Chapter 80 - 78 Entering Orbit_1

"Ss... Ss..."

The insulating material around the Progress had not only blocked the high temperatures but also had some additional benefits, such as soundproofing.

So although Zhou Rui could feel the increasing G-forces, the loudest sound he could hear was the life-sustaining system ventilating air within his spacesuit.

After over eight months of scientific training, Zhou Rui’s mindset had become as steady as his age.

He even leaned slightly to the right to get even closer, allowing his arm to touch the trembling cabin wall, feeling the pulse of the rocket engines as they ejected fuel.

He knew that each engine below him had a turbine pump with a power of several hundred thousand horsepower, and rocket engines were the most primitively violent and aesthetically beautiful things.

The portholes of the Progress were like windows battered by a stormy night, producing rhythmic and clear tremors.

As time slowly passed, Zhou Rui felt the view outside the porthole divide, with nearly pitch-black deep blue ahead and a soft white light emanating from behind.

When the deep blue that was turning black almost drove out the white light, the almost eternal vibration abruptly stopped, much like the absolute silence of a deep summer night when the cicadas cease their chorus.

Zhou Rui’s mind emptied, and as the world spun, the scene before his eyes transformed.

He remembered standing under the eaves as a child, wearing a corduroy jacket, watching raindrops hit the mossy stone steps.

He remembered being put on a water buffalo by his grandfather, leading it towards the fields.

He remembered the evening spent deburring parts in a factory when he heard the college entrance examination had been restored; he remembered his first year teaching at the school, reading in the newspaper about the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia; he remembered the news of 1992, when China mentioned launching its own manned space program; he remembered joining the satellite project, adjusting parameters day and night.

Zhou Rui once thought that attaining the title of professor would be the greatest height he would reach coming from a farmer’s family, but now, he was about to reach the greatest physical height.

"First stage shutdown, first stage separation."

"Second stage ignition!"

The command from the headset woke Zhou Rui from his recollections, and a slight thrust came from his back again, but it was almost negligible compared to takeoff.

This time he could finally turn his head significantly to look out the window, only to see that the first stage of the New Yuan-2, which had detached, was at a vertical angle to them, quickly shrinking until it merged with the atmosphere.

The azure Earth looked like a creator in a movie, its surface clouds flowing and emitting a milky white glow, like a beautiful blue sapphire in the darkness of space.

"Progress, this is ground control, please report the current status of your crew."

"This is 01, status good, over!"

"02 status good" "03 status good"

It was only after reestablishing communication with the ground that the three of them finally felt reconnected with the Earth, no longer feeling like their souls were wandering outside of their bodies.

Deng Lei first greedily memorized the appearance of the Earth through the porthole before reluctantly turning to look at the two "payload" experts.

"02, how do you feel?"

Zhao Xiaowen also shifted his gaze from the window, giving two thumbs up:

"Fantastic! Professor Zhou, your poem? It’s time."

Only then did Zhou Rui remember the agreement they made before going to space, to recite poetry in a chain that matched the experience of traveling in space; after a moment’s thought, he began to recite:

"Gliding once, gliding twice,

Year in, year out, always twice;

Since ancient times, dreams of flight,

When to ascend beyond the ninth height."

"Good!"

Deng Lei, looking at the starry sky ahead, shouted his approval loudly through the headset.

Zhao Xiaowen also offered praise, but then he became worried; starting with "heaven" was not easy to follow.

"Come on, Zhao, quickly!"

"Right, 02, you can’t break your promise."

The latter came from Lin Ju, who heard every word of their conversation clearly on Earth and felt joy as they broke through the atmosphere with them.

Sending three humans into space had surpassed what 99% of the countries in the world had achieved.

Still accelerating on the second stage of the Progress rocket, Zhao Xiaowen struggled for a while before finally thinking of a line and recited it aloud:

"Heaven... Heaven nurtures all things to sustain people, and people have nothing with which to repay Heaven."

Silence fell on the earphones in the crew cabin.

The ground control center fell silent.

After a while, Commander Deng Lei finally managed to say, "I’ve also thought of a verse: ’On the palace steps, the night is cool like water, as I sit and gaze at the Cowherd and Weaver Girl stars.’

"Bravo! That’s some culture, Commander."

Zhou Rui tried to loudly praise it to gloss over Zhao but all of this was caught on the live broadcast.

Lin Ju covered his face, not daring to look at the comments.

"Shut down the second stage, machine-rocket separation!"

At 550 seconds, the second stage engine stopped working and separated. Carrying three passengers, the Progress entered a near-Earth orbit at an inclination of 51 degrees and an altitude of 390 kilometers above the ground, circling the Earth every about 90 minutes.

The trio would orbit the Earth at over 20 times the speed of sound for 48 revolutions, conducting about 72 hours of flight plus some scientific experiments, including aspects of physics, biology, and more, with only one requiring scientific operation, then return to Earth with the results and 50 kilograms of radiation-mutated seeds.

