Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 401 The Beginning of Naval Confrontation
Song Nanping didn't say it aloud; he just internally raged, feeling that the world had gone mad.

Similar complaints have occurred before. When Japan transferred its technology to China in bulk, the semiconductor sector of the entire Chinese stock market experienced a surge. Chinese netizens generally felt that the Americans had gone mad and wondered if Big Tech was truly "one of ours."

The technology being sold this time is clearly even more outrageous than the last one.

The most advanced, entirely new technology, 5nm lithography machine.

Not to mention that it already has a prototype and has entered Hynix's official production verification process.

Even if it only has a prototype in a laboratory, just considering that this thing is a technology route that the Japanese have invested heavily in for a long time, Song Nanping felt it was worth it.

It's worth it if it makes the Japanese suffer.

While he was in Shanghai, he could already imagine the ugly scene of the Japanese in Tokyo being forced by America to sell their technology to China.

"Professor, I guarantee I'll complete the mission!" Song Nanping said earnestly.

Lin Ran waved his hand: "I have full faith in the authorities in this regard; you are professionals in this area."

China initially suffered many losses in international trade negotiations, whether in official procurement or large-scale purchases by state-owned enterprises, and paid countless tuition fees in the past.

It wasn't until the high-speed rail procurement process, involving tug-of-war between German and Japanese companies, that China's negotiating skills gradually took shape. Since then, it has become rare to hear of Chinese officials or companies suffering losses in international trade cooperation.

"I just want to point out that what I expressed to John Morgan Sr. on the phone was that I wasn't so willing."

"So you have to be careful not to be too eager," Lin Ran said.

Song Nanping said earnestly, "Don't worry, we will definitely send our most elite team to handle the negotiations."

China and America have been in talks, and the negotiations have not stopped since the middle of this year.

Musk made an attempt at the White House, privately requesting a five-minute private meeting with Peter Navarro through the president's secretary.

Navarro readily agreed, as he couldn't afford to offend a major investor, and he might even be able to work for Musk's company through the political-business revolving door in the future.

“Peter,” Musk said bluntly, this time even skipping the title of “advisor,” “we cannot do this. The deal for NIL technology would be a strategic mistake with disastrous consequences.”

Navarro leaned against the huge conference table, arms crossed: "Elon, you're still worried about that neon printer? I thought you were a risk-taker."

"I'm willing to take calculable risks rather than make foolish gambles." Musk's voice was filled with the intolerance of logical fallacies that is unique to engineers. "You're handing over a revolutionary manufacturing technology to an adversary whose entire nation is striving for a technological breakthrough. They may encounter difficulties at first, but once they have the physical prototype and the foundation for reverse engineering and iteration, they will eventually master it. You are personally handing over a weapon to our biggest enemy of the next decade."

Instead of getting angry, Navarro burst out laughing after hearing this.

“Weapons? Elon, you underestimate me.” He straightened up, walked up to Musk, lowered his voice, and spoke with a cold confidence.

"Do you think NIL technology is something I just picked from the menu? No. It's a gift that I, Peter Navarro, and our top experts from the Department of Defense and the Department of Commerce carefully selected for China."

Musk frowned.

“This gift,” Navarro held up a finger, “looks glittering and is the holy grail they’ve been dreaming of, the one that can bypass EUV, but it’s actually a decoy.”

He then held up a second finger: "As I said before, extremely demanding conditions are required for this gift to truly function."

Its template manufacturing requires electron beam writing equipment from Applied Materials; its nanoscale imprinting resin is a DuPont patented chemical; whether the printed chips are defective requires scanning with optical inspection equipment from KLA. All of these, Elon, are under our control—these are the constraints.

Finally, he extended a third finger, his eyes sharpening.

The most wonderful thing is that defect control in NIL technology is a bottomless pit.

To improve that damn yield, they have to invest astronomical sums of money and employ their top engineers to solve problems such as template contamination, bubbles, and demolding damage.

This will be a huge black hole for talent and resources, draining the R&D budgets that would otherwise be invested in other areas.

They would willingly abandon other potentially viable routes in order to obtain the technical route that we 'bestowal' upon them.

This is called poison.

Navarro, looking at the dumbfounded Musk, concluded smugly:
"So, do you understand now? We're not exchanging NIL technology for their little bit of lunar data."

