Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 364 Is this also a good thing?
"Wait, is that Xiaomi's logo? Am I seeing things?"

Chen Hao sent a screenshot in the work group and asked a question.

"No, you read that right, NASA sent the lunar rover we built into space," Zhang Xiaoming replied.

"No, so Xiaomi also paid America for advertising? Lei Jun must be a real space enthusiast," Chen Hao casually remarked.

This American version of the Apollo moon landing has also garnered a lot of attention from Chinese netizens.

Because, in public statements, China exported technology; both the Saturn V and the lunar spacecraft were built by America itself.

Therefore, Chinese netizens are very concerned about whether America's moon landing will be successful, which is related to how much of America's industrial manufacturing capacity it still has.

This is a very good indicator.

In the manufacturing sector, having the technology doesn't guarantee that you can actually manufacture it.

After all, even with the same technical assistance, such as direct aid to production lines and engineers, the final results in different countries can be vastly different.

As a result, America's performance on the moon far exceeded the expectations of Chinese netizens.

Everyone was expecting to see some fun, but America's moon landing went incredibly smoothly.

On some aerospace-related bloggers' rebroadcast channels on Bilibili, Chinese netizens are having a heated discussion:
"The Americans still have some skills; everything from the orbital maneuver to the landing went smoothly!"

"After all, this system was used to land on the moon in the past. Although some of the technology has been lost, the experience is still there."

"It's this Black woman on the moon, this 'one small step for a Black woman,' that really gets to me."

"If I were a redneck, I would definitely elect Big T. How could I tolerate this? White people are looking at the lunar orbit, and there are two women, one white and one black, on it? Even a white man and a black woman, or a black man and a white woman, would be better, right?"

“I was in rural Arizona, and not only the rednecks around me were upset, but even my slightly nerdy white classmates were upset. They kept asking me why all the Chinese moon landings were by Chinese men, while all the American moon landings were by women. But the only thing that made them feel relieved was that they didn’t send transgender people.”

"Shouldn't white nerds be very supportive of affirmative action? Why are white nerds starting to rebel?"

Since the Apollo moon landing, a number of aerospace science popularization bloggers have emerged on Bilibili. Only those with some talent can stay and earn some living expenses by live streaming in their spare time.

Because of their high level of expertise, very few bloggers in this category can simultaneously maintain both professionalism and entertainment value.

This also resulted in fewer viewers in the live stream, with only die-hard fans remaining. The chat messages were also displayed slowly, and everyone chatted like friends.

As soon as the Xiaomi logo flashed by, eagle-eyed viewers kept spamming the screen: "Host, replay it! The Xiaomi logo just appeared!"

The anchor muttered, "Impossible, this is NASA's moon landing, not Apollo's moon landing, how could it have a Xiaomi logo?"

He didn't rewind until the comments kept flooding the screen, and once the video was paused, the Xiaomi logo was clearly visible on the NASA-themed space rover.

The matter quickly escalated on the Simplified Chinese internet.

"Lei Zi, come out and explain yourself!"

"No, this moon landing was also sponsored by Xiaomi?"

"Xiaomi is so rich! Sponsoring both the US and China's moon landings?"

"Mr. Lei, could you explain this?"

On the Simplified Chinese internet, Lei Jun constantly switches between Lei Zi and Lei Shen, sometimes Lei Zi and sometimes Lei Shen.

Now, to be honest, everyone is a bit confused, not knowing whether to call him Lei Zi or Lei Shen in this situation.

The fact that they can simultaneously sponsor both Chinese and American private organizations to go to the moon is quite impressive.

But isn't this akin to aiding the enemy?
Simplified Chinese netizens were momentarily unsure whether to praise or criticize the simple values ​​expressed, but most were simply curious to hear what had really happened.

"Holy crap, it really is! What's going on with Mr. Lei? Why did he sponsor General Aerospace without saying a word?"

