Chapter 249: Flying to the Moon

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The next morning, Tang Rui was in the laboratory, modifying a mechanical dog with Red Lotus.

He had forgotten something yesterday.

That was to design a robot specifically for the lunar environment.

No sooner had he thought of this in the morning than he hurried to the lab to get busy.

Now, it was definitely too late to make a specialized moon robot.

The space shuttle was in the final stages of assembly, and even with testing, it would be finished in at most an hour and a half.

Producing robots now would yield at most three to five units, which was far from enough.

Therefore, Tang Rui chose to modify the mechanical dog.

After all, he wasn’t planning to build a lunar base this time; the main purpose was to conduct a survey.

The most important thing was to check the geological data of the moon.

To find out where the richest mineral resources were.

To determine where the geological structure was most suitable for building a base.

He also wanted to understand what the interior of the moon was like and whether it was possible that it was hollow.

After all, back in the day, the Americans would throw things at the moon.

Echoes were detected on the lunar surface.

That was quite frightening.

And then there was the far side of the moon – what was it like? Were there any remnants of alien spacecraft?

Although it was highly unlikely, without seeing it with his own eyes, who could say for sure?

This time, he was going to the moon, and it was the perfect opportunity to deploy the mechanical dogs there to gather geological data.

It was also a way of fulfilling a dream.

After more than an hour of modifications, Red Lotus had modified 21 mechanical dogs that could adapt to the lunar surface environment, equipped with some exploration devices and internal geological data detectors.

Without the enhanced communication satellites, even if the mechanical dogs were deployed to the moon, they would be hard to control.

After all, the bandwidth for data transmission between the Earth and the moon was limited.

The space agency couldn’t even handle it on their own.

And it certainly wasn’t something Tang Rui could play with.

But now, with the system-enhanced communication satellites, information could be transmitted without delay within too astronomical units.

Red Lotus could directly control the mechanical dogs on the moon.

That made things much easier.

Tang Rui just had to deploy the mechanical dogs upon reaching the moon.

At ten o’clock, Tang Rui changed into his anti-load suit and armor, took the mechanical dogs to the assembly workshop, and boarded the space shuttle directly in the workshop.

He entered the interior of the 300L

And went to the cockpit.

Tang Rui sat in the chair and fastened his seatbelt.

Buzz…

The chair moved automatically forward and upward, bringing him in front of the main control screen.

Swipe!

The main control screen, the windshield, and the windows on both sides lit up with data displays at the same time.

The main control screen showed various data about the space shuttle, including the parameters of the equipment inside.

The windshield displayed various flight data.

The window on the left showed communication data and system logs.

The window on the right displayed spatial positioning data and planetary orbital data.

Tang Rui didn’t need to wear a helmet inside.

So, this data was displayed right before his eyes, but it didn’t interfere with his operation, nor did it hinder his view of the scenery.

“Master, the space shuttle’s self-check is complete, all systems are functioning normally, ready to take off at any time.”

“Activate the SEG unit, turn on the optical stealth device.”

As Tang Rui entered his command, the space shuttle slowly floated up, hovering a meter above the ground, then the surface of the shuttle rippled like water, and in the next second, the entire space shuttle disappeared inside the assembly workshop.

Of course, if you looked from behind, you could still see the engine nozzles, as they couldn’t be covered with flexible liquid crystal screens and thus couldn’t be made invisible.

But this didn’t affect the overall stealthiness.

Tang Rui pushed the control stick.

The space shuttle moved slightly, crawling out of the mountain at a snail’s pace.

The speed was akin to a normal person walking.

It couldn’t be helped: that’s how electric propulsion engines worked within the Earth’s atmosphere.

Even though the space shuttle had already offset Earth’s gravity, it couldn’t counteract air resistance.

The electric propulsion engine Tang Rui was using was only at the level of a cow, not yet at the level of a kilocow.

After all, without system enhancement, a cow-level was already the top-level electric propulsion engine, even the space station didn’t use one as good as his.

As for why not use a nuclear-powered rocket engine, it was a joke.

Using it in a factory would irradiate everyone in the area with neutrons, leaving no survivors.

Although he had installed a neutron shielding inner wall for the reactor, the problem was that it only protected the interior of the space shuttle from neutron radiation, not that the particle stream emitted by the engine startup didn’t contain neutrons.

So, at this time, he could only use electric propulsion.

After a while, the space shuttle left the mountain.

At this point, he increased the energy output to the SEG unit, enhancing the magnetic field range and strength.

Using the Earth’s magnetic field, the space shuttle was propelled out.

After more than half an hour, the space shuttle finally climbed to an altitude of 50,000 meters, where he could start the nuclear-powered rocket engine.

Liquid hydrogen was injected into the nuclear reactor, then heated and expanded by chain reactions into a particle stream, which was ejected from the rear nozzle.

Under the constraint of the magnetic field, the scattered and disordered particle stream was transformed into a directional spray.

A massive burst of thrust erupted.

The space shuttle broke the sound barrier in an instant, then the heat barrier, and finally reached the black barrier.

But just a few seconds after entering the black barrier, the space shuttle broke through the Karman line and entered outer space.

At this moment, it was time for the nuclear-powered rocket engine to burst forth.

Accelerate!

Accelerate!

And accelerate again!

There was no need for any gravity slingshot or to fly any curved orbit; the space shuttle shot straight out of space, heading for the moon 300,000 kilometers away.

It seemed like a big deal, but in reality, except for Tang Rui’s own neutrino radar satellite, not a single satellite in Earth’s orbit could detect the space shuttle’s trajectory.

Satellite scanning relied on radar waves, not optical equipment.

The space shuttle was coated with stealth paint overall, and the engine nozzles at the rear were constrained by a strong magnetic field, making it ghostly to radar.

In a blink of an eye, the space shuttle had already left Earth’s orbit, but its speed was still crazily increasing.

Tang Rui glanced at the speedometer on the left.

The current speed was Mach 116, or 142,109 kilometers per hour. At this speed, it would only take two hours to reach the moon.

But was that possible?

It wasn’t.

Two hours was too long.

So, Tang Rui had no intention of slowing down at all, pushing the throttle to the limit.

Engine, let me see your limit.

Mach 140.

Mach 160.

Mach 200.

Tang Rui kept accelerating, quickly reaching Mach 200, but this was not the limit of the engine.

However, when the flight speed reached Mach 320, he stopped accelerating.

He couldn’t speed up anymore.

The current speed was enough.

Otherwise, it would be troublesome to slow down later.

At the current speed, he would reach the moon’s orbit in 45 minutes.

But in reality, it would take 50 minutes.

Because he needed to start decelerating five minutes in advance, otherwise, he would overshoot..