We are using a tangible, readily available, but perpetually unsatisfying lure to exchange for their strategic resource misallocation and technological dependence over the next five to ten years.

Like President Reagan's Star Wars program, which was Star Wars in the space industry, we're in the semiconductor industry.

We gave them a machine, but kept the instruction manual, ink cartridges, and repair tools ourselves.

Every time they want this machine to run properly, they have to pay us and accept our terms.

This isn't a deal, Elon; this is colonization—the most advanced technological colonization you know!

Musk remained silent for a long time, rapidly processing the logic behind those words.

This is an extremely insidious and intricately linked trap.

But his intuition as a top engineer still made him feel extremely uneasy.

Because Navarro's understanding is limited to the China on paper, the China depicted in Zhang Jiadun's writings, while Zhang Jiadun personally built the Tesla Gigafactory in China and knows the China in reality.

“You underestimated them,” Musk finally said slowly. “You treated them like an ordinary commercial company, a country with serious flaws like the Soviet Union.”

But they are not. They are a civilization with near-infinite resources. They can move nuclear reactors and electromagnetic launch devices to the moon. Do you think they ultimately couldn't solve a simple resin material formula?

"The trap you designed is based on the premise that they will always play by your rules." Musk looked directly at Navarro. "But what they are best at is understanding the rules, breaking them, and finally making their own rules. You gave them a visible finish line that they can sprint towards with all their might, and that in itself is the biggest risk."

Navarro's smile vanished, replaced by a hawkish stubbornness: "This is a risk we have to take."

“No,” Musk shook his head and walked toward the door, “you’re opening Pandora’s box, but you’re naively thinking you still have the key to it.”

This conversation failed to convince Navarro. Sometimes the worst thing is when a fool pretends to be smart. In Musk's view, Navarro is a fool pretending to be smart, not understanding the logic of technology, but pretending to have found some brilliant scheme.

Isn't this just another Zhang Jiadun? Only his skin color has turned white.

What's worse, the other side also brought in a group of experts to endorse his strategy, and Musk is sure that these experts may not be unaware of the risks involved. They are simply trying to curry favor with this new favorite in the White House, so they use their professional expertise to demonstrate the feasibility of his plan.

Musk was desperate.

From Navarro's perspective, even if he thinks Musk is right and he is wrong, he can't admit it. Musk, do you mean I should go to the president to admit my mistake and make the president give up this idea? Then should I continue to work in the White House?
Just like preventing the sale of computing cards to China, experts and scholars from Silicon Valley, including Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google, believe this is an extremely wrong approach. Not only will it fail to block the market, but it will also hand over the market to Huawei. However, the White House bureaucrats are extremely confident and feel that this is the only way to do it.

Initially, the White House prevented Nvidia from selling computing cards to China; later, China stopped buying Nvidia's computing cards. In just two years, the balance of power in the field of computing cards shifted dramatically.

Musk failed to persuade Navarro, and returned to the Lyndon Johnson Space Center in Texas in frustration.

A massive Starship prototype in the Texas Bay at sunset.

Elon Musk stood outside his minimalist mobile home, holding an ice-cold can of Coke in one hand and gesturing irritably in the air with the other.

Sitting across from him were two people: SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwen Shotwell, and billionaire Jared Isaacman, commander of the Polaris program.

"And then he just slammed his fist on the table and said, 'Make the moon great again!'" Musk mimicked the exaggerated tone and gestures, but his face remained expressionless. "'Big T Space Base!' He really said that. He even asked me if I could spell his name in gold letters on the base's dome. My God, did he think he was building a hotel in Manhattan?"

Musk is in unprecedented despair.

He now feels that the Democratic Party isn't so bad either. The Democratic Party just makes some tactical mistakes, such as overemphasizing LGBT issues in some matters, but they don't make strategic mistakes.

The current Elephant Party seems to have better execution than the Donald Party, but only to a limited extent. What he finds most unacceptable is that they will blindly rush headlong in strategically wrong directions, believing that as long as you convince the president, you are omnipotent.

But the president is very easy to persuade.

Gwen Shotwell, a woman known for her calm and decisiveness, frowned: "Elon, don't mention names yet. Are we really going to adjust the entire Starship program's priorities for this Big T base? All our Mars mission timelines will have to be scrapped and rewritten."

