Chapter 91: I’m Coming
This was the method that the aerospace experts had told Jiang Yang about back then, on how to send Jiang Yang, who had no aerospace experience at all and had not received any professional training, to the Moon.
After launching Jiang Yang into space, another astronaut who had been successfully launched into space, experienced and well-trained, would come over, dock with the spaceship where Jiang Yang was, transfer all supplies and fuel as well as the astronaut himself to the spaceship that Jiang Yang was riding on, and have that astronaut take charge of all subsequent operations.
Throughout the entire process, Jiang Yang didn’t need to do anything; he just needed to quietly wait.
And now, astronaut Li Hui had arrived.
“Jiang Yang received.”
Through the external camera, Jiang Yang saw that spaceship still slowly approaching him. When the distance was only a dozen meters left, there was a brief jetting of gas from it, and thus the two spaceships entered a state of relative stillness.
At this moment, both sides were traveling side by side around Earth at a speed of more than ten kilometers per second.
The cabin door of that spaceship opened, and a figure wearing a bulky mechanical spacesuit emerged from it.
He had a safety rope tied to his body, with the other end connected to the spaceship.
After exiting the cabin, he nimbly climbed to the upper part of his own spaceship, removed the cover plate, carefully took out the modularly manufactured fuel block, pushed off with his feet from the spaceship, and drifted lightly toward the spaceship where Jiang Yang was.
At this time, Jiang Yang heard a faint hissing sound, like gas flowing.
At first, the sound was still quite noticeable, but it soon weakened and eventually disappeared. At the same time, some originally recessed areas on the mechanical spacesuit bulged up.
Jiang Yang knew that at this moment, the cabin had been pumped into a vacuum.
The ship body suddenly vibrated once. Through the external camera, Jiang Yang saw that Li Hui had grabbed a protrusion on his spaceship and secured himself there.
The cabin door slowly opened, and Li Hui directly tossed that fuel block inside.
Ignoring Jiang Yang who was floating motionless in mid-air, Li Hui grabbed the safety rope and slowly returned to his own spaceship.
This time, the supplies he brought over turned into oxygen, food, drinking water, and so on.
Through the external camera, Jiang Yang quietly watched Li Hui who was constantly going back and forth busy, his heart always hanging in mid-air.
Space navigation, especially extravehicular activity missions, was extremely dangerous.
Even in normal situations with full preparation, one must be exceedingly cautious, let alone in this moment when everything was so rushed.
As long as there was one careless moment or any slight accident, Li Hui could be trapped in this vast space, and the Earth side would have no way to rescue, only able to watch him die helplessly.
Such enormous mental pressure, such a precise and complex mission—any ordinary person would have already collapsed.
But at this moment, Li Hui was like doing an ordinary thing, every movement smooth and fluid, the entire mission seeming commonplace without any difficulty, even making Jiang Yang involuntarily feel like “I could do it too.”
After making several such round trips, that spaceship was completely emptied, while the spaceship where Jiang Yang was gained extra fuel sufficient to carry more payload to the Moon, as well as oxygen, water, food, and so on sufficient to sustain two people.
After transferring the last batch of supplies, Li Hui finally entered this zero gravity cabin as well, firmly closing the spaceship cabin door.
And the other spaceship, under remote control from Earth, used its last bit of fuel to start retro-thrust, slowly disappearing into the vast starry sky, clearing the orbit.
“Report to Earth, report to Comrade Jiang Yang, I have completed the supplies transfer mission.”
“Earth received.”
Li Hui skillfully pressed several buttons in the spaceship, and moments later, the hissing sound of air flowing reached Jiang Yang’s ears again, and the bulged areas on the mechanical spacesuit sank back down.
Jiang Yang knew that the cabin interior now had pressure again.
Li Hui first removed his own helmet, took off the bulky mechanical spacesuit piece by piece, carefully secured it, then came before Jiang Yang and removed the spacesuit from his body piece by piece.
Breaking free from the constraints of the spacesuit, Jiang Yang finally let out a long breath, feeling as if his soul had become free at this moment: “Thanks for the trouble.”
“Comrade Jiang Yang, no need to be polite. I will escort the rest of the journey.”
“Good.”
With one more person, the already cramped cabin became even more crowded. But having broken free from the spacesuit constraints, Jiang Yang instead felt it was a bit more spacious.
In the time that followed, Jiang Yang became a spectator.
He watched as Li Hui checked various readings every interval, constantly communicating professional issues back and forth with the Earth side, constantly receiving instructions and executing related operations.
A thought naturally arose in Jiang Yang’s mind: “This is indeed very complex, not something that can be mastered in a short time.”
After another two hours or so, Li Hui looked at Jiang Yang: “Now we’re going to do orbit change.”
“Good.”
Jiang Yang grabbed the handle, floated to the bottom of the cabin, and secured himself.
Moments later, the cabin suddenly vibrated once, and a faint gravity instantly enveloped his whole body.
The clothing hems, arms, and such that had been “floating” as if in water were instantly pressed against the floor.
This gravity lasted less than a minute before disappearing, and Jiang Yang’s body began to float again.
Li Hui got up, quickly checked some parameters, then breathed a sigh of relief and reported to the Earth side: “First orbit change completed.”
“Earth received, bon voyage.”
Li Hui looked at Jiang Yang again: “Next, all we need to do is wait.”
Jiang Yang nodded silently.
He knew that at this moment, this spaceship had entered the Earth-Moon transfer orbit, truly embarking on the journey to the Moon.
He raised his head and looked at Earth captured by the external camera on the screen, seeing that Earth seemed a bit smaller.
At this stage, every second that passed, the distance between him and Earth would expand by more than ten kilometers.
He stayed in the cabin like this, sleeping when tired, eating when hungry, and staring quietly at Earth when awake.
Anyway, all operations in the cabin were handled by Li Hui; he didn’t need to do anything.
So he clearly watched Earth getting smaller and smaller, from originally occupying the entire view, to the size of a millstone, then a basketball, a football, until now the size of a volleyball.
The external camera gradually shifted its orientation.
And so a massive planet occupying half the view, with its gray-white ground and numerous impact craters and ring mountains clearly visible, appeared on the screen.
Looking at this massive planet, a thought flashed through Jiang Yang’s mind.
“Moon, I’m coming…”
