Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 409 Hurry up and go to Shenhai to invite Lin Ran!
In the Amazon rainforest of South America, a butterfly's casual flapping of its wings could potentially cause a catastrophic hurricane in America's Cleveland state two weeks later.

Now the hurricane is coming.

Compared to ordinary spaceships, China's BY-2 is really only the size of a butterfly.

According to John Morgan Sr., it was lighter than a feather falling to the ground, a perfect return, as the hurricane swept from Beijing to the world.

Today, this wind finally reached America, the country that first sent humans to the moon, and brought a Category 14 hurricane.

All media outlets, regardless of whether they support the Donald Party or the Elephant Party, have only one topic after today's hearing: NASA.

What problems has NASA had in the past? What will Musk do about it? And how can we lead NASA to win this lunar war?
Countless questions await America's journalists to uncover.

The following morning, newspaper delivery vans were parked in front of every household in Washington, D.C., carrying a huge and concise headline on their front page:
"The Lunar Rover on PowerPoint: A Decade of Idleness: NASA's Trust Crisis"

The article is not a simple news article, but a lengthy in-depth investigative report of over 10,000 words co-authored by three Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists.

They had communicated extensively with Musk's team beforehand, obtaining a wealth of firsthand intelligence, and had also maintained excellent secrecy, waiting only for Musk's hearing to serve as the trigger.

The report meticulously traced the flow of funds for the two projects, Resource Explorer and VIPER, over the past decade.

The clear charts show that of the total budget of nearly $7 million, more than 80% ultimately ended up in the pockets of a few traditional aerospace contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

The report interviewed more than a dozen anonymous former NASA engineers who confirmed the project's "idle" state, with endless meetings, constantly changing designs, and samples from contractors that were never delivered on time.

The report's core message points directly to a military-industrial complex entrenched in Washington.

The military industry is not the only entity that constitutes a military-industrial complex.

Aerospace is also part of the military-industrial complex.

It reveals a pathological cycle: Congress approves exorbitant budgets for votes and jobs; NASA bureaucrats outsource projects to avoid offending Congress and contractors; and contractors use a portion of the budget for political lobbying in exchange for more projects and looser regulations.

The Washington Post's editorial section featured a commentary by prominent columnist Thomas Friedman with an even more scathing headline: "We used to look up at the stars, now we just audit bills."

At 8 p.m. on Fox News, Fox News' star host, in his signature inflammatory tone, roared at the camera:

"See that, America! This is the swamp! This is Washington's deep state! While the president is fighting for America's interests, while patriots like Elon Musk are building real rockets in Texas with their own money, our taxpayers' money is being used by a bunch of bureaucrats and lobbyists hiding in their offices to buy products from our greatest enemy!"

"They are not only incompetent, they have even become too lazy to be corrupt themselves! They have started outsourcing corruption! They send money to China just to complete their missions and deceive us! This is not a scandal, this is betrayal!"

On the screen, Musk's image and the president's image were photoshopped together, with the American flag waving in the background.

The title boldly proclaims: "Swamp Cleaners".

Fox's narrative is very clear: this is not America's failure, but the failure of "old America".

And now we have a new president, and a completely new America.

Musk is the hammer the president chose to destroy the old system.

If you have a hammer, you'll find nails everywhere.

The reaction from liberal media was far more complex. They were equally shocked and outraged by NASA's corruption, but they harbored deeper concerns about Musk's solutions.

If you can really solve this problem, then what are we still playing for?
An NBC evening news host calmly analyzed, "There is no doubt that NASA's bureaucracy has become rigid and needs a complete overhaul."

But are we witnessing a more dangerous trend? Are we replacing a dysfunctional committee with a dictator?

"Is it really safe to hand over the future of America's entire space program, a great institution concerning national security, scientific exploration, and the human spirit, entirely to a capricious and highly volatile billionaire like Elon Musk? Are we trading the known risk of bureaucratic corruption for a greater unknown risk?"

A widely circulated article on The Atlantic website raises a more philosophical question: "Has America lost the ability to do difficult things?"

The article states: "The greatness of the Apollo program lies not in our landing on the moon, but in its demonstration that a Democracy can accomplish a seemingly impossible task, purely out of idealism and courage, by mobilizing its best talent and largest industrial system."

Today, the VIPER scandal proves that we seem to have lost that ability. We no longer talk about 'doing it because it's difficult,' we only care about 'contracting it because it's profitable.'