“We have no choice, Gwen.” Musk sat down dejectedly. “I’m NASA Administrator now, remember? This is the President’s highest executive order.”

"Either we go to the moon, or we face endless congressional hearings, SpaceX won't be able to operate normally, and we'll face a series of investigations on environmental protection, communications security, supplier management, and more. The president also won't sign the launch order."

Inside the room behind him, a huge wall-mounted screen was playing Bloomberg Finance Channel on silent.

The scrolling news bar below acts like a cold, detached voice-over, annotating their conversation:
"The America-Japan High-Level Economic Dialogue concluded in Washington, with America's Commerce Minister Ramondo stating that both sides reached important consensus on strengthening the resilience of critical technology supply chains."

Musk noticed the news and wondered if the negotiations might involve NIL.
Musk felt a chill run down his spine.

Because the White House is moving too fast.

“This is the part I can’t stand the most!” He stood up abruptly and paced around the room. “For a damn lunar base, just so he could brag that I conquered the moon, he actually agreed to that madman Navarro’s plan! To exchange NIL technology for the Chinese’s lunar data!”

Jared Isaacman, a pilot and patriot, tried to understand from another perspective: "But Elon, the threat from China is real. An American lunar base is a great enough goal in itself, isn't it? We can't let them monopolize the moon."

“Of course I know we can’t let them monopolize the moon!” Musk retorted excitedly. “But you can’t just give the blueprints of a house to your arch-enemy just to be the first to move in! That’s the stupidest deal I’ve ever heard of!”

His speech became faster and faster, as if he were explaining an obvious mathematical theorem.

"Is what we lack data? Yes! But data can be acquired through time and exploration missions! We have starships, and we have the capability to conduct our own mapping! This will at most slow us down by one or two years! But what is NIL technology? It's enabling technology! By giving them this, you're essentially building a complete, top-tier chip ecosystem for your competitors that allows them to bypass ASML! You're giving them the universal key to manufacturing all future chips!"

Neither of Musk's two close associates dared to say for sure when Starship would finally succeed, as it had been in constant testing and no one could give a definitive answer.

Navarro's plan is unreliable, and Musk's plan is not much better.

The news on the screen started scrolling again, switching to a new message.

"The Taiwan Weighted Index fell another 2.8% this week, and TSMC's stock price hit a new low for the year. Activist investor 'Ethelred Capital' has once again called for fundamental reforms by the board of directors to address supply chain risks."

"Let's get started on our plan," Musk said after finishing the rest of his sugar-free soda in one go.

In the afternoon, the BY-2 spacecraft, launched from the lunar surface by the Steel Dragon, was recovered and returned to Earth.

The afternoon special program in China was broadcast live in its entirety. Official channels such as Bilibili, Douyin, and Weibo also provided access to the program. Apollo Technology has opened up its copyright to these platforms, and each has its own special program to report on the event.

Bilibili's name perfectly matches the platform's tone: "Echoes of the Dragon from the Moon." They invited a physicist and a popular scholar to be guests.

The physicist explained to the camera: "The core of this experiment is to verify two revolutionary cost breakthroughs. The first is the application of lunar nuclear energy and superconducting electromagnetic emission."

This demonstrates our engineering mastery of superconducting materials in extreme low-temperature environments. This is not only an advancement in aerospace, but also the technological cornerstone for future fields such as superconducting chips and controlled nuclear fusion.

Secondly, and more importantly, is the economic model for ultra-low-cost lunar transportation. The successful launch of the electromagnetic orbit means that the cost of transporting strategic resources such as helium-3 and rare earth elements from the moon in the future will only be the initial infrastructure investment.

Third, the moon is transforming from a scientific research outpost into a commercially viable blue ocean with limitless value, which explains the decline in the stock prices of rare earth companies on the A-share market.

Professor Shen from Fudan University made no secret of his strategic intentions: "This blue ocean is also a strategic high ground for the future. If we can send back a 100-kilogram package today, we can send back a ton-sized package with more complex functions tomorrow."

Whoever controls this inexpensive lunar route will control national security for the next 50 years.

At 2:50 p.m., the atmosphere inside the Tokyo underground bunker was extremely oppressive.

On the huge screen wall, there were more than a dozen live feeds, all of which were directed at that international waterway.

