"Fuel is precious in space; it's used up little by little, and it's generally only used when changing orbits."
For example, our multi-purpose spacecraft Endurance in space will absolutely not use its fuel for acceleration. Our plan is to bring the spacecraft close to Mars and use the gravitational slingshot effect to accelerate, but now it seems they are in a bit too hasty."
Jody did a simple analysis of the spacecraft's trajectory before it left the monitoring station, and it was clear that the spacecraft was simply accelerating and did not perform any orbital maneuvers at all.
In his view, this was undoubtedly unnecessary.
Because the speed of a spacecraft decreases very little in space, even without increasing its speed, as long as it follows its orbit, the spacecraft will eventually reach its intended destination.
Moreover, blindly increasing speed will only disrupt the spacecraft's planned flight schedule. After all, the wormhole is near Saturn, and Saturn revolves around the sun. In this way, arbitrarily increasing speed could easily cause the spacecraft to miss Saturn's orbit.
With the speed increasing so rapidly now, it might need to slow down later to match the wormhole's orbit. Otherwise, the spaceship might already be past its orbit before Saturn and the wormhole even rotate around.
Isn't this a waste of effort?
After listening to Jody's analysis, Professor Brand remained silent.
He only spoke when Jody became confused:
"Perhaps we should have a serious talk with them."
"Let's talk?"
"Yes," Professor Brand said slowly, "They may still have concerns, but the future of all humanity is now in our hands. We should take the initiative to put aside our hatred, visit them, and have in-depth conversations with them face to face."
Brand didn't completely rule out cooperation, but this was already a huge concession.
Jody had always respected the old professor and agreed with his plans and ideas, so he didn't have much of an objection to Professor Brand's proposal.
"But the others..."
"I'll convince them; you just need to focus on what you're good at."
Jody nodded; his expertise was undoubtedly in aerospace. "I understand, Professor."
"Okay, then you go ahead and prepare. I'll coordinate things, and I'll let you know soon."
Jody left.
Professor Brand silently closed his office door, then made a phone call to address the matter he had just promised to resolve.
This is not an easy task.
Although ten years have passed since the global unrest officially ended.
But the hatred has not been forgotten.
Many of those people from ten years ago are still alive today.
The people who spoke with Professor Brand on the phone repeatedly emphasized that they still couldn't forget the ships that were sunk ten years ago.
You know, it's loaded with...
Food!
And so it was sunk at sea.
Not a single grain transport ship from South Asia has returned!
The entire operation resulted in a huge financial loss, enough to bankrupt my family.
It was precisely because of this huge loss that a series of reactions ensued within their country—the astronauts of Lazarus missions had barely taken to space when the entire operation was halted, the space agency was disbanded, and starving civilians were physically exterminated...
Many of the events that occurred over the past decade, upon closer examination, originated from the grain transport ships that failed to return safely back then.
Brand spent most of the day patiently persuading each person on the other end of the phone to agree to the upcoming visit.
However, their agreement alone is not enough.
In the past, if you wanted to visit another country, you had to communicate with the country you were visiting.
The situation is the same now, and it's even more complicated.
"I wonder if they have any suitable airports to land at... No, perhaps I should be more worried about whether we still have a plane capable of flying across the Pacific Ocean..."
While talking to himself, Professor Brand then called over his daughter Amelia Brand.
" Amelia, there may be a mission for you to carry out next."
Amelia, who had rushed over from the lab, removed her lab gloves and said with a serious expression, "Please speak, Father."
"We are preparing for our first international visit since the start of this new era, and perhaps we will reach some cooperation agreements."
Amelia seemed to understand but not quite. "Am I also part of the delegation? Or am I going to ride that rocket into space?"
"No, no, no," Professor Brand shook his head repeatedly, "That's too dangerous."
"Your task is simple: just bring them a backup ' Population Bomb.'"
Should we hand over Plan B to them?
"It's just a backup; I don't think they'll refuse the gift."
