"Fives!"

"four!"

"three!"

"two!"

"One!"

"zero!"

"ignition!"

A light blue arc sprays from the end of the flared wing to the rear of the aerospace plane.

Dragging the long and narrow blue plume, the Xiaguang, which was launched from the Jinling Space Launch Center, disappeared at the end of the cloud with the attention of all the ground staff and engineers and commanders in the launch center.

The launch plan went very smoothly.

After leaving the troposphere, the pair of short and thick auxiliary wings of the Xiaguang number slowly rotate, lowering the angle of the injection port connected to the end of the wing, and gradually stretching the direction of the nose.

At the same time, the blue plume behind the wing gradually enlarged, and began to directly work against gravity. Pushing the Xiaguang to draw a tangible path to the earth and flying to the innocent deep space outside the ground.

Time passes by.

After nearly an hour of flight, Xiaguang finally lived up to the expectations, smoothly broke through the edge of the dense section of the atmosphere, reached the low Earth orbit, and began a 72-hour round-the-air flight.

Sitting in the cockpit, the test pilot Xu Zhenghong on the main driver's seat carefully took a look at the track height on the instrument, the surface temperature of the spacecraft and so on.

After confirming that everything was normal, his expression was always stretched and he finally relaxed.

This is his 57th flight test mission, and he is the highest flight. When I was in the test pilots' brigade, he never thought that he would drive the plane out of the atmosphere one day.

Until one day, the superiors of the army found him and arranged for him to test the mission of Xiaguang...

Although the plane is equipped with an escape cabin, but the gadget does not work, only the genius knows.

Reaching out to open the auto-cruise mode, Xu Zhenghong then lifted the connection between the cabin spacesuit and the environmental control system. Finally, he reached down on the side of the helmet and took a deep breath.

"Here is the Xiaguang, we have successfully reached the target track and requested the next step."

A series of noisy currents are heard in the communication channel.

As the communication signal stabilized, the response from the ground command center quickly came.

"...This is the ground command. Congratulations on your successful completion of the first test flight drill. Please keep the track height for two hours, and the next test flight drill will begin two hours later."

Xu Zhenghong: "Received, has entered cruise mode."

Sitting in the co-pilot position, Liu Jie, who also untied the environmental control system, reached out and loosened the connection at the helmet of the space suit. He turned his gaze to the space outside the cockpit and smiled and said something.

“The scenery here is quite good.”

Looked at the little sparks below the eye cloud, and the deep universe above the spark, Xu Zhenghong replied with a smile.

"Yes."

This is probably the most beautiful scenery he has ever seen.

At this moment, on the far side of the other side, a silver spacecraft slowly climbed to the height and penetrated the edge of the dense section of the atmosphere.

Looking at the direction of the other side, Liu, who was sitting in the co-pilot position, blinked and asked.

"That is?"

"It should be space-x bfr spacecraft, I heard that they are also launched today," looked at the comrades sitting next to him, Xu Zhenghong joked, "Your eyes are strange, this is seen by you."

Being captained by the captain, Liu Wei smiled embarrassedly.

"You said, do we want to say hello to them by the past?"

Xu Zhenghong: "Good idea, you can ask the ground command center and see what the commander says."

Liu Wei’s expression touched the back of his head a little embarrassed and said: “Hey, I’m just joking and active, don’t take it seriously.”

Xu Zhenghong paused for a moment and said.

"It’s almost a joke, take a break for 10 minutes, then start working."

Liu Wei, sitting in the co-pilot position, immediately straightened his waist.

"Yes!"

......

At the same time, the other side of the track.

Just as the Xiaguang discovered the bfs spacecraft, the bfs spacecraft also found them.

Although neither side is equipped with a radar specifically designed to detect spacecraft, the distance is not particularly far away because of the same orbital height, so it is seen at a glance.

Looking at the silver spacecraft outside the porthole, the Taiwei, who leaned against the seat, said suddenly.

"According to the tradition of the Marine Corps, we should write down the mailbox on paper and stick it on the window."

Johnson raised his eyebrows and joked a word.

"The Marine Corps does not have this tradition. It is the Air Force... and I guess even if we do this, they can't see it clearly."