"Akitsushima reports: We have reached 15 nautical miles from the edge of the designated recovery area and are using optical equipment for observation," a liaison officer reported.

"What was China's reaction?"

"Yes, they dispatched the Nantong from their escort fleet, which is approaching the Akitsushima at a distance of 8 nautical miles. They issued a warning on an international channel, requesting our ships to maintain a safe distance and not interfere with normal scientific research activities in international waters."

"This is a standard interception and monitoring procedure."

On the huge screen wall, the central image is a trajectory simulation provided by the J/FPS-5 long-range early warning radar deployed on Naguni Island.

A tiny point of light is falling from deep space toward Earth at an astonishing speed.

“The target’s trajectory is stable and is completely within the model we calculated two days ago,” an intelligence officer from the Joint Staff Office reported, his voice tinged with a hint of puzzlement. “Strangely, it made almost no trajectory corrections and seems to rely entirely on the accuracy of the initial launch.”

Besides the bureaucrats, there were also some experts urgently brought in from JAXA, including an orbital dynamics expert with gray hair who was already sweating profusely.

"Gentlemen," the expert said, his face filled with bewilderment, "this is impossible."

When launching an object from the moon back to Earth, the gravitational interaction between the Earth, the moon, and the sun must be considered; this is known as the three-body problem.

In addition, a series of parameters such as solar wind and gravity gradient are constantly changing.

The calculation of the initial launch window and angle must be accurate to more than ten decimal places.

As we all know, the new Hall thrusters equipped with China's BY-2 give it ample mid-course correction capability.

"It has indeed made four orbital corrections in the past 48 hours," the expert pointed to the data on the screen, "but please note that the last correction was made 12 hours ago in deep space, more than 15 kilometers from Earth."

From then on, it entered the unpowered gliding phase.

The person in a higher position asked, "So, these final 15 kilometers determine its final accuracy?"

“Absolutely correct.” The expert said very seriously, “In the final leg of the journey, it will rely entirely on its own navigation system to calculate the reentry point.”

Any tiny error, whether it comes from the drift of its own gyroscope or an imperfection in the calculated gravitational field model, will be amplified dramatically during atmospheric reentry.

According to our best model calculations, even with the initial corrections from the Hall thruster, the final landing point error should be within a circle with a diameter of 50 kilometers.

But the error in China seems to be far less than 50 kilometers.

He pointed to the 90-kilometer-long and 50-kilometer-wide recycling area in the center of the screen, designated by the China Maritime Safety Administration.

"The recycling zone they announced was itself a technological showcase. And now it's flying right towards the center of that box."

This means that its navigation system, its autonomous positioning and orbit calculation capabilities, have achieved a level of precision that we previously thought was only theoretically possible.

Ideally, we should force the Chinese fleet to retreat and bring back BY-2; it's extremely valuable for research! We need to figure out exactly how the Chinese did it.

I highly suspect that they have achieved another technological breakthrough.

"What technology?"

"Quantum gyroscope," said a JAXA expert.

He went on to explain: "A gyroscope is a device used to measure or maintain direction and angular velocity."

Simply put, it tells an object whether it is rotating, in which direction it is rotating, and how fast it is rotating.

It is the core of all inertial navigation systems.

The advantage of inertial navigation is that it does not require external signals (such as GPS), and therefore cannot be interfered with. However, it has a fatal problem: drift.

Traditional gyroscopes, whether mechanical or optical, are subject to minor, unavoidable manufacturing defects and environmental interference.

These tiny measurement errors accumulate over time.

Imagine walking in a thick fog where you can't see your hand in front of your face, and you can only rely on your senses to walk in a straight line.

So, with each step we take, there may be a tiny angular deviation. It may not be obvious at first, but after walking a kilometer, the accumulated error may cause you to deviate from your target by hundreds of meters.

That's drifting.

For submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, or deep space probes, long-term drift accumulation will lead to huge, even fatal, deviations in their judgment of their own position.

Therefore, their positions need to be calibrated by satellites.

The quantum gyroscope, more accurately called the cold atom interferometer gyroscope, was developed to fundamentally solve the drift problem.

It no longer relies on macroscopic mechanical rotation or optical paths, but instead utilizes two of the most fascinating principles in quantum mechanics: wave-particle duality and quantum interference.

I won't go into the specific design ideas here. Bosch is the most active promoter in this regard, and once it emerges, it will be a game-changer.