China's lunar electromagnetic launch device is certainly formidable, but what's even more terrifying is the demise of our own inner ambition.

When Lei woke up, he didn't feel like the sky had fallen, but rather that it was very strange and magical, a kind of inexplicable world line.

Musk was holding up a tablet with a car bearing the Xiaomi logo on it, and the photo was published on the front page of media outlets worldwide.

This is a bit too surreal.

Every group he was in was buzzing with discussion about this.

"@Lei Jun, this is great! This marketing campaign was incredibly worthwhile and even generated a positive response!"

"Brother, you've essentially paid for two promotions. I'm currently in Europe, and although I can't quite understand what their TV station is saying, the host keeps mentioning Xiaomi."

“Mr. Lei, during last year’s presidential election, we were still discussing the deep state of the United States in the group chat, and whether Big T’s return to the White House could solve the deep state of Washington. I never expected that you would also be a member of the deep state of Washington.”

In a certain group of bigwigs, which consisted entirely of prominent Chinese entrepreneurs, the focus of everyone's attention was that they never expected that a native-born Chinese entrepreneur could be involved in the deep swamp of Washington, D.C.

This piqued everyone's curiosity.

You grew up in Xiantao and have never studied or worked abroad, so how did you get connected with Washington?

Many of these entrepreneurs have had a tough time doing business in recent years and are looking to make a quick buck. They think that American money is still money, and after watching the hearing, they all felt that it was too easy to make money from Americans. They thought that if PowerPoint presentations could fool people for so many years, they could make the same money if they could also get close to the deep state in Washington.
If Lei Zi can touch it, so can I! That's roughly the idea.

So these people all tagged Lei Jun, hoping to get further answers.

Lei Jun felt that this was an undeserved disaster.

He replied in several important groups: "Thank you all for your concern. I just woke up and I'm still confused. I'll check the details and give you all a detailed explanation later."

Then he quickly called the driver to drive to the company, and on the way, he called the heads of public relations, investment, and finance together for an emergency meeting:
"Mr. Lei, our stock price is going crazy in pre-market trading in Hong Kong. One side thinks it's a shocking scandal, while the other side thinks it's good news. The battle between the bulls and bears is fierce."

The investment manager projected pre-market trading data onto the screen.

The marketing manager then said, "Currently, all the media outlets that have been in contact with me are asking us whether we were secretly involved in the plan to sell space equipment to NASA."

Europe suspects we violated technology export regulations.

Most netizens in China are still just enjoying the meme and seeing it as a good show, without directly targeting us. However, a small number of netizens believe that we have an unusual relationship of interest with America and are trying to manipulate public opinion to attack us.

After listening to his subordinates' reports, Lei Jun seemed thoughtful: "Do you think this could be a good opportunity?"

Xu Fei, who was in charge of marketing, was the quickest to understand Lei Jun's meaning: "You mean we should go all out and turn the crisis into an opportunity? We should start marketing right away?"

Lei Jun nodded and said, "That's right. The truth behind this is very simple. Didn't Musk mention at the hearing that the lunar rover came from Shenhai, a subsidiary of China Aerospace?"
Does it concern us?
As for why we reached a sponsorship agreement with General Aerospace, we can just openly admit it. We said that Qualcomm's CEO asked us to do a small favor. We have a long tradition of sponsoring aerospace projects. Didn't we also sponsor Apollo's moon landing?
So after eliminating the commercial and legal risks, we agreed.

The subsequent clarifications were made in the open, and the facts are our best weapon to protect ourselves.

My friends and business associates are trying to attack me. Let them come. Take this opportunity to gather evidence and have the platform clean up their smear campaign.

What a joke! How could a small-town test-taker like me possibly have any connection with the deep state government in the US?
"Once the public outcry has subsided and the timing is right, I'll release a detailed explanation video. I'll personally film that video."

After Lei Jun finished speaking, he turned off the remote meeting and pondered: "Right, I'm a small-town exam taker, and so is President Lin. How did he end up getting mixed up with America's gang? And he even left Musk with a perfect handle."

The conference room was filled with heads of various NASA departments, as well as several core engineers that Musk brought from SpaceX.

This is the first project meeting since Musk stirred up the storm.

The topic of this conference is a classic problem in the field of aerospace engineering: POGO vibration.

