Shui Wa and four coworkers carefully descended from the top floor of the Aerospace Building, and it took them forty minutes to reach the 83rd floor, which was the location they touched yesterday. Spider-Man's most troublesome task is chamfering walls, which are walls whose angle to the ground is less than 90 degrees. In order to express his perverted creativity, the designer of the Aerospace Building designed the entire building to be tilted, with a slender column at the top supported by the ground. According to the famous architect, tilting can better show the sense of rising. . This seems to make sense, and this skyscraper has become famous all over the world and has become another iconic building in Beijing. But the ancestors of this master architect have been scolded by Beijing's Spider-Man for eight generations. The job of cleaning the Aerospace Building is almost a nightmare for them, because the entire side of the tilted building is chamfered and is 400 meters high. , the angle with the ground is as small as 65 degrees.
After arriving at the working position, Shui Wa looked up and saw that the huge glass cliff above her head seemed to be falling down. He opened the lid of the detergent container with one hand and grasped the handle of the suction cup tightly with the other. This kind of suction cup is specially made for cleaning chamfered walls, but it doesn't work very well. It often loses suction. At this time, Spider-Man will swing away from the wall and be hung by the safety belt on a swing in the air. This happened many times when cleaning the aerospace building, and every time it left people in awe. Just yesterday, one of Shuiwa's co-workers fell off his breath and swung far away, then swung back. Pushed by the strong wind, he hit the wall, shattering a large piece of glass and leaving wounds on his forehead and arms. There was a big gash, and the expensive coated high-grade architectural glass made all his work for the year in vain.
So far, Shui Wa has been working as Spider-Man for more than two years. This job is really not easy. When there is Level 2 wind force on the ground, the wind force is Level 5 at 100 meters in the air, and the wind is even stronger on the current super high-rise buildings of 400 to 500 meters. Not to mention the danger, Spider-Man's falling accidents have occurred frequently since the beginning of this century. In winter, the strong wind is as sharp as a knife; the most commonly used disinfectant when cleaning glass is very corrosive, causing fingernails to turn black and then fall off; and in summer, to prevent the corrosion of detergents, you have to wear Airtight raincoat, rain pants and rain boots, if you wear coated glass, your back will be exposed to the sun, and the sunlight reflected by the glass in front of you will make you blind. At this time, Shui Wa really feels like being placed on a solar stove on land and sea.
But Shui Wa loves this job, and this year or so has been the happiest time in his life. This is of course because Spider-Man's income is relatively high among low-educated migrant workers who come to Beijing from other places. More importantly, he gets a wonderful sense of satisfaction from his work. He likes to do the jobs that other workers are unwilling to do the most: cleaning recently completed super-tall buildings. These buildings are all over 200 meters in height, with the tallest reaching 500 meters. Hanging on the outer walls of the tops of these skyscrapers, the city of Beijing stretches out unobstructedly below. Those so-called high-rise buildings built in the last century look so short from here, and farther away, they look like clusters stuck on the ground. thin wooden strips, and the Forbidden City in the center of the city seems to be built with golden building blocks; at this height, the noise of the city cannot be heard, and the entire Beijing becomes a whole that can be seen at a glance, becoming a spider web-like The highway is a huge life of blood, breathing quietly below. Sometimes, skyscrapers towered above the clouds, and the waist below was shrouded in gloomy torrential rain, while the sun was shining brightly above. When working, there was an endless sea of billowing clouds at his feet. Every time at this time, Shui Wa always felt that his body was being The strong wind above the sea of clouds made it transparent...
Shui Wa learned a philosophy from this experience: things can only be seen clearly from a height. If you are submerged in this metropolis, everything around you is so complicated, and the city seems to be an endless maze. But from a height, you can see that the entire city is just a large city with more than 10 million people. It's nothing more than an ant's nest, and the world around it is so vast.
After receiving his first salary, Shui Wa walked around a large shopping mall. When he took the elevator to the third floor, he found that this was a confusing place. Different from the bustling lower two floors, the hall on this floor is relatively empty. There are only a few surprisingly large low tables. On the wide table top of each table, there is a small group of buildings. Each building As high as a book. There is green grass between the buildings, and there are white pavilions and corridors on the grass... These small buildings seem to be made of ivory and cheese, and they look so cute. Together with the green grass, they form an exquisite little world. In the eyes of the child, it really looks like a model of a small paradise. At first he guessed it was some kind of toy, but there were no children here, and the people at the table looked serious and solemn. He stood on the edge of a small paradise and stared at it in ecstasy for a long time. A beautiful lady came to greet him, and then he realized that this was a place for selling commercial housing. He pointed to a small building casually and asked how much the apartment at the top cost. The lady told him that it had three bedrooms and one living room, with a price of 3,500 yuan per square meter, and a total value of 380,000 yuan. Hearing this number, Shui Wa took a breath of air, but the lady's next words made this cold number much gentler:
"Instalment payment, 1,500 to 2,000 yuan per month."
He asked carefully: "I...I'm not from Beijing, can I buy it?"
The young lady gave him a touching smile: "You are so funny. The household registration has been canceled for two years. What else is there to say about being a Beijinger? Aren't you a Beijinger when you live here?"
After Shui Wa walked out of the shopping mall, he walked aimlessly on the street for a long time. Beijing at night was shining colorfully around him. In his hand, he held several colorful advertising pages given to him by the sales lady. Stop and take a look from time to time. Just over a month ago, owning a house in the provincial capital was still a myth for him in the simple house in that far western city. Now, he is still quite far away from buying that house in Beijing. But this is no longer a myth. It has turned from a myth into a dream, and this dream, like those exquisite little models, is actually in front of you and can be touched.