Commander Deng Lei unbuckled his safety belt to save precious time, securing his helmet on the rack above.

With a careful push on the armrest, he slowly floated over toward Zhao Xiaowen.

"Cherish the time, great scientists, you don’t have as much time to enjoy space as I do!"

...

"China’s private space company managed to send people into space within a year of its establishment, so why, after 13 years since specaX was founded and five years since the launch of the Dragon Spaceship, are we still not allowed to carry out manned missions?"

On Little Blue Bird, Ma Yilong tweeted a furious howl at the unequal treatment he felt, accompanied by a photoshopped picture of his own face distorted with rage.

specaX was indeed sour, or rather, Ma had been forced into becoming a lemon spirit.

Although NACA had long begun supporting the Dragon Spaceship to replace Russia’s Union Spaceship, the ISS was extremely cautious about private space companies’ manned spacecrafts, allowing the First Generation Dragon Spacecraft to carry out only partial cargo missions until its retirement.

On the other hand, New Yuan Aeronautics dared to send up three astronauts after just two unmanned test launches, only one of whom could be considered professional. What does this imply? Does this imply NACA’s support for private spaceflight is actually smaller than that of China?

As the trio of Deng, Zhou, and Zhao happily spun pens in space, many foreign media outlets were broadcasting it live, causing a significant response.

After all, this was the world’s first instance of a private space company sending people into near-Earth orbit, even more impressive than Sky Fork!

America and Russia and such countries, however, were relatively indifferent since they had all sent astronauts into space before. At most, a few American private space enterprises faced ridicule, with Ma Yilong taking the brunt of it.

But among China’s neighboring countries, you could smell the sour grapes even across the sea.

The JAXA of the Island Country had the biggest reaction, because their H2A rocket was about as powerful as China’s current strongest rocket, the CZ-2F, always considering themselves equal competitors, and even a bit proud for having some more advanced parameters in their hydrogen-oxygen rocket engines.

Out of nowhere came the New Yuan-2, which instantly outranked H2A, and it could even carry a spaceplane with passengers, something JAXA and NACA had been making PowerPoint presentations about for years!

On the day of the trio’s successful launch, there were people from the Island Country gathered outside the JAXA offices for a vehement protest, eventually forcing JAXA’s board of directors to come out and "privately mime Mass in red bean paste."

Additionally, the voice of the parliament changed, with the pro-China faction beginning to advocate for space collaboration with China, and thus, a new round of media battles was sparked...

Then there’s Korea, which by that time was essentially going from extreme inferiority to extreme pride. They mass-posted anti-China space program comments on YouTube, creating a unique landscape.

Abe... Abe went crazy posting a bunch of his own future space station concept images, knowing that after Unity and Progress were produced, their Mecca would be next.

The children of the almighty would ride their own magic carpet, overlooking the Earth from space!

...

The noisy clamor on the ground did not affect space 390 kilometers away; after Progress entered orbit, the last thing people heard Zhao Xiaowen say was:

"We still have so much fuel left, why don’t we catch up to the International Space Station to take a look? They seem to be in a 400KM orbit."

Ground control: "..."

The live broadcast was temporarily concluded. Over the next three days, there would be a 2-hour public broadcast each day, mainly to conduct some small experiment demonstrations, and Zhou Rui would give lectures directly to the nation.

The Southern Machinery Institute hinted in its communications with orbit that the two passengers should promote the school more, as sending two teachers into space this time had seriously boosted their prestige.

Then Lin Ju received a list of physical examinations provided by several cooperating universities, listing all the young and strong or academically accomplished teachers and professors, hoping they could join New Yuan’s reserve astronaut roster.

Colleagues who were familiar with the older and the younger of them beat their chests in regret, feeling they too could certainly go to space. Those two were neither well-known nor particularly accomplished; they just didn’t know where that dumb luck came from.

Lin Ju, of course, welcomed these people with open arms. It was just about sending people into the sky, after all, costing less than two hundred million each time; it was completely affordable. What was the big deal about going up to get a broader view of the world?

After all, he was planning to send up all the excellent engineers... including himself.

Using New Yuan-2 was still a bit expensive now. With a LEO capacity of 45 tons, it far exceeded the requirements for launching 21 tons of H1. The hydrogen-oxygen engine’s manufacturing costs and fuel were too expensive, and the supportive transport, control measuring, and assembly consumed a considerable amount of man-hours, as well as a significant expense.

Once the kerosene-fueled New Yuan-5 was available, with its LEO capacity of exactly 22 tons, suitable for launching H1, it wouldn’t be as wasteful as New Yuan-2. The estimated cost for each launch would be only 25 million, and together with the price of recycling and refitting H1 each time, it would total less than 50 million, averaging less than 9 million RMB to send one person.

At a price of less than 1.5 million US dollars, it wasn’t just the engineers who could earn a spot up there—even the security department’s dogs could afford a couple of loops!