"That's also true." Taiwei muttered to himself and said nothing.

Unlike the two big men, Jones, sitting on the other side of the spacecraft, was completely attracted by the blue planet behind the spacecraft.

Looking at the porthole for a long time, Jones whispered softly: "A beautiful view..."

Looking at Jones, Taiwei also turned his eyes to the window and said a word.

“Yes, the scenery here is beautiful.”

"Speaking, we are all trained at different training bases, and we only meet two weeks before the start of the launch mission." Looking at the two people staring out the window, Johnson suddenly opened his mouth and smiled and said, "I mean. Yes, why don't we talk?"

Retracting his eyes from the porthole, Taiwei cast a question of asking him: "What are you talking about?"

"Talk about life, talk about dreams, talk about why we are sitting here, why sign up to Mars... Oh, damn, it would be nice if there is a bottle of whiskey here." Johnson touched his head with some distress and made a funny Said the expression.

Jones whispered: "The living materials reserve can only be unlocked after landing... I heard about it when I was trained."

Taiwei’s attention was not on those insignificant questions, but on his previous sentence.

"Isn't these things already said on the show?"

Johnson shrugged and made a helpless expression.

"Only I said it, you haven't."

Taiwei hesitated, and finally did not answer this question, but looked at Jones.

"Lady first."

"Hey? Me? I..." Jones looked around with a sigh of relief and then gave up and sighed and said, "Well, I hope that after I said, you should not laugh at me. I am because of feelings. A little problem..."

Johnson: "Affective issues? Break up? Divorce? Or... Oh, sorry, I shouldn't ask the bottom-"

"It's breaking up," Jones said for a moment, and continued. "It may not be a big deal for you, but it hurts me a lot. I hope to get back on my feet and then change places to live again."

Taiwei’s eyebrows were lifted up and he couldn’t believe it. “And then, at this time, did you see the recruitment advertisement for the Ares plan?”

"Yes," Jones squeezed a slightly reluctant smile from his face and continued. "It's amazing, isn't it? My colleagues are shocked, and no one has thought that I was chosen... ...Immigration Bureau quickly passed my application, space-x even reimbursed my ticket from Amsterdam to the United States. I thought about it and thought it was good, so..."

It seems that I don't know how to express it. Jones shrugged and ended the topic bluntly. "In short, I am sitting here now."

"It's too exaggerated..." Taiwei looked at Jones a little unbelievably and said, "If you just want to run so far because of the breakup, I am afraid I have already flown outside the solar system."

"Stop, don't say this unlucky," Johnson shot Tavey's shoulder. "Our lady has finished, now it's your turn. I've been very curious, what makes a football field The quarterback became an astronaut."

I finally faced this problem.

Taiwei hesitated and finally gave up and shrugged.

"Because... debt problem."

Johnson was surprised to see him: "Credit card?"

"That's right..." Taiwei moved his eyes slightly.

Johnson smiled cheerfully and patted him on the shoulder with encouragement.

"Haha, there are no annoying bills on Mars, you are free now."

Taiwei smiled from the heart, but did not answer.

Jones glanced at him, and the woman’s instincts told her that the guy didn’t tell the truth or said nothing.

At least, the reason he participated in the plan is certainly not as simple as the debt problem.

Compared with Jones, Johnson did not care about these details. He just thought that Taiwei didn't seem to want to continue this topic, so he didn't go deep into it.

A person's past is not important. What matters is how he faces the future.

Since they are sitting here, they are teammates, they are a team, they have to face all the problems together...

As the words gradually opened, the atmosphere gradually became familiar.

Looking at the two teammates who recovered cheerfully, Johnson nodded with satisfaction.

As the "captain" of this flight, Columbus heading for the New World, in addition to responsible for professional operations, he has to coordinate the mental state of his teammates.

After all, it will take nearly two months to lie in this small and compact manned spacecraft. This feeling is not much better than jail.

Time passed by, the blue planet behind him, and the spacecraft that had disappeared long ago, have gradually moved away from them.

In this way, with the yearning for the New World and the ambiguity of a bright future, the bfs spacecraft that left the synchronous orbit, drove into the darkness of the sky and flew toward the fiery red planet...