In simple terms, this is a self-excited oscillation generated during rocket flight due to the coupling between pressure fluctuations in the fuel pipeline and vibrations in the rocket's structure.

It is dangerous and can easily cause fatal danger.

A similar problem occurred on the Saturn V.

“Based on the static fire test data of the SN32 prototype conducted last week in Boca Chica,” a young SpaceX propulsion systems engineer reported to the senior NASA staff using a PowerPoint presentation, “we did indeed detect a very slight POGO vibration trend at a frequency of 25 Hz in the liquid oxygen turbopump of the Raptor engine. The amplitude is within our safety threshold, and we have also designed a solution.”

He turned to the next page, which contained complex diagrams and code.

"The solution is simple: by modifying the engine's controller software, fine-tuning the fuel injection timing, and at the same time, adding a small accumulator as a hardware buffer on the main fuel line."

We plan to apply this approach to SN33 in two weeks for the next flight test to obtain data under real-world flight conditions.

This is typical of SpaceX: identify problems, fix them quickly, and validate and iterate through frequent real-world flight tests.

They're not developing a starship for Mars now, but for the moon.

Why not the Saturn V? Because the Saturn V is too large and not suitable for a target that requires regular round trips.

Ultimately, we still have to rely on starships, even though starships have never been successful.

After the report ended, the conference room fell silent.

Musk sat in the head seat, looking around at the NASA executives present.

Finally, Dr. Eleanor spoke up; she is the director of NASA's Center for Engineering and Safety.

This is an organization that operates independently of all projects and has the "veto power" over any task.

“Thank you for your report, young man,” Dr. Eleanor Van Eleanor said. “POGO vibration is an extremely serious topic for NASA.”

During the Apollo 10 and 13 missions, the second stage of the Saturn V rocket experienced premature engine shutdowns due to POGO vibrations, nearly resulting in catastrophic consequences.

Her gaze shifted to Musk.

"Director, we at NESC greatly appreciate the efficiency of the SpaceX team."

However, for an engine that will carry Americana back to the moon—the most powerful engine in human history—to proceed to the next flight test based solely on a trend discovered during a static fire and a solution involving a software patch and hardware buffer is, frankly, unacceptable. It's gambling with the lives of the astronauts.

Her words made the atmosphere in the meeting room turn cold.

“Based on NASA’s well-established safety protocols that have been in place for seventy years,” she stated calmly, more like a judge than a NASA scientist, “we must initiate a full and independent review process for a Level 1 risk like POGO.”

The process is as follows:

First, we will establish an independent POGO vibration investigation team composed of experts from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Glenn Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center to fully reproduce and analyze SpaceX's test data.

Secondly, before any flight test can be conducted, the Raptor engine must first undergo a full-condition ground vibration modal test on the ground for at least six months.

Finally, SpaceX must develop a completely new computational fluid dynamics model of the full-flow staged combustion cycle methane engine, which has been peer-reviewed by us at NESC.

Note that this is brand new; your old Falcon 9 RP-1 kerosene engine model is not applicable here.

Dr. Eleanor said calmly, "After completing all the above steps, you will need to submit to this committee a security certification report of no less than one thousand pages on the solution."

We will hold hearings and conduct a three-month review.

After she finished speaking, she looked calmly at Musk and gave her conclusion: "We expect the entire process to take about 18 to 24 months."

Only after that can we approve the ignition and launch of SN33.

Musk listened quietly. When Dr. Eleanor uttered "24 months," he smiled. He knew the swamp would retaliate, but he hadn't expected it to come so quickly.

“Dr. Eleanor,” Musk said coldly, making the atmosphere in the room even colder, “I have great respect for you and the engineers of the Apollo era, but now, not in 1965.”

You said our data is insufficient.

Over the past three years, the Starship prototype has conducted more than twenty high-altitude flight tests.

We have more engine telemetry data from real flight environments than all your projects combined over the past fifty years! We have the data! We don't need to spend two years simulating something we've already flown dozens of times in a computer!

"This process you're talking about," his voice suddenly rose, "is not for safety, it's for avoiding liability! It's so that every bureaucrat can find a signature on any future accident report to prove they 'have followed all the procedures'! The sole purpose of this process is to protect the system itself, not to send people to the moon!"

He stood up and walked to the wall where the Apollo astronauts' photos were hanging.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the biggest risk we face today is not POGO vibration."