Compared to traditional optical gyroscopes, it has three revolutionary advantages: unparalleled sensitivity, near-zero drift, and complete autonomy and absolute anti-interference.

Because of its extremely low drift, it constitutes a perfect inertial navigation system.

If China possesses this technology, then their aircraft or weapons could conduct long-term, long-distance precision guidance without relying on the BeiDou satellite navigation system.

Any interference, blinding, or even destruction of satellites is completely ineffective against this autonomous navigation method.

If a country takes the lead in achieving a miniaturized and practical quantum gyroscope, it will have an absolute and precise cosmic ruler that cannot be disturbed and can measure the entire globe.

Its missiles will be able to accurately hit any target in any electromagnetic environment.

Its submarines will truly become untraceable deep-sea ghosts.

Its deep-space probes will be able to autonomously plan routes to Mars and even more distant galaxies.

This is not just a technological advancement, but a fundamental shift in navigation technology from an era reliant on external beacons to one reliant on physical laws.

This will fundamentally rewrite the rules of space exploration, or something else entirely.

According to public statements from Bosch executives, it would take them at least five to ten years, and that could be like controlled nuclear fusion, which could take forever.

I highly suspect that China has developed a quantum gyroscope, which would explain their high level of precision in the lunar landing and return missions.

Captain Li Zheng, the Chinese captain, gazed through the huge porthole of the bridge at the white ship's silhouette 15 nautical miles away. He knew that at least one P-3C and one P-8A were watching his every move with their electronic eyes in the higher and farther sky.

But he didn't care.

Today, in this deep blue sea, they are not sneaky intruders, but rightful and honorable masters.

"Report! BY- has entered the main parachute deployment phase, altitude 3000 meters, descent speed stable!" came the voice from the Wenchang Control Center.

"Order all units to enter Level 1 recovery preparation," Li Zheng said calmly. "Order Eagle One and Eagle Two to take off according to the predetermined plan."

On the deck, two general aviation helicopters were already poised for takeoff.

As the command was given, the rotors created a huge airflow, and the two helicopters took off, flying towards the theoretical landing point of the return capsule.

At 3:52 PM, the return capsule, pulled by three huge orange and white main parachutes, landed steadily on the sea like a triumphant interstellar explorer.

The final landing data displayed on the huge LCD screen from the flight control center elicited a suppressed but proud exclamation from the entire bridge.

"The final landing point deviation was 485 meters."

A slight smile finally appeared on Li Zheng's lips.

He knew the power contained in that number.

This is proof of our strength, written for the whole world to see.

Under the live broadcast, viewers around the world witnessed a textbook-level offshore recovery operation.

The helicopter arrived above the return capsule and hovered in a triangular formation to maintain alert.

The door of one of the helicopters opened, and four agile naval frogmen, like arrows released from a bow, slid down the rappelling rope into the sea and quickly swam towards the return capsule.

At 3:58 p.m., the divers skillfully installed a marine positioning beacon and a large inflatable float on the return capsule to ensure its absolute stability in the wind and waves.

They then attached the high-strength towing cable. The entire process took less than four minutes, with precise movements and excellent teamwork, clearly the result of countless rehearsals.

Just after four o'clock, the massive hull of the ocean-going rescue and salvage vessel Chang Gengxing slowly approached.

Instead of approaching the target like traditional salvage vessels, it stopped a hundred meters away.

At the stern, a huge A-frame crane slowly rose, carrying a semi-submersible, unmanned intelligent recovery net.

At 4:12, guided by the frogmen, the return capsule was smoothly towed into the recovery net and secured.

Subsequently, the crew of the Chang Geng Xing initiated the recovery procedure. The entire recovery net, along with the return capsule, was smoothly and slowly lifted out of the water. After the seawater was drained, it was placed on a specially made buffer support in the center of the deck.

At 4:20 a.m., the aerospace technicians who had been waiting on the deck, dressed in white cleanroom suits, rushed up to begin checking the status of the return capsule, recording data, and securing it.

The entire recovery process lasted less than thirty minutes.

There were no unexpected incidents throughout the entire process.

There was not a trace of panic, not a single mistake.

It was less like a maritime rescue full of uncertainties and more like a standardized operation performed on an industrial product on a factory assembly line.

(End of this chapter)