Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 410 What? Me?
Musk understood perfectly well that this was a gamble. If he won, he could continue working at NASA and truly master this massive machine without any problem. If he lost, he would have to leave Washington completely and never be able to return.

In the future, even SpaceX may face pressure from Washington, such as being broken up or dismantled. The bureaucratic system has plenty of ways to deal with you.

This is a high-stakes gamble, a gamble that has to be taken.

Apollo Technologies' electromagnetic recycling technology and pressure from the White House forced Musk to take a big gamble.

Lin Ran's help was what he understood as his trump card.

Since those people in the White House are so confident that it's okay to sell NIL technology to China, and that it's a trap for China to get it, then I need to hurry up and find a partner in China before China realizes it's a trap, and get what I should get.

Regardless of whether the NIL lithography machine is a trap or not, I have achieved my goal.

This is what Musk envisions: to build America's lunar base at the lunar north pole as quickly as possible.

Ideally, we should be able to land on the lunar north pole this year, and next year we should be able to build a basic base that can provide a natural human survival cycle.

Jonathan arrived in Shanghai, China, weary from his journey. He had been here twenty years ago, but this time was completely different from then.

Because of the 144-hour visa on arrival policy, and because Shanghai has been a representative city of China in recent years, constantly appearing on foreign websites, from TikTok to Instagram, Shanghai is a city that cannot be ignored when trying to understand China.

Foreign tourists visiting China often choose Shanghai as their first stop.

So Jonathan's first reaction upon landing was, "There are so many foreigners here."

Compared to when I came twenty years ago, the number of people has increased more than tenfold.

This only refers to non-Asian people with obvious foreign features. If we include Japanese and Koreans, the number would be much greater.

“Boss, I’m Allen Wang, the one who’s here to pick you up. You can just call me Allen.”

Holding up a sign and confirming his identity, Jonathan was successfully picked up by Tesla Greater China staff who were there to pick him up.

Because his visit to China was a secret and undisclosed one, Tesla Greater China adopted a low-key strategy.

After Jonathan got into the car and fastened his seatbelt, he asked, "I saw on Reddit that China has Level 5 autonomous vehicles, right?"

He saw one outside the window and pointed at it, asking, "How do I try that thing?"

Allen said, "Boss, that's Yunji from China, and it's still in a trial operation phase."

Although it was launched at the beginning of this year, and Huawei also opened applications to enterprises in the middle of the year, enterprises can obtain purchase rights after applying, which are only for internal use by the enterprise.

However, it will take time before it is fully liberalized. From a regulatory perspective, there are still some very important issues that have not been clearly understood.

The most important thing is safety. If a Level 5 autonomous vehicle is hacked and causes a safety accident, how should we hold the perpetrator accountable?

For China, it is hoped that Huawei or DeepRed Technology can prevent such incidents from happening.

You can handle emergency situations in crisis, but it's also difficult for them to avoid accidents caused by malicious attacks.

This seems to be still under discussion. Without a clear understanding of the situation, Yanjing is unwilling to open up the market hastily.

As for whether you want to try it, you can make a reservation on the mini-program later. Once you arrive at the hotel, I will tell you how to do it.

However, reservations may take a long time, because the first thing tourists do when visiting Shenhai is experience the Yunji ride.

Allen explained it in great detail. I'm not sure what the new vice president's style is, but based on his past experience dealing with foreigners, they all want you to be as detailed as possible.

After Huawei opened up its enterprise purchasing qualifications, Sha Niu was no longer called Sha Niu and was renamed Yun Ji.

If users prefer the name "Silly Girl," they can switch it back in the settings.

Jonathan asked thoughtfully, "Did we buy any?"

Allen said, "We do make purchases, but we do so primarily for research purposes, not to entertain guests."

Jonathan nodded: "Yes, that makes sense. We are Tesla, and we will surpass them in self-driving technology sooner or later!"

He wondered, when will we be able to catch up in the aerospace field?

Jonathan spent five days in Shenhai, experiencing almost every street and alley, and gained a deeper understanding of Tesla's Shenhai Gigafactory.

In particular, they gained a completely new understanding of China's industrial endowment.

Five days later, at the Apollo Technology headquarters, he finally met Lin Ran.

On foreign media, Lin Ran is portrayed as an evil scientist plotting to destroy the world.

On Reddit's conspiracy theory section, Lin Ran has even surpassed Bill Gates to become the new protagonist of conspiracy theories.

When Jonathan met the man in person, he didn't think of him as a villain. He only felt his aura, a powerful aura of confidence, as if there was nothing in the world that he couldn't do.

"Professor, my name is Jonathan Smith, and I am Mr. Elon Musk's special envoy."

Elon and I pay the highest tribute to you and your team for your achievements on the lunar project.

"You not only landed on the moon, but you also solved the core engineering problems of long-term survival on the lunar surface," Jonathan said.

Lin Ran nodded: "Time is precious, let's get straight to the point."

Jonathan said, "Okay, Professor, Musk hopes you will keep your promise and help us build a base at the lunar north pole."

We hope to complete the construction of the lunar north pole base by the end of next year.

Lin Ran corrected, "Jonathan, my promise is to help you complete the landing at the lunar north pole, not to build a lunar north pole base."

He stood up and went to the lunar map in the office, or more accurately, the lunar south pole map, which was covered with numerous impact craters and marked with three red flags.

As a lunar surface research expert, Jonathan immediately realized that these three locations had already firmly controlled the entire lunar south pole, and there was no point in them going there.

"No, Professor, we have provided top-notch technology like NIL."

Lin Ran said earnestly, "Jonathan, I greatly admire Mr. Musk's courage and the Starship system."

I'm not sure if Elon can get the lunar version of Starship working within a year.