At this time, someone was knocking on the glass that Shui Wa was cleaning, which was often troublesome. The appearance of high-rise cleaners on office windows always makes white-collar workers in super buildings feel inexplicable annoyance, as if these people are really big alien spiders as their common name suggests, and the barrier between them is far more than just the glass. While Spider-Man was working, the people inside either complained about the noise or complained that the sunlight was blocked, and tried their best to make things difficult for them. The glass of the Aerospace Building is semi-reflective. Shui Wa struggled to look inside and finally saw the person inside clearly. It was Lu Hai!
After the breakup, Shui Wa has been thinking about Lu Hai. In his memory, Lu Hai has always been a homeless man in suits and ties, living a difficult life in this big city. One late autumn night, when Shui Wa was silently worrying about Lu Hai's winter clothes in the dormitory, she actually saw him on TV! At this time, the China Solar Project was selecting materials to build reflectors, which was the most critical technical core of the project. Among more than a dozen materials, the nanomirror film developed by Lu Hai was finally selected. He transformed from a technology vagabond into one of the chief scientists of China's solar project and became world-famous overnight. After that, although Lu Hai frequently appeared in various media, Shui Wa forgot about him. He felt that there was no relationship between them.
In that large office, Shui Wa saw that Lu Hai had remained the same inside and out compared to two years ago. He was even wearing that suit. Now Shui Wa knew that this suit, which he considered luxurious at the time, was The clothes were actually see-through for the first time. Shui Wa told him about his life in Beijing, and finally he said with a smile:
"It seems that we are both doing well in Beijing."
"Yes, yes, it's all good!" Lu Hai nodded excitedly, "Actually, when I said those words about the times and opportunities to you that morning, I almost lost confidence in everything. I said it to myself, But this era is really full of opportunities.”
Shui Wa nodded: "There are golden birds everywhere."
Then, Shui Wa looked at this large, modern office. The most eye-catching thing here was the unusual set of decorations: the entire ceiling of the office was a holographic image of the starry sky, so people in the office It's like being in a courtyard under a brilliant starry sky. There was a silver circular surface suspended in front of the background of the starry sky. It was a mirror, much like the solar cooker in Lu Hai, but Shui Wa knew that the area of this solar cooker might be dozens of the size of Beijing. In the corner of the ceiling, there is a spherical lamp. Like the mirror, this lamp ball floats in the air without any support, emitting a dazzling yellow light. The mirror projects its beam of light onto a large globe next to the desk, creating a round bright spot on its surface. The light ball drifted slowly under the ceiling, and the mirror rotated to track it, always maintaining the beam of light directed toward the globe. The starry sky, mirrors, lamp balls, light beams, globes and highlights on their surfaces form an abstract and mysterious composition.
"Is this the Chinese sun?" Shui Wa pointed at the mirror and asked in awe.
Lu Hai nodded: "This is a reflector with an area of 30,000 square kilometers. It reflects sunlight to the earth in a synchronous orbit at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers. From the ground, it looks like there is an extra sun in the sky."
"I have never understood how there is so much rain on the ground when there are so many suns in the sky?"
"This artificial sun can affect the weather in many ways, such as affecting atmospheric circulation by changing the thermal balance of the atmosphere, increasing ocean evaporation, moving fronts, etc. It's hard to explain in just one or two sentences. In fact, the orbiting mirror is just a Chinese solar project One part, the other part is a complex atmospheric motion model, which runs on many supercomputers to accurately simulate the motion state of the atmosphere in a certain area, and then pinpoints a key point and uses the heat of the artificial sun to exert influence. It will have a huge effect, enough to completely change the climate of the target area over a period of time... This process is extremely complicated, not my expertise, and I don’t quite understand it.”
Shui Wa asked another question that Lu Hai must understand. He knew that his question was too stupid, but he still mustered up the courage to ask: "If such a big thing is hanging in the sky, won't it fall?"
Lu Hai looked at Shui Wa silently for a few seconds, then looked at his watch, patted Shui Wa on the shoulder and said, "Let's go, I'll treat you to dinner, and at the same time let you understand why the Chinese sun doesn't fall."
But things were far from as simple as Lu Hai thought. He had to move the line of knowledge he wanted to teach to the bottom. Shui Wa knew that he lived on a round earth, but the world deep in his consciousness was still a structure with a round sky and a square place. It took Lu Hai a lot of effort to make him truly understand that our world is just a star floating in the endless void. of small stone balls. Shui Wa did not understand why the Chinese sun did not fall that night, but the universe had completely changed in his mind, and he entered his own Ptolemaic era. The next night, Lu Hai and Shui Wa went to a food stall to eat, and successfully brought Shui Wa into the Copernican era. After another two nights, Shuiba struggled to enter the Newtonian era and knew (of course only knew) universal gravitation. The next night, with the help of the big globe in the office, Lu Hai brought Shui Wa into the space age. On the next public holiday, also in front of the big globe, Shui Wa finally understood what synchronous orbit meant, and also understood why the Chinese sun would not fall.
On this day, Lu Hai took Shui Wa to visit the command center of the China Solar Project. A tall screen showed a panoramic view of the China Solar construction site in synchronous orbit: several silver flakes floating in the dark space, and the space shuttle was Those flakes look like a few tiny mosquitoes in front of them. What shocked Shui Wa the most was the Earth shot on another big screen from an altitude of 36,000 kilometers. He saw that the continents were like large pieces of kraft paper floating on the ocean, the mountains were like wrinkles of kraft paper, and the clouds Like pieces of white sugar powder left on kraft paper... Lu Hai pointed out to Shui Wa where his hometown was and where Beijing was. Shui Wa looked at it blankly for a long time and then said:
"Standing at such a high place, people must think about different things..."
