Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 228 I, Qin Shihuang, make money!

It wasn't until after the first class of the new semester that Xiao Li finally met this person in real life, a figure who had become famous throughout China and equally renowned in the global mathematics community over the past six months.

They were also the people he served.

According to past practice in universities, although Lin Ran is not his mentor, it would be more appropriate to call him "boss".

"Li Bingnan? Lin Ran." Lin Ran met Li Bingnan at the villa in Kunshan. Li looked a little haggard and had finished two months of rushing to complete the project. He stretched out his hand and waited for Li to extend his hand in return.

“Yes, Professor Lin, I’ve heard so much about you.” Li Bingnan said as he shook hands with him.

Aura is a very mysterious thing.

This thing truly exists, yet it cannot be quantified.

At Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the highest-ranking official Li Bingnan ever met was the university's education director.

Even the leader didn't have as strong an aura as this 23-year-old young man in front of him.

Lin Ran gave him the impression of someone who had long held a high position, had a firm goal, and was a man of his word.

"Bingnan, you can just call me Professor from now on," Lin Ran said softly.

Li Bingnan later learned that it wasn't the school that had chosen him; the school had given Lin Ran a bunch of suitable candidates, about ten or so.

Then Lin Ran picked him out from the pile of resumes at a glance.

According to the school's administrative staff who was in charge of liaising with Lin Ran, they had only sent over the list, not even the resumes, when Lin Ran sent over the names he had selected.

Li Bingnan boasted that he had never interacted with Lin Ran during his university years, and that he was not a particularly famous figure at Jiaotong University.

He didn't know why Lin Ran had chosen him.

After seeing Lin Ran in person, he understood.

The young man in front of him was extremely confident, so much so that he felt he could control the whole situation and keep things in his own hands no matter who he chose as his assistant. He might have chosen him simply because he thought the name Li Bingnan sounded nice.

"good."

After looking around the villa in Kunshan, Lin Ran found that it had been arranged according to his requirements.

While it's impossible to replicate NASA staff quarters exactly, the feeling is what matters.

In order to achieve a realistic feel, Lin Ran insisted on choosing military green bedding with a rough texture, which cost fifty yuan apiece on Pinduoduo.

Xiao Li suppressed his inner doubts, even though he really wanted to ask, "Professor, aren't you going to squander all the retirement savings of those eighty-year-olds by doing this?"

The two-story villa has a total of 8 rooms plus a living room, which can accommodate 27 people.

The quality of this retirement home is really poor.

With three days left, Lin Ran called him to stay here and continue to refine it.

The blackboard was covered with formulas.

Xiao Li could vaguely understand that the formula was related to the Apollo moon landing.

Because it's a formula, search engines don't work either.

In addition, there are documents.

The materials were in English, but he understood them effortlessly.

All of these are materials from the Apollo moon landing process in the 60s.

The entire space was filled to the brim.

This further convinced Xiao Li that Lin Ran was indeed going to conduct research on the Apollo moon landing project, just as he had said in the first class of the semester at Shanghai Jiaotong University.

However, the other party mentioned in their speech that they wanted to conduct research and use mathematical knowledge to review and analyze the Apollo moon landing project.

But Xiao Li knew more inside information.

I know this project brought in 27 former NASA employees, elites from the golden age of Cold War spaceflight.

You summoned all the heroes from Valhalla and you're telling me it's just for a recap?

Xiao Li would never believe it.

But if we really want to land on the moon, 27 people are far from enough.

Over the past few days of spending time with Lin Ran, Xiao Li's doubts not only did not disappear, but instead accumulated more and more.

When the stars of humanity shine.

When Lin Ran saw his 27 former subordinates standing in twos and threes in the living room of the villa, he was filled with emotion.

These 27 are all human stars who were able to accomplish what seemed like an impossible task in the 60s.

As one of the once-shining stars of humanity, Lin Ran only wanted to ignite their embers one last time.

From a young man to now, his skin is covered in wrinkles, his hair has turned from black to white, and his eyes have gone from clear to cloudy.

