Ten days after the satellite project had begun, at 11 PM, Zhou Rui finally left the campus, exhausted.
Gone was the appearance of a distinguished professor; he casually sat at a roadside food stall and ordered a plate of stir-fried rice noodles, hungrily digging in.
To the onlookers, this old man looked no different from a construction worker.
Zhou Rui had barely taken a few bites when someone patted him on the back.
"Yo, Professor Zhou, are you working so late to save up a dowry for getting a young wife? Is this how you're making do tonight?"
"Tang Weitian!"
Zhou Rui looked up to see an old man in slacks and a shirt, his white hair meticulously combed, not minding the least as he sat at the greasy table.
Tang Weitian, who had just been elected to the Academy of Sciences last year, was a professor at Southwest Industrial University, the 985 institution collaborating with the Southern Machinery Institute on the satellite.
The two had been high school classmates and had worked together for over a year, solidifying a deep friendship.
Seeing his old friend Zhou Rui now brought joy to Tang Weitian, who wanted to pull him along to a nicer restaurant, but Tang also ended up ordering a bowl of rice noodles and started eating with relish at the roadside stall.
They first reminisced about their school days and checked in on each other's families before Tang Weitian finally broached the real purpose of his visit.
"Zhou, I've been in Sichuan for a conference recently, and I heard you guys are up to something big, working on satellites and rockets?"
Although Zhou Rui had suspected that his old friend hadn't sought him out for no reason, he was still delighted and shared the story, since it wasn't a secret anyway.
Tang Weitian's eyes lit up as he listened, especially when he heard that the rocket was actually being built by a private enterprise. He feigned disbelief:
"The state has only just opened up the aerospace market, and this young guy has already built one? He also said that he will launch a rocket within a month. Isn't he just scamming you for funds?"
This trick surely worked, hitting close to the lifelong hope of Zhou Rui, who immediately became agitated:
"Scam? The chief engineer is a key member of America's space agency! It's only been so long, and they've already built the Core Stage One rocket engine, and a 120-ton kerosene engine prototype.
I happen to be off tomorrow morning, do you want to come along?"
"Of course, I'll come!"
Watching Tang Weitian eagerly take up his offer, Zhou Rui felt like he had been tricked, but since he had already made the offer, he reluctantly stood by his word.
The next day, he and Tang Weitian drove over to the test stand located on the hill across from the tractor factory.
Produced by the same system, this test stand featured dual workstations, allowing two engines to be tested simultaneously. It could handle up to 250 tons of thrust, which was considered quite large.
When they arrived, the engine was ready and undergoing its electrical system self-check. Guo Shen was introducing it to Lin Ju.
"This prototype was made during the training of workers, allowing a few masters to learn and build at the same time. It's internally named 'K120'—'K' for kerosene, and '120' for the thrust.
The K120 is a simple and efficient engine: it weighs 1.2 tons, has a single combustion chamber, and its maximum diameter is 1.3 meters. Even with semi-manual manufacturing, it's not complicated. The next official version will take only 168 hours to produce, which is highly efficient."
Lin Ju was very pleased with these figures and then asked something that had occurred to him:
"If we were to install seven... no, nine of these engines, one in the middle and eight around it, what would be the diameter of the rocket body?"
After considering for a moment and sketching some circles on a table with a ballpoint pen, Guo Shen quickly gave an answer:
"About 6 meters. Are you thinking of building a large rocket? In that case, the thrust would be about 1000 tons and the low-Earth orbit payload capacity roughly 30 tons. But why place one engine in the middle? A structure with three in the middle would have larger gaps and be safer."
Lin Ju smiled, thinking about the Falcon 9 Rocket and Heavy Falcon, which would achieve success in the coming years. He felt that appropriating proven successful strategies was not shameful.
"If there's only one engine in the middle, we just need to start that one during vertical recovery. It saves fuel and is more convenient."
"You believe in Ma Yilong's recovery theory?"
Guo was somewhat surprised; at that time, Ma's Sky Fork was continuing to firework spectacularly and neither industry insiders nor outsiders believed he could succeed, even Ma himself was shaken by continuous failures.