Three months later, the main project of China Sun was completed. On the night of National Day, the reflector projected sunlight to the dark night part of the earth for the first time, fixing the huge light spot in the Beijing-Tianjin area. That night, Shui Wa witnessed this magnificent sunrise with hundreds of thousands of people in Tiananmen Square: In the western night sky, the brightness of a star increased sharply, and a circle of blue sky spread around the star. When the brightness of the Chinese sun reaches its maximum, this circle of blue sky already occupies half of the sky. At its edge, the color gradually transitions from pure blue to yellow, orange and deep purple. This circle of gradient colors is like a rainbow that divides the blue sky. Surrounded in the center, it forms what people call a "circular morning glow".
Shui Wa returned to the dormitory at four o'clock in the morning. He was lying on the narrow upper bunk. The rays of the Chinese sun shone in from the window and shone on the several commercial housing advertisement pages on the pillow wall. Shui Wa put those few Colored paper was torn from the wall.
Under the celestial light of the Chinese sun, the ideal for which he had been so excited seemed so plain and insignificant.
Two months later, the manager of the cleaning company came to Shui Wa and said that Mr. Lu from the China Sun Engineering Command Center asked him to go there. Shui Wa has never seen Lu Hai since she finished cleaning the aerospace building.
"Your sun is so great!" Shui Wa said sincerely after meeting Lu Hai in the office of the Aerospace Building.
"It is our sun, especially if you also have a share: the Chinese sun can no longer be seen here, and it is making snow for your hometown!"
"My parents wrote and said that there is really a lot of snow there this winter!"
"But the Chinese Sun has also encountered a big problem," Lu Hai pointed to a large screen behind him, which displayed two circular light spots. "This is an image of the Chinese Sun taken at the same location, two months later. Can you tell the difference?"
"The one on the left is brighter."
"Look, in just two months, the reduction in reflectivity can be seen with the naked eye."
"What, is there dust on the big mirror?"
"There is no dust in space, but there is solar wind, which is the stream of particles ejected by the sun. Over time, it causes a qualitative change in the surface of the Chinese sun's mirror, and the mirror is covered with an extremely thin layer of fog, and the reflectivity is If it lowers, after a year, the mirror will become like a layer of mist, and then the Chinese sun will become the Chinese moon, but nothing can be done."
"Didn't you think of this at first?"
"Of course I have thought of it... Let's talk about your business: Do you want to change your job?"
"Change jobs? What else can I do?"
"Still working as an aerial cleaner, but here at our place."
Shui Wa looked around in confusion: "Didn't your building just get cleaned? Did you hire a high-altitude cleaner?"
"No, I'm not asking you to wipe the building, I'm asking you to wipe the Chinese sun."
This was a meeting attended by senior leaders of China Solar Engineering Operations Department to discuss the establishment of a mirror cleaning agency. Lu Hai introduced Shui Wa to everyone and introduced his work. When someone asked about his educational background, Shui Wa honestly said that he had only attended elementary school for three years.
"But I am literate, so I have no problem reading." Shui Wa told the attendees.
There was a burst of laughter, "Mr. Lu, are you kidding me?" someone shouted angrily.
Lu Hai said calmly: "I'm not kidding. If a mirror cleaning team of thirty people is formed, it will take half a year to clean the entire Chinese Sun. According to the cleaning cycle, the cleaning team needs to work non-stop, which will take at least sixty to ninety people. Ten people are required to rotate. If the space labor protection law that is being formulated is introduced, this rotation may require more people, that is to say, 120 or even 150 people will be needed. Do we want 150 people to be rotated? Is an astronaut with a Ph.D. who has flown three thousand hours in a high-performance fighter aircraft doing this job?”
"It has to be similar, right? Today, when urban higher education has become popular, let an illiterate fly into space?"
"I'm not illiterate!" Shui Wa said to the man, who ignored him and then said to Lu Hai:
"This is a desecration of this great project!"
The attendees nodded in agreement.
Lu Hai also nodded: "I have expected that you will have this reaction. Except for this cleaner, everyone here has a doctorate. Well, let's take a look at your qualities in cleaning work. !plz follow me."
More than a dozen participants followed Lu Hai out of the conference room and into the elevator in confusion. There are three types of elevators in this kind of skyscraper: fast, medium, and slow. They took the fastest elevator, accelerated quickly, and went straight to the top of the building.
Someone said: "This is my first time taking this elevator. It really feels like taking off on a rocket!"
"After we enter synchronized orbit, everyone will also experience the feeling of cleaning the Chinese sun." Lu Hai said, and people around him gave him strange looks.
After getting out of the elevator, everyone followed Lu Hai and climbed a narrow escalator. Finally, they walked out through a small iron door and arrived at the open-air roof of the building. They were immediately exposed to the sun and strong wind. The blue sky above seemed much clearer than usual. Looking around, they could see the city of Beijing in full view. They found a small group of people waiting on the roof of the building. Shui Wa was surprised to find that it was the manager of the cleaning company and his spider workers!
Lu Hai said loudly: "Now, we invite everyone to experience Shui Wa's work."
So those Spider-men came over and tied safety belts on each participant, then led them to the edge of the roof, made them carefully stand on the small hanging board used as a working platform by more than a dozen Spider-men, and then hoisted them The board began to slowly descend and stopped moving five or six meters away from the edge of the roof. The participants who were hung on the glass wall of the building let out a scream of surprise.
"Everyone, let's continue the meeting!" Lu Hai squatted and leaned out from the edge of the roof to shout to the people below.
"You bastard! Pull us up!"
"Each of you must clean a piece of glass before you can come up!"
It is impossible to clean the glass. All the people below can do is to hold on to the seat belt or the rope of the hanging board and dare not move. It is impossible to let go of one hand to pick up the brush on the hanging board or open the cleaning The lid of the tank. In their daily work, these aerospace officials work with altitudes of tens of thousands of kilometers on drawings or documents every day, but in this personal experience, the altitude of four hundred meters has made them fly away.