If life is a candle, then these people's candles have less than a tenth left.

But when these old men walked into the living room one by one and looked at Lin Ran standing on the blackboard, the scrutiny and suspicion in their eyes showed no trace of weariness.

This made Xiao Li, who was standing by the blackboard, a little scared.

In case of an accident and the professor gets beaten, should I use my body to help him take the beating?

Lin Ran stood up and walked to the front of the crowd:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Sixty years ago, humanity achieved the unprecedented feat of landing on the moon in pursuit of its dream of leaving Earth.

In that era, even the cleaners in NASA buildings were highly enthusiastic.

He doesn't see his job as just simple cleaning; he believes that his work ensures the building is clean and tidy, providing a comfortable working environment for scientists, engineers, and astronauts, and is also contributing to the manned lunar landing.

They believe they are not just mopping the floor, but helping humanity achieve its grand dream of landing on the moon.

That golden age of idealism is gone forever.

Lin Ran said quietly.

It instantly dragged them back to the golden age of 60 years ago.

"Line up! Stand at attention!" Lin Ran shouted.

The elderly men looked at each other, Aldrin nodded first, and then they slowly moved to stand in three rows.

why?
These worldly-wise old men, who have experienced both glory and decline, as well as long periods of silence, will listen to Lin Ran.

It's very simple, because of accents.

They were certain once again that Lin Ran did indeed have the distinctive accent of Huntsville in the 60s, just as they had expected on the plane.

After the Apollo moon landing, or more precisely after 1965, with the completion of the Lyndon Johnson Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center, and the establishment of NASA headquarters, everyone gradually left the Redstone Base in Huntsville.

Even though the Marshall Space Center was still in Huntsville, it had clearly declined considerably from the heart of the America space program compared to the early 60s when Huntsville was the only center there.

This has led to a situation where, over the years, they have rarely heard the local Huntsville accent anymore; such accents are only heard from early employees.

This was also one of the points of suspicion they discussed during their stays on the plane and in the hotel: where did Lin Ran's faint sense of familiarity come from when he called them?

Later, Haines pointed out that the other person's accent sounded very similar to what he remembered.

They made a point of recalling that they were from Huntsville. Because in the 60s, Huntsville was part of Alabama, a typical Southern state with many conservative traditions. The accent there sounded like Elizabethan English, with a habit of elongating monosyllabic words into disyllabic ones.

Some pronunciations, such as the long "i", are elongated in "nice" and "right", "drawer" is pronounced as "drahwer", and "pin" and "pen" are pronounced similarly.

In short, this accent confused them.

Letters can be forged, but forging an accent is far too difficult.

Unless Randolph actually goes to the countryside in Alabama to learn from the old folks.

Judging from the other party's resume, such a possibility is extremely slim.

"Aldrin, your performance during the moon landing was brilliant, your quick thinking and adaptability were brilliant."

But what if improvisation isn't improvisation but rather deliberate?

Aldrin's expression changed upon hearing this, because this was almost his deepest secret, which had been discovered by the young Chinese man in front of him.

"you"

He couldn't understand it at all, and he wouldn't tell anyone this secret even in his dreams.

Before he could finish speaking, Lin Ran patted him on the shoulder and walked to the next person:
"Haines, your manual calculation of the Earth's oblateness to correct for the spacecraft's orbital tilt is quite nice, but it would be better if you could do an even better job with your error calculation."

5% is still a bit too high, and if you weren't so fond of going to New York to hook up with blondes, NASA's data wouldn't have fallen into the hands of the Russian space agency.

The next person evoked even more mixed feelings in him, because Haines was the first NASA employee he met in 1960.

Haines was equally shocked.

Because his love for going to New York to meet blondes is a story from sixty years ago, how could a NASA employee who knew about this go around spreading rumors? It has long since disappeared into the annals of history.

Furthermore, Haines himself was unaware that NASA data had been leaked in this manner.

Lin Ran pointed them out one by one.

"Libo Yardley, your family made outstanding contributions to the moon landing, but who would have known that your family has also been working for the Soviet Union all along?"

