“The train is departing. I wish you a pleasant trip.”
With his back slightly tensing up, Zhang Feng felt a pair of invisible hands gently press onto his shoulders. The strength of the “hands” was very soft, lying in this specially designed decompression cockpit, the overweight discomfort was almost negligible.
When the corner of his eyes caught the screen on the armrest, he saw the number 1.48G on the top lefthand corner of the screen.
Zhang Feng smiled as soon as he saw the number. As a former Celestial Trade Marine, he could easily withstand 3G of force. If it were for a short period of time, he could even withstand a force of 7G.
The rising acceleration was half of the gravitational acceleration, and the maximum speed was 2 kilometer per second. Zhang Feng estimated in his mind that it would take around ten minutes to reach the end of the acceleration phase.
In fact, their acceleration time was a little shorter than he estimated.
The overweight feeling on his shoulders slowly disappeared and his seat belt was unlocked. Zhang Feng twisted his neck slightly. Like other passengers on the floor, he walked down to the transparent window and looked out the window with fascination.
“It’s impossible,” a European man kneeled by the window and glued his nose onto the glass. He was screaming from the shock. “It’s absolutely impossible! Through the troposphere and the stratosphere, there was no swaying at all! This is absolutely impossible! Unless… unless…”
The European man immediately jerked himself upward, and his pupils were filled with disbelief. “Unless, the force point of this track is not at the ground, but in the sky?”
The tallest building in the world was not built from the ground to the sky, but from the synchronous orbit. Utilizing this design, the entire track was stabilized by its own gravity, and the stress of the material itself was sufficient to negate the effect of the high air flow.
But what if it encountered bad weather like a typhoon?Dimitri knew that Celestial Trade would have certainly taken this into account. However, as an ESA Space Technology Expert, he couldn’t understand how Celestial Trade managed to solve this problem.
Directly below the ESA executive was another window.
Liu Haotian went to a white-haired old man and politely asked.
“Did you see anything?”
The old man sighed after he heard the question from the young man.
“In addition to the beautiful scenery that I will never forget in my life, I can’t see anything with my old eyes.”
The name of the old man was Liu Zhusheng, a researcher at the First Research Institute of Hua Aerospace Science and Technology Group. As one of the founders of the Hua aerospace industry, he was involved in the Shenzhou series rockets. At the first train ceremony, Celestial Trade provided four tickets to Hua, and he was given one of them.
The Aerospace Science and Technology Group and the top leaders of the State all had high hopes in that he could learn something from this ceremony. They hoped that he could learn some of the principles of the space elevator.
However, standing there, looking at the clouds gradually drifting away, he suddenly had the illusion of being in a completely different area of study.
But soon, he smiled and shook his head, relieving the burden in his chest.
Although he was an expert in the aerospace field, his expertise was in the field of chemical rockets. He could solve the technical problem of “longitudinal coupled vibration”, which restricted the development of large-scale liquid rockets in Hua with a pen, and impress the world’s aerospace experts by the leaps Hua’s aerospace industry made in a couple of decades, but it didn’t mean that his talents were applicable to the space elevator.
“There will always be more talented people,” Liu Zhusheng shook his head again and smiled. “I finally know why other countries gave this precious opportunity to authors.”
“Why?” Liu Haotian asked thoughtfully.
The old man raised his hand and used his index finger to point at his white hair.
“We need imagination.”
The conversation of an elder and a young man caught Zhang Feng’s attention.
Seeing familiar faces in a foreign country always gave him warm feelings. However, he did not go forward to talk to the two, but turned his sight outside the window.
For every thousand meters above sea level, the temperature would drop by 5 to 6 °C.
There was ice crystals condensing on the window with white mist lingering. The thick gas layer covered Earth like a spherical shell, just like a fairyland in one’s fantasy. Standing by the window, Zhang Feng silently took out his phone and captured this beautiful scene.
Being in such a magnificent place, he heard people exclaim in different languages.
Just then, he heard some broken Chinese.
“You’re a soldier?”
Zhang Feng turned around and looked at the man standing behind him. He did not deny his inquiry, but asked.
“Oh? How did you know?”
“Your posture is very unique.” The man shrugged and smiled, exposing his white teeth. “I heard that Hua specifically trains the way soldier stands, and how to fold their quilt into a tofu block.”
Hearing the banter in his words, Zhang Feng didn’t care, but raised his eyebrows and asked.
“Oh? How do the Americans train?”
The man grinned and said, “We get trained on how to beat people up.”
“Would you like to try with me?”
Looking at Zhang Feng’s half-grinning face, the man shook his head and waved his hand. “Hey, man, I’m just joking. If the two of us are tossed out from here because we are dueling, we can’t survive even with a parachute.”
After a pause, the man coughed and introduced himself.
“William James, Captain of the UA Marine Corps, what about you?”
“Zhang Feng, Celestial Marine Corps. I am also a Captain,” Zhang Feng shook the man’s hand.
William’s face showed a surprised expression, but it quickly returned to normal.
“I thought you were from Hua.”
“You didn’t guess wrong,” Zhang Feng let go of his hand, “in terms of ancestry at least”.
“As an employee of Celestial Trade, can you tell me what is on the space station above us?” William leaned against the railing by the window and asked casually.
“You will know when you arrive.” Zhang Feng shook his head.
William made a bored expression, but did not say anything more.
Just like what Zhang Feng said, when they arrive, he would know what’s up there. It was just that the five-hour journey was too long. If he didn’t find something to do on this lengthy ride, he would be bored to death.
It was not just him who was curious about what’s above him, but also netizens from all over the world who watched the space elevator’s first passage on Celestrial Trade’s official site. People commented to vent their shock and offered sincere praise to Celestial Trade.
Just as William was looking out the window in boredom and waiting for the time to pass, he suddenly saw a bright spot of a tail in the dark and deep space.
A meteor?
Outside the atmosphere?
No way!
He blinked and confirmed that he didn’t make a mistake. There was no reference in space, and he couldn’t judge how far the bright spot was from him. However, standing in his position, the stretched light was so distinct in the dark universe.
“What is that?”
He muttered to himself, took out his phone, and captured a photo of the mysterious meteor.