Lu Hai stood up and walked over to an Air Force colonel. He was the only one who was calm among the dozen people who were hung down. He began to clean the glass with steady movements. What surprised Shui Wa the most was that his two hands They were all working, not holding on to anything to stabilize themselves, and his hanging board remained motionless against the wall in the strong wind. This was something only an experienced Spider-Man could do. When Shui Wa recognized him as an astronaut on the Shenzhou 8 spacecraft more than ten years ago, it was not surprising what he saw.
Lu Hai asked: "Colonel Zhang, frankly speaking, is the work in front of you really easier than your spacewalk operations in orbit?"
"In terms of physical strength and skills, the difference is not too big," the former astronaut replied.
"Well said! A study by the Aerospace Training Center shows that ergonomically, the work of high-rise building cleaners has many similarities to mirror cleaning in space: both are in dangerous positions that require constant balance. On board, they are engaged in repetitive, monotonous and physically consuming work; they must be alert at all times. Accidents may occur if they are negligent. For astronauts, this accident may be caused by drift, loss of tools or materials, or failure of life support systems. And so on; for Spider-Man, it may be broken glass, falling tools or cleaning agents, or breaking and slipping of seat belts, etc. In terms of physical skills, especially in terms of psychological quality, Spider-Man is fully capable of mirror cleaning work .”
The former astronaut looked up at Lu Hai and nodded: "This reminds me of the old fable: the oil seller pours the oil into the oil pot through a square hole with copper coins. The skill required is the same as that of a general shooting an arrow into the bull's-eye. Superb, the only difference is who they are.”
Lu Hai continued: "Columbus discovered America and Cook discovered Australia, but these new worlds were developed by ordinary people. These pioneers were at the lowest level of society in Europe at that time. The same is true for space development. Countries are in the next step. In the five-year plan, near-Earth space is regarded as the second west. This means that the adventurous era of the aerospace industry is over. It is no longer just a job performed by a few elites. It allows ordinary people to enter space and is the beginning of the industrialization of space development. first step!"
"Okay, okay, everything you said is right! Get us up there quickly!" Others below shouted at the top of their lungs.
On the way back in the elevator, the manager of the cleaning company leaned into Lu Hai's ear and whispered: "Mr. Lu, you have been so impassioned for a long time, aren't you talking too much? Of course, in front of Shui Wa and my little brothers, It's hard for you to point out the key points clearly."
"Huh?" Lu Hai looked at him questioningly.
"Everyone knows that the China Solar Project is operated in a quasi-commercial manner. It almost stopped due to funding gaps. Now, there is not much operating expenses left for you. In commercial aerospace, the annual salary of regular astronauts is in the millions Above, these young men and I can save you tens of millions every year.”
Lu Hai smiled mysteriously and said: "Do you think it's worth taking this risk for a mere tens of millions? This time I deliberately lowered the educational level of mirror cleaners to the lowest level. Once this precedent is set, China's sun is moving in the For other jobs in space orbit, I can use ordinary college graduates to do them. This will save more than tens of millions. As you said, there is no other way. We really don’t have much money left. "
The manager said: "In my childhood and teenage years, going into space was such a romantic career. I clearly remember that *** called an American astronaut a god when he visited the Kennedy Space Center. Now," He patted Lu Hai on the back and shook his head with a wry smile, "We are in love with each other."
Lu Hai turned to look at the Spider-Man boys, and said in a louder voice: "But, sir, the salary I give them is eight to ten times that of yours!"
The next day, sixty Spider-men, including Shui Wa, entered the China Aerospace Training Center located in Shijingshan. They were all rural students who came to Beijing to work from other places and came from all remote corners of China's vast fields.
mirror farmer
At the Xichang base, the "Horizon" space shuttle poked its head out of the large cloud of white mist ejected by its engine, roaring into the blue sky. Sitting in the cabin were Shui Wa and fourteen other mirror cleaners. After three months of ground training, they were selected from sixty people and were the first batch to enter space for practical operations.
In Shui Wa's feeling at this time, being overweight was far less scary than the legend said. He even felt a familiar sense of comfort, which was the feeling of a child being held tightly in his mother's arms. Outside the porthole above and to his right, the blue of the sky was gradually deepening. The faint snap of blasting bolts could be heard outside the cabin, the booster separated, and the sound of the engine changed from a deafening roar to a mosquito-like buzz. The sky turned deep purple, then completely black, and the stars appeared, unblinkingly bright. The buzzing stopped suddenly, the cabin became very quiet, the vibration of the seat disappeared, and then the pressure from the back on the seat also disappeared, and weightlessness appeared. Shuiba and the others conducted weightless training in a huge pool. At this time, it really felt like they were floating in the water.
But the seat belts could not be unfastened, the engine hummed again, gravity pushed everyone back to their chairs, and the long orbit-changing flight began. In the small porthole, the starry sky and the ocean appear alternately, and the cabin is filled with the blue light reflected from the earth and the white light of the sun from time to time. The curvature of the horizon that can be seen in the window becomes larger and larger each time, and the range of ocean and land scenery that can be seen is also larger and larger each time. The flight to synchronous orbit lasted for six full hours. The alternating scenery of the starry sky and the earth in the porthole gradually became hypnotic, and Shui Wa actually fell asleep. But he was soon awakened by the commander's voice on the loudspeaker, which said that the de-orbiting flight was over.