The biggest risk we face is sitting in this room for two years, writing a thousand-page report for a single engine test!
In just the past two years, the Chinese have already built their permanent base on the moon, their lunar cryogenic laboratory, and now even an electromagnetic orbit!

"This is the real risk that our country cannot afford!"

The meeting room was completely silent.

Lin Ran wanted to ignite the flame in the modern world, so he first ignited Musk's flame.

Musk's eyes are burning with rage, a rage that will burn NASA, this old world, to ashes. He's had enough of NASA now. "I've already exposed the lunar rover, and you still dare to play like this?"
Dr. Eleanor's face still showed her insistence that the procedure be correct; if the procedure wasn't correct, they wouldn't be able to play.

The flight preparation review meeting ended in discord.

Musk and his engineers left Washington that same day.

He did not argue with anyone at NASA headquarters again, nor did he submit any appeal documents.

For the next week, Washington bureaucrats enjoyed a brief period of victory.

What they perceived as a victory.

Dr. Eleanor's NESC methodically established the "POGO Vibration Independent Investigation Team" and sent SpaceX a 300-page email requesting initial data.

Everything seems to have returned to that familiar, slow pace measured in years.

A week later, without any prior notice, Elon Musk's Twitter account suddenly started a global live stream.

The live stream was not broadcast from any office or press conference room.

Instead, the SpaceX factory is an open-air facility filled with huge stainless steel rings and the roar of machinery.

Musk stood in front of a Raptor engine that had just completed its final assembly and was about to be hoisted onto the test bench.

He was wearing a black T-shirt that read "Occupy Mars" and looked more like a workshop foreman than a NASA administrator.

“Hi everyone.” He waved to the camera, and millions of viewers around the world flooded into the live stream. “Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a series of productive meetings with my colleagues at NASA in Washington.”

His opening remarks gave the public relations department at NASA headquarters, who were watching the live broadcast, a temporary sense of relief.

“We discussed history, we discussed safety, and we discussed every rigorous step that would be needed to get us back to the moon,” he continued. “I learned a lot.”

The most important thing I learned is: we're too slow.

“We were bogged down by processes, committees, and reports that were thousands of pages long.”

Meanwhile, our adversaries are on the moon, using electromagnetic cannons to mock every single one of our PowerPoint presentations.

"So, starting today, we're going to change the rules of the game."

As he walked around the massive Raptor engine, he addressed the camera and announced his most disruptive "executive order" as NASA administrator.

He said, "I will dissolve the Artemis Acceleration Council that I established when I took office. Because it created a new department, and we don't need any more departments."

"In its place, a new working principle has been adopted, which is called extreme transparency."

Starting next Monday, all of NASA's unclassified engineering meetings, weekly progress meetings, and even budget discussions related to the return to the moon program will be streamed live on NASA's official website.

All meeting minutes, technical documents, and test data will be uploaded to a public server in real time for any American taxpayer to download and review.

This statement was like a bomb.

"I know what you'll say: 'Don't we want to keep things secret? What about our secrets? What if our technology is leaked?'"
Please, everyone, look at the sky. China's electromagnetic orbit is pointing directly at us. They are far, far ahead of us. If we continue to follow NASA's past practices, the gap between us and them will not be the five years NASA experts mentioned, but fifty years, or even fifty years forever—fifty years that will never narrow.

He stepped to the front of the camera, his expression shifting from a slightly relaxed, teasing tone about the gap between the two sides to a serious one: "About POGO vibration."

This is a serious engineering problem.

Last week, NASA’s top security experts and our SpaceX engineers had a heated debate on this issue.

They asked us to spend 18 to 24 months conducting ground simulations and writing reports.

They're right; based on past experience, this is the safest approach. But the greatest safety is winning the race!

Therefore, I have decided to launch the largest open peer review in history.

At this very moment, we have uploaded all the test data of the SN32 prototype, including the controversial POGO vibration spectrum, as well as the software and hardware solutions we designed, to GitHub and NASA's open source website.

I hereby invite every aerospace engineer, every university professor of fluid mechanics, and every intelligent amateur scientist watching this live broadcast around the world to examine our data and challenge our solutions.

Including Randolph, if you'd like, you can also give me some pointers. I believe you can help us find the problem, and even a solution!

Let us use one week, and with the wisdom of all humankind, accomplish a task that would normally take a committee two years to complete.

Finally, he walked back to the Raptor engine and gently patted its cold exterior.

Behind him, a massive crane was slowly lifting the upper half of the SN33 starship, preparing it to be combined with the lower half.

