Chapter 105: Time To Reflect
This Kyoto trip not only reached a series of decisions with the military headquarters regarding the future use of astronauts.
Moreover, Fan Ren also went to the Ministry of Industry and, with Li Jiandong’s approval, finalized the plan to build Earth-Moon civilian communication satellites.
Once this communication satellite is built, the personnel stationed at the Lunar Base will be able to contact their families on Earth anytime and anywhere, thereby providing them with some emotional value to a certain extent.
Fan Ren might not be able to do much, but he will try his best to accomplish whatever he can under the conditions.
Three months later, a shocking piece of news instantly spread across global networks.
In the Mars Project, a serious accident occurred on one of the five spaceships heading to Mars, a manned spacecraft.
A female astronaut got pregnant!
In the newly established quantum communication laboratory.
After hearing this news, Fan Ren was completely dumbfounded.
“Crazy, didn’t Mark consider this? Why mix male and female astronauts together?”
“I don’t know what he was thinking, but the networks are going crazy now.”
Zeng Yingying wiped the tables and chairs while looking full of gossip, her charming eyes filled with curiosity.
Fan Ren chuckled helplessly, quickly opened his mobile phone, and started browsing related news.
As he expected, there were many opinions on the network about this incident.
Some commented that this was due to serious negligence by the person in charge of the Mars Project, caused by selecting extremely unprofessional astronauts, and punishment was necessary.
Others were even more vehement, launching highly insulting personal attacks on these two astronauts.
Another side stood up to strongly support these two astronauts, believing that this situation was normal; if anyone was to blame, it was Spitz Company for not considering this in advance and thus not providing production and childcare equipment on the spaceship beforehand. Astronauts are human too, desires must be faced squarely, and astronauts should not be criticized for this.
Another comment made Fan Ren burst out laughing.
“From manned moon landing to Mars Project, they are always ahead of us, even space babies will be their first achievement. At this moment, I think we need to reflect!”
Hearing his laughter, Zeng Yingying walked over and looked at the comment Fan Ren pointed to, then immediately laughed so hard she couldn’t straighten up.
Too good at stringing things together.
And at that moment, the screen on his mobile phone changed, incoming call display: Mark.
“Good morning, Mark.”
Fan Ren stopped laughing and greeted him, then patted Zeng Yingying’s back beside him to help her catch her breath.
“Not good at all, and please ask the lady next to you to stop first, my head is about to explode.”
Zeng Yingying knew that the call at this time must be to discuss something important, so after stopping her laughter, she brewed a cup of tea for Fan Ren and then withdrew.
“Alright, now it’s just me, tell me, what’s the exact situation? I’m also very curious; with your United States aerospace community’s years of experience, didn’t you consider this at the time?”
“Hey, do you think we wouldn’t consider this? I know our country’s astronauts too well.”
Hearing this, Fan Ren was immediately puzzled.
“Then why did such a stupid incident still happen?”
“Stupid? It’s more than stupid, it’s simply FK, forgive my native language for being as barren as a desert in terms of curse words, this really makes me angry. F!K!”
Fan Ren moved the earpiece of his mobile phone farther away; although he really wanted to laugh, he held it back.
This matter was simply ridiculously absurd.
“But you know, we have a lot of messy organizations here, because of them, I had no choice but to arrange female astronauts on every spaceship. I even prepared BY sets for them! FK!”
‘Pfft’
Fan Ren finally couldn’t hold back and laughed out loud.
“Now it’s great, my Spitz Company has completely become a laughingstock.”
Listening to Mark’s tone in the earpiece, as if he had already lost hope in life, Fan Ren felt too embarrassed to mock him anymore.
“Now what, do you have any plans?”
“FK! If possible, I’d love to use a laser weapon from science fiction novels to blow up that spaceship.”
Fan Ren was helpless; this matter had indeed dealt too heavy a blow to Mark.
“Alright, you’re not calling just to vent to me about this, tell me, what plan do you have?”
The earpiece fell silent, Fan Ren didn’t urge him, lit a cigarette and took a leisurely puff, quietly waiting.
“No way around it, she’s already 2 months pregnant, and at this point without professional medical equipment, it’s impossible to abort.”
Mark sighed, then continued: “I think a real Mars rescue might have to take place.”
The next day, facing the increasingly intense public opinion situation and the plummeting stock price, Mark, as president of Spitz Company, held a press conference.
Today, the world’s eyes were focused here, with overall heat even exceeding the moment of Great Xia’s moon landing live broadcast at that time.
“President Mark, regarding the female astronaut who unexpectedly became pregnant en route to Mars, what are your company’s plans next?”
Mark stood on stage, looking at the reporters below whose eyes burst with eager gossip, felt anger for a moment, then forced himself to calm down.
“This unexpected incident has provided us with lessons from experience. After internal company discussions, we have now decided to carry out a rescue plan for this astronaut.”
“President Mark, can you announce the specific time and details of the rescue plan? Otherwise, can we consider that Spitz Company is delaying time?”
Mark coldly glanced at the reporter who spoke, secretly noted the person’s appearance, then said coldly:
“Spitz Company is very concerned about the physical and mental safety of these astronauts. Of course the plan content can be announced, unlike some enterprises that, when something happens, only drag it out, pinning hopes on expensive insurance premiums to buy off the media and suppress the matter.”
The reporter in his line of sight heard these highly targeted words, averted his eyes and didn’t dare meet his gaze.
Mark immediately knew the person’s background.
‘Damn broadcast, wait and see, I won’t let you off!’
He hadn’t forgotten the main matter, cleared his throat, and continued:
“Our company has reached an agreement with Xinghai Technology; they will dispatch a Xingyun series spaceship for emergency launch in one week to deliver related medical facilities, as well as two astronauts with relevant professional knowledge to go together.
And with the consent of this female astronaut, we plan that upon arrival at Mars, these astronauts will station at the Mars Synchronous Orbit space station, awaiting the arrival of the delivery period; we will welcome the birth of this ‘space baby’ in space.
Calculations show that the timing is fully feasible.”
After Mark finished speaking, exclamations of astonishment immediately arose at the scene; many actually thought this incident would ultimately end up like the spaceship launch by the broadcast company back then that failed to return, handled in a similar way.
That is, keep dragging it out until it quietly uses the media to suppress the news and is forgotten by people.
Although this would cost a large sum in hush money, it should be the most cost-effective way to handle it.
But no one expected that Spitz Company would truly initiate a rescue plan for the parties involved in this incident, and cleverly use this event to conduct a human never-before-attempted space childbirth experiment.
“The plan will cost 30 billion, and at that time, it can complete the research content on whether Mars in the Mars Project can support long-term human activity and reproduction.”