Netizens quickly pushed the topic to the top of Weibo's trending searches, and countless netizens flooded Lei Jun's latest Weibo post, asking him what exactly happened.

A professional blogger who was live-streaming on Bilibili realized something was wrong:

"That's not right. If it really was sponsored by CEO Lei, given his style, wouldn't he have started promoting it a long time ago?"
We might wonder if there are any issues with sponsoring General Aerospace in the US, but it's actually not too bad. After all, it uses Chinese technology. Well, to be more precise, it uses technology that China unearthed from America's own archaeology. It's like turning soup into food.

But Mr. Lei probably doesn't feel embarrassed at all, right? Since he's sponsored it, he should definitely promote it heavily. After all, the other party is also a private organization, and he can use the excuse of sponsoring human exploration of the universe to avoid unnecessary trouble.

So you just suddenly appeared, all fresh and vibrant, thinking you'd give everyone a surprise?

No one's watching America's moon landing anymore, no one's watching astronauts' lunar walks anymore, everyone's talking about the Xiaomi logo on the American lunar rover.

The domestic Apollo Technology has accomplished countless times the tasks mentioned above.

You're still using this old-fashioned method of separating and reassembling to land on the moon, with the command module waiting in near-lunar orbit for the lunar module to dock. To Chinese netizens, this is an outdated way of landing on the moon.

The current Apollo technology uses the Burning One modified version, which is a one-time process. The return is also the same, with the spacecraft returning directly in one go, without needing the complicated procedures of the Apollo moon landing.

So after observing that the US's industrial capabilities weren't too bad, everyone's attention was focused on the inexplicably appearing Xiaomi logo.

One viewer in the live stream commented, "I think so too. If it were really Lei Jun sponsoring it, they would have started promoting it already. Xiaomi's car is about to be released, how could they not ride the wave of its popularity?"

"It's also possible that my marketing genius has come up with some groundbreaking marketing method again, and directly said that we sponsored it. That would be such a poor publicity effect. We would have to buy traffic from Weibo. We also sponsored Apollo Technology's lunar rover before."

So this time, Lei Jun took a different approach, thinking of suddenly appearing and giving everyone a big surprise. Now, he has made it into the top ten entirely through organic traffic.

This shows the strategy was very successful. We can't use ordinary thinking to understand how the marketing genius orchestrated this.

At Xiaomi's headquarters in Yanjing, Lei Jun, who was overwhelmed with the upcoming launch of the Xiaomi SU7, called Xu Fei over and asked, "Wait, when did we sponsor General Aerospace's lunar landing? How come I didn't know about it? Did this budget go through my hands?"

It was past 10 PM in Yanjing. Xu Fei had already gone home from get off work when her boss called her back to the company. She had already investigated the situation on her way there.
"Mr. Lei, we absolutely did not sponsor this project; it was an accident!"

Lei Jun was furious: "Then what's going on? Did we sell that lunar rover to the Americans?"

This matter is very complicated, so complicated that even Lei Jun, who has been active in the simplified Chinese internet for many years, is unsure whether sponsoring General Aerospace's lunar landing is a good thing or a bad thing.

He himself said that Xiaomi Car was his last entrepreneurial venture, but it was also a venture that determined the limits of Xiaomi Group's potential.

At this point in time, doing nothing is better than taking action.

This is also why Lei Jun was angry; trouble came out of nowhere for no reason.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lei, I've checked, and this matter has absolutely nothing to do with us!"

Could it be that General Aerospace did this on purpose? Did they deliberately frame us? Were they bribed by Tesla? That's why our logo appeared, just for negative publicity." Xu Fei got more and more excited as he spoke, "After all, our Xiaomi car is aimed at Tesla. They're under pressure, so they're trying to bring us to the same level as them in terms of supporting domestic products."

They are America Enterprises, and we are sponsoring America Enterprises.

Lei Jun initially thought it made sense, but then he thought again how could that be? Given the severity of the Twitter feud between Musk and John Morgan Jr., it's likely that even if Musk offered John Morgan Jr. money, he wouldn't accept it.

