Chapter 1354: Enviable Power
Even though Professor Reston had seen his fair share of Hollywood science-fiction blockbusters, he never thought that one day he would see such a shocking scene in real life.
Eight slender robotic arms stretched out from the edge of the Moon Palace space station like legs of a spider, moving flexibly between the three sets of spacecraft components.
Like threading a needle, more and more spacecraft components were connected together, gradually forming the outline of the Xu Fu colonial ship.
“I can’t believe this...”
Professor Phil Goethe, who was standing next to Professor Reston, seemed to have gone crazy. He opened and closed his mouth constantly, mumbling and repeating the same words.
“Assembling the spacecraft with a robotic arm on the space station... How is this possible!”
Professor Reston was just as shocked.
They assembled the spacecraft on the space station!
Using robotic arms!
This sounded like a dream.
This was not as simple as spacecraft docking. It was no exaggeration to say that it was an order of magnitude higher than the difficulty of spacecraft docking.
Without a separate power system, these spacecraft components floating in outer space were akin to space junk.
Cleaning up high-speed moving space junk was difficult enough, but assembling these scattered components with a robotic arm on the space station was even harder.
A slight mistake, such as failure to control the speed and orbital height, might cause the space station to collide with the floating spacecraft components. This could lead to a catastrophic accident!
“Could it be holographic projection technology?” Professor Phil Goethe couldn’t help but say, “I heard that they have an advanced holographic projection technology... It was demonstrated at the Bird’s Nest stadium.”
“That sounds more ridiculous than assembling a spaceship in space.”
A bitter smile appeared on Professor Reston’s face when he heard Professor Phil Goethe’s outlandish conspiracy theory.
He heard of the holographic projection performance at the Bird’s Nest. He had even watched the video on YouTube. People claimed it was a new era of film and media technology, and the pictures presented in front of the crowd were near perfect.
However, he knew that the technology needed water vapor as an imaging medium. That was obviously impossible in vacuum space.
Apart from the robotic arm that stretched out from the Moon Palace, there was one thing that puzzled him even more.
Is there really no problem with such a rough assembly method?
Manned spacecraft had very high requirements for the airtightness of the cabins. Every additional connection port increased the points of failure.
But now...
The Chinese people had dismantled the entire “Xu Fu” into large parts, with even the main cabin torn in half. Could such a casual assembly method really ensure the safety of the astronauts in the cabin?
Professor Reston was quite skeptical about this.
However, this skepticism did not last for long.
Soon, all of the confusion in his heart was dispelled by the shocking scene.
He was not the only one who saw it.
Everyone in the command room saw it.
One of the robotic arms of the Moon Palace suddenly flashed a series of faint but clear white lights. The white lights swept across the spacecraft shell.
A crazy idea appeared in Professor Reston’s mind.
Welding!
They added a welding torch on the robotic arm!
Space construction was not anything novel. In the 1980s, Soviet astronauts conducted the first human extravehicular welding test outside the Salyut 7 space station. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States also carried out similar research. However, this was the first time he had seen the application of this technology on the assembly of a large spacecraft!
What happened on the Moon Palace completely subverted his understanding of the aerospace industry.
This is not just reassembling a spacecraft...
It’s almost like they’re building a spacecraft on the space shuttle!
Professor Reston gradually realized the seriousness of the problem. He immediately looked at the dumbfounded assistant standing beside him. He ordered in a serious tone, “Send the captured images to the Pentagon immediately!”
The assistant nodded quickly, then jogged to the command room.
Professor Reston looked at the picture on the big screen. He clenched his fists tightly as his eyebrows furrowed.
The space construction technology that China had mastered had completely exceeded their expectations.
If they could really assemble a 100-ton spacecraft in outer space...
In theory, they could easily assemble a bigger one.
...
In fact, compared to other cutting-edge technologies on the space station, plasma welding was one of the most inconspicuous ones.
However, other technologies were not as easy to be directly observed.
Even researchers working on the Moon Palace didn’t know all of the ins and outs, let alone an optical satellite more than 300,000 kilometers away.
These technologies were also the reason why the Chinese people were confident in their Mars landing program.
Who would care if the technology was observed?
Even if some things were placed in front of others, it was not easy to replicate them.
Regardless of the shocks inside the hearts of Professor Reston and Professor Phil Goethe, the foreign researchers who were far away on the Moon Palace were also surprised by what happened outside the porthole.
Professor Pearson, who was from the Department of Physics at Harvard University, was staring at the Xu Fu colonial ship gradually taking form outside the porthole. He was in disbelief.
He was a professor of particle physics who came here from the ILHCRC.
Ever since the completion of the Lunar Hadron Collider, he had served on the lunar scientific research station and the Moon Palace.
Over this period of time, he had gotten familiar with all kinds of novel aerospace technologies, but at this moment, he still couldn’t control the shock coming from the bottom of his heart.
He couldn’t help but ask, “Those robotic arms... Are they operated by someone?”
“Of course not. Who has the ability to operate eight hands at the same time.” Professor Yan Xinjue, who was also serving at the lunar scientific research station, was standing beside him. He said with a proud smile, “This thing should be controlled by artificial intelligence. Didn’t the Moon Palace replace the central computer’s chipset some time ago? Maybe this was part of the upgrades... Of course, I’m just guessing. I don’t know a lot about the situation either.”
Professor Pearson looked away from the porthole and looked at Professor Yan Xinjue. With a look of jealousy in his eyes, he said, “China’s aerospace technology is so amazing... I’m envious.”
Yan Xinjue smiled awkwardly.
Even though he was not an expert in the aerospace field...
But, to be honest, the feeling of being watched by jealous scholars from other countries was quite pleasurable...
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