Landing on Venus was markedly different from landing on any other world. As soon as Gary pressed the button, Qin Zhongquan felt himself being pressed into his seat. The exterior view screens in front and above him began to show traces similar to rain on wet glass—sulfuric acid clouds. He knew the shuttle had begun decelerating even before the button was pressed, but it was hard to say whether the rocket engine or the upper atmosphere had played a greater role.
As the altitude decreased, the control panel quickly showed that the shuttle's rocket mode was turned off and switched to jet mode, and then within a few seconds it reached an astonishing 100% engine efficiency - difficult to achieve even in a laboratory on Earth.
Before they landed in the troposphere, they saw sulfuric acid clouds above again. Qin Zhongquan was a little worried about the return trip. Gary repeatedly assured him that he was fully prepared and everything would be foolproof, but Qin Zhongquan remained skeptical. The two decided to check the car after landing.
The winds at the top of the troposphere are so swift that the shuttle can rely solely on this energy to glide through the gas clouds like a kite, without consuming any additional power. Of course, drifting like this is very exciting, but in the early days of the community, it was also very dangerous. Amidst the turbulence, Qin Zhongquan saw that the anemometer on the control panel display was constantly off the charts. One could imagine how tiny this pitiful Triangulum was compared to the dense atmosphere of Venus, making this hundreds-ton iron lump seem like a feather or leaf.
As the altitude continued to decrease, the bright sunlight gradually disappeared and the wind speed in the atmosphere slowly decreased, but occasionally some chaotic turbulence would occur, causing the spacecraft to shake violently.
It took several hours of gliding deceleration, and the shuttle almost flew a full circle around Venus before it escaped from the terrible storm, but the outside temperature soon rose to a level that was unacceptable to ordinary people. Fortunately, the spacecraft's thermal insulation layer worked.
The efficiency of the jet engine decreases as the altitude decreases until it reaches a meaningless zero, and the rocket engine with its own oxidizer starts again, pushing the spacecraft to the location where the signal was sent from the ground airport.
The exterior of the spacecraft was now shrouded in a twilight yellow, making it nearly impossible to discern anything. The constant, agonizing sound of metal under high pressure echoed from the hull, creating a chilling sensation. Flying in such a hostile environment, one relied solely on the instruments and charts on the control panel—and a healthy dose of courage. In a sense, a vehicle flying near the surface of Venus was more like a submarine, except that on Earth, submarines navigated through seawater, while on Venus, that swelled into carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.
He wasn't sure if it was an illusion, but while sailing in the darkness, Qin Zhongquan felt his five senses magnified several times. Sometimes he could hear sounds coming from a distant, unknown front, and sometimes he could see vortexes of boiling, swaying liquid. It didn't take him long to realize—yes, it was all real—but it was all caused by supercritical carbon dioxide.
Since all the necessary documents and procedures were in place, the spacecraft quickly obtained landing permission.
Qin Zhongquan finally breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the pressure dome above the airport gradually close. The decompression process then began, liquefying the carbon dioxide outside the spacecraft twice. Then, the strange noises disappeared, replaced by the distinct hum of machinery.
Both of them had lived in a gravity environment before, so the symptoms of gravity allergy were not too obvious this time. They supported each other and walked to the airlock at the tail of the spacecraft, each of them put on an exoskeleton equipped with special modules, and then took a boring and long adaptive rest.
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