Chapter 611 Landing

November 5th.

The Lunar 8 spacecraft, which had been orbiting the moon for almost three days, finally began the landing procedure at about 3:30 in the morning.

At this time, both the Houston Space City on the ground and the Outpost 1 base were highly tense.

You must know that two consecutive failures have hit the limit on the morale of NASA and the North American people.

If it fails again, the NASA administrator can choose to take the blame and resign, and the next North American aerospace development will fall into an extremely passive stage.

Outpost 1 in the lunar night phase.

Wade and Hawke, who were constantly reducing their daily food rations, looked frighteningly pale.

On the one hand, two consecutive supply failures put them under unprecedented psychological pressure; on the other hand, they were in a state of semi-starvation due to insufficient nutritional intake.

This situation aggravates their health problems. After all, space syndrome is difficult to avoid when living in outer space for a long time.

The two of them were in the temporarily modified scientific research cabin B1, staring closely at the radar monitoring data.

This time NASA learned its lesson and gave Wade and Hawke the power to make emergency decisions. In the event of an emergency, NASA can manually intervene in the control of the spacecraft.

The command center of Houston Space City has no choice but to adopt this expedient measure. After all, the communication between the moon and Houston is delayed. Once an unexpected situation occurs, it will be difficult to respond in time.

The time on the instrument is beating minute by second.

Wade was about to intervene in the control of the spacecraft, his palms were already sweating, and he was staring at the radar data.

Hawke on the side is not idle either. He is following the data transmitted by the Lunar 8 spacecraft.

The spacecraft began to dive towards the lunar surface. In order to ensure safety, NASA and General Electric adopted a very conservative plan this time, reducing the original payload of 12.2 tons to 8.7 tons.

The extra payload will be used for fuel, and it is planned to use an ultra-slow landing.

With the recoil adjustment of the auxiliary engine, the Lunar 8 spacecraft slowly landed at the designated location. This landing method can only be executed smoothly on a low-gravity planet like the moon.

Although some fuel will be wasted, the safety is relatively high. Even if the spacecraft loses control, it will not completely crash, at least there will be no major problems in the supply module.

175 seconds to execute the landing procedure.

The spacecraft successfully landed at a position about 1.13 kilometers northwest of Outpost 1, and the process was uneventful.

"Huh! God bless!" Wade was completely exhausted.

Hawke on the side was not much better. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and immediately sent the successful landing report edited in advance back to Houston Space City.

Inside the command center at Space City Houston.

There was also excitement at this time, and NASA executives, including Administrator George, as well as people from General Electric, also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Success this time is too important. If it fails again, the problem will be huge.

Of course, George did not take it lightly. After receiving the confirmation report from Outpost 1, he called several executives and people from General Electric to his temporary office.

NASA's troubles aren't over yet.

Although Lunar 8 successfully delivered 8.7 tons of supplies to Outpost 1, there are still a lot of things to do next.

For example, the health issues of Wade and Hawke, and the fact that Outpost 1 must undergo an astronaut rotation in about 100 days.

Next, there will be the expansion of the Outpost 1 base, the establishment of the lunar route, and the increase of space transportation capacity.

Had it not been for the consecutive failures of Luna 6 and Luna 7, NASA would not have been so passive, causing many previous plans to be disrupted.

Originally, according to the plan, Lunar 8 or Lunar 9 might be used for astronaut rotation, sending the two Hawkes back to Blue Star, and at the same time sending two new astronauts to Outpost 1.

But now, the plan is completely messed up.

However, the next two launch vehicles will be delayed by a few weeks to renovate the previous capsule and prepare the next batch of supplies.

After all, the new astronauts are about to pass, and Outpost 1 will definitely have insufficient supplies at this time. NASA plans to reserve at least 10 months of food reserves for Outpost 1, and ensure that the base will have no less than 5 months of food reserves when astronauts are stationed there. .

Only in this way can a food crisis similar to this one be avoided.

This happened mainly because NASA's plan was unreasonable and it overestimated its own strength.

Seeing that the China Space Administration launches every day and maintains a 97.5% success rate, they thought they could do it, but they almost failed.

With this painful lesson, NASA has to consider safety issues, although so far, no astronauts have died in the line of duty.

But if you continue to waste money, big problems will occur sooner or later.

Astronauts are human beings too. If the mortality rate is too high, it is estimated that no one will want to go to space. Especially after the failure of the first two launches, some astronauts are already a little uneasy.

What's more, it is very troublesome to train professional astronauts. Each one is made of money and sacrificed in vain. NASA will also feel heartache.

NASA re-adjusts various plans and requires major aerospace companies to strengthen assistance and improve the safety performance of launch vehicles and spacecrafts, even if they sacrifice part of the payload, to ensure safety.

At least this painful lesson is not entirely a bad thing for NASA.

What was previously a radical and chaotic development may turn into a steady and collaborative one.

I don’t know how long it will take NASA to complete the internal integration. If it cannot be completed within one or two years, the gap between them and Greater China in the aerospace field will continue to widen.

Outpost 1.

The hungry Hawke and Wade did not go to receive the supply cabin immediately, but hurriedly had a meal to comfort their five internal organs.

It's been so difficult for them these days. They are worried all day long and don't have enough to eat. These days are almost driving them crazy.

After eating, the two of them wiped their bodies with hot wet towels, then lay on the floor and turned on the TV.

Now they just want to relax. Anyway, the supply module has landed safely. There are 8.7 tons of supplies in it, enough to support them for four months.

Toad Palace TV also broadcast the news of the successful landing of Moon 8. Obviously, every move here has not escaped the other party's surveillance.

"Wade, do you think the Chinese will save us if we lose our supplies?"

"..." Wade said with complicated eyes: "Probably not. After all, this kind of thing is of no benefit to them. Even if they pay, the result will be the same."

Hawke also fell silent. In the space race in front of him, the China Space Administration alone can dominate other forces around the world, and the gap between the two sides is very large.

These days, they secretly watch the Toad Palace TV station and get a lot of information from it.

The current scale of Guanghan Palace Base is almost 8 to 10 times that of Outpost 1, and the technology is more advanced and various supporting facilities are also very complete.

Hawke can be elected as an astronaut, so he is naturally no ordinary person. He has a doctorate and degrees in mechanical design and aerospace engineering.

I have been working hard at NASA for more than ten years and understand some situations in the aerospace field.

From his point of view, Guanghan Palace Base can already be regarded as a small city. Especially now that Guanghan Palace Base now has local industry, its subsequent development will definitely be faster.

The opponent's increasing strength made him involuntarily feel a sense of despair and fear.

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