Chinese Republic Space Program

中華民國太空計劃 The Chinese Republic Space Program (CRSP) is the space agency of the Republic of China and was founded on Feburary 17th, 1970. It was founded to bring China to international prevalence. A source of prestige and inspiration, it has been a great part of Chinese history.

## Early days

Huang Tengfei, the first president of China, was considering a space program during the Provisional Era of China. It would allow China to be seen as a true international power and would give China a chance to seize the strategically important realm of space. Using Qian Xuesen, a socialist who was captured by KMT forces during the 3rd Civil war, the Space Program was founded and got right to work on creating a new rocket. Using old American blueprints of the Titan II Rockets (used for the Geminii Program), The Tianjian (天箭) Rocket was created. It was first used to launch SinaSat 1 into space before moving on to manned spaceflight.

Tianjian 1 launched Sun Qiqiang and Zheng Jiayi into orbit, the first Chinese people in space. However, the capsule of Tianjian 1 nearly reentered over the USSR, almost sparking an international crisis. Luckily, it landed in Xinjiang instead.

## Innovations

After the successful launch of Tianjian 2, Qian Xuesen requested to reduce costs by reusing the first stage of the Tianjian rockets. The plan was to add parachutes to lower its speed so that it could fall back to earth safely and be recovered. Then, it could be scrapped and sold or it could be used again, thus reducing costs as no new bosoter would need to be used. It took 3 tries and 3 boosters for the reuse and recovery concpet to be proven. The final design used airbrakes to slow the bosoter to a speed where the parachutes could normally deploy.

This booster recovery and reuse was first done officially on Tianjian 4, which docked with Tianjian 3. At around the same time, Tang Jiyang went to the moon aboard Selene-6, launched by the EU. This sparked China's interest in the moon.

Qian Xuesen, once again, engineered a new, larger rocket which would outclass the Tianjian rockets. These rockets would later become the now world-famous Jinbu (進步) Rockets.

## The Tank Incident

The first mockup of a Jinbu rocket booster was made, showing the sheer size of the rocket. As the engines on the Tianjian were too weak, new engines were to be built for this new rocket. The KR-1 "Boar" Engines were built, tested and confirmed to be powerful enough for the Jinbu rocket.

On March 15th, 1971, 5 Boar Engines were outfitted to a large fuel tank, representing a Jinbu rocket 1st stage booster. It was a test, and the rocket was supposedly anchored to the ground by launch clamps. Unfortunately, the Boar engines were so powerful and the launch clamps so weak that the force of the engines' thrust broke the test tank free from the launch clamps. The test tank began ascending to a height of 12,567 meters with no control. It crashed back after a 2 minute descent, completely destroying itself.

In the end, noone was hurt and the government reluctantly gave the CRSP more funding to work on safety and better equipment.

In the aftermath of the incident, the booster was nicknamed the "Kewang" (渴望) meaning: eager. The name stuck and it became the official name of the 1st stage booster of the Jinbu rocket. In addition, a new idea was proposed: to make the tank reusable, as it was extremely expensive. This would change everything. After 2 successful tests, the program of reusability was greenlit.

## SinaSat 3

On May 1st, 1971, a spy satellite was launched via the a Tianjian rocket. It performed a parachute recovery of the 1st stage booster. More importantly, however, it photographed Soviet military bases and nuclear facilities. Whenever it passed over Moscow, it played the "Anti-Communist and Anti-Russian Aggression Song", which jammed Moscow's radios for 5 minutes every 90 minutes.

This sparked outrage from the Soviet Union, which threatened to nuke China and take down the satellite themselves. China then agreed to deorbit the satellite on the condition that the USSR extradite all major Chinese Communists back to the ROC, and that the USSR would stay out of Chinese affairs. In response, the USSR asked for the recognition of the Mongolian People's Republic and that Mao Zedong remain in the USSR. Both sides agreed, leading to the deorbiting of SinaSat 3, the trial and execution of many former CPC members, and a large feast to promote peacefeul coexistence on the Chinese-Russian Border.

## Going to the Moon

China prepared to go to the moon by making a brand new capsule which would serve as the standard for future space flights and a moon lander. After a successful static fire, the new Jinbu rocket sent the Chang'e 0 to the moon, a satellite in Polar Orbit.

On November 2nd, 1971, Chang'e 1 launched, sending Sun Qiqiang, Lin Dongfei and Chang Jiao to the moon. On November 5th, Sun and Chang landed on the moon, planting the flag of China and collecting rock samples. The 3 returned as heroes on November 8th, 1971.

At around the same time, China also launched a space telescope into orbit and photographed the cosmos.

On August 4th, 1972, Chang'e 2 was launched, bringing Tang Jiyang, Li Fang and Wang Li to the moon. They landed in the Zhangheng crater flawlessly. However, an issue with the Yutu lander caused it to roll down a hill, damaging its docking port. Tang and Li returned to Earth early, returning safely. Later, Zhangheng base was launched to the crater, featuring a high-gain antenna.

## Tiantangmen

Main article: Tiantangmen

On June 15th, 1972 the first module of China's new space station, Tiantangmen (天堂们) launched. Over the course of the next \_ years, Tiantangmen was built module by module, launched by Jinbu rockets. The Tiantangmen station is the largest space station ever, having several storage rooms, a leisure room, science modules, a zoo, a gravity ring, and a clean bathroom with a hospital. It is a hub that China uses to go to the moon easier and can be used by in-orbit refueling, although this has been very rare. It has seen many crews and consists of 10 modules. Tiantangmen also saw frequent use of the Jinbu Mass Transport Vehicle, which ferries 14 taikonauts to and from Tiantangmen.