Moscow.
Federal Security Service.
A man in a gray leather jacket was sitting behind a desk. He tapped the table with a pen while looking at the report on the table.
Suddenly, someone knocked on the office door.
The man behind the desk stopped what he was doing and looked at the door.
"Come in."
The door was pushed open, and a skinny man walked in.
"The latest report from the Foreign Intelligence Service, as well as the news from the Federal Space Agency." The skinny man placed the document on the table and said, "It seems that the China people succeeded."
The man gently tapped the table with his index finger. He picked up the document and flipped through it page by page.
Five minutes went by.
He put down the document in his hand and looked at the agent standing in front of the desk.
"Is that all?"
The agent nodded with a dignified expression and continued.
"The local military patrols are too strict, and there are reconnaissance planes patrolling the nearby airspace. We can only observe from a distance."
The man in the gray leather jacket nodded and didn't make things difficult for his subordinate.
After pausing for a moment, he slowly stood up from his office chair and put the document together with the previous report into his pocket.
"I will report this matter to Mr. Vladimir. Tell the Foreign Intelligence Service to keep an eye on the latest news from Skyglow. If there are any new discoveries, report to me immediately.
"Especially the propulsion system they used …
"I need to know what it is!"
…
There was one thing that Lu Zhou wasn't sure about.
Even though the ground command center was in chaos for a while after discovering that he was missing, when they heard from Nie Yun that Lu Zhou was safely on Skyglow, they gradually calmed down.
After all, Lu Zhou was already in space, so there was no point in panicking.
They couldn't just make a space shuttle turn around and come back, right?
Therefore, after confirming that Lu Zhou was safe, Hou Guang quickly regained his composure and took on the task of commanding the ground command.
Cruise time: 5 hours and 27 minutes.
Skyglow followed the original plan and contacted CTV through the ground command center. It sent a 25-second New Year's Day congratulatory video.
Originally, this video was planned to be shot by two astronauts, but now that there were more than two people on Skyglow, Nie Yun and Nie Yan couldn't pretend that Lu Zhou didn't exist. Lu Zhou obviously couldn't refuse such an interesting opportunity. Therefore, the original plan was to have two people in the video.
In the end, Lu Zhou, who was standing in the middle of the video, cupped his hands at the camera. On behalf of the astronauts and the ground command center, he congratulated the people of the country on New Year's Day.
Lu Zhou sent the video back to the ground command center with a smile. North America, which was 13 hours behind Beijing, finally ushered in New Year's Day.
However, last night, a lot of people lost sleep because of the news that was suddenly reported by Columbia TV.
According to official Twitter statistics, in the first half of December 31st, the football game was at its climax. However, almost one-third of the people in North America were talking about the aerospaceplane that was launched from the other side of the world.
This was extremely rare …
The pride of being an aerospace power had always been written in the bones of the Americans, and it had even become a part of their culture. Not only was it because only Hollywood could make a true sci-fi blockbuster, but it was also because since the Cold War, no country had ever been able to surpass the United States in the aerospace field.
It was impossible in the past, and it was impossible in the future.
However, now that the strangely named aerospaceplane had been successfully launched, this pride was smashed to the ground.
Especially when people heard that the rumored Skyglow was using ion thruster propulsion!
This kind of shock and disbelief that came from the depths of his heart was even more difficult to express with words …
Especially people in the aerospace field, especially engineers at Space-X, Blue Origin, and other aerospace giants. When they saw this news on TV, they couldn't believe their eyes.
NASA's most advanced ion thruster propulsion technology couldn't even launch an egg into the sky. Star Sky Technology, which provided "technical services" for lithium batteries, used ion thruster propulsion technology to launch into the sky?
Was there anything more sci-fi than this?
Compared to the truth, they would rather believe that this was an April Fool's Day joke four months in advance …
Other than the engineers who worked at Space-X and Blue Origin, the people who had the most headaches were the NASA employees.
Originally, they should be taking a comfortable annual vacation at home, taking their wives and children to Hawaii to enjoy the warm sunshine. However, at this moment, they were all forcibly pulled out of their vacation because of the damn sky shuttle across the Pacific Ocean.
Since last night, the NASA headquarters building had been surrounded by major media vans. The crowd didn't disperse until the next morning. Many people who came to work were blocked at the entrance. It took a lot of effort to get past the reporters who handed them microphones to squeeze into the building.
In order to get rid of these annoying reporters, NASA had no choice but to hold a press conference. They invited all the reporters to the reception hall in the building and gave this troublesome task to the interns who had just finished their induction training.
Amidst the chaos, the press conference reluctantly began.
Because there were too many reporters, the scene was extremely chaotic.
There was no time for the spokesperson to speak at all. The reporters in the lecture hall rushed up and handed over their microphones like crazy.
"This is a reporter from Columbia TV. I want to ask you, is the news that China launched the Skyglow space shuttle using the latest ion thruster propulsion system?"
"Does the successful launch of Skyglow mean that China has caught up with us in the aerospace field?"
"I want to know where the 40 billion US dollars are spent every year!"
"We did receive a notification about China's launch of a new space shuttle, but they did not explain in detail what kind of launch technology they used." The NASA spokesperson spun the pen in his hand and said, "We will keep a close eye on the progress of this matter. There is nothing to say right now.
"But what I want to say is that a successful launch doesn't mean it was a successful launch. From the launch of the spacecraft to orbit operation, to the final re-entry into the atmosphere … Only when this series of operations is completed can it be counted as a successful manned space mission."
As soon as this sentence came out, it immediately caused a small commotion at the scene.
The New York Times reporter immediately took out the microphone and asked, "You mean, Skyglow, which uses the latest ion thruster propulsion technology, might fail during the atmospheric re-entry stage? Is this NASA's opinion? "
"I didn't say that." The spokesperson opened his mouth, but he didn't deny it. Instead, he used an ambiguous way to express his opinion. "Whether Skyglow is using an ion thruster propulsion power system has yet to be confirmed. Similarly, whether China's launch can be considered a success depends on whether they can return the astronauts safely."
When the reporter from The New York Times heard this, his eyes lit up.
It wasn't just the reporter from The New York Times, it was the same for reporters from other media outlets.
There was a commotion at the scene, and the atmosphere suddenly reached its peak.
Big news!
NASA predicts that Skyglow's design is flawed, and it will crash into the atmosphere?!
The spokesperson, who was standing on stage, was sweating profusely. He didn't know what to do.
As expected, this intern is still too young.
Even though the spokesperson's words were watertight, it still gave the reporters an opportunity to interpret the situation.
However, even though the press conference was in chaos, NASA didn't care about Yu Yu for the time being. Compared to how the media interpreted this matter, NASA was obviously more concerned about Skyglow's situation in the sky …
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