Besides, does Xiaomi really deserve such attention from Tesla? Lei Jun isn't that arrogant. "Okay, I know who to ask."

Lei Jun made a phone call to Lin Ran, and during the call, he also sent a WeChat message.

About half an hour later, Lin Ran called back: "President Lei, I was giving instructions just now, so I'm not quite sure what happened either."

Lin Ran felt that reality was really illogical.

It's incredible that no one from NASA or General Aerospace noticed the problem—that there was an MI on the front of the lunar rover.

"Mr. Lin, okay, thank you for your trouble. Could you please ask General Aerospace what's going on? I'd like to explain based on their response," Lei Jun said.

Lin Ran said, "Okay, I'll ask for you." In reality, Lin Ran didn't ask at all after hanging up the phone.

The astronauts are on the moon, waiting to ensure the lunar rover travels smoothly to the lunar south pole.

While they are still on the moon, there will be ways to fix any malfunctions that may occur.

This topic remained on the trending searches for a whole day and continues to gain traction over time.

Lei Jun was not an unconnected tycoon. As a successful entrepreneur, he had connections in America and eventually got in touch with John Morgan Jr.

John Morgan Jr. then realized that something was wrong.

The matter also began to gain traction on America's internet.

On Reddit's R/space forum, everyone was initially jubilant about America's successful moon landing again. Although there were various unpleasant incidents along the way, such as the Black moon landing, the all-female team, the white crew staying behind, and the Chinese technology, we still managed to do it in the end!

This is enough!

Reddit is nicknamed "Red Reddit" because, in addition to the direct translation and interpretation of the name, many people also refer to them as "rednecks."

You're already associated with the Communist Party, how can you not be a redneck? It's the same reason why there are so many conservatives on Baidu Tieba in China.

Everyone began celebrating the successful moon landing.

On r/space, this channel primarily discusses space-related content, focusing on technical analysis and celebrations of the successful moon landing.

"General Aerospace successfully landed on the moon using Apollo technology from the 60s! What does this prove?"

The author of the post wrote: "Just watched CBS live, the Saturn V replica launched perfectly, and the astronauts planted a flag on the moon! Using F-1 engines, a liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen propulsion system, and the original navigation computer, well maybe with some RAM upgrades, they did it."

Isn't it ironic that Artemis is still delaying?

"This is so cool! The Saturn V in the 60s had a thrust of 340 million kilograms, while the current SLS only has 230 million kilograms and costs twice as much."

This proves that simple design + huge investment = success.

A White House-sponsored diversity team is also a plus!

The Americans here are still underestimating how outrageous NASA is. Double? Maybe ten times.

"Can we stop talking about that damn diversity? I believe we could succeed by replacing all the astronauts with men. Why can China send all its astronauts to the moon, while we have to send Black and White women? Isn't that just unreasonable?"

This thread within a thread has been arguing about whether or not diversity should exist for over a hundred floors, eventually devolving into mutual insults and attacks.

"I'm curious whether we're replicating the Chinese technology one-to-one, or whether we've made optimizations and improvements based on their technology."
For example, modern titanium alloys can reduce weight by 15%.

If it's not a pure replication, but rather an inspirational replication, then I think that's better than simply copying.

"I estimate that this is a one-to-one copy. If there is any technical optimization, we'll have to wait for the next time."

“During the Apollo era, Congress gave NASA a near-unlimited budget. Now that private companies like General Aerospace and SpaceX are in charge, it will be more efficient.”

"No, I don't think it's a problem with private companies. I think it's a problem with management. General Aerospace has Randolph Lin behind it, and SpaceX has Max behind it. Can you imagine NASA Administrator Melroy competing with these two?"

Why is it more difficult to return to the moon now? Because the safety standards are higher.

