Chapter 79: 100% Realism
At the moment of falling, this astronaut almost instinctively made the self-protection movement that had gone through countless trainings and was already engraved in his bones.
Lower the head, hug the chest, and curl up as much as possible.
Those obstacles shaped like moon rocks do have a certain hardness.
The next moment, his body crashed onto those “moon rocks.” But unexpectedly, he did not feel any pain.
Stunned for a moment, he finally switched his thoughts from “Earth thinking” to “Moon thinking.”
The gravity on the Moon is too low. Even when falling, the speed is much slower than on Earth, so this collision would not bring much impact force.
At this moment, that light gravity suddenly increased, and the familiar sensation returned to the cabin.
In the outside world that he could not see, under the cover of night, this massive airplane, after experiencing a rapid descent from thousands of meters in height, at about 1000 meters from the ground, the engine that had entered low-speed operation state suddenly accelerated again.
Amid the roaring sound, more than one ton of gas was jetted out every second. Under this surging retro-thrust force, the massive fuselage weighing dozens of tons quickly changed from accelerated descent to level flight.
After a brief pause, the airplane raised its nose again, climbing swiftly toward the sky at an angle of about 45 degrees. After reaching a certain height, accelerated descent began again.
This time, this astronaut finally took his first steady step on the “Moon.”
Every cycle of pull-up, level flight, descent, level flight, pull-up means the burning of massive funds.
And at this moment, the ones burning funds were not just this one airplane, but a full 64 airplanes.
But everyone involved knew clearly that even if the funds burning speed increased by 100 times, they would still choose to do so without hesitation.
The reason is simple: to truly know and adapt to the Moon environment, besides personal experience, no amount of theoretical study or imagination would be useful.
At 10 p.m., 64 large airplanes landed one by one, and 64 astronauts took shuttle buses back to the canteen.
It was time for today’s extra meal.
Astronauts having extra meals at night was originally routine. But different from before, this time’s extra meal was not a nutritious meal focused on nutritional balance, but included some pork knuckles and fatty meat that looked oily, and sugary carbonated drinks and juice that would absolutely not appear before were also here.
And… this time there was no limit on food intake. Eat as much as you can.
Even with the astronauts’ mental quality, looking at these greasy but delicious foods at this moment, they could not help but start secreting saliva.
The instructor looked sternly at the astronauts and said loudly: “You must eat more! Eat until you are full!”
“Yes!”
Large pork knuckles and five-flower pork and so on were put into the trays, and the astronauts feasted, eating with mouths full of oil.
Looking at the astronauts who were high in spirits and even in the mood to joke, a faint undetectable gloom flashed in the instructor’s eyes.
He knew that the reason the base implemented a policy of no dietary restrictions and even encouraged eating more was to increase fat reserves for the astronauts.
The reason for increasing fat reserves was simple: to prepare for subsequent starvation.
After rocket launch, limited by payload, the spaceship could only carry a very small amount of food, and most of it was water.
And the spaceship from Earth to the Moon requires at least four days.
The process of launching supplies payload from Earth to the Moon is also full of uncertainty, and it is even possible that an extreme situation occurs where not a single supply reaches the Moon.
In this case, what can sustain the astronauts’ lives is only the fat on their own bodies.
Because compared to any kind of food, the human body’s utilization efficiency of its own fat is the highest. That is, for the same weight, transporting the astronauts’ own fat to the Moon is the most cost-effective.
This seems too cruel and cold, but there is no way; rocket payload capacity is limited, and every kilogram of payload must be calculated carefully.
After feasting, the astronauts did some gentle exercise and then entered sleep.
Outside the aerospace base, more people were busy, working through the night without rest.
Professor Chen Yusheng had red eyes, letting bloodshot veins cover his eyeballs. His voice was already hoarse, yet he was still speaking loudly: “Remember, the key points for spot inspection are extreme conditions and high destructiveness. Use the performance of the spot-inspected items to retro-thrust the quality of the entire batch. If unqualified, discard the entire batch immediately!
This is the valuable experience obtained from the previous cycle where we went through a short-term high-intensity mobilization and large-scale rocket manufacturing. It must be implemented in this cycle!
Comrades, it is impossible to improve overall reliability by improving technology in a short time. Improving reliability through engineering optimization is the only feasible way!”
The lights in the precision machinery manufacturing and mechanical spacesuit research and development laboratory building stayed on until dawn without extinguishing.
At 10 a.m. on the second day of this cycle, the first team’s module drawings were delivered.
At 3 p.m., a total of 17 teams’ overall design plans were all completed and summarized to the expert review team.
Absorbing the advantages of various different plans, at 5 p.m., the design plan after overall optimization was delivered to the factory.
Factories that had already made full preparations, stockpiled all possible raw materials in advance, and had all workers on duty immediately started production.
At 6 p.m. on the afternoon of the third day of the cycle, the first batch, over 500 sets of pure mechanical spacesuits, were produced.
After inspection by the expert group one by one, the 64 sets with the highest quality selected from them arrived at the astronaut base two hours later.
This time, the astronauts could finally conduct training in an environment close to 100% Moon conditions.
And at the same time, the spacesuit design and research and development team did not disband.
In the next two days, they would continue to optimize and adjust the spacesuit design plan through sensors installed in the spacesuits combined with the astronauts’ personal sensations.
At the same time, the spacesuit production line was also kept running at all times.
This ensures that once there is a design adjustment, a new set of 64 spacesuits can be fully produced within no more than two hours.
Time quietly passed in this situation.
The sky darkened and brightened, brightened and darkened, and in the blink of an eye, it was the fifth day of this cycle.
The first Giant Spirit God II Rocket had already been transported by a large special truck, clearing roads through mountains and building bridges over waters along the way, and arrived at the launch site.
Jiang Yang, Zhou Yu, as well as Gu Changshan, Sun Changhe, Lu Zhaoming and others also came to the control hall of the launch base again.
The 64 astronauts who had been gorging for more than four days and had gained a slight circle of fat also arrived at different launch sites respectively.