"It's impressive; Boss Lin's concepts in aerospace are quite advanced," came an unfamiliar voice. Lin Ju turned to see who was eavesdropping and saw Tang Weitian smiling smugly as he approached.
"Lin Ju, this is my old classmate, a member of the Science Academy, Tang Weitian. He heard you're working on rockets and insisted on having a look."
"I brought him here on my own initiative, so please don't blame me."
Zhou Rui was still somewhat embarrassed, but Lin Ju perked up immediately upon hearing it was an academician.
"Not at all, Mr. Zhou, you're too kind. It's my honor to have Academician Tang visit," Lin Ju responded warmly.
"It's fine. I'm just looking around. I just heard you talk about using nine engines in parallel for stage one. That's too risky. Five to seven engines would be appropriate, with a lift capacity of 15 to 20 tons, that would already be considered a heavy rocket.
And please, don't call me academician; 'teacher' is fine," said Tang Weitian with a benevolent attitude that made Lin Ju feel at ease. However, as someone from the future, Lin Ju still felt a bit defiant.
"Since you allow me to call you Teacher Tang, then you can also call me by my name. But do you know why I opted for nine engines?" Lin Ju asked.
"Oh? It seems Lin Ju has some other thoughts in mind. Let's hear them," Tang Weitian encouraged.
Lin Ju began to smile proudly, his hands forming a circle and then bringing them toward each other.
"Using a core with nine engines and utilizing the CBC configuration to boost the Core Stage One, the total thrust can exceed 3000 tons, with a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) payload capacity nearing 100 tons.
And this payload capacity..."
"To the Moon!"
Guo Shen, Zhou Rui, and Tang Weitian all uttered these two words at the same time.
Back in the last century, America used the Saturn V Rocket to go to the Moon, its first stage having a thrust of 3400 tons, with an LEO payload capacity of over 110 tons.
With today's technology, the lunar spacecraft can certainly be made lighter. If a 100-ton spacecraft can be sent into space, it will surely bring three astronauts to the Moon.
Tang Weitian was excited; Lin Ju's words had given him a new direction in space exploration.
The CBC configuration could greatly simplify the difficulty of rocket design since the boosters and the first stage of the main rocket are the same, making production simpler.
But he then quickly regained his composure:
"The idea is indeed, indeed very ingenious, but controlling so many engines is too difficult. Having too many engines.
Three core stages together have twenty-seven engines; just one failure would cause trouble, and the fault tolerance is too low. This is not only a matter for the control system but also raises high demands on the engines."
"But it is precisely because it is difficult that we have to do it. Only in this way can we bring the cost of rockets down. If we use recovery technology, even if it can only be reused ten times, the cost of space freight will drop to a terrifyingly low level.
The future of space travel must be cheap, and as long as we follow this path, we won't go wrong. With electronics so advanced these days, one day we will definitely achieve this capability."
Lin Ju already knew that next year, the Falcon 9, with nine engines on the first stage, would successfully recover, and thereafter, everything would go smoothly. So the road is not only passable but also not far away.
However, in the eyes of the three, Lin Ju's confidence was typical of the young, but his reasoning was very sound, causing more reflection than objection.
At this moment, the test stand was already prepared. As the broadcaster cleared the site, personnel inside the control room began fueling the engine.
"10, 9, 8... 3, 2, 1, ignition."
Looking through the window, white smoke appeared from the engine nozzle, which was liquid oxygen dissipating into the air.
Suddenly, fuel was also pumped into the combustion chamber, and flames began shooting from the nozzle.
The throttle of the engine slowly opened, gradually increasing the thrust, with the exhaust flame growing longer until the throttle opened to its maximum.
The 120-ton thrust airflow hit the ground, the roar and vibration felt miles away.
That's why, to not affect the precision of machine tools, they specially moved so far out for this test.
"Current thrust 122.3 tons, throttle valve open 100%!"
The broadcast announced, and applause broke out in the observation room. The workers involved in the engine's manufacture cheered, yet some felt bewildered.
"Aren't we supposed to be making weather-modifying equipment? Why is it spitting fire? It looks like the rocket engines on TV," pondered one worker.
"I... I don't know either!" admitted another.