Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 289 Musk also wants to be NASA Administrator?
The Russian delegation came with a willingness to cooperate and left with a sense of awe.

Apollo Technologies' landing on the lunar south pole this time not only greatly shocked Russian experts, but also greatly shocked NASA.

Because Russia knew that the Apollo technology involved an automated, soft-landing maneuver on the moon without any intervention from a ground control center, it meant that America also knew this.

In the past, NASA was like a sieve in the Soviet Union, with no secrets whatsoever. Now, the Russian space agency is like a sieve in NASA's eyes. The balance of power has been reversed thirty years ago.

NASA’s new administrator, Melroy, is in a conference room discussing with his team how to handle Apollo Technologies’ landing on the lunar south pole.

The last Apollo mission's command module launch wiped out half of NASA's top brass, so Melroy is naturally worried about being killed this time during the lunar south pole landing.

In the conference room, Musk made a rare appearance. NASA wasn't worried, but the White House was, so worried that they called Musk over.

It's worth noting that Musk has recently been quite critical of the Democrats and White House members on Twitter.

Apollo Technologies' launch has caused a huge uproar on Twitter and Reddit.

The more effective NASA's previous publicity campaign about the rim of Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole, the stronger the dissatisfaction it has now generated.

The r/space community on Reddit was quickly ignited by Apollo Technologies' achievement.

A post titled "Apollo Technology Successfully Lands on the Moon in Antarctica!" quickly went viral within hours, garnering tens of thousands of likes and thousands of comments.

Users shared news links and engaged in lively discussions about the technical details and future impact.

Among the popular comments are:
User SpaceNerd01: "Wow, Apollo Technology has reached this level. No wonder it's led by the professor. They're so much better than NASA. This is incredible! Shackleton Crater, the technology must be so advanced. Apollo Technology has taken a giant leap forward on the road to a lunar base!"

On the internet, a former NASA employee who had worked at Apollo Technologies returned to New York and, in an interview with The New York Times at a nursing home, said that Randolph Lin preferred to be called Professor, while Aldrin was called Doctor.

Therefore, on the internet, especially in aerospace-related sections and discussions, the professor often refers to Lin Ran.

The reply below reads: "Yes, and it's a reusable rocket. Given China's production capacity and the professor's plans, they will quickly fill the edge of Shackleton Crater with creations from Earth."

User LunarDreamer asked, "Won't this make NASA accelerate the Artemis program? We need to compete with China! If we wait until China has built the infrastructure needed for drone swarms on the lunar surface, it will be too late!"

One person pointed out incisively: "Exactly! Don't think that we might cooperate with China. While there are enough lunar resources for everyone to share, good places like Antarctica are rare!"

User TechGeek99: "Has anyone seen the landing video? I want to see how accurate their navigation is and how they avoided the lunar south pole's illumination problem."

Reply: "The Apollo Technologies website has photos with amazing clarity, showing the details of the crater's edge."

In the r/geopolitics community, the discussion focuses more on the strategic level.

A post titled "China's private space program lands on the moon: highlighting NASA's incompetence!" sparked heated debate.

User GeoStrategist: "In the past, we only faced competition from China Aerospace. The rapid rise of Apollo Technology clearly indicates that they are a company that is more efficient, has stronger technological research and development capabilities, and has a much more aggressive development strategy than China Aerospace."

If we continue to rely on NASA, we will see Congress's budget constantly being drained, only to be met with repeated missed deadlines. Admit it! NASA is no longer the NASA that pioneered the moon landing in the 1960s; it has degenerated into an institution no different from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)!

Reply: "Yes, the parasites at NASA are thinking about how to drain Congress’s budget and how to give the budget to agencies they are on good terms with. Then these agencies will give dividends to NASA’s top management. Project initiation is one budget, project progress is another budget, and every time a project is delayed, NASA is asked to increase the budget. What’s even more terrifying is that when the budget increase is finally declared a failure and the project is completely abandoned, an audit of the entire project will require another budget."

People keep asking why NASA is failing. A single project can get funding from Congress multiple times over; it's no wonder NASA is struggling!

"Even a great scientist like the professor is working every day, and after completing the manned lunar landing, he is still moving forward. I don't know how NASA's top management has the nerve to go on vacation when everyone is stuck at home and not allowed to go out."

User SpaceXGreat posted: "The situation is very bad right now. If China can find water ice and complete its extraction, then even without electromagnetic launch towers, they can build a refueling station on the moon and then explore the entire moon with the help of the refueling station."

User PolicyWonker: "How will America respond? Cooperation or confrontation?"

Reply: "NASA may publicly congratulate them, but privately they are definitely working hard to catch up. It's hard to accuse them of stealing NASA's technology for an Antarctic landing, since NASA itself hasn't achieved it."

On the X platform, the hashtags #ApolloTechnology, #Professor, and #LunarSouthPole have quickly become global trends.

Users share news, videos, and memes.

