Chapter 174: Space Dock
“Countdown 3, 2, 1, 0… Ignition!”
Blazing flames erupted from the base of the largest rocket in human civilization’s history.
Within its 133-meter-tall fuselage, which had a total mass of over 4200 tons, about 80% of the total weight—over 3300 tons of fuel and oxidizer—burned furiously, propelling the mountain-like rocket slowly into the sky.
The sound was like thunder, deafening even from several kilometers away. Its blazing tail flame, containing immense power, jetted onto the ground, causing the land to tremble slightly.
In the past, such giant rockets were typically used for Earth-Moon Transfer Orbit, Earth-Mars Transfer Orbit, or for launching detectors to deep space destinations like Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and even the Kuiper Belt.
But this time was different.
Its destination was merely Low Earth Orbit, just a few hundred kilometers from Earth’s surface.
In the past, such “small” missions were usually carried out using small rockets.
The greatly shortened distance to the destination brought a massive increase in its payload capacity.
With just a single launch, it could send over 300 tons of supplies into space!
Finally, the huge supply boxes, divided into ten sections, slowly arrived in front of the massive body of Earth 6 Space Station.
Astronauts tethered with safety ropes were already in position, ready and waiting.
They gathered all the supply boxes. Once the packaging was opened, subsequent work began immediately.
Building materials, devices, sealed panels, cables, pipes, and the like were taken out one by one and installed onto the already massive body of Earth 6.
At the same moment, launch sites elsewhere on Earth were also carrying out launches of Julingshen IV rockets.
The arrival of thousands upon thousands of tons of supplies and materials caused all 26 space stations around Earth to begin expanding in volume.
In the aerospace launch command center, Professor Chen Yusheng looked serious.
“This is our alternative plan.
Large rockets have long manufacturing cycles and high technical difficulty. In the short term, it’s simply not feasible to rely on large rockets to launch sufficient supplies to the Moon.
Only small rockets that can be standardized and mass-produced on assembly lines—especially reusable small rockets among them—can undertake this task.
But small rockets lack sufficient thrust and cannot send supplies into Earth-Moon Transfer Orbit. So split the task into two parts.”
His voice was filled with confidence born from a deep understanding of current technology and engineering power: “Transform the existing 26 Earth space stations into 26 transfer docks in space;
Reusable small rockets only handle launches from Earth’s surface to Low Earth Orbit, delivering spaceship components, fuel, personnel, replenishment goods, and the like to the transfer docks. Then, spaceships heading to the Moon are assembled on-site at the space stations, fueled, crewed, and launched from the space stations to the Moon!
Because assembly and transfer happen at the space stations, a complete Moon spaceship can be broken down into several parts, greatly reducing mass and correspondingly shrinking volume. Small reusable rockets can fully handle this task!”
Hearing Professor Chen Yusheng’s overall plan, Jiang Yang felt a slight ripple in his heart.
The plan seemed very simple overall. But Jiang Yang, who had already accessed a great deal of information and knowledge, knew there were countless tricky details involved—far from as simple as it appeared.
Just rocket control, cargo docking, space station assembly, and the like involved countless cutting-edge technologies.
Not to mention that, once this mode was adopted, it wouldn’t be long before space was filled with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of supply boxes, spaceship components, crewed space capsules, and so on.
With so many flying objects traveling at speeds over 7 kilometers per second, the coordination and control issues alone were daunting to contemplate.
There was another, even more serious problem.
Replacing all large rockets with small reusable rockets… how many would be needed?
“According to our preliminary estimate, the number of rockets required for the entire launch task is at least 200 times that of large rockets.
Calculated on the basis of a reusable rocket being usable ten times in its lifecycle, the number of rockets needed for this task is… 100,000. The number of launches would be around 1 million.
Calculated at 160 tons of fuel consumed per launch, fuel alone would require a total of about 160 million tons.”
160 million tons…
Jiang Yang nodded silently.
“The unified manufacturing standard for small reusable rockets has been released, and the global aerospace industry is already integrating. It will soon be completed.
Reusable rockets produced under this standardized production mode only need some in-factory testing upon leaving the factory to be put into use—no need for the repeated testing and debugging that took months or even years in our era;
For all other aspects—rocket transportation, replacement of vulnerable parts after recovery, maintenance, fuel production and transportation, fueling—everything related to launch tasks will be integrated into a single whole.”
Professor Chen Yusheng said slowly: “There are no technical issues whatsoever. The only obstacle we face right now is one.
Industrial capacity.”
Jiang Yang was somewhat surprised.
“With everyone in the world organized, that’s still not enough?”
“Maybe enough, maybe not.
The scale of this project is simply too enormous—unprecedented in our entire history. Even if we throw everyone in the world into it… who can truly know if it’s enough?
In any case, let’s get started.”
…
Just as Jiang Yang had described, at this moment, almost all mobilizable manpower worldwide had been thrown into this unprecedented industrial production task.
On the fifth day after the mobilization order was issued, commercial streets, pedestrian streets, entertainment streets, and the like in all large, medium, and small cities around the world had all become deserted.
Not only were there no pedestrians or customers, but all shops had also closed down.
All tourist attractions, big or small, were completely empty.
Not only were there no tourists, even the scenic area staff had all been conscripted.
Elderly people, children, and the ill were uniformly resettled and cared for by dedicated personnel. Starting from high school, all students were also organized and thrown into this global production effort.
Those who could cook went to cook, those who could drive went to transport, electricians went to maintain circuitry, those who could repair went to the repair shops.
Even if someone knew nothing and had no professional skills, they could at least sort vegetables, wash vegetables, tighten screws with a wrench, or sort scattered cargo in warehouses, right?
Under military control mode, no one could stay out of it.
