Zheng Wenguang's works: Flying to Sagittarius III. The Miracle of the Cosmic Age

The age of astronautics began in the 1950s, and by this time, it was only a few decades, but it reached its heyday. There have been so-called Seven Wonders of the World in history. The "Vostok" is a new miracle, a miracle of science and technology, and a miracle of the aerospace era. The Chinese who built the great Great Wall two thousand years ago have once again shocked the world.

The four-stage rocket, together with the front cockpit and carrier compartment, is eight hundred meters long, and the thickest place is one hundred meters in diameter. It is the equivalent of a two-hundred-story building, but it is all made of metal and has no windows, like the bronze tower used by the sultan for the claustrophobic princess in "One Thousand and One Nights". But it is more like a huge cannonball—yes, a cannonball that is about to shoot into a new world, into space.

In the afternoon, the wind blew, and the snow lying quietly on the ground was rolled up, and the white air was steaming, the snow was full of powder, and there were many strange shadows in the air that swirled violently, and the moon was accompanied by the gentle whistle of the wind.

Engineer Huo had inspected all ground facilities in the past half a day, including ground command centers, communications equipment, electronic control equipment and safety equipment, and was now taking three young people into the lift of the launcher. Her heart pounded, and she hugged the little leopard tightly and closed her eyes in the rapidly rising elevator. The elevator door opened, Engineer Huo reported a number word, and the door of the spaceship operated by electronic equipment also opened, which was the first door. There is a small foyer. They took off their coats and put on light cosmic suits. The gate closed, and the second door opened, and they entered the cockpit.

"This is to prevent the spacecraft from leaking oxygen in airless space." Ya Bing whispered in Ji Lai's ear. But then nothing could be heard. She felt that she was not entering the cockpit of some spaceship, but into a comfortable living room. What a cramped cockpit here that doesn't look like the spaceship you see in the movie! A row of lightweight sofas (all fixed), a long line of driving equipment with various gauges – each marked with four digits. What about the floor? Oh, and the floor is carpeted with erasers, soft and elastic. What about walls? The walls are a kind of gray material caused by something. Then he touched it with his hand, and it was very hard. The cabin was very bright, but there was no electric light, at first she did not understand, Ya Bing quietly pointed to the roof of the cabin, she found that the entire cabin roof emitted a soft luster, so the cockpit was as bright as the outside of the spaceship, the difference was that it could not see or hear how the wind and snow were raging on the ground.

"Don't touch any piece of equipment!" Engineer Huo said hello. "Ya Bing, you can take Ji to see everywhere and hold the puppy." Ji En, help me check the various instruments and equipment. He casually handed a box with a harness to Ji En, let him carry it, and pulled out a stethoscope-like thing from the box.

"They're checking with electronic instruments!" Ya Bing whispered to Ji Ji, "Flying in the universe." There can be no ambiguity. One part is broken, potentially destroying the entire ship. ”

Then she raised her beautiful, curved eyebrows and stared at Ya Bing trustingly and curiously.

"See those numbers?" Ya Bing pointed to the numbers on the driving platform. "Each number represents the code name of this electronic automatic machine. The instrument is operated with sound, and like the electronic driver of your dad's little car, isn't it codenamed 1271? ”

"But why are there no windows?" Can't see the outside scenery at all, how stuffy is it? ”

"3025, on!" Ya Bing calmly and clearly reported this number. Immediately, like magic, what cockpit, what spaceship, all disappeared. Then they found themselves standing in the open air, and then they saw the large clumps of snow swirling and heard the sound of the north wind whistling. This sudden change frightened the little leopard, and it huddled tightly in the mistress's arms,

At first, I was startled. But she saw that the sofa and the driving platform were still resting on that side, and Engineer Huo and his brother were still working, only the brother looked up, looked at them, and said, "Ya Bing, don't hinder the work." "And although the wind and snow around her are very large, I don't feel any wind blowing at all, and she can't get a little snow on her." She understood a little and whispered, "But TV?" ”

"Exactly, panoramic TV." Ya Bing smiled. "3025, off." Everything was immediately restored to its original state, and they were still in the cockpit of the spacecraft. This is really like Alibaba's mantra "Sesame, open the door" in "One Thousand and One Nights". Ji Lai tried to try it himself, but Ya Bing stopped her. Ya Bing said.

"Later, have you ever thought about it, why are the instruments here manipulated in language, without the fingers moving and turning off?"

"Why?" Then he blinked his eyes.

"This is because astronauts often encounter overweight - that is, gravity is many times greater than the gravity of our current Earth, astronauts will increase their weight very much, sometimes even raise their hands is very difficult, it is much more convenient to manipulate with language." ...... However, let's go to the rear carrier compartment and look at it, don't affect them. ”

The carrying compartment turned out to be downstairs. Go down a steep metal ladder.

"This ladder is not easy to walk!" To eat a meal, to take a little thing, do you have to climb up and down like this? Then he muttered.

Ya Bing laughed.

"In fact, this ladder is for your current use. As soon as the spacecraft starts, it is not needed. Because during the period of being overweight, you don't want to go anywhere. When the overweight is over, it's time to lose weight again..."

"Weightlessness?"

"Yes. The ship no longer accelerates, it flies according to inertia, and everything on the ship loses its weight. You can fly in the cabin. From the cockpit to this cabin, it came over. ”

"How interesting!" Ji Lai said happily. "When will I be an astronaut?"