"Based on our own data, our confidence in the first principles of physics, and my belief in the upcoming consensus from the global engineering community, I announce that Starship SN33, equipped with the new POGO suppression system, will conduct its scheduled flight test next month."

We will use real flights to obtain the most valuable data.

We will iterate and improve as quickly as possible.

The president did not ask me to write a perfect report.

He demanded that I lead America back to the moon and win.

We have two paths before us: one leads to more documents, and the other to higher skies.

I choose the sky.

Musk seized the only possible turning point in the world and flipped the table.

In a normal, peaceful Washington, Musk's approach would absolutely not be allowed.

He will be strangled by Congress, the law, procedures, and the media.

However, at this critical and humiliating moment, he seized the only opportunity.

Because the Washington of today is no longer a normal Washington.

It is a power center stunned by a double shock.

The recovery of BY-2 was as shocking to America as a small-scale Pearl Harbor attack.

This irrefutably proves that America has been overtaken by China in some key future technology fields.

This instantly transformed "winning the space race" from a political slogan into a state of emergency at the highest level.

Faced with this new form of space race, all bureaucratic discussions about procedures, budgets, and processes seem pale and powerless.

A sense of panic began to permeate Washington, from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, with a determination to catch up at all costs.

Musk's hearings, however, completely destroyed the credibility of NASA and the traditional military-industrial complex overnight.

It stripped the congressional establishment and NASA's old bureaucrats of the moral legitimacy to fight back.

Thus, a new and strange power balance has emerged within Washington.

The White House undoubtedly supports Musk's actions, because to them, Musk's behavior is a godsend.

This perfectly fits the narrative of draining the swamp; Musk is staging a real-life version of draining the Washington swamp in the most direct way.

Every bureaucrat and contractor he attacked became a target for the White House’s claims about the deep state and corrupt elite.

And at a time when the country is under immense pressure due to China's technological breakthroughs, Musk, a powerful figure emerging from nowhere with a strong sense of individual heroism, is the perfect spokesperson for the White House to demonstrate America's strength and determination to voters.

His only flaw is that he is not a native-born American; he is a white South African. But compared to the fact that all the people working on artificial intelligence in America are of Chinese descent, Musk's race is already politically correct and impeccable.

The establishment in Congress certainly hates Musk.

His actions not only challenged their budgetary authority but also humiliated the local interests they represented, which were deeply intertwined with military-industrial enterprises.

However, they are now in a political predicament:
Opposing Musk is tantamount to supporting corruption: In the face of the lunar rover scandal, any member of Congress who tries to use procedures to obstruct Musk will be immediately labeled by the media and voters as "colluding with corrupt contractors".

Opposing Musk is tantamount to being weak to China. With the entire nation in a frenzy of trying to catch up with China's lunar program, any attempt to put the brakes on the lunar project would be tantamount to political suicide.

Therefore, although Congress may verbally criticize Musk at various hearings, they dare not and cannot truly obstruct actual funding and authorization.

Musk completely bypassed NASA's old system through his own plan. Grove thought that Musk wanted to first reorganize personnel, to find out people and projects one by one, to clean up the corruption within NASA, and then train the team, gradually streamline the staff, and keep the ones who do the work.

As a result, Musk directly pierced through NASA's shell, discarded the shell altogether, and bypassed it, relying entirely on SpaceX to operate the lunar landing.

In this situation, Washington was not allowing him to do so, but rather had no choice but to support him.

This kind of approach is like putting Grove on the hot seat. How can he deliver on his promises to the military-industrial complex? If the complex's appetite isn't satisfied, his life will be in real danger.

"No, I still have a chance. If Musk makes a mistake, it will be my chance," Grove thought.

Similarly, Musk knows he's walking a tightrope. The more aggressively he plays now, the more ferocious the counterattack will be if he makes a mistake.

After the live stream, he called Jonathan over. Jonathan had by then been transferred from Aerospace Corporation to become the Special Vice President of Tesla Greater China.

On the surface, he works in Greater China, but in reality, he has always been Musk's right-hand man.

As for why Musk trusted him, it's because Jonathan provided Musk with a large number of confidential NASA documents, the kind that would kill Musk if he released them the next night.

“Jonathan, I’m giving you a crucial task: go to China and have a good talk with Randolph. We need his help, and it’s time to fulfill his promise.”

(End of this chapter)