Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 439 - 437: Moon Landing

Chapter 439: Chapter 437: Moon Landing

"Thirty years after the ’Sakura’ appeared, the population of East Sea City had dwindled to 800,000..."

This city, amidst the mist of trials and tribulations, had stubbornly persevered for thirty years. Although the population continued to decline, those who were going to leave had already left after such a long time. Those who loved the city still resided there steadily, taking pride in being citizens of East Sea City.

Finally, the population size started to stabilize, no longer plummeting as severely as before.

Facing various rejections from the outside society, the East Sea people had to continuously achieve outstanding results to maintain their sense of superiority deep within. Otherwise, the loss of this sense could easily trigger a populist backlash.

This hefty pressure naturally landed on the shoulders of Zhang Yuan and others. Ordinary commoners only ranted verbally or pounded on their keyboards; expecting them to actually accomplish something was no doubt a pipe dream.

On one hand, there was a need to ensure ample cultural output, to secure their soft power. On the other hand, Zhang Yuan had established a space science and technology city near East Sea City, where he continued to engage in relevant scientific research.

On this day, the first Moon Landing Vehicle developed by modern humans was successfully launched at the space base!

The massive rocket spouted fierce flames, heading toward the direction of the Moon. After all, there lies a Human Base on the Moon—who wouldn’t want to see what sort of place our ancestors left for us?

This event indeed sparked a sense of pride among the citizens of East Sea City, something people from other cities simply couldn’t achieve.

Online, of course, was a raucous debate, along with all sorts of sarcastic, passive-aggressive congratulations. Some people were "concerned" whether the rocket might fall, not knowing if their concern was genuine or if they were secretly hoping for the rocket to actually crash; others cursed some hardcore gamers for not being supportive, for burying their heads in pay-to-win games instead of financially supporting East Sea City’s satellite launch.

Some people sarcastically and snidely questioned the point of launching a Moon Landing Satellite, arguing that without manned spaceflight, it wasn’t anything remarkable. Robots could launch satellites just as well...

But robots launching satellites was limited to navigation, meteorological, and communications services. In truth, the current robotic system lacked the technology to launch Moon exploration vehicles.

In any case, this was definitely something to be proud of.

Landing on the Moon was no simple feat, even in this immensely prosperous society. Zhang Yuan, along with many like-minded comrades, had strived for 30 years, pouring in countless efforts and intellect, and at this moment, they finally achieved success.

He even vaguely hoped that with this great event, he could reshape people’s ideologies...

Of course...that was just wishful thinking, and he was well aware of that.

As the engine fired in reverse, the Lunar Landing Module’s speed was slowing down. From a distance, a silver artificial structure shone brilliantly under the Sun. Unused for a million years, they had long been abandoned.

"Our ancestors could land on the Moon with ease, but for our generation, it has become a difficult task; this is a regression," Zhang Yuan lamented in front of a camera. "But today, we have done it once more."

"We also hope that people from all over the world with the same aspirations will come to East Sea City to engage in relevant research."

"In the future, we will not only launch Moon Landing Vehicles but also aim to attempt manned spaceflight, returning to the surface of the Moon. Everything will be created with our own hands."

As the chief scientist of the Moon Landing Project, he had to seize every opportunity to gain greater influence and make his voice heard. The Moon landing, broadcasted live online for the entire world to see, was an excellent chance.

In this context, he couldn’t care less about others’ comments; he just wanted to make his voice heard.

On the big screen, after a successful landing by the Lunar Landing Module, a Moon Landing Vehicle drove out from the storage bay. Due to the lack of sufficient talent reserves, the current technology was still far from reaching the level of manned spaceflight, so initially, the Moon Landing Vehicle had to undertake the exploration.

At this moment, the various rumors and gossip on the internet finally died down. The Moon landing was successful, and everyone focused on the screen.

The Moon Landing Vehicle started normally, gradually nearing the colossal edifice.

Some buildings had been destroyed by meteorites, with various glass and nanomaterials scattered loosely on the ground.

At the outer edge of the building complex, there was also a huge monument, at least ten meters tall. Even after several hundred thousand years, the text inscribed on it was still clearly visible.

"Human Space Exploration History"

The words were very clear.

"Epoch 1959.9.13, the Soviet Union’s ’Luna 2’ probe, was the first to impact the lunar surface, marking the beginning of human exploration of the Moon."

"Epoch 1961.4.12, Soviet astronaut Gagarin ascended into space aboard Vostok 1, for a 108-minute journey, representing humanity’s first venture into space."

"Epoch 1964.7.31, ’Wanderer 7’ from the United States first photographed the surface of the Moon."

"..."

"Epoch 1969.7.20, Apollo 11 spacecraft officially landed on the Moon, and humanity took a giant leap forward. Six hundred million people around the world watched this historic moment through television broadcasts."

"We conquered the Moon, which humankind had worshipped for millions of years. This small step on the Moon seemed to hint at humanity’s boundless future!"

...

"Epoch 2154, humanity established its first industrial base on the Moon."

...

"Epoch 2264, the human warrior Diao Qiao spent five years to set foot on distant Pluto. The Solar System was finally becoming our backyard."

"Epoch 2273, the human warrior Zhao Ka’en reached the extremely distant Sedna, extending humanity’s footprint to the edge of the Solar System. Beyond that lay the boundless, empty Universe."

(A glorious development trajectory...)

...

"Descendants, greetings, and welcome to the Moon. Below is the history that’s been hidden away, the history you can’t learn from textbooks."

"Epoch 5567, due to a halt in technological progress, a continuous decline in birth rates, severe inward curling of human civilization, and near-stagnation of social mobility."

"A massive economic collapse came suddenly, sweeping every planet in the Solar System."

"The cause of the economic downturn was hibernation."

"People always hoped that the future would be better, so they chose to hibernate, to escape to the future... However, as time amassed, the number of people in hibernation far exceeded those awake."

"This led our civilization into a distorted state of development."

"We found it increasingly difficult to sustain the enormous number of people in hibernation; 17.2% of our yearly GDP was needed to maintain these hibernation facilities, and that number kept rising."

"But we couldn’t abandon the billions of people in hibernation, we couldn’t ruthlessly kill them, nor could we directly wake those who had hibernated for thousands of years."

"Once they awoke, unable to find jobs, without personal connections, they would discover that the world was exactly the same as it had been thousands of years ago, which would inevitably lead to significant social conflict. We were stuck between a rock and a hard place."

"In the end, the Federation government decided to create a utopian world on Earth, our Mother Star—where all those awoken from hibernation could live out their lives in peace, following an orderly procedure... This plan, over tens of thousands of years, digested all the hibernating population; it seemed perfect."

"To prevent history from repeating itself, we destroyed the hibernation technology."

"Future descendants, due to some complex political reasons, we too must leave the Moon Base and join the beautiful utopia, to spend our lives on Earth. But we believe that one day, humanity will once again set foot on this land."

"As one of the last intelligent species before the heat death of the universe, we had to do something."

"Future descendants, when you read these lines, you must have returned to the Moon and uncovered this buried history, about to embark on a new Interstellar Era."

"Congratulations! Set a small goal for yourselves first: conquer the not-so-distant Pluto! Go for it, humanity!"

Everyone who paid attention to this matter felt a genuine sense of shame when they read this letter.

Time swiftly passed by, and this period had long become history.

People merely admired their ancestors for providing a good life for them, but it was difficult to say there had been much progress.

And those once looked up to had already been forgotten.

...