Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 432 No, this is not your achievement.

The ground launch center at Cape Canaveral.

After delivering his speech, Nixon sat down with White House officials and reporters to watch live data from the USS Liberty on a screen.

Nixon allocated a full three days for this space station project.

His itinerary at Cape Canaveral included watching a rocket launch, docking with the space station, giving a speech, and observing the astronauts' life on the space station.

The screens of the engineers at the launch center were flashing with real-time data from the Freedom space station.

In the open space, there was another, larger screen displaying live footage from space.

The occasional blurry snowflakes flashed by, but this did not dampen people's enthusiasm in the slightest.

The live broadcast will simultaneously be transmitted to every corner of the earth via the broadcast signal.

Even in Moscow, people are paying attention to America's space station.

They used a television from China to watch television programs from Europe.

“Professor, this is Liberty,” Aldrin’s voice came through the loudspeaker, distorted by the characteristic sound of radio waves.

It's an amazing feeling.

Because the moon is very far away, the moon has a science fiction feel to it, and signals transmitted from more than 300,000 kilometers away.

And now, right above them, the space station is only 462 kilometers above the ground, in a relatively low low Earth orbit.

This gives people the feeling that it's within reach.

From the Lyle brothers' research on airplanes to airplanes becoming a common means of transportation, only a few decades have passed.

From the first test flight in 1903 to the opening of the first regular commercial air route between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1914, it took only a short 11 years.

With a distance of 32 kilometers, and the idea of ​​colonizing the moon or carrying out a major lunar terraforming project, most people feel they will never see it in their lifetime.

But now, in this era of technological explosion and the ever-expanding boundaries of human exploration, people feel that the routine operation of the space station could become a reality in a few years or more than ten years.

Currently, astronauts are on board, but in the not-too-distant future, everyone may have the opportunity to go to the space station.

It was this wondrous feeling, combined with the explosion of technology, that made everyone hold their breath and watch with anticipation the images transmitted back from the distant sky.

"Professor, do you think I have a chance to go to the space station?" Nixon asked Lin Ran, turning to him.

This was Lin Ran's home turf. Nixon and he were sitting at the very front of the stands, and there were only the two of them in that row.

Nixon had often seen Johnson receiving similar treatment on television: during inspections of NASA bases, Lin Ran and Johnson would walk and chat together, or the two would watch a launch together, with Lin Ran explaining things to the president.

Now that he's president, he wants the same treatment.

All the White House administrative staff were seated in the back so I wouldn't disturb the master explaining space and the universe to me personally.

"Of course, as I said before, if things go smoothly, we could be able to do some routine operations within five years."

The Burning One rocket has been successfully developed. If all goes well, we should be able to start commercial operation of the space station next year. For one million dollars, the wealthy can go to the space station.

We could even change it to an auction, with the highest bidder winning.

Lin Ran explained.

Nixon clapped lightly: "Professor, good idea. NASA has been burning through its budget in the past, even after we accomplished something as great as the moon landing, there have always been voices of criticism in Washington and among the public."

They say NASA's work doesn't create any real value.

Their completely erroneous statements are easily believed by the public.

When GPS proved its worth on the front lines of the Vietnam War, such voices from Washington disappeared.

At times like these, engaging in some form of commercialization with NASA can help dispel such concerns.

What could garner more support from capitalists in the financial and media sectors than sending them to space?

Lin Ran nodded: "I am very confident that once they are on the space station and looking at our blue planet, they will definitely have a new understanding of NASA's work."

They