In the 1960s, we could tolerate a 1% failure rate; now we can only tolerate a 0.01% failure rate. This only proves that private space companies have a higher tolerance for failure, not that NASA is lagging behind.

"Really? China has never failed even once. They've even made it a regular occurrence now."

"That's why China's new technologies are more reliable. Otherwise, why would China quickly switch to its own technology after landing on the moon using the technology from the Apollo program?"

For the conspiracy theory channel's American audience, this moon landing was like the sky falling.

r/conspiracy has always been a haven for conspiracy theories; conspiracy means conspiracy.

In the past, one of the most popular conspiracy theories here was the moon landing conspiracy theory.

Now it's become more extreme, and those who believe in the 60s moon landing conspiracy theory have even more to say.

"GE used 60s technology to land on the moon? Why do I keep seeing people say that this proves the Apollo moon landing was real?"
Doesn't this moon landing prove that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax? We only have the capability to land on the moon today, and the technology we use now, apart from its name and appearance, is completely different from that of the 60s!

No matter what happens, users on the conspiracy forum can always find a way to explain it as a conspiracy theory.

Other netizens who enjoy watching this forum quip commented: "If the Apollo moon landing was fake, how did the Chinese manage to land the Apollo moon?"

"The Chinese are faking it. Their moon landing looks too perfect. It must have been CGI or filmed in a studio on Earth!"

In short, it was all a conspiracy by the CCP.

The situation exploded even more when a screenshot of the Xiaomi logo appeared in the Conspiracy section of the live stream.

"I told you this was a conspiracy!"

"Does General Aerospace and China share a recording studio?"

"XDDDDD's shared recording studio has been discovered."

Musk posted this screenshot on Twitter, along with a laughing-crying emoji.

Someone below asked him, "Elon, can you explain what's going on here?"

He replied, "I don't know, maybe John Morgan Jr. is a loyal Xiaomi user, so loyal that he'd put a Xiaomi logo on NASA's lunar rover XDDDD"

The matter also began to escalate in America, and John Morgan Jr. was extremely anxious. "Professor, why does your lunar rover have the Xiaomi logo on it?"

Without Musk, John Morgan Jr. could certainly have suppressed the matter with the power of the Morgan family.

It's simply a matter of letting it cool down, making sure no more images of the lunar rover's front are shown, cutting out that image from YouTube, and then pretending nothing happened.

In a few months, this matter will become like the Mandela Effect, with some saying they saw it and others saying they didn't. In short, it will be a Rashomon-like situation, with them playing dead and not responding, and the media not reporting on it.

However, with Musk around, and Musk controlling Twitter, a powerful tool for public opinion, there was simply no way to handle the situation calmly.

"Huh? Didn't you tell me to keep it a secret?"

To keep it a secret, I couldn't very well tell the engineering team that we were building this for NASA, could I? I just assigned the task, and they assumed that we were building an unmanned rover for our own lunar exploration program, so as usual, they put a Xiaomi logo on it.

No, isn't this your problem? Shouldn't you inspect the goods upon receipt?
If you had just inspected the goods, wouldn't it have been simpler to remove the logo?

Lin Ran said in a tone of grief and indignation, "In short, the responsibility lies entirely with you. I only did this to keep it a secret."

How dare you turn around and question me?
John Morgan Jr. also began to question his life. Yes, it was a problem that could have been discovered with just a glance, so why didn't anyone mention it throughout the entire process?
No, it wasn't just me who looked at it; NASA also looked at it, and no one from them raised this question.

So where exactly did things go wrong?

Just as he felt his head was about to explode, trying to figure out what was going on, NASA called.

The caller was Grove. John Morgan Jr. answered: "Mr. George, this is my oversight! It was a mistake on our part that resulted in a Chinese company's logo appearing on NASA's VIPER lunar rover."

He quickly apologized, saying that Grove George was a seasoned veteran at NASA and that he would rely on him many times in the future.

"What's there to apologize for, Mr. Morgan? This is a good thing!"

(End of this chapter)