NASA's official account posted: "Congratulations to Apollo Technologies on the successful soft landing on the edge of Shackleton Crater at the South Pole of the Moon. This achievement advances humanity's exploration of the Moon and inspires us to journey together towards the stars. #SpaceExploration"

Netizens speculated that NASA posted this message with gritted teeth.

Elon Musk retweeted and added: "Homage to Apollo! The Antarctic moon landing was an amazing achievement. The space race is getting more and more exciting. Humanity's future lies in space."

Space reporter SarahSpace: "Breaking news! According to our inside information, China's soft landing in Shackleton Crater on the Moon's South Pole was reportedly fully automated. This signifies that China's lunar base may be advancing at an unimaginable speed. Never doubt the infrastructure capabilities of the Chinese, even if the infrastructure is on the Moon #LunarSouthPole"

Musk replied with a "?" below.

Related memes have also gone viral on Twitter.

One popular meme features an astronaut with the Apollo logo planting a flag on the moon, accompanied by the caption, "We're here! Where's NASA?"

Another meme compares Apollo technology's spacecraft to NASA's Artemis spacecraft, captioned "Reality and Toys".

In short, American netizens have gone to great lengths to ridicule NASA on social media platforms.

However, this incident did indeed cause anger and unease in the White House.

The last time was already unsettling enough, and this time the lunar south pole has been occupied first. Apollo Technology even claims to be building a drone launch base on the moon. Although Old White looks like he's about to develop dementia, at this time, the memory of the Cold War is awakened, and that Irish elite begins to take over his mind again. It was only under the personal order of the White House that NASA called Musk to a meeting.

Melroy's tone was heavy and his expression serious: "Gentlemen, the latest news provided to us by the White House confirms that Apollo Technologies' successful soft landing on the edge of Shackleton Crater on the south pole of the moon was completely automatic, without any ground intervention, and is absolutely certain."

Musk repeated, somewhat incredulously, "Is the news about Sarah Space true?"

Melroy nodded: "Yes, according to the White House, they have people inside Apollo Technology who witnessed the entire launch process, and they are certain that Earth control did not interfere at all."

The conference room fell into a brief silence.

Chief Scientist Alan Stofan broke the silence: "This is incredible. Shackleton Crater has complex terrain and extreme lighting conditions, and a fully automated landing requires extremely high navigation accuracy and autopilot capabilities."

Her tone was full of admiration, but her brows were slightly furrowed, clearly indicating that she was thinking about the technological gap.

Musk was speechless. How could he possibly do a good job working with these people?
Melroy is a woman, and Alan Stofan is also a woman.

After Nelson was dismissed, the former was promoted directly from deputy director to director.

However, she certainly has the qualifications; her resume is incredibly impressive. As an Air Force pilot, she accumulated over 5000 hours of fighter flight time. Later, she was selected as an astronaut and became the first woman to command the International Space Station. (Melroy on the International Space Station in 2002)

If Musk considers Melroy barely competent, then the other chief scientist, Allen, is, in Musk's view, a typical Smith Commissioner—utterly useless.

Allen's resume is quite impressive. He previously served as NASA's chief scientist and an advisor to former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. His appointment as chief scientist by the White House is essentially a fresh start.

But she knew nothing about rockets, communications, or the mathematics used in orbital calculations. She was a researcher in astrogeology; to put it more bluntly, she focused on the geology of Venus, Mars, Saturn's moon Titan, and Earth.

How can someone become NASA's chief scientist? Musk naturally disapproves of this kind of diversity for the sake of diversity.

What Musk disapproved of even more was Allen's revolving door behavior between politics and business. After working at NASA for over 25 years as chief scientist, she went to Washington to serve as vice president of a planetary research consulting firm called Proxemy Research, where she stayed for 13 years.

One of the documented projects is a five-year funded project, NAG5-10263, led by Allen, that studied Venus’s upwelling and volcanic activity.

(The research report has been completed and can be found on NASA's official website. The person in charge was Alan Stofan, and the institution was Proxemy Research.)

Musk sat on pins and needles in the conference room. As soon as Allen said this, Musk knew that you two were complete novices. You had your subordinates collect some information before the meeting and came here just to recite your notes.

Melroy frowned. "This is a wake-up call for our Artemis program. Their technology is clearly very advanced, and we need to assess its potential impact on our 2024 manned lunar landing."

She opened her notebook and began to take notes, her eyes revealing a sense of urgency.

Musk was speechless. Seriously, do you guys really believe you can land on the moon in 2024? Even Blue Origin's Apollo replica program is more likely to be successful than you.

Alan Stofan added: "First of all, we want to congratulate them. This is not only an achievement for China, but also a milestone in human space exploration."

However, we cannot ignore the reality of competition. The success of Apollo technology demonstrates the rise of global commercial spaceflight, and we must accelerate innovation to ensure America's leading position in lunar exploration.

