Chapter 74 - 72 Space Press Conference_1

"Tomorrow belongs to SpaceX! Ma Yilong claims Falcon 9’s success was ’expected,’ and states that SpaceX is developing a super heavy-lift spacecraft for landing on Mars, performance to surpass Falcon 9 by an era..."

Although in this timeline Ma is the second aerospace company to achieve rocket recovery, and strictly speaking Falcon 9 is the fifth recoverable rocket, compared to before Lin Ju’s time travel, Falcon 9 achieved successful rocket recovery six months ahead of schedule.

All those fireworks weren’t set off in vain; stimulated by New Yuan, Sky Fork combined with the power of capital to successfully reuse Falcon 9.

This was a stimulant for world aerospace, proving that rocket recovery is a viable and achievable path. Although New Yuan grew rapidly, it was not uncatchable.

Capital, long agitated by New Yuan, quickly poured a great amount of hot money into SpaceX, with a new round of expected fundraising of $25 million. Ma’s previously somewhat tight funds quickly swelled, enough to support future heavy-lift rocket plans.

Moreover, after the successful recovery of Falcon 9, the CBC configuration of "Heavy Falcon" could become a reality, with an LEO capacity of nearly 70 tons, and 45 tons with recovery, a heavy-lift rocket fully capable of competing with New Yuan-2.

Ma was full of pride and satisfaction, and NACA naturally followed the flow and engaged in vigorous promotion. For a time, Sky Fork seemed to have gotten ahead of New Yuan again.

As for the reaction in China: netizens worried that New Yuan Aeronautics had too shallow a power foundation and might be overtaken by Ma; Lin Ju was indifferent; the aerospace bureau... He Tang was now on the verge of madness.

New Yuan had succeeded in recovery, Ma Yilong had also succeeded, and the CZ-6 recoverable from Institute No. 5 was almost pushed to the back of the queue!

After the explosion of CZ-6 Remote 1 in April, Institute No.5 worked overtime to improve the control system and attempted to improve the 1553B data bus to enhance its ability to handle complex situations.

The second CZ-6 has now been completely assembled, and it’s the full-status version that can launch satellites.

The 8 satellites from various universities and institutions for the Remote 2 mission were ready, just waiting to be launched.

But He Tang still did not have much confidence in the Remote 2 mission; sending satellites into orbit was fine, but recovery...

He was tempted to delay it further, but any more delays could mean falling from third to fourth, fifth, even sixth place. There was no time to delay!

After a whole day of internal conflict, He Tang decided, June 25th, to proceed with the CZ-6 reusable Remote 2 rocket launch mission!

...

June 9th, Qiongzhou Space Launch Site Building 2, the Progress space shuttle was being hoisted vertically, mounted on the second stage of the New Yuan-2 Remote 2 Rocket.

The workers never stopped their discussions because this time it was a space shuttle!

After all, both America and the former Union invested massive efforts to create such things. If you have it and I don’t, it seems like an incredibly advanced gadget, very difficult to make.

Now that China could also make it, there was an inexplicable feeling of "it seems not that special after all."

Progress didn’t need an external fairing and was mounted directly on the rocket, so the crew members would have an excellent view:

The front windows would show the sky, the side view would be from approximately 87 meters up, equivalent to being at the top of a drop tower ride in an amusement park, a mere imagination of which would make one’s legs go numb.

However, for Zhou Rui and Zhao Xiaowen who had accumulated hundreds of flying hours on airplanes, it was manageable, and for Deng Lei, a pilot with several thousand hours of flying experience, it was regarded as nothing.

Inside the assembly building, Academician She counted the number of thermal protection tiles on the surface of Progress and marveled:

"Only a few hundred thermal protection tiles, and they’re so large in area, plus being reusable, New Yuan has done extremely well in the field of thermal protection materials. It seems the Columbia incident would not happen to them."

