At 2:10 in the afternoon, after a few hours of delay, the two rocket stages were slowly transported out of the base by trailers through a large section of dismantled walls and security gates.
The trees along the road it passed were purposely cut down, leaving bare stumps everywhere.
Academician She and Lin Ju followed the convoy on foot, stopping and going for over two hours before arriving at the floating dock. Although it was a temporary construction, it was not small in scale. Two 1500-ton crawler cranes had been waiting there for several days.
As Academician She watched the busy workers start to bind lifting straps to the two rocket stages under supervision, he still found it hard to believe such a massive object was actually a rocket.