Chapter 95: Sharing This Moment
Fan Ren’s arm was gripped tightly. He gently patted Zeng Yingying’s delicate hand back to comfort her, then turned his gaze to the command hall.
The young engineers at this moment all couldn’t help but hold their breath, even Zhang Yuanda, who was always known for his confident and calm style, now had his breathing somewhat stagnant.
On the big screen, two astronauts wrapped tightly in spacesuits appeared in front of a cabin door.
Li Jian placed his hand on the cabin door’s control rotation disk, took a deep breath, his arm muscles bulged, and slowly began to turn it.
“Is this the moon surface?”
The cabin door slowly opened, and the gray sandy stone surface appeared before his eyes at such a close distance for the first time.
At the distant horizon, the dark universe was like an abyss, awe-inspiring.
Li Jian didn’t delay too long; he knew this scene was being watched by countless people on Earth right now.
His body stood straight, and he stepped forward firmly with his foot.
“The soil is loose, similar to desert, yet harder than desert.”
This was his first thought.
But he said aloud: “Report to command headquarters, I have successfully exited the cabin, state is good.”
Li Jian’s lips moved slightly, his voice as steady as ever.
As he finished this sentence, the Immortal Palace Space Station, 300,000 kilometers away, happened to pass over Great Xia.
Looking down through the glass, on Great Xia’s territory at this moment, countless faint lights began to flicker like stars.
People of Great Xia, one after another, on this extremely exciting night, took to the streets and lit celebratory fireworks.
Sharing this moment across the world.
“Success, can you let go now?”
Fan Ren’s brows relaxed, his gaze turning from the big screen to Zeng Yingying beside him.
“Ah, okay. Sorry, sorry, too nervous.”
Zeng Yingying’s tone carried a bit of coquetry, but without her previous shyness. Over this period, she had grown accustomed to the occasional intimate contact between the two.
In the command hall, cheers from the crowd followed immediately, for a moment seeming to burst through the roof, deafening.
Fan Ren watched the scene before him and couldn’t help but feel proud along with it.
Boss Li Jian had become the first astronaut in Great Xia aerospace history to set foot on the moon surface.
This scene was enough to go down in history.
Kyoto, Imperial Palace.
Ye Rongshan sat in front of the television, gazing kindly at the two young astronauts on the screen.
One was a young man named Li Jian, who was now buried in the base supplies first delivered by Star Transport Two, operating the equipment.
The other, slightly younger, seemed to be named Shi Xianliang, who was leaping several meters high not far away, then slowly landing.
Relishing it tirelessly.
“Elder Ye, you should rest.”
The young guard softly reminded; it was now nearly 12 o’clock, over four hours past the rest time instructed by the health doctor.
“Watch a bit more, watch a bit more, I love watching.”
Ye Rongshan squinted his eyes, head not turning, just staring at the two vibrant figures on the screen.
Far away at Spitz Company Headquarters in the United States, Mark sat in the office, staring at the two astronauts standing on the moon surface on the screen; ripples of emotion stirred in his heart too.
He could hear the cheers coming from outside.
These company engineers had no other messy thoughts.
In their eyes, this moment held only the shared pride of aerospace personnel.
Once upon a time, Spitz Company was the great company leading global aerospace progress.
Now, this great historical process had been rapidly achieved by Great Xia in a jaw-dropping speed, in just half a year.
At this moment, the secretary pushed the door open and handed over the telephone.
“Call from President Wells.”
Mark reached out to take it, waved his hand signaling the secretary to go out and wait, then said into the earpiece: “President.”
“Mark, when is your spaceship going to Mars? What are you still delaying for? Great Xia has already sent their astronauts to the moon. Do you know what that means? It means if you keep delaying, in a few days’ polls, my support rate will drop to a laughable level!”
He moved the earpiece slightly farther away; this president, who had received his funding support, was in a very bad temper right now, his impotent rage noisy and annoying.
“Where is he? Didn’t you hear me?”
Mark took a deep breath, calming his emotions somewhat.
“The Mars Project has entered the implementation stage. Current preparations are almost complete. With the support from Xinghai’s Star Transport Series Rocket, we no longer need to wait for the Mars-Earth close approach window to launch. Estimated one more month to send our Mars command space station into the predetermined orbit.”
“Impressive, using Great Xia’s launch vehicle. Do you know what that means?”
Wells’ mocking voice sounded; after hearing this, Mark’s brows furrowed.
“It means our United States is inferior to them in launch vehicle strength. I know, I know it all. But without their transport service, our ‘Mars Project’ would have to wait another half year for launch. Do you understand? Would that make you happy?”
“Hmph, launch as soon as possible. I don’t want any surprises in the next election.”
Wells disdained his mockery, coldly hung up the phone.
Two days later, Star Transport Three, Four, and Five arrived successively at the moon.
Thus, Phase Two of the moon landing project officially began. Li Jian and Shi Xianliang would complete the construction work of the Lunar Base ‘Guanghan Palace’ over the next few months.
According to the plan, the first stage of ‘Guanghan Palace’ would be built from a huge folded building materials package transported by the spaceship.
After unfolding, the floor area would reach 150 square meters.
The remaining two spaceships transported various highly automated tools and life support systems.
Transport capacity is limited, time is tight.
After completing this transportation mission, the Star Transport Three, Four, and Five spaceships would return to Earth again to prepare for the second round of supplies transportation mission.
This process would continue until the overall construction of the ‘Guanghan Palace’ base was completed, and the exploration of mining points was finished.
While people on Earth were still immersed in the great joy of the successful moon landing, the two astronauts Li Jian and Shi Xianliang had already begun operating various highly automated tools to start the initial base construction work.
Xinghai Aerospace Base similarly had no extra time for celebrations. After the three Star Transport Series Rockets flew back to Earth and were successfully recovered, the young engineers plunged into the tense and busy inspection and maintenance work.
Twenty days later, the three Star Transport spaceships set off again fully loaded.
This process continued until five months later, after the lunar base’s basic construction was successful, before it changed.
Then, 17 astronauts who had been waiting eagerly boarded the newly completed batch of Star Transport spaceships in groups to fly toward the moon.
And the work they would do next was the mining plan that Fan Ren had been eagerly awaiting.