The companions in the cabin floated off their seats one after another, clinging to the portholes and looking out. Water Baby also unbuckled his seat belt and floated awkwardly to the porthole nearest to him with swimming movements. He saw the complete Earth for the first time with his own eyes. But most of the people were crowding around the porthole on the other side. He jumped off the bulkhead and ran over, but because he was too fast, he hit his head on the opposite bulkhead. Looking out of the porthole, he discovered that the "Horizon" had arrived directly under the Chinese sun. The reflector had occupied most of the starry sky. The space shuttle was like a small mosquito flying under a huge silver dome. The "Horizon" continued to approach, and Shui Wa gradually realized the hugeness of the mirror: it had occupied all the space outside the window, and its curvature could not be felt at all. They seemed to be flying on the endless silver plain. The distance continued to shorten, and the reflection of the "Horizon" appeared on the mirror. You can see that there are long seams on the silver earth. These seams are woven into a grid like the longitude and latitude lines on a map, becoming the only reference that allows people to feel the relative speed. Gradually, the longitudes on the silver earth are no longer parallel, but converge towards one point. This trend accelerates sharply, as if the "Horizon" is heading towards a pole on this huge map. The pole soon appeared, and all the meridional seams gathered on a small black spot. The space shuttle descended towards this small black spot. Shui Wa was shocked to find that this black spot was actually a building on this silver earth. This The building is a fully sealed cylinder. Shui Wa knows that this is the control station of the Chinese Sun and will be their only home in this cold and lonely space for the next three months.
This is how the life of Space Spider-Man begins. Every day (it takes 24 hours for the Chinese sun to orbit the earth), mirror cleaners drive machines the size of walking tractors to polish the mirrors. They drive these machines back and forth across the vast mirror surface, much like in the What is being cultivated on the silver land, so Western news media gave them a more poetic name: "Mirror Farmers." The world of these "farmers" is strange. Under their feet is a silvery plain. Due to the curvature of the mirror, this plain rises slowly in all directions in the distance. However, due to its huge area, the surrounding area looks as flat as water. Above, the Earth and the Sun always appear together, the latter being much smaller than the Earth and more like one of its radiant satellites. On the earth, which occupies most of the sky, you can always see a slowly moving circular spot of light. This spot is especially eye-catching on the dark side of the earth. This is the area illuminated by the Chinese sun on the earth. The shape of the mirror can be adjusted to change the size of the light spot. When the silver land rises steeply in the distance, the light spot is small and bright. When the rising slope is gentle, the light spot is large and dark.
But the work of mirror cleaners is very difficult. They soon discovered that cleaning mirrors is as boring and tiring as cleaning tall buildings on earth. After returning to the control station after work every day, I am often so tired that I can't even take off my space suit. As follow-up personnel arrived, the control station became crowded, and people seemed to be living in a submarine. But I'm lucky to be able to return to the station. The mirror surface is nearly a hundred kilometers away from the farthest point of the station. When it is cleaned to the outer edge, I often can't come back after get off work. I can only spend the "night" in the "wild" and absorb the breath from the space suit. some liquid food and then sleep suspended in mid-air. Not to mention the dangers of the job. Mirror cleaners are the people who have performed the most space walks in the history of human spaceflight. In the "wild", a small malfunction in a space suit can be enough to kill someone, as well as micrometeorites, space junk, and solar magnetic storms. wait. Such living and working conditions made the engineers in the control station extremely resentful, but the "mirror farmers" who were born to endure hardships quietly adapted to all this.
On the fifth day after entering space, Shui Wa had a call with his family. At this time, Shui Wa was working more than fifty kilometers away from the control station, and his hometown was in the spot of the Chinese sun.
Shui Wa's father: "My dear, are you on that sun? It is shining on our heads. This night is just like the day!"
Shui Wa: "Yes, Dad, I'm up there!"
Shui Wa Niang: "Baby, isn't it hot up there?"
Shui Wa: "It can be hot or cold. I cast a shadow on the ground. The outside of the shadow is as hot as our place in summer, and the inside of the shadow is as cold as our place in winter."
Shui Wa Niang said to Shui Wa's father: "I saw our baby, there was a little black dot on the sun!"
Shui Wa knew that was impossible. Tears welled up in his eyes and he said, "Dad, Mom, I've seen you too. There are also two little black dots in that part of the Asian continent! Wear more clothes tomorrow. I see A large cold wave has moved towards you from the north of the mainland!"
…
Three months later, the second team arrived, and Shui Wa and the others returned to Earth to take a three-month vacation. The first thing they did after landing was to buy a high-power monocular telescope each. Three months later, they returned to the Chinese Sun. During their work breaks, everyone used telescopes to look at the Earth. Of course, what they looked at the most was their hometown, but it was impossible to see their village at a distance of 40,000 kilometers. One of them wrote a naive poem on the mirror with a thick pen:
On the silver earth, I look at my hometown in the distance
Mother at the edge of the village looks up at the Chinese sun
This sun is my son’s eyes
The yellow earth will be covered with green clothing in this gaze.
The "mirror farmers" did a great job and gradually took on more tasks beyond their cleaning duties. First, it was to repair the mirror surface damaged by the meteorite, and later it took on a higher-level task: monitoring and strengthening stress over-limit points.
As the Chinese Sun moves, its attitude is always changing, and these changes are accomplished by three thousand engines distributed on its back. The mirror surface is very thin, and is connected as a whole by a large number of thin beams on the back. When the attitude or shape is changed, the stress may exceed the limit in some positions. If the output of each engine is not corrected in time, or the position is reinforced. , if allowed to develop, excessive stress may tear the mirror surface. The technical requirements of this work are very high, and both the discovery and reinforcement of stress-exceeding points require skilled technology and rich experience.
In addition to attitude and shape adjustments, the most likely time for stress overruns to occur is during orbital haircuts, an operation formally known as: correction of orbital errors due to light pressure and solar wind. Solar wind and light pressure exert a force on the huge mirror surface. This force reaches about two kilograms per square kilometer of the mirror surface, causing the mirror orbit to become flat and move upward. On the large screen of the ground control center, the deformed orbit is different from the normal one. The tracks simultaneously appeared to look like hair growing on the normal tracks, hence the bizarre name of the operation. The acceleration generated by the mirror during orbital haircut is much greater than that during attitude and shape adjustment. At this time, the work of the "mirror farmers" is very important. They fly over the silver land, carefully observing every abnormal change on the ground, and carry out operations at any time. Emergency reinforcement and the job is done brilliantly every time. Their income has increased a lot as a result, but the one who has benefited the most is Lu Hai, who has become the number one person in charge of the China Solar Project. He does not even need to hire ordinary college graduates.
But the "mirror farmers" all understand that they are the first and last batch of space workers with only a primary school education. The minimum number of future space workers will be college graduates. But they completed the mission envisioned by Lu Hai: proving that the bottom-level work in space development requires most skills and experience, and the ability to adapt to difficult environments, rather than knowledge and creativity, and that ordinary people are completely competent.
But space is also changing the way of thinking of the "mirror farmers". No one can look at the earth from a height of 36,000 kilometers every day like them. The world in front of them is just a small sandbox that can be seen at a glance. The global village has For them, it is not a metaphor, but a real reality before their eyes.
As the first batch of space workers, the "Mirror Farmers" caused a sensation around the world. However, with the rapid development of industrialization in near-Earth space development, many super projects have appeared in space, including ultra-large solar power stations that use microwaves to transmit power to the ground, microgravity product processing plants, etc., and space cities that can accommodate 100,000 people. Start building. A large number of industrial workers are flocking to space. They are all ordinary people. The world has gradually forgotten the "mirror farmers".
A few years later, Shui Wa bought a house in Beijing, started a family, and had children. He spends half of the year at home and half in space. He loved this work and patrolling the silver land at an altitude of more than 30,000 kilometers for a long time gave him a transcendent tranquility in his heart. He felt that he had found an ideal life and that the future would be like the silver plain under his feet. Stretching forward equally smoothly. But something happened later that broke the tranquility and completely changed Shui Wa's mental journey. This was his interaction with Stephen Hawking.
No one thought that Hawking could live beyond one hundred years old. This is not only a medical miracle, but also a manifestation of his personal spiritual strength. When the first space low-gravity sanatorium in low-Earth orbit was established, he became the first sanitarium. But the excess weight in space almost killed him, and he had to endure the excess weight when he returned to the ground. Therefore, he may not be able to return to Earth before the invention of vehicles such as space elevators or anti-gravity cabins. In fact, doctors recommended that he live in space permanently because the weightless environment is best for his body.
Hawking had little interest in the Chinese Sun at first. He once again endured the accelerated gravity from low orbit (of course much smaller than when entering space from the ground) and came to the Chinese Sun in synchronous orbit because he wanted to see a study on background radiation conducted here. For cosmological observations of intensity anisotropy, the observatory is located on the back side of the Chinese sun because the huge reflector can block interference from the sun and the earth. But after the observation was completed and the observatory and working team were evacuated, Hawking still did not want to leave, saying that he liked it here and wanted to stay for a while. Something about the Chinese sun attracted him, and the press made various speculations, but only Shui Wa knew the truth.
When he was living under the sun in China, Hawking's favorite thing to do was to walk on the surface of the mirror. What is incomprehensible is that he only walked on the back of the reflector, and he walked for several hours every day. Shuiba, who has the most experience in space walking, was designated by the station to accompany the doctor on his walk. At this time, Hawking was as famous as Einstein. Of course Shui Wa had heard of him, but she was still surprised when she saw him for the first time in the control station. Shui Wa could not imagine how a person who was paralyzed to such an extent could do what he did. Such a great achievement, although he still knew nothing about what this great scientist had done. But during the walk, there was no sign of Hawking's paralysis. Perhaps because of his experience in operating an electric wheelchair, he was able to operate the micro-engine on his spacesuit as flexibly as a normal person.
It is very difficult for Hawking to communicate with Shui Wa. Although he has been implanted with an electronic vocal system controlled by brain waves, speaking is not as difficult as it was in the last century. However, his words must be translated into Chinese through a real-time translator before Shui Wa can understand him. . According to the leader's instructions, in order not to affect the doctor's thinking, Shui Wa never took the initiative to talk to him, but the doctor was very willing to talk to him.
The doctor first asked about Shui Wa's life experience, and then recalled his early years. He told Shui Wa about the big cold house he lived in Albans when he was a child. Wigner's music sounded in the tall living room that was frozen in winter. Music; and the circus car at Osmington Mill Ranch, which he often rode to the beach with his sister Mary; and the Ivanhoe Lighthouse in Chilton Land where he often went with his father... Water Wa marveled at the centenarian's memory, and what surprised him even more was that they actually had a common language. Shui Wa told everything about his hometown, and the doctor loved listening to it. When he walked to the edge of the mirror, he asked Shui Wa to point it out to him. Look at the location of your hometown.
As time went on, the conversation inevitably turned to science. Shui Wa originally thought that this would end the rare communication between them, but it was not the case. She used the most popular language to explain difficult physics and cosmology to ordinary people, and to Dr. Seems like a break. He told Shui Wa about the big bang, black holes, and quantum gravity. After Shui Wa went back, she read the thin book written by the doctor in the last century, and then asked the engineers and scientists at the station for advice, and she actually understood a lot.
"Do you know why I like this place?" When he walked to the edge of the mirror, the doctor said to Shui Wa, looking at the corner of the earth peeking out from the edge, "This large mirror separates the earth below, making me forget the existence of the world. Face the universe with all your heart.”
Shui Wa said: "The world below is so complicated, but from a distance, the universe is so simple, with just some stars scattered in the space."
"Yes, son, that's true," the doctor said, nodding.
The back of the reflector is also a mirror like the front, but with the addition of posture and shape adjustment engines like small black towers. When taking a walk every day, the doctor and the water baby would float slowly close to the mirror, often floating from the center to the edge of the mirror. When there is no moon, the back of the reflector is dark and the surface is a reflection of the starry sky. Compared with the front, the horizon here is very close, and an arc can be seen. Under the starlight, the black longitude and latitude lines composed of support beams move under their feet, as if they are floating on the surface of a peaceful small planet. When the attitude or shape is adjusted, the engine on the back of the reflector is started, and the surface of the small planet is illuminated by pillars of small flames, which makes the place look more mysterious and beautiful. Above this small world, the Milky Way shines brilliantly. It was in this state that Shui Wa came into contact with the deepest mysteries of the universe for the first time. He understood that all the stars he saw were just a speck of dust in an unimaginably large universe, and that the entire universe, They are just the embers of a magnificent firework tens of billions of years ago.
Many years ago, when he stepped onto the roof of the first tall building as Spider-Man, Shui Wa saw the entire Beijing; when he came to the Chinese Sun, he saw the entire earth; now, Shui Wa faces the third magnificent moment in his life. At that moment, he stood on the roof of the universe and saw things that he had never dreamed of before. Although this knowledge was still rudimentary, it was enough to make the more distant world have an irresistible attraction for him.
Once, Shui Wa expressed a confusion to an engineer at the station: "Humans landed on the moon in the 1960s, why did they retreat later, and have not yet landed on Mars, or even even landed on Mars?" The moon isn’t gone either?”
The engineer said: "Human beings are realistic animals, and those things driven by idealism and beliefs in the middle of the last century will not have long-term vitality."
“Aren’t ideals and beliefs bad?”
"It's not that it's not bad, but the economic benefits are better. If humans had made a loss-making business of flying to outer space at any cost from then on, the earth might still be in poverty, and ordinary people like you and me would not be able to enter. Space, although it is only in the near-Earth space. Friends, don’t be poisoned by Hawking, his stuff is beyond the reach of ordinary people!”
Shui Wa has changed since then. He still works as hard as before and lives peacefully on the surface, but he is obviously thinking about more things.
Time flies, twenty years have passed. In the past twenty years, Shui Wa and his partners have clearly seen the changes in their motherland and the world from an altitude of more than 36,000 kilometers. They saw that the Three-North Shelter Forest formed a green belt spanning China's east and west, and the yellow The desert is gradually covered with green, my hometown no longer lacks rain and snow, and the dry riverbed in front of the village is filled with clear water... All of this is also due to the Chinese sun, which played a role in the grand project of changing the climate of the northwest. Great effect. In addition, the Chinese sun has also done many unusual things in recent years, such as melting the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro to alleviate drought in Africa, and making the city hosting the Olympic Games a real city that never sleeps...
But for the latest technology, influencing the weather in this way is too clumsy and has too many side effects. China's sun has completed its mission.
The Ministry of National Space Industry held a grand ceremony to award the first batch of human space industry workers with medals. This is not only a recognition of their hard and outstanding work over the past two decades, but more importantly, these sixty young people with only primary school and junior high school education have entered space work, marking that space development has opened the door to everyone, and the economy Scientists agree that this is the real beginning of the industrialization of space development.
This ceremony attracted great attention from the news media. In addition to the above reasons, the experience of the "Mirror Farmers" is legendary in the minds of the general public. At the same time, in this era of chasing and forgetting, it is also good to have a chance to reminisce. of.
Those honest and simple young men back then are now middle-aged, but they don't seem to have changed much, and people can still recognize them from the holographic TV. Most of them have received higher education through various means, and some of them have also obtained the title of space engineer, but in the eyes of themselves and the public, they are still a group of migrant workers from the countryside.
Shui Wa spoke on behalf of his partners. He said: "With the completion of the electromagnetic transport system, the cost of entering near-Earth space is now only half of the cost of flying across the Pacific by plane. Space travel has become a common and dull thing. . But it is hard for the new generation to imagine what entering space meant to an ordinary person twenty years ago, and how exciting and exciting it would be for him. We are just such a group of lucky people."
"We are ordinary people and have nothing to say. We can have such an unusual experience because of the Chinese Sun. Over the past twenty years, it has become our second home. In our minds, it is like a miniature Earth. At first, we regarded the seams on the mirror surface as the latitude and longitude lines of the northern hemisphere. When describing our location, we always said how many degrees north latitude and how many degrees east and west longitude. Later, as we became familiar with the mirror surface, we gradually Continents and oceans have been divided. We will say that we are in Beijing or Moscow. Each of our hometowns also has a corresponding position on the mirror. We polish that area the most diligently... On this small silver earth, we They worked hard and fulfilled their responsibilities. Five mirror cleaners have sacrificed their lives for the Chinese sun. Some of them did not have time to take cover when the solar magnetic storm broke out, and some were hit by meteorites or space debris."
"Now that this silver land where we have lived and worked for twenty years is about to disappear, it is difficult for us to put into words how we feel."
Shui Wa was silent, and Lu Hai, who was already the Minister of the Ministry of Space Industry, took over and said: "I completely understand your feelings, but here I can happily tell you: China's sun will not disappear! I think you all know this. For such a huge object, it is impossible to use the method of the last century to let it fall into the atmosphere and burn it. It will find its own destination in another way: it is very simple, as long as it is stopped for rail condition and properly perform properly The posture adjustment, the solar wind and light will eventually make it exceed the speed of the second universe and leave the earth to become the satellite of the sun. After many years, the inter -planet spacecraft will find it in a distant place. At that time, we may turn it into a museum. We will return to the silver plain again and recall our unforgettable years together. "
Shuiwa suddenly seemed excited. He asked Lu Hai loudly: "Mr. Minister, do you really think there will be this day, do you really think there will be an inter -planet spacecraft?"
Lu Hai looked at Shuiwa dumbfounded, and couldn't speak for a while.
Shuiwa went on to say, "In the middle of the last century, when Amsterrand printed the first footprint on the moon, almost everyone believed that humans would be on Mars within ten to twenty years. Now, 86 years have passed in the past. Don't talk about Mars, and no one has been to the moon, the reason is simple: that is a loss of money. "
"After the Cold War of the last century, the economic standards ruled the world day by day, and humans have achieved great achievements under this standard: Now, we have eliminated war and poverty, restore the ecology, and the earth is becoming a paradise. We are more convinced of the correctness of economic criteria. It has become supreme and penetrates into each of our cells. Human society has become 100 % economic and society. The development of the moon has no economic significance. The large -scale manned detection of planets is an economic crime. As for the interstellar sailing, it is an authentic spiritual abnormal pervert. Now, humans only know that investment, output, and enjoying these outputs have been enjoyed. !”
Lu Hai nodded and said: "This century, human space development is still limited to near -ground space. This is a fact. It has many deeper reasons, which has exceeded our topic today."
"Not exceeding. Now, we have a chance, and we only need to spend little money to fly out of the near -ground space for long -range cosmic sailing. Sun light pressure can launch the Chinese sun for the earth's track, and it can also push it farther to farther. The place."
Lu Hai smiled and shook his head: "Oh, do you mean that the Chinese sun is used as a sun sailing boat? Theoretically, there is no problem. The main body of the reflector is thin and light, and the area is huge. It will become the fastest -speed aerospace that humans have launch so far. But this is just theory. The actual situation is that a ship has sails and cannot be sailed. I can only turn back and forth at sea, and I ca n’t even drive out of the port. Remember that Stevenson ’s“ Treasure Island ”has a vivid description of this. To use the light voltage to voyage and return, the reflector needs to be accurate and complex. Gesture control, and the Chinese sun is designed on the orbit of the earth, leaving people's operations. It can only be blindfolded along the irregular routes, and it can't float too far. "
"Yes, but there will be someone on it, I will drive it." Shuiwa said calmly.
At this time, the viewing statistics system showed that the ratings of this channel have risen sharply, and the eyes of the world are being attracted.
"But you can't control the Chinese sun alone, and its posture control is at least needed ..."
"At least twelve people are needed. Considering other factors of interstellar sailing, at least fifteen to twenty people are required. I believe there will be so many volunteers."
Lu Hai smiled at a loss: "I didn't expect that our conversation today will move to this direction."
"Minister Lu, twenty years ago, you changed my life more than once."
"But I never thought that you walked so far in that direction, far surpassed me." Lu Hai said with emotion, "Okay, very interesting, let's continue to discuss it! Um ... I'm sorry This idea is not feasible: the most reasonable navigation goal of China is Mars, but you have thought that no, the Chinese sun cannot log in on Mars. If you want to log in, it will be a huge expenditure, which will make this plan this plan. Lost economic feasibility; if you do not log in, what's the difference between it is no different from an unattended detector? "
"Chinese sun doesn't go to Mars."
Lu Hai looked at Shuiwa confusedly, "Where to go? Jupiter?"
"It's not Jupiter, go farther."
"Farther? Go to Neptune? Go to Pluto ..." Lu Hai suddenly paused, staring at the water baby for a while, "Oh my god, you will not mean ..."
Shuiwa nodded firmly: "Yes, the Chinese sun will fly out of the solar system and become a star spaceship!"
Like Lu Hai, the whole world is stunned.
Lu Hai's eyes looked ahead, and the mechanical location nodded: "Okay, let us be joking, you let me estimate it ..." He said that he had half closed eyes and started to start his mind.
"I have calculated it: With the light pressure of the sun, the Chinese sun will eventually accelerate to one -tenth of the speed of light. Considering the time of acceleration, it takes about 45 years to reach the neighboring star."
"Then use the light pressure to decelerate the neighboring star to complete the detection of the half -person Masa Samsung system, then accelerate to the opposite direction, and then return to the solar system in decades. The dream that is impossible. "
"You want to be wrong again. After arriving at the neighboring star, the Chinese sun will not slow down. At a speed of more than 30,000 kilometers per second, it will pass it over, and use its light pressure to accelerate again and fly to Sirius. If possible, we will continue The frog jump, fly to the third star, the fourth ... "
"What are you doing?" Lu Hai screamed in disappointed.
"What we demand to the earth is just a high -reliability but smaller ecological cycle system and ..."
"Use this system to maintain a life of 20 people for hundreds of years?"
"After listening to me, and a set of low -temperature hibernation systems, we are in a hibernation state for most of the time when sailing, and only starts the ecological circulation system when it is close to the star. Thousands of years. Of course, the prices of these two systems are not low, but compared to human beings from the beginning, a star manner detection is only one thousandth of its required funds. "
"It's just a penny, and the world will not allow 20 people to commit suicide."
"This is not suicide, it's just an adventure. Maybe we can't get through the small asteroids in front of us. Maybe we will reach Sirius the most or even farther. How can we not try?"
"But one thing is different from the adventure: You must not come back."
Shuiwa nodded: "Yes, I can't go back. Some people are satisfied with their wives and children's hot buns, and they never glance at the world that has nothing to do with it; some people use all their lives, just to look at humans to from I have never seen things. I have done both of these people. We have the right to choose a variety of life, including the mirror in a mirror in the space in the space of more than a dozen light years. "
"The last question: In thousands of years, at a speed of tens of thousands or even 100,000 kilometers per second, it passes through the stars after another. Does the radio waves make much significance? "
Shuiwa smiled and said to the world: "The Chinese sun flying out of the solar system will make the humans in the enjoyment look up at the starry sky, call back their dreams of the universe voyage, and re -ignite their desire to conduct the interstellar adventure."
