony had been desperately chasing. With records from two satellites, the source of the transmission could be roughly located near the reconnaissance satellite and its rough direction at the time.

Only artificial intelligence could patiently sift through the colossal sea of data, as it would have been impossible to do so by manual means.

So the question arose: if NX17 was still transmitting signals, what crashed into the atmosphere, and why would a ’counterweight’ drift from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit—a difference of more than thirty thousand kilometers?

"Colonel Anthony, I’m now inviting you to join Office Thirteen and to resume the investigation of NX17."

"Of course... uh, I couldn’t refuse, could I?"

"Colonel, you lost the right to choose as soon as you heard that name."