In 2003, America’s Columbia space shuttle disintegrated on its 29th flight due to the loss of thermal protection tiles, causing local temperatures to exceed 2800 degrees Celsius, wing failure, and eventually tumbling and crashing, killing all seven astronauts onboard.

Thereafter, one of the major criticisms of the space shuttle was that too many unreliable thermal protection tiles but clearly, H1 had already solved this problem.

Looking at the Progress spacecraft, marked by noticeable wear from its multiple atmospheric flight missions, Academician She’s thoughts began to wander.

He started to seriously consider Xinyuan Company’s lunar landing proposal, a space shuttle with a laden weight of about 100 tons, carrying 2 to 5 astronauts, fitted with a life-support cabin, and the cargo bay loaded with a 25-ton Moon Lander. The shuttle would be propelled by a nuclear thermal rocket engine to save fuel on its way to the Moon’s orbit, completing its mission before returning fully intact.

What had sounded like a boast now appeared highly feasible.

The future development path for space exploration he had originally envisaged was being shattered piece by piece. Academician She added New Yuan Aeronautics into the mix, pondering an entirely new future.

Meanwhile, inside Building 1, the first-stage rocket of New Yuan-2 Remote 1 had already been readied and was waiting to be joined with a new second-stage rocket.

The H1-2 machine, Unity, was also set to be transported at the end of the month for its third launch mission in July.

On June 10th, with only five days left until the New Yuan-2 Remote 2 mission, Xin’an Automobile publicly announced that its first pure electric sports car, "Xin’an XC4," would be officially launched on June 15th and start accepting orders, with delivery expected in eight months.

New Yuan Aeronautics and Power and Southern Industrial Autos forwarded this message, both collaborating to push it to the top of the trending searches, immediately causing a surge of intense interest.

The reason for the interest wasn’t that New Yuan was preparing to enter the new energy vehicle market, but rather the location of Xin’an’s launch event: a 300 km Low Earth Orbit.

In the promotional image, a car covered with a black cloth floated above the Earth.

Considering the launch timing of the New Yuan-2 Remote 2 rocket, it was easy to understand that the New Dynamic X4 was going to be launched into space!

An automobile launch event held in space!

It wasn’t just a huge sensation online; competitors were shocked and bewildered.

In the past two years, Southern Automobiles’ sales had indeed climbed steadily, but to quietly reach the heights of space exploration, and to send a car into space!

They could imagine how strong the branding effect would be, directly reversing the image of domestic vehicles.

But it didn’t stop there, for Southern Automobiles subsequently announced that it would also launch a 2.0T luxury large-size SUV, the CS105, with a space launch event of its own. However, from ordering to delivery, it would only take three months.

hours later, the previews for these two launch events had left the entire world’s automakers dumbfounded.

Sometimes, what defeats you isn’t necessarily your peers, but cross-industry competition.

Clearly, the marketing stunt framed around the allure of space in 2015 gave people a tremendous shock. The new Xin’an XC4, purportedly developed in collaboration with New Yuan and utilizing advanced aerospace technology, was immediately entrusted with high expectations and inherently exuded luxury upon its release.

No one would think domestic cars should be cheap anymore, and even the guesses for the price did not start below three hundred thousand. The luxury vehicle status was acknowledged from that point on.

At the headquarters of Southern Automobiles, Chen Jun analyzed to the group of executives with a sense of pride:

"Sending a car to space, the first time it’s refreshing, the second time it’s still impressive, but after that, it won’t work.

People will eventually realize that they are two different matters, so even though we’re spending a lot, in terms of elevating our brand positioning and raising the level, we have definitely gotten a great deal."

The group of executives clapped vigorously; after all, when you bet right, everything you do is right, and the rewards are substantial.

Then, when choosing between being transferred to the group’s headquarters and being recommended as the CEO of Xin’an, Chen Jun decisively chose the latter.

Though it carried more risk, the platform offered a better starting point.