Lin Ran pointed out the secrets hidden in everyone's heart, and doubts arose in everyone's mind.

Especially when Libo Yardley was mentioned at the end, the other 26 people were deeply moved as they watched Libo's expression go from tense to even more tense.

Libo Yardley's father was John Yardley, the plant manager whom Lin Ran met at the General Aerospace factory in Texas on the eve of Kennedy's death.

He helped the Soviet Union pass on a message that Kennedy was about to be assassinated, and hoped that Lin Ran could pass this message on to Kennedy himself.

Libo was his eldest son and one of the few highly skilled workers among the 27 people.

The fact that the entire family worked for Soviet Russia and managed to survive until now is a secret, but it's not a big deal.

I'm about to meet my maker, so what if they find out?
Soviet Russia no longer exists.

"How I know these things is not important; I search through historical documents to find the glorious past of the Apollo program."

I've been thinking about this question: why, after 60 years, have we still not been able to return to the moon?

I am not reconciled, and I believe you are not reconciled either.

I have been preparing for this day for the past six years.

In the two years prior, I personally visited America and tried my best to sketch out the outline and details of the Apollo program from NASA museums, Columbia University libraries, and various other libraries.

I am even more aware that in today's world, only China can complete a lunar landing at the lowest cost, because it has an industrial base that is unprecedented in human history.

The handwritten letters I am sending to you are written by imitating your handwriting and the period that might have happened to you.

I think it can inspire you to embark on a new journey to an unknown land. My simulation is pretty good.

What we need now is trust!
What's needed is mutual trust.

You believe I can send humans back to the moon.

I want to believe that you still have the ability to work!

We have three months to complete the design of all the key systems and begin manufacturing.

Then, six months will be spent on the production and testing of key components, and finally, the launch will take place in November of next year.

In three months, I will win you over with my actions, and you, in turn, must prove yourselves with your actions!
Otherwise, go back to the nursing home and spend the rest of your life there!

Lin Ran speaks quickly and with a slight accent, which differs from standard modern English.

In addition, Li Bingnan majored in mathematics, so his English ability was essentially non-fluent.

From his perspective.

The whole process was like this: these old guys came in, and after Lin Ran said a couple of words, they started lining up.

Before lining up, they looked at each other with some reluctance.

Then Lin Ran said a few words to everyone, and after he finished speaking, their entire demeanor seemed to be activated.

After he finished speaking, he could vaguely hear Lin Ran's roar and the words "Go back."

And the eyes of these old men, which had been cloudy, became somewhat sharp.

Li Bingnan searched his mind for a metaphor, and after a moment he found one:
"The Terracotta Army is like a piece of art that has been dug out of the ground and repainted, as if it has come back to life."

"What?! The idea that Qin Shi Huang (the First Emperor of Qin) could send money has become a reality?!"

He was shocked; what exactly did the professor say that was so effective?

If a professor were to join a pyramid scheme, he'd probably be a top-notch operator.

What happened next in the two villas shocked and puzzled Li Bingnan even more.

These old guys do nothing but sleep and work.

Moreover, it's all done manually.

What the heck? They actually did compass and straightedge constructions and hand-wrote calculus formulas.

Li Bingnan couldn't help but sigh, what kind of re-employment training center for the elderly is this?

He was afraid that these old men would suffer a stroke due to overworking their brains.

That night.

villa rooftop
“Baz, you know very well that we still have a core problem that hasn’t been solved,” Lin Ran said.

Aldrin nodded and said, "Money, you can't do anything without money."

Even if Chinese goods are cheapest, and we can unleash tremendous power to go to the moon, all the data is readily available; we only need to fill in the missing parts.

It will cost at least several billion dollars.

You can't do without money. If you only have blueprints and designs but no money, then sorry, this game can only be played for three months before it ends.

Although I'm also very curious how you knew that the Apollo moon landing malfunction was caused by me on purpose.

But even if you know all this, it's useless without money.

"You have money!"

　One more chapter!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)