If you can manage that, you will indeed have the capability to transport large quantities of supplies to the moon. However, this is only one aspect of building a base on the moon; it is not the whole picture.

Lin Ran then changed the subject: "Excuse me for speaking frankly, but I roughly understand the purge that Musk stirred up in Washington. He successfully brought down NASA's internal bureaucracy and those inefficient contractors. He won the war against the deep state."

I personally congratulate them on this.

Jonathan was puzzled; he didn't understand the implication.

“But the problem is,” Lin Ran continued, “was it only the bureaucratic system that he dismantled?”
A plan to support a lunar base requires more than just a flying rocket.

It requires a large, healthy, and highly reliable industrial system.

It needs thousands of reliable suppliers capable of delivering on time, with quality, and in the required quantity—from a single radiation-resistant screw to a perfectly fitting life support system valve.

He looked at Jonathan and asked the most crucial question: "Does America still possess those qualities now?"

Your old NASA system, though corrupt and inefficient, at least maintained a complete supplier network that had withstood the test of the Apollo era.

Musk has bypassed those bureaucrats and contractors, but has he considered that he has also destroyed the old but real industrial ecosystem?
Now, he has won the victory and gained absolute power.

Perhaps he can manage to send a thousand tons of supplies into space within 12 months.

But Jonathan, think about it, who do you want to manufacture the battery temperature control module that can still work stably in a temperature of -170 degrees Celsius on a moonlit night?
Which of your new suppliers of that life support system that filters the carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts and has a circulation rate of 99.9% is capable of passing the extreme safety tests required for manned spaceflight within 12 months?
"Are you planning to take those special alloy and ceramic components that need to withstand huge temperature differences and cosmic radiation directly from your 3D printing lab and use them in the manned spacecraft?"

Lin Ran slowly walked back to his chair, sat down, and looked directly at Jonathan:

"Of course you can solve these problems."

But that takes time, and requires a lot of research and development and certification from scratch.

This is completely contrary to the speed that Mr. Musk promised the president.

Of course, you also have another option: import from China.

We have all of this readily available.

If the old NASA could come to us to buy, why can't we buy the new NASA?

You can purchase mature, fully-tested life support systems, energy modules, and robotic units from us, then slap on a NASA label and launch them into space using your Starship.

The problem is, how can you guarantee that you won't be discovered during this process?

What you need to import is far more than a small lunar rover.

The difficulty of deceiving everyone is probably comparable to a studio moon landing.

Lin Ran struck a fatal blow, finding a loophole in Elon Musk's strategy.

A lunar base isn't just about sending things up there; you need a system. SpaceX can solve the vehicle problem, but what about the others?
After bypassing the old NASA, how did your new NASA find more than 10,000 suppliers to produce such complex, high-end industrial products?

Does Jonathan know about the problem Lin Ran mentioned? Of course he does. He's worked in NASA's peripheral agencies for so many years, how could he not know?

He clapped his hands and said, "Professor, your analysis is spot on."

This is our current predicament. Yes, we currently do not have a list of suppliers who can provide us with a complete, flight-proven life support and energy system for our lunar base within 18 months.

But you also made a mistake; you assumed that the old NASA system we wanted to destroy was real and useful.

Lin Ran's understanding of NASA is largely based on the 60s.

Jonathan spoke rapidly and calmly, saying, "The battery temperature control module, carbon dioxide filtration system, special alloy components, etc. that you just mentioned—do you think that Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman could immediately provide us with flyable versions of these things before Musk flips the table?"

Jonathan chuckled self-deprecatingly, his smile filled with disdain for the Washington bureaucracy.

"Professor, the VIPER lunar rover concept in the PPT presentation is not an isolated case; it's a common occurrence."

The old NASA system was rife with countless such ghosts.

We have a three-billion-dollar next-generation spacesuit program, and so far, all we have is a ground model that can't bend its elbows.

We also have a brand new life support system project with a 99.9% cycle rate, which sounds as advanced as your technology, right? But it has failed seven times in a row during ground testing in Houston, and with each failure, the contractor gets a new, higher-value improvement contract.

So, Professor, what Musk has shattered is not an old but fully functional industrial ecosystem.

He shattered an illusion.

It's a NASA that has been defunct since the end of the Cold War, a magnificent illusion of 'we can still do it' constructed from PowerPoint presentations, concept diagrams, endless review meetings, and astronomical budgets.

In reality, we simply can't do it anymore.

Jonathan's definition of NASA is more accurate, after all, he personally witnessed how NASA gradually declined.

"The output of that old system was never flying hardware, but rather PowerPoint presentations that could pass congressional budget review. Its sole purpose was to keep the system alive, not to send people to the moon."

Jonathan said with unwavering conviction, "So, yes, we started from scratch, from the ruins."

But these ruins weren't created by our bombing; they already existed.

We simply bravely tore down the canvas that painted castles in the air over the ruins.

Lin Ran listened quietly.

Jonathan then revealed his true purpose: "Professor, this is also why we came to you. Going to the lunar north pole is only one of our goals. Becoming a bridge between us and the effective part of the old NASA system is a more important goal."

For the first time, Lin Ran and Jonathan's meeting revealed a sense of bewilderment.

Me? Helping you become the bridge between the new NASA and the old NASA? Do you know something? I served as NASA administrator for eight years, and if I wanted to, I could have stayed in that position into the 21st century—did you find out?

Jonathan said seriously, "Yes, Professor, you heard me right."

I hope you can be a bridge between us and the old NASA. Only in this way can we achieve the seemingly impossible goal of building a preliminary small lunar base at the lunar north pole next year.

We need cooperation; we need the relatively effective parts of the old NASA.

(End of this chapter)