" Amelia, listen to me. Your task is to tell them everything about Plan B, so that they, like us, will consider it as an alternative."
"If they are unwilling"
If they're willing to accept our Population Bomb, then guide them to create their Population Bomb. This will increase the success rate of Plan B and greatly increase the possibility of human survival.
Seeing his daughter's somewhat bewildered expression, Professor Brand quickly added, "Of course, this is just a backup plan; we'd better stick to Plan A."
"Okay, Dad... I understand. I will try my best to facilitate this cooperation with them."
Professor Brand then smiled and patted his daughter, "Thank you for your hard work, Amelia."
"Go and rest now, all we need to do is wait."
The following day, Professor Brand and Jody officially began discussing the personnel arrangements for the delegation. His suggestions were formally documented and transmitted via satellite to Yuan Heguang...
Yuan Heguang was busy with various affairs and had no time to deal with this matter. By the time he remembered it, the document had been lying in his office for a full week.
Professor Brand stated in the document that he wanted to discuss and exchange ideas on the future space programs of the two countries, which was not as direct as before.
Strictly speaking, this does not involve the wormhole exploration project they are currently collaborating on with the Mutual Aid Society, so after consulting with experts such as Zhou Kun Yi Yehua, Yuan Heguang readily agreed to their visit.
Just in case, he also reported the matter to the Mutual Aid Society.
While the branches in various timelines expressed concern about this matter, they did not interfere. Only Branch Three reminded their space teams in Interstellar Spacetime to stay away from the upcoming delegation and avoid getting infected.
Brand received the news and then prepared an international flight to assemble a flight team. By the time everything was settled, Amelia, as the deputy leader of the delegation, led all the team members onto the flight, another week had passed.
Only after watching the backup " Population Bomb " being sent into the plane's cargo hold and placed in a special storage device did Amelia Brand breathe a sigh of relief and become the last to board the plane.
On the temporarily cleared airport runway, the plane began taxiing, preparing for takeoff.
The atmosphere inside the cabin was somewhat heavy.
No one has flown across the Pacific Ocean for at least a decade, and during this time, population movement has greatly decreased, and public transportation is on the verge of disappearing.
Even between major cities within their own country, connecting flights are rare.
Therefore, the quality of pilots...
Amidst their anxiety, the plane had already taxied to the end of the runway.
Despite some turbulence during takeoff, we finally took off safely. The scenery outside the window became expansive, the only unpleasant sight being the gray-yellow landscape with no green to be seen.
This cast a shadow over Amelia's otherwise good mood.
Seeing this land, she immediately thought of the root of everything— Blight, and then all the disasters she had seen and heard about naturally flooded her mind.
Just then, a sandstorm swept across the land. Even from the sky, she could see the yellow sand swirling like Swarm in the wind. The harsh environment made it impossible for her to see any way out...
"Do you think things will go smoothly for us this time? They don't seem to like us very much," Jody asked Amelia without even turning her head, as she flipped through the materials prepared for the visit.
Amelia said calmly, "It's normal that you don't like us."
Jody was momentarily speechless and had to change the subject. "I saw on satellite data that they still maintain an extremely large population in their country, which is a huge burden on their finances and food supply."
Their situation must be dire. It's hard to imagine that they could launch a rocket like that into a wormhole under such circumstances. They must be having a very difficult time, so why are they so determined to refuse us?
"Don't they know that cooperating with us can lighten their burden?"
Amelia showed no interest in the topic either, and coldly chose not to answer.
She looked out the window; the plane had already crossed the gray-yellow land and entered the azure sea. The bright color reflected in her beautiful eyes, which made her feel much better.
This was her first time traveling so far from home.
For the previous thirty years, except for her childhood, she spent almost all her time at the base, even attending school there. The people she interacted with were her father's students and various participants in the project...
Jody was still muttering to herself, while Amelia drifted off to sleep, lost in a gentle melancholy.
When she woke up again, the plane was almost landing.
