Chapter 36: Chapter 36: Weightlessness Training_1

October of this year marked a significant turning point for China’s aerospace industry.

After three consecutive days of closed-door meetings at the aerospace bureau, a major overhaul was made to the entire subsequent development plan.

First and foremost, the bureau affirmed the need to swiftly develop their own reusable launch rockets.

Especially since the future CZ-5, CZ-6, CZ-7, and CZ-8 all had about one or two years left until their maiden flights, allowing some room for modification.

Unfortunately, except for CZ-6, the rest of the rockets weren’t suitable for first-stage recovery.

Because apart from the CZ-6’s first stage, which used a single YF100 engine, the core stages of the other three rockets all employed two YF100 or YF77 engines in parallel.

Such a parallel configuration significantly increases the difficulty of vertical recovery, making it much harder to control than a single engine.

Yet, if the design was modified to install only one engine, the thrust would be insufficient. At this point, there was certainly no time to develop a new type of high-thrust, reusable single-chamber engine; modifications had to be made based on the YF100.

With only 120 tons of thrust, the YF100 couldn’t possibly replace two engines.

Hence, the final resolution was as follows: the CZ-6R, a reusable version of the CZ-6 which showed promise for reusability, was to be set up immediately; its configuration was to directly follow the New Yuan 1B blueprint.

Moreover, didn’t the Sixth Academy purchase the K120 technology? No matter how you did it, you had to produce a reusable model for the CZ-6R’s use, with the goal of achieving a successful recovery by the end of next year. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Under pressure from the Big Shots, neither the Sixth nor Eighth Academy dared to refuse, and they took on the task with gritted teeth.

As for teams working on other models, two options were presented: either research how to reuse the already confirmed configurations or redesign a new reusable rocket with the same intended purpose.

Option one would delay the maiden flight by one year; option two would delay it by two years.

The research institutes suddenly felt immense pressure but nonetheless accepted their orders and departed.

Naturally, the Sixth Academy faced the greatest pressure.

Because for the recovery of rockets to begin, there needed to be rocket engines capable of wide thrust range adjustments and reusability—currently relying solely on the YF100. Without the engine, it would all be for naught.

And the Sixth Academy’s purchase of the K120 had now been laid out on the table; it was clear that if this also failed, suspicions would arise about deliberate work avoidance.

The Sixth Academy had initially been familiarizing themselves with K120 technology and attempting to improve the YF100. Now, a direct project had been initiated for YF100K, requiring performance on par with K120V and a prototype engine test within a year.

At the latest, in two years, if things didn’t pan out, the chief designers of those four rocket projects could all blame the Sixth Academy: "See, not my problem, we just don’t have the engine."

As for the workers at the Sixth Academy, they were about to enter the darkest period of overtime...

...

While turmoil swirled outside, the primary culprit, Lin Ju, quietly nestled at Ulanha Mountain Airport, experiencing weightlessness training.

Harassed by financial institutions to the point of irritation, he delegated the task of dealing with them to his subordinates and, with nothing better to do, came to watch the Feitian trio’s training.

The base’s Captain Wang Zhi (flight squadron leader, hereafter referred to without military rank to avoid complications) was very enthusiastic and insisted on bringing him along for the experience.

With a tingling curiosity, Lin Ju agreed, but he regretted it the moment he boarded the plane.

Though he trusted the ground crew’s capability and even Wang Zhi’s confidence in flying the plane himself, he fell silent the moment he entered the cabin.

It was indeed a plane designed in the 1960s; the interior... had no decoration to speak of.

To facilitate training and increase the climb rate, the aircraft had undergone weight reduction. Everything nonessential in the cockpit was stripped clean, including the floor.

The seats were simply structures composed of steel tubes fixed to the cabin walls and fabric, equipped with X-shaped safety harnesses, theoretically very sturdy.

The emptied cockpit also looked quite spacious, but wiring and piping could still be seen frequently on the floor and ceiling, especially the faded internal structure, which gave a profound sense of history.

But by now it was too late to regret anything. Wang Zhi and another base pilot were flying the airliner, with takeoff speeds far exceeding commercial flights. It felt like no time had passed before the plane’s nose lifted excessively high, rapidly ascending into the sky driven by the thrust of three Soloviev D30KU turbofan engines.

Lin Ju sat in the cabin with his back against the wall, feeling as if the plane had practically flipped upright, with only the safety harness keeping him in place.

Zhou Rui and Zhao Xiaowen, seated opposite him, were also clinging tightly to their safety harnesses, afraid of coming loose and falling toward the tail of the plane.

Only Deng Lei seemed unbothered by it all, taking interest in the scenery outside the window and even leisurely joked:

"This angle is definitely less than 30 degrees, climbing is not scary, the real fear is diving down. You sit in a cockpit that’s half exposed, nosediving at supersonic speeds with the ground rapidly expanding before your eyes, blood rushing to your legs..."

"Ah, stop talking, Big Brother Deng, I feel like my legs are getting heavy too!"

"Zhao is right, how can this crappy plane compare with that? Just listen to the noise, everything that should be making noise is making noise, and even things that shouldn’t be are noisy! I really must’ve been blinded by lard to come running here!"

Lin Ju’s scalp tingled as he listened. Because of the removed noise insulation, the noise of high-speed airflow striking the plane’s exterior was chaotic and clear, giving the unsettling impression that the plane was falling apart.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the cabin’s intercom activated, indicating that the plane was about to start diving and not to unfasten the safety harnesses on their own, only after personnel from the base indicated it was okay to do so.

Seconds later, already far above the clouds, the Drawing 154 dipped its nose and began the dive. At first, Lin Ju felt the plane’s accelerating descent just like a roller coaster, but as it continued to pick up speed, he soon realized that the force of gravity acting on his body was gradually diminishing, and he began to feel lighter.

He tried waving his hand and felt only the pressurized air within the cabin, the sensation of gravity was gone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you may now unfasten your safety harnesses. We have 28 seconds, please stay near your seats, and let us know at any time if you feel unwell!"

The four of them, along with the base’s instructors, successively unclipped their harnesses. Lin Ju couldn’t wait to push off the wall using his heel, slowly floating towards the opposite side.

A simple push against the cabin ceiling and his body began to spin on its own.

When he deliberately pulled in his limbs to avoid touching anything, with no points of support, he felt a sense of helplessness yet an odd, ethereal feeling, akin to drowning.

But before he could savor the experience, the training personnel had already moved in to secure them back to their seats, as the first dive was nearly over.

That day, on the great grasslands of Ulanha Mountain, the herdsmen and tourists witnessed a bizarre scene.

A stark white plane with a vintage look dove down from the clouds one moment and then rapidly climbed again, before plunging once more after a while.

This cycle continued 26 times, and many people took photos to remember the sight, posting them online.

However, Lin Ju on the plane had his fill of excitement, experiencing more than 10 minutes of weightlessness in total. His three training companions also felt the peculiar sensation brought by the weightlessness.

After landing and readjusting to gravity, Lin Ju received a call from his company announcing that an investment group had offered a financing deal of 1 billion US dollars for a 30% equity stake, which made his heart briefly seize in pain.

He had barely scraped together less than half a billion dollars, and these Saudi investors could easily outspend him for a lifetime with their casual investments. No wonder so many people love to raise funds; making money this way seemed too easy—I want in too.

It was Ma’s Sky Fork that had such confidence to keep blowing up rockets... right?

Suddenly, Lin Ju froze, the Tesla ’T’ logo flashing in his mind.

Who said a space company has to be fixated on launching rockets? They, too, could make money with derivative technology to fund the rocket business.