Musk couldn't help but interject, "Our immediate priority isn't these things, but figuring out what technologies they used, such as whether they used the latest TRN technology."

Musk paused for a moment, guessing that the two women didn't know what TRN was, and explained: "It's terrain relative navigation technology, along with deep learning algorithms, that allows us to avoid obstacles on the edge of craters in real time."

NASA and SpaceX are also researching this technology, but they seem to have already put it into practice.

We need to figure out exactly how they did it.

If Apollo technology can use our technology to land on the moon, why can't we use their technology to achieve a soft landing on the lunar south pole?
Let's set aside the question of whether Artemis could land on the moon. If we can figure out how they did it, we should prioritize launching unmanned spacecraft for a soft landing in a lunar south pole crater.

Rather than catching up in manned lunar landings, our more important task now is to prevent the Chinese from taking over the advantageous position at the lunar south pole.

Since the White House knows that Apollo technology used a fully automated lunar landing, it should go further and obtain more technical details, ideally including algorithms, sensors, and data collected by China on the moon.

From Tesla to SpaceX, Musk was not the primary founder, but in the end, he firmly bound these companies to himself, becoming the founder in the public's subconscious.

He is a person who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, or rather, most people who achieve great success in the worldly sense are this type.

So he couldn't stand listening to Melroy and Allen spouting official jargon and platitudes for a long time.

Writing reports, preparing budgets, bidding—it all ends up being a complete mess.

The budget was spent, companies were brought in, but in the end, nothing was produced.

Musk spoke rapidly without pausing: "Next, we need to determine whether Shackleton Crater contains water ice, which is crucial for a future lunar base."

If Shackleton does indeed contain water ice, then we can put pressure on China from Earth, or even launch spacecraft to land in Shackleton. We cannot simply hand over a region containing water ice to the Chinese.

At the very least, we cannot allow them to obtain excellent positions without paying any price.

We need to search for water ice resources in other meteorite craters, even though we found Shackleton first.

They've started resource extraction, and I think NASA might even be deliberately delaying their progress by launching spacecraft that will crash near their base construction sites in China.

Musk flipped through a lunar topographic map on the table, pointing to the location of Shackleton Crater.

Allen retorted, "Mr. Musk, please be mindful of your position. You are an advisor, not the NASA administrator. We invited you here to offer advice, not to assign tasks!"

Allen was very unhappy with Musk's actions because her exact words were: "The success of Apollo technology shows that global commercial spaceflight is on the rise, and we must accelerate innovation to ensure America's leading position in lunar exploration."

How do we maintain innovation? We need to support more commercial space organizations. Currently, we're only supporting SpaceX, which is clearly not enough. We need more budget and financial support for these commercial space organizations.

As for how to allocate the funds, that's naturally up to NASA, but the White House's opinion must be respected.

Anger flashed in Musk's eyes. He naturally understood the subtext of the other party's words. This White House had already tricked Tesla on the issue of financial subsidies for new energy vehicles, and now they were pulling this trick again: "Ms. Stofan, if I may be so bold, although I am not the NASA Administrator, my abilities are definitely more than any of you here to be the NASA Administrator!"

If Lin Ran heard this, he would definitely laugh out loud and say: "Elon, do you want to dance too?"
Melroy had been expressionless until Musk said those words, and a flash of anger crossed her mind. "You're great at running a business, but you're far from qualified to be the head of NASA!"
Musk didn't care. He was already on the verge of a falling out with the Democrats. The reason he came this time was to make a final effort. "If we want to compete with our Chinese counterparts, we are already behind. The best way for us to catch up is to make me the director of NASA."

But given the current situation, that's probably unlikely. So, having me act as the shadow director, making the decisions myself while NASA executes them, is the only way!

Melroy stood up, his tone firm: "Alright, everyone, we have work to do."

Mary convened the lunar science team to analyze their landing data and technical details.

James, you are in charge of assessing potential adjustments to the Artemis Project.

Allen, prepare a statement and communicate with the White House to ensure our response is appropriate and strategic.

She paused for a moment, a complex expression on her face: "Mr. Musk, thank you for coming and for your contributions to NASA. But Apollo technology is both a challenge and an opportunity for us. It will wake up NASA, and we will push forward the Artemis program as quickly as possible."

While learning from private space organizations, we will also uphold NASA's fine traditions to advance our goals.

The team members nodded in agreement, and the meeting room was filled with busy whispers and the sound of keyboards clicking.

Musk didn't speak. He looked out the window at the gloomy Washington sky and thought to himself, "This White House is hopeless. With this White House, NASA will only degenerate further. I have to do something to change the status quo."

While the Chinese were building a base on the lunar south pole, NASA was still thinking about how to get funding from Congress. The two outstanding women who held power at NASA were simply not up to the task.

No moment has ever been more intense than this one, when Musk's desire for the NASA administrator position has been palpable.

　I'm begging for a monthly vote!!! It's the last few days of the month, when else would you give it to me if not now?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)