Earth Era - Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Rocket Launch

The materials storage warehouse of the Crimson Heart spaceship has been installed in the Large God rocket. At this moment, the Large God rocket stands next to the launch tower. The huge rocket body, standing at 70 meters tall, points directly to the sky, and a powerful breath that breaks through the sky is constantly emanating from it.

After the old man gave the order, the five astronauts stood up at the same time, saluted the operators in the control hall, and then turned around and left the control hall in a neat formation.

Through the monitoring screen, Zhao Huasheng saw the five astronauts getting on the shuttle bus, which drove directly to the launch tower. The five astronauts got off the bus and then took the elevator to the level of the tip of the large rocket.

The staff has been evacuated from the launch tower. Through the aerial bridge, the five astronauts entered the rocket one after another. Then the material storage warehouse outlet was closed, and the rocket passage was closed.

The cameras in the reserve warehouse transmitted the astronauts’ images in real time, and the cabin astronaut suit was constantly monitoring their heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, and body temperature data. The anemometer reported the surface wind speed and high altitude wind speed at the moment, and the meteorological satellite reported the current weather conditions. The rocket sensor reported the operation status of the instruments in various parts of the rocket. The staff were working hard, and an extremely solemn atmosphere enveloped the entire control hall. The old man’s image was always on the big screen, and it was clear that the old man had been watching here.

About forty minutes after the astronauts entered the rocket, Wang Tang came back to the big screen again and reported to the old man: “Report the leader, everything is ready, the rocket modules are normal, the weather conditions are good, please give instructions!”

The old man nodded: “Launch!”

Wang Tang turned around and shouted loudly, “Enter thirty seconds countdown!”

On another screen, two huge Arabic numerals appeared, one was three, the other was zero. Moments later, the numbers changed to twenty-nine.

At this time, the huge steel frame connecting the rocket and the launch tower around it suddenly broke apart, breaking the connection between the Apollo rocket and the launch tower.

Constantly, there were reports from various modules of the rocket, and after each report, all of them were followed by four words: “Everything is normal,” meaning that the Apollo rocket was in good condition.

When the countdown reached four, on the large screen broadcasting the real-time external view of the Apollo rocket, Zhao Huasheng saw a crimson flame at the tail of the rocket. The flame was not strong, but it looked full of power.

In just four seconds, this cluster of rockets rapidly intensified, eventually taking the shape of a vertical launch. At the same time as the flame intensified, the four boosters installed on the Ares rocket were also ignited. The light of the boosters and the main engine of the rocket blended together, eventually becoming so bright that it was almost impossible to look directly at them.

“Zero!”

“Launch!” Wang Tang shouted out the two words with force.

At this moment, the flame emitted from the tail of the Ares rocket intensified again. These flames were colorless and transparent when they just left the rocket, with only the distorted air around them indicating their power. After a few meters away from the tail of the rocket, they revealed a strong red color, rolling in a cluster.

There was a large amount of white dense fog steaming out of the rocket’s tail, almost covering a space of tens of meters around. Zhao Huasheng knew that it was the flame ejected from the rocket being diverted by the guide duct and then quickly evaporating with a liquid used to cool down.

It was then that Zhao Huasheng, who was sitting at least a thousand meters away from the “God of Power” rocket, felt the ground trembling. It was very slight, yet dull, like an earthquake yet not quite the same.

Zhao Huasheng looked up and saw on the real-time external display that the 70-meter-tall, over 4,000-ton “God of Power” heavy-lift rocket was slowly taking off. At first its speed was slow, like a rope slowly lifting it up, but in just a dozen seconds its speed had already reached an impressive height.

Under the extremely fast acceleration, the gravity inside the rocket could even reach ten times that of Earth’s. This could be seen from the distorted faces of the five astronauts lying in the storage compartment.

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Under such tremendous gravity, the astronauts were so weighed down that they could not even lift their arms. They could only lie still in the storage compartment, using all their strength to resist the immense gravity beyond imagination.

A lot of what seemed to be fragments peeled off from the rocket body, raining down to the ground like rain. Zhao Huasheng knew that those fragments were the rocket’s insulation layer, which was actually some foam plastic.