Jody came back from the cockpit. "We're hovering over the airport now, waiting to land. Damn it, their airport is busy. We don't have..."
The runway for landing!
Amelia regained her composure. "A busy airport?"
Are there still busy airports in the world?
"Yes," Jody walked to the window of the empty seat next to her and looked down, "There are quite a few planes below, it does seem very busy."
Amelia also got up and leaned out the window, and sure enough, she could vaguely see many planes parked at the airport, and quite a few of them taxiing on the runway.
She woke up less than two minutes later and saw a plane successfully take off below.
"This is a little different from what I expected..."
Amelia stared at the departing plane. "After hearing what you just said, I thought the situation here would be worse than where we are."
This was her original idea.
But looking at that airport below now, it seems like that's not the case at all.
Keep in mind that even their own country can't support a busy airport right now, yet here we can still see planes "traffic jam"...
Not only were Jody and Amelia amazed, but the other officials and scholars in the delegation also found it incredible.
"What kind of missions are these planes carrying out? Do they still have so many people who need to be moved around quickly?"
"Perhaps they're transporting grain?"
"But wouldn't transporting by plane be a completely unprofitable business?"
"The resources required to maintain an airplane these days are countless tons of grain. Using airplanes to transport grain is practically using 'grain' to transport grain."
To everyone's surprise, their international flight hovered in the air for a full half hour before finally finding an opening and landing safely.
One of Zhou Kun's students came to greet him personally, "Hello, I'm Chen Jianzhou, welcome."
Jody went up to shake his hand and introduced herself as the leader of the delegation, with Amelia standing next to her as the vice-leader.
Chen Jianzhou greeted the two again, then arranged for them to board the VIP bus to take them back to the guesthouse.
The bus slowly drove through the airport. Amelia, looking at the planes coming and going, couldn't help but ask curiously, "Excuse me, what are these planes transporting?"
Chen Jianzhou was somewhat taken aback by the question; he had never expected the delegation to ask such a question.
"Uh... I really don't know."
"All I know is that this airport was only opened a few days ago, and most of these planes were probably stored in hangars before, so they're probably being tested?"
An airport that was only recently opened?
Was it because of their arrival?
Amelia and Jody's first thought was this, but after exchanging a glance, they realized it wasn't.
These people clearly don't seem to be valued.
They were left hanging in the air for half an hour before finally landing, and the person who received them was even lower in rank than Jody.
Besides, with so many planes taking off, it's impossible for them to actually fly around in the sky and then fly back to this airport to land, right?
In that case, when they fly over, they should see many planes hovering around in the air.
The fact that they didn't see it just now means that these planes all had destinations after takeoff...
Suddenly, a surprised exclamation rang out from inside the bus.
"My God! What model of plane is that? It looks huge!"
"Our plane looks like a skinny Little Boy next to it!"
Following the gazes of the others, Jody immediately saw a new plane slowly taking off from the runway next to the plane they had flown in.
And that plane...
It's way too big!
This behemoth is painted entirely in gray, with a nose shaped like a bullet. However, the cockpit protrudes upwards, resembling a slicked-back hairstyle. The long wings are angled slightly downwards, and six massive turbofan engines are mounted in pods under the wings. The tail of the wings folds upwards, and if fully extended, it would probably be no less than 100 meters long.
There were some flags and logos printed on the fuselage, but apart from the national flag, no one could understand the other logos.
In short, their long-haul passenger planes were no match for this behemoth.
Jody could feel the oppressive aura emanating from this behemoth; based on his experience, he immediately realized—
"This is definitely a military heavy transport plane!"
Moreover, this heavy transport aircraft is definitely not an old model!
Was this designed in the last decade?!
------Aside------
I woke up groggily yesterday morning and felt something crawling on my head. I knew something was wrong. That night I did a thorough cleaning of the room and caught a cockroach. Then I even disassembled the bed and found several tiny cockroaches, no bigger than grains of rice, under the mattress... Truly, the three great calamities of Guangdong are cockroaches, the humid weather, and showering in winter.