This carrying compartment is made up of many large cabinets. This makes Ji lai think of the electronic kitchen at home. There must also be such an electronic chef here, how to solve the problem of the last astronaut eating? Ya Bing opened a drawer, took out a small bag of biscuits in a plastic bag, and said:

"Compressed cookies, you know?" This small packet is enough for you to eat for a day. ”

He took out another small bag and said. "Concentrated soup, rinsed with water, is a bowl of egg and meat squeezed vegetable soup."

"Do astronauts always eat these things?"

"Where, where!" Ya Bing said hurriedly. "Here, it is also possible to hold a high-level banquet. What is here is not only for the astronauts to use in just a few days, but for a large number of people at the Mars workstation for two years..."

"Two years?"

"Oh, you don't know the plan of the 'Vostok'?" Ya Bing lowered his voice. "Last week, in 2003, a Construction spacecraft flew to Mars." The Vostok was responsible for giving them the equipment, and there was a 'Unity', also on the 2003 base, which had not yet been built..."

"What are so many ships going to Mars for?" Ji Lai asked with great interest.

"Oh, come on!" Ya Bing replied. "Mars is the closest planet to Earth, and it is also the planet that most resembles Earth. Mars is only a little smaller and a little cooler than Earth. In the eighteenth century, when people saw dark spots and thin lines on Mars in telescopes, they thought that this was the depression of Mars and the canal that led water out of the depression. canal! ...... This is something that rational creatures can dig into. So, so, i wrote a lot of science fantasy novels, how the Martians talked about how to talk with noses and eyes. It has now been proven that there is no one on Mars, no advanced creatures. Some say that Mars is an old, life-dead planet. Can you believe it? ”

The little girl narrowed her eyes wide in curiosity and pondered.

"I don't believe it either." Ya Bing's thick face hung a smile. "If there had ever been people on Mars, if there had been rational creatures like men, they would not have been wiped out, no matter how harsh the natural conditions of Mars became. They are able to conquer nature. Isn't that what the people of our planet do? ...... You see, the desert is retreating from us. How much grain have we taken from the so-called barren land! Human beings are created by nature, but human beings can change the face of nature. Humans have transformed the face of the earth, why can't they transform Mars..."

The words of fire made the following hearts flutter. She had always thought that interstellar voyages would bring back nothing more than a few photographs, a few stones, that would allow people to study the world beyond Earth directly, but now, the transformation of Mars— at least in experiments, began...

In the cockpit, the TV phone rang. Engineer Huo slammed the button.

On the screen, a young man hesitated and said:

"Engineer Huo, I found something..."

"What, Xiao Yang?"

"It seems that... A crashed satellite..."

"3025, on!" Engineer Huo gave the order quickly. They now condescendingly see the entire launch site. In its northwest corner, in the snowstorm, a bunch of people were gathered around, studying something on the ground. It was like a overturned car.

"I'll go down and have a look!" Engineer Huo whispered to Ji En. "You have to stay here, don't just leave, and don't alarm them." He pointed to the carrier compartment, opened the door, and went out.

Ji En let the TV set on. But the wind and snow were getting more and more fierce, the vision was very poor, and he only vaguely saw people busy in the snow and wind. Engineer Huo had reached the supposedly crashed satellite and bent down to check it, looking very attentive. But a man came and pulled him along, and that was Xiao Yang, the young man in the duty room. Xiao Yang Sai gave Engineer Huo something. Suddenly, there were muffled, not-so-loud gunshots!

Presumably Ya Bing also heard it. He leaned out of the carrier and asked:

"What happened?"

Ji En waved his hand. The TV phone rang again, and this time it was Xiao Ling—another young man in the duty room was talking:

"Shao Ji'en! The base finds the enemy, and Engineer Huo orders you to stay inside the ship. There are pistols under the sofa seats, armed! ”

Ya Bing jumped deftly, reached under the sofa, and felt for two very delicate pistols. Ji Lai also came up with the leopard in her arms, and as soon as she threw the leopard, she ran over: "Give me one!" ”

"You can shoot?" Without waiting for an answer, Ya Bing threw the pistol at her, pulled out another one himself, tried the nose, and smiled with satisfaction.

"I don't know what kind of enemy it is..."

Ji Laixin was very nervous. Of course she shot a gun and practiced live rifle shooting at school. But she never imagined that she would one day fight the enemy face to face, and she had never seen a real battle except in the movie, but she did not expect that the battle would come to this very well-guarded rocket base. Her mood at this moment was like that of a hunter crouching on the edge of the old forest tiger's den in the deep mountains, so nervous that even her eyebrows were slightly beating.

Ji En was very calm, he walked out of the second door, went outside to check the spaceship cockpit door, and then walked in again, continuing to watch everything that was happening outside in the panoramic TV. It was already very dark. Illuminated by the powerful pillar of light of the searchlight, the snow swirled. Strangely, there seemed to be thousands of armies and horses fighting, and there seemed to be countless huge waves churning, and the roaring wind and snow flooded the whole world. Despite his wide eyes, he couldn't see anything. Several times, Ya Bing said, "Let's go out—here, I don't know anything, I'm dead." "But Ji En knew what engineer Huo meant by asking them to stick inside the ship, it was a very important position, this was their trench.

In the enclosed cockpit, although they were not hit by the wind and snow at all, they were in a world that was really a storm and snow. They just waited a quarter of an hour, two quarters of an hour... I don't know how long. Suddenly, as if there was a great tremor, several people fell heavily to the ground on the small leopard. Ya Bing initially thought it was an earthquake, but he seemed to hear Ji En's panicked and urgent voice in his coma:

"Not good... the 'Orient' has taken off!"

The sound of explosions drowned everything. The spaceship stabbed straight into the snowy night sky.