Chapter 740: Route Choice
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Zhou usually didn’t have any special hobbies. His only special hobby was probably scrolling through Weibo and clicking like on some comments.
Like some comments that called him handsome.
Over the past few days, he searched up the Ares plan on Weibo, and he found that a lot of people had tagged him in that article.
Out of curiosity, Lu Zhou clicked and read the article in its entirety.
He couldn’t help but laugh.
“This guy really is something.”
Being able to a.n.a.lyze the “Raptor” engine meant that he was probably in the aeros.p.a.ce field.
However, the article was overly biased. Lu Zhou was well aware that the Skyglow thrust was nowhere near Long March 5’s thrust, but not mentioning the push-to-weight ratios and flight endurance was plain prejudice.
Saying that the Americans weren’t interested in ion thruster propulsion systems at all was absolutely wrong. Before Lu Zhou left Princeton, the PPPL was researching ion thrusters.
Also, the article author probably thought the Long March 5 was the Long March 9. Even though Skyglow was successful, that didn’t mean Long March 9 was going to be abandoned. Because ion thrusters were more expensive, it was still feasible to use chemical rockets for low-Earth orbit missions.
Even though the French invented the steam tricycle, they still used horses for more than a century. Technology changes didn’t happen in a few days.
If Skyglow didn’t successfully send a man to the Moon, Lu Zhou would receive a huge amount of blame.
Lu Zhou didn’t know how academically accomplished this person was, but this person was good at fooling the public.
w.a.n.g Peng looked at Lu Zhou, and he suddenly asked, “Do you want me to handle this?”
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Lu Zhou shook his head and said, “How are you going to handle it? What, are you going to track his IP address?”
w.a.n.g Peng hesitated for a bit and said, “We can capture him for misconduct… Slandering a national hero, lock him up for a couple of weeks.”
Lu Zhou had an Aeros.p.a.ce Gold Medal of Excellence and a Ling Yun medal, so there was no doubt he was a national hero.
When Lu Zhou saw how serious w.a.n.g Peng was, he said, “It’s fine, I was just kidding. It’s kind of ridiculous for the state to censor his speech. Just let him be.”
Lu Zhou was quite an easy-going person, and he didn’t really care what other people said about him.
He had been on Weibo for a long time, and he could handle a little criticism.
w.a.n.g Peng looked at Lu Zhou and said, “What do you mean… let it be?”
“My time is valuable, and I don’t have time to waste it on people like this.” Lu Zhou smiled and turned off his phone. He then stood up from his chair and said, “It’s about time. I have a meeting to attend. Let’s go.”
“Okay.”
w.a.n.g Peng didn’t say anything else. He merely nodded and walked toward the door.
…
Lu Zhou exited the hotel and got into his car. He asked w.a.n.g Peng to drive him to the Great Hall on Changan road. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
It was already early March.
He originally planned on going back to Jinling after accepting the award. He didn’t expect that he would still be in Beijing after that.
The reason was obvious.
This was because of America’s Ares program.
Lu Zhou walked into a conference room inside the Great Hall.
He entered from entrance A, and when he found his seat with his name tag on it, he sat down. He took out his phone and opened a recorder app.
This conference wasn’t confidential. A lot of the things discussed would be made public after the conference, so electronic devices weren’t confiscated.
Lu Zhou sent Xiao Ai a message and asked it to organize the conference notes. This saved him a lot of time.
Lu Zhou flipped through the conference notes and waited for the conference to begin. An old man sitting next to him kept looking at him. The old man put on a serious face and spoke calmly.
“The Americans are planning to land on Mars, what do you think of this?”
Lu Zhou turned and saw that Academician Yuan Huanmin, the chief engineer of the China Aeros.p.a.ce Science and Industry Corporation, was sitting next to him.
Back at the manned moon landing conference, this old man hara.s.sed him quite a bit. However, after the Skyglow test flight was successful, he disappeared.
Lu Zhou didn’t know what the old man meant, so he smiled and asked, “What does that have to do with me?”
Yuan Huanmin paused for a second before saying, “So what you’re saying is, we should ignore them and focus on ourselves? I see…”
Lu Zhou: “…?”
What is this?
Lu Zhou didn’t have the chance to finish reading the conference notes since the conference already began.
The secretary of the China National s.p.a.ce Administration went on stage and talked about the conference process and content. He then gave the microphone to the director of the State Administration for National Defense—Director Li.
Director Li stood on stage and cleared his throat. He then spoke sternly.
“First of all, I would like to apologize for making everyone take time out of their busy schedules and sit here. This conference was supposed to be held next month, but due to various reasons, it has to happen now.”
Even though Director Li didn’t explain why the conference was advanced forward, everyone knew why.
NASA’s announcement of the Ares program was an attack on China. Whether it was the timing of the launch or the size of the investment, they were obviously trying to one-up China’s manned moon landing project.
Even though neither side acknowledged this new s.p.a.ce race, everyone could see that this was going to be a fierce battle.
“Yesterday, the Communist Party of China had a meeting. They had two conclusions. One is to follow the Americans and prepare to land on Mars. The other is to continue our lunar strategies.
“As for the specifics, I’d suggest you all consult experts. I hope everyone can speak freely. If anyone disagrees with these two conclusions, or have a better idea, feel free to tell me.”
Whispers were heard in the conference room.
It was no exaggeration to say that the outcome of today’s meeting was going to determine China’s aeros.p.a.ce strategy over the next five or even ten years. Various aeros.p.a.ce companies would s.h.i.+ft their focuses to landing on Mars and lunar exploration.
People in the conference room began to think more seriously about this issue.
There was a voice from the front row of the conference room.
“I’ll say a couple of words.”
Director Li looked at the old man sitting in the front row and spoke politely.
“Academician Yuan, please.”
Yuan Huanmin stood up slowly and said, “The Americans want to land on Mars, that’s their business. We don’t have to try and catch up to them. We should focus on our own projects. I think that the future of aeros.p.a.ce is still the Moon. There is nothing more important than building on top of the success we had with the moon landing.”
Yuan Huanmin was quite reputable in the aeros.p.a.ce community, and his opinion immediately received the approval of many people.
Of course, some people didn’t agree. They wanted to catch up to the Americans, increase China’s Mars landing technology, and develop more powerful rockets.
This was because these people were from ent.i.ties that developed rocket technologies; therefore, they were more inclined to choose the rocket-intensive Mars route.
After Director Li signaled Yuan Huanmin to sit down, he turned his attention to Lu Zhou, who was sitting in the front row and reading Xiao Ai’s conference notes.
Lu Zhou didn’t notice Director Li looking at him, so Director Li spoke.
“Let’s see what Professor Lu has to say.”