Chapter 1540: Long-cherished wish

"921" is not just a rocket, but a major project, the China Manned Space Project. To explain the origin of this project, it needs to be traced back to more than ten years ago.
April 24, 1970, for China’s astronauts, was a day worth remembering forever. On this day, China’s first man-made satellite "Dongfanghong One" independently developed was successfully launched at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Huaxia became the fifth country in the world to successfully develop and launch an artificial earth satellite.
Taking advantage of the successful launch of the satellite and the nation's jubilation, Qian Xueshen, then Dean of the Fifth Research Institute of the Ministry of National Defense, proposed that China will engage in manned spaceflight! His proposal was approved by the then Huaxia leader. The project was approved in April 1971, code-named "Project 714", and the manned spacecraft in the project was given a promising name: "Dawn One".
However, it is a pity that China at that time, no matter the domestic situation, technical reserves, and financial capacity were not enough to support such a huge plan, the project was forced to discontinue in 1975.
Although the project was discontinued, the people of China Aerospace never stopped chasing their dreams. 11 years later, the "863" plan that laid the outline for China's future scientific and technological development began to be implemented at the national level, with the development of aerospace technology as one of the priorities. Promote major projects.
In February 1987, the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense established the "863 Program Aerospace Technology Expert Committee" (code 863-2). The committee included two expert groups, namely the Large Carrier Rocket and Space Shuttle Transportation System Group, code 863-204; manned Space station system and its application group, code 863-205. The establishment of these two expert groups marked the official restart of China's manned space project that had been suspended for 11 years.
From the beginning of the establishment of the expert group in 1987, a detailed plan demonstration work was carried out. By 1992, the plan demonstration work came to an end, and a complete project development report was formed and submitted to the State Council for approval. On September 21 of the same year, the report was formally approved. So far, China's manned spaceflight business has shifted from the program demonstration stage to the formal development stage. According to China's tradition, the project was named "Project 921" according to the approval time.
The "921 Project" determined the three-step development strategy of China's manned spaceflight:
The first step is to launch a manned spacecraft, build a preliminary supporting pilot manned spacecraft project, and carry out space application experiments.
The second step is to break through the rendezvous and docking technology of the manned spacecraft and spacecraft after the successful launch of the first manned spacecraft, and use the manned spacecraft technology to modify and launch a space laboratory to solve the problem of a certain scale and short-term human care. Space application problem.
The third step is to build a manned space station to solve the problem of large-scale, long-term manned space applications.
In another time and space, 7 years after the "Project 921" was formally approved, in November 1999, Huaxia launched the first unmanned spacecraft "Shenzhou One", and then launched four unmanned spacecraft successively, which was fully demonstrated. After a series of technologies, China launched its first manned spacecraft "Shenzhou V" on October 15, 2003, fulfilling the long-cherished wish of the Chinese nation to fly to the sky for thousands of years.
However, as a senior expert in the aerospace field, Ren Xinming also knows that in addition to the approved three-step plan of the "921 Project", the Ministry of Aeronautics and Astronautics also has a larger scale and longer implementation time span. "The plan, in this plan, the realization of manned spaceflight and the establishment of a space station are just the first step!
The three steps of this plan are "Shenzhou", "Chang'e" and "Tianwen".
Needless to say, "Shenzhou" is to achieve manned spaceflight and build a space station, while the goal of "Chang'e" is of course a manned landing on the moon, and "Tianwen" aimed at the distant Mars!
To realize such a magnificent plan, it will take several generations of people to make arduous efforts. Ren Xinming knows that at his own age, I am afraid that he may not be able to see the success of the first step, but he and his "old partners" have no hesitation. I devoted myself to this plan.
Because they believe that no matter how far away Mars is, as long as they continue to persevere and use themselves as the foundation to pave the way for the latecomers, then the latecomers will certainly not disappoint their efforts and hopes, and there will always be a generation to arrive!
Isn't there a young man who stands up in front of him?
Ren Xinming, with his indisputable qualifications, serves as the leader of the "921 Project" medium and large carrier rocket and the space-to-earth transportation system group. After the project was formally approved, this expert group has been transferred to the engineering technology of the space-to-earth system Committee, at present, the main task of this committee is of course to further complete the project demonstration work for the China Heavy Launch Vehicle.
This rocket was born because of the "921 Project" and was naturally named "921 Rocket", which is now proposed by Tan Zhenhua and is willing to bear the development funds.
Compared with the "Long March" series that China has now put into use, this planned "921" rocket is completely revolutionary, because this rocket was designed to go to the moon from the beginning!
The design requirements of the "921 Rocket" that have been preliminarily demonstrated are: the maximum take-off thrust is about 2,700 tons, the low earth orbit (LEO) capacity is about 70 tons, the Earth-moon transfer orbit (TLI) has a carrying capacity of about 27 tons, and it uses environmentally friendly fuels. It can also be roughly calculated that the take-off mass of the rocket will exceed 2,000 tons 100%!
The reason for obtaining these data is to refer to the American "Apollo Project". In this plan, the spacecraft carrying out the moon landing is divided into three parts: the command cabin, the lunar cabin and the service cabin. The command cabin has a mass of 5.5 tons. , The mass of the lunar module is 15.3 tons (including the 10.4 tons of fuel required for take-off from the moon), the mass of the service module is 24 tons, and the total load is 44.8 tons.
In order to launch the 44.8-ton payload into the lunar orbit, the United States developed the largest mass rocket ever used in human history-the "Saturn 5". This rocket is more than 110 meters in height and 10 meters in diameter. Meters, the root diameter reaches 13 meters, the take-off mass is 3038.5 tons; the total thrust is 3408 tons, the low earth orbit (LEO) capacity is 118 tons, and the earth-moon transfer orbit (TLI) capacity is 45 tons.
I have to admire the leading technological level of the Americans. As early as the 1960s, a rocket with such a huge thrust could be developed, capable of hitting all the payloads on the TLI orbit at one time, and China’s current "Long March" series of rockets is currently in service. The "Long March 3", the most powerful model, has a take-off weight of just over 200 tons. The rocket has a diameter of 3.35 meters and has a geosynchronous orbit (GTO) carrying capacity of 1.45 tons. To put it bluntly, it was thrown by the Americans. The taillights are not visible.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t see the taillights. It’s good to know the direction you need to work hard on, and when Ren Xinming knew, there was a guy he knew invested in a piece of equipment that can be called a national weapon, and it will be built and put into production in the last two years. At that time, he knew that many conditions began to mature one by one.