Chapter 42: Chapter 42: How Did Space Travel Turn Out Like This_1

"My child, is what you’re telling me true?"

Old King Aleth received a phone call from his youngest son and felt as if he was dreaming after listening to him.

Merely five billion dollars, to buy one’s own spacecraft, and to launch and land in Abe?

Although over the years, Abe had trained astronauts in America and Russia through financial offensives, launching from Abe had a completely different significance.

If he could accomplish this during his reign, the entire Abe world would regard Aleth as a hero.

It wasn’t just Abe in the Middle East; when the time came, his brothers would certainly beg to send their astronauts to Abe, significantly boosting Abe’s leadership and influence.

"Father, I swear by Allah’s name that I have seen Lin’s spacecraft prototype, and it will make its maiden flight as early as next year. Their own manned space program is all there, and they even poached top-tier pilots from the air force.

Moreover, New Yuan has gathered senior engineers from America, Europe, and Russia. China’s National Space Administration is also cooperating with them, and they have sent scientists to provide support. I have verified that it is real!"

Hamand swore solemnly, and Aleth couldn’t help but believe it, yet it still seemed incredible to him.

After chatting with Hamand a bit more, Aleth called in several close ministers and let them in on the matter.

Then, a day later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a visitation application from the Abe Space Administration, and after some thought, they approved it.

That’s right, Abe had a space administration, although a more accurate name for them would be the Abe Space Purchasing Administration.

The person leading the team from the Abe Space Administration was a Prince, who headed straight to New Yuan upon arriving. He too was shocked and was then arranged to visit Ulanha Mountain, to watch Drawing 154 ascend and descend in the sky.

The Crown Prince came, and the Crown Prince left.

The Prince came, and the Prince left.

Two groups came from Abe, and after they left, there was nearly a week of silence.

Lin Ju and a bunch of executives waited until the flowers they were watching had wilted, wondering if they had boasted excessively and scared the Saudi Arabian investors away.

Then he received a phone call from Tang Weitian:

"Hello? Mr. Tang?"

"Lin Ju, what did you say to the people from Abe? Just now, the Abe embassy notified us that they’ve reached a cooperation with you worth ten billion US dollars. They are sending Abe astronauts to your place for training, to operate a spacecraft?"

"Ah? Wasn’t it only five billion?"

"You really dare to say it!"

The story goes back to five days ago.

Inside Abe, the Old King gathered Hamand and the people from the Abe Space Administration in the palace to ask about the result and whether the matter was reliable.

Hamand naturally sang high praises, while the cautious Prince from the Space Administration stated: although there were certain risks, it held great potential.

The risk was that New Yuan Aeronautics might be overstepping their bounds, and it was hard to say what would happen if there was a hiccup.

The potential, of course, was the great value if successful. The benefits Abe could gain were not measurable by fifty billion US dollars.

After careful consideration, and looking at the photographs of the H1 cabin taken by the Prince, as well as some of the cooperative space projects he brought back, such as the sale of an exclusive space station for Abe (a tourist capsule with only life-support facilities) for as little as five hundred million US dollars; launching satellites in collaboration with Abe University at a friend price one-third lower than the international standard...

Then Aleth felt the project was feasible.

Risk, isn’t that what investment is all about? Now they’re only willing to let you participate in the development stage, but once they’re successful, they’ll ignore you completely. The way high-tech companies have looked down on and taken advantage of Abe isn’t something new.

"Since this is feasible, I think Abe won’t be afraid of such risks. However, the current plan is too conservative and doesn’t match the grand ambitions of Abe’s aerospace dreams.

"We can buy the H1 spacecraft, but Abe’s launch and recovery facilities must be built to the highest standards, grand enough to make all of our MSL brothers around the world feel the allure of space.

"And satellites, space stations, anything that can be bought with money, buy them all. One module is too little; Abe wants at least three! And our brothers who also hail from Mohammed must participate and have their own modules!"

And so Abe brought together a group of oil-rich brother nations and laid out the stitched-together space plan on the table.

Seeing the words "spacecraft" and "space station," and that the big brother is in, what else could the brothers say? Whether there are dates or not, take a swing and each family tries throwing a few hundred million in to test the waters.

To be frank, everyone knew about Abe’s desire to buy, buy, buy in space, but either the American and Russian governments wouldn’t sell high-tech, or their space administrations were too busy to pay any attention to Abe.

China, on the other hand, was quite willing. At this time, China’s aerospace capabilities still lagged far behind America and Russia, and they didn’t have the capacity to collaborate with Abe.

And then along came New Yuan Aeronautics, a perfect case of willing buyer, willing seller.

As a result, China’s Foreign Ministry and the National Space Administration were notified by an official communiqué from Abe, along with several neighboring countries. Such a large matter, of course, had to be reported to the government first.

A three-year plan encompassing spacecraft, space stations, space research, launch sites—all in all, an ambitious plan worth nearly 8 billion US Dollars was placed on the desks of the Big Shots.

The Big Shots were silent, then passed it on to the National Space Administration, which wondered what kind of potent potion Lin Ju had fed to Saudi Arabia. Then, looking at the details of the plan, they themselves were baffled.

Why don’t you just go to heaven!

The Big Shots worried that Saudi Arabia might be swindled and tarnish China’s reputation, so they asked the National Space Administration to investigate. The Administration then had someone close to Lin Ju to snoop around for information.

Mr. Tang made a call, Mr. Tang flew to New Yuan.

New Yuan Airport: a Drawing 154 sat on the runway waiting for takeoff clearance.

Mounted on its back was a model of the H1, which would be released in mid-air for an unmanned aerodynamic test before being remotely guided to land.

In these nearly ten days, the System Engineer felt it would be wasteful not to use the model H1 meant for display purposes and refurbished it to perform flight performance tests, then contacted the Ulanha Mountain repair shop to dispatch a Drawing 154 for pickup.

New Yuan City Airport had few civilian flights, so there was plenty of downtime, allowing the H1 to be mounted on the Drawing 154 and flown to the vast grasslands of Ulanha Mountain for testing.

As Mr. Tang watched in bewilderment while the Drawing 154 took off from the end of the runway with the H1 on its back, some passengers in the terminal also took the opportunity to snap a lot of photos.

In just a few hours, these photos would go viral online, giving space enthusiasts even more to talk about.

The airport’s airstream didn’t mess up Mr. Tang’s hair, but the turmoil inside him was as if he were in a force-eight gale.

With fury, he grabbed Lin Ju’s shoulders:

"Lin Ju, are you serious about this?"

"Of course, I am. My style has always been to be honest in my dealings."

With an innocent face, Lin Ju made Mr. Tang feel an urge to vent his anger with nowhere to go.

"Damn it, how could aerospace turn out like this!"

Mr. Tang left; he bought the soonest ticket at New Yuan Airport and flew out overnight to report to the Big Shot.