It had been many years since Liang Youcheng joined the astronaut brigade, and he had been in countless mobilization meetings. This was the first time he was this excited.
“… We will cultivate the wasteland into fertile fields and turn the desert into an oasis!”
Academician Lu’s words pierced into his heart, causing the blood in his body to boil.
It was as if something had penetrated deep into his bones, like he was awakened by something inside of him.
The sense of destiny was urging him to spread order and prosperity to further places!
Obviously, Liang Youcheng was not the only one who was ecstatic.
As soon as Academician Lu left Biosphere a, the news that the Mars landing plan would be launched within a month spread throughout the research base.
Because this matter was deliberately not kept as a secret, even before Lu Zhou arrived in the desert area, Everyone Daily and other media outlets were already preparing to report on this news.
The science and education column of CTV launched a three-episode program. The title was “The Future Home of Mankind”. Academician Yuan Huanmin was invited to popularize science for the general public. He talked about the space program blueprint, the construction of the scientific research station on Mars, and the practical significance and future of the construction of the Lagrange Space Base.
Therefore, on the opening day of the Biosphere A, the news was spread to every corner of the country by reporters stationed in the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert!
The headline was printed on every newspaper!
Beijing Evening News: [Biosphere A opens again! Artificial biosphere research has entered a new era!]
Science and Technology News: [The 400-day closed experiment has achieved success! Twenty experimenters are in normal physical condition!]
Journal of China Agricultural University: [China has mastered the technology of a fully enclosed space colony capsule! Professor Hu Yang from our school participated in the project research!]
Jin Ling University News: [Academician Lu of our school is in charge as the chief designer and of the Mars landing rocket!]
Jinling Daily: […]
The reports came one after another. A series of related terms such as “China Mars landing project”, “Biosphere A”, and “Academician Lu” started to trend online.
Just a few days ago, people were still amazed that Lu Zhou announced his resignation from the ILHCRC board of directors. They debated about where he would go next. Little did they expect that this debate would end so soon.
What followed was such a piece of amazing news.
China would launch a manned Mars landing plan within this month!
Academician Lu was the chief designer!
This was bonkers!
The biosphere at the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert was an international cooperation project. Therefore, Chinese scientific researchers and journalists were not the only ones who were stationed there. The mainstream media from various countries had also focused their attention here.
While the news about the initial success of Biosphere A had hit the headlines of major Chinese media, the news that the Mars landing plan would be launched within a month had also quickly spread to the Internet. This aroused widespread concern and discussion in the international community.
This sudden news shocked many people.
For the Americans who failed spectacularly on Mars a few years ago, this was like a thunderbolt from the sky. They didn’t know how to react.
On Twitter.
The attention on this topic overtook the recent baseball competition in the trending page!
The reply section of a recent tweet about the observation of extraterrestrial planets released by NASA was bombarded by the shocked North Americans.
“The Chinese plans to land on Mars?!”
“F*ck! You guys have been spending so much money every year, where did the money go!”
“I don’t think there is a need to panic. The Chinese are interested in Mars, so let them do it. We’ve already been there anyway.”
“That argument does not make people feel comfortable at all. Our Mars landing was a shame! When their spacecraft came to pick up our astronauts, NASA was worried about leaking technology to China. We even intentionally crashed the BFS spacecraft!”
“… That is just China’s claims, it’s not proven.”
“Enough! I don’t think going to Mars is anything to be proud of! The key is whether they can stay on it. If they just print their footprints on it, insert a flag, then go home like NASA, I don’t think it’s a big deal!”
“This is China’s provocation! We should immediately restart the Mars landing plan! Rebuild New Virginia on Mars!”
The discussions continued to develop on Twitter.
The opinions of netizens seemed to be divided into two factions. One side thought that China had mastered the technology of cruising in Mars orbit and the fully enclosed biosphere. They thought the Chinese could easily establish a permanent research station on Mars.
The other side held the completely opposite view. They believed that although China had mastered the technology of cruising in the orbit of Mars, it was still not an easy task to establish a permanent base on Mars.
The two sides couldn’t convince each other.
So far, it seemed that the pessimistic viewpoint was more dominant.
After all, as many people had seen, although China had completed its cruise flight in the orbit of Mars more than once and successfully returned to the lunar transfer orbit, they had not planted their footprints on the surface of Mars in a real sense.
There was a difference between reaching Mars orbit and landing on Mars.
Even though the Garden Project had achieved in-progress success, the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert was insignificant compared to the desperate yellow lands on Mars.
The dust storm there could last for a whole year. The dust that obscured the sky would not only paralyze all solar energy facilities but could also drop the temperature of the surface of Mars to an extreme number!
Even in a fully enclosed biosphere, it was impossible to maintain the artificial ecosystem for a year purely by relying on internal resource circulation and without relying on the input of external energy.
Maybe China didn’t realize how bad the situation on Mars was?
Many Americans had this idea.
After all, as the citizens of the strongest space country in the last century, this reality was unacceptable…
Compared to the opinion of the general public, the response from the American elite was far more pessimistic.
Although it was still a matter of controversy whether the Chinese could successfully complete the Mars landing and build a permanent colony on the surface of Mars, they were not as naive to think that the Chinese did not consider the extreme Mars climate.
After all, it was the Chinese who brought their astronauts back from Mars.
They were more surprised by something else.
Which was that China announced the launch of the Mars landing plan would happen within a month…
They didn’t know why the Chinese people made such a hasty decision. This kind of attitude toward going to Mars was like booking a plane ticket, which shocked many people.
NASA’s Facebook community.
Most of the people who posted here were engineers in the aerospace field, or at least masters and doctorates engaged in related professional fields. While the reply section of NASA’s Twitter exploded, they began to discuss here as well.
“Start within the month? Jesus… Are they kidding? This kind of large-scale space exploration program takes tens of billions of dollars, yet they just made a decision out of nowhere? Without any planning?”
“Perhaps they began planning many years ago… Like the Biosphere A, when they were picking up our mess on Mars, they have already begun preparing for this plan.”
“Sh*t… I feel like our astronauts were the experiment test rats.”
“Not just the astronauts. I feel like the entire NASA has become their guinea pigs. Isn’t there this rumor? That the black box of the New Virginia colony was not left on Mars; instead, it was taken by them!”
This speculation was not without reason.
After all, there were many doubts and uncertainties as to what had actually happened.
What was interesting was that, the second China announced the news of their Mars landing plan, the former BFS captain Johnson, who was picked up from Mars by Starlight, posted a thought-provoking tweet on his personal social media that was unacceptable to many Americans.
“… I think no one in North America knows how amazing their aerospace technology is. The difference between the BFS spacecraft and the Starlight is like the difference between a fishing boat and a steel battleship. When we were still calculating our spacecraft energy use carefully, they had enough energy to create a coaxially rotating gravitational chamber! Even though I thought this design was superfluous, my jaw dropped to the ground.
“I think our gap is not in aerospace at all. It is in areas that are more fundamental than aerospace engineering. For example, materials and energy… Just like controllable nuclear fusion.
“I have no doubt that two or even three years ago, they were already able to send astronauts to Mars comfortably. As for why they didn’t do this, it was out of respect for life itself.
“Maybe our president should reflect on what this meaningless confrontation has brought us, apart from disasters!”
Johnson, who had been on the two spacecrafts, BFS and Starlight, before, was the person who clearly understood the gap between the two countries.
After all, in all of America, there was probably only one other astronaut who knew how he was feeling.
After that tweet was sent out, it received a considerable amount of retweets in just one hour. This made Americans gradually doubt whether there was a need for the space race to continue.
Of course, there were always arrogant people.
For example, NASA’s distinguished engineer, one of the directors of the Lunar Gateway project, Professor Phil Goethe from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spoke confidently in an interview with the media.
“This is a rushed space program!
“I believe they have achieved a certain degree of advantage in space technology, but I still don’t see any chance of success in a rushed plan!
“If they really care about the lives of their own astronauts, it is better to reconsider the launch schedule and spend a few months researching the launch plan.
“Don’t mistake arrogance as courage. This might become the most ridiculous tragedy in human history!”