When the rocket was still on the ground, in order to prevent the low temperature on the ground from affecting the material structure of the rocket body, the engineers applied these things to the outer shell of the rocket body. When the rocket took off, the intense friction with the atmosphere would peel off this plastic foam, forming the fragments seen at this moment.

Constant reports sounded in the control hall, with Zhao Huasheng’s nervous heart calming down after hearing one “normal” after another.

After more than twenty seconds of the rocket’s takeoff, its ascent direction changed slightly, and it no longer pointed straight up to the sky, but began to veer slightly eastward. This was because the Earth’s rotation is from west to east, so veering eastward could take advantage of the Earth’s rotation to increase its own speed.

More than a minute later, the four boosters installed on the Great Wall Rocket No. 1 body simultaneously left the rocket. They had fulfilled their duty, so it was time to leave. At this moment, the rocket’s speed still did not reach the Earth’s first cosmic speed, so the boosters that detached would fall to the Earth at a very high speed and then be destroyed by intense friction with the atmosphere. If the combustion was not sufficient, it was possible that some wreckage would fall to the ground.

After the booster separated, it soon became time for the first-stage engine to separate. In order to ensure a powerful thrust, the Ares rocket had a total of three stages. Among these three stages, the first stage was the most important and arduous task. So its volume was the largest. The total length of the Ares rocket was seventy meters, and the first stage engine was nearly thirty meters long.

The Ares rocket was still flying at high speed, but at this moment its tail flame suddenly disappeared. The next moment, the thirty-meter-long first stage engine roared away from the rocket. It also fell to the earth like the booster before, and then disappeared in the intense friction with the atmosphere.

The first stage engine separated, the second stage engine ignited, and it took on the task of continuing to send the rocket into orbit.

The second-stage engine ignited for less than a minute and followed in the footsteps of the first stage engine. It also fell from the rocket into the atmosphere, and the third-stage engine began to ignite.

The current mighty rocket has already reached a height of over three hundred kilometers above the surface of the earth, reaching the height of a low earth orbit. But this height is not enough, and it will continue to rise.

The air here has become extremely thin, so the nose cone at the tip of the rocket has also become useless and is thrown off by the rocket, falling into the atmosphere.

The cargo hold is now completely exposed to the space environment. However, there is also a perfect life support system inside the cargo hold, so it will not have any effect on the astronauts inside.

The third-stage engine has also completed its task after working for more than half a minute. However, it will not be jettisoned from the rocket. At this time, it is the cargo hold that needs to be separated from the rocket.

This step is the separation of the spacecraft. After being accelerated by the third-stage rocket engine, the cargo hold has gained enough speed and can now enter the earth’s orbit. From then on, it will embark on its own journey.

The launch has basically succeeded at this point. The staff in the control hall have recovered from their tense emotions. The real-time images of the astronauts were still being broadcast on the display screens. Zhao Huasheng saw that the astronauts had left the restraint of the huge gravity, and at this moment, they were in a weightless environment. He saw them floating in the cabin spontaneously, just like in the water.

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“Finally, there was no unexpected incident.” Zhao Huasheng sighed and threw away the vague premonition in his mind.

The cargo hold also has its own propulsion engines, which will be used for orbit and speed adjustments of the cabin. During the next period of time, the cargo hold will orbit the earth at a speed of eighty-seven minutes per circle for two weeks, adjusting its posture, angle, and speed, and eventually docking with the Red Heart rocket.

Zhao Huasheng has been waiting here all this time. At the supply depot, the sun rose and fell twice. Finally, the silhouette of the Crimson Heart No. 1 Sun Probe spacecraft appeared in view.

The speed of the supply depot and the Crimson Heart spacecraft is 9.3 kilometers per second. This is an incredible speed, but because they both maintain the same speed, they appear to be static to each other. Under such nearly static conditions, the two gradually approached each other. Eventually, with the assistance of the ground personnel, the docking interface was successfully docked, and the steel claws used to secure the connection extended smoothly, firmly connecting the two together.

The five astronauts then came to the control room of the Crimson Heart spacecraft via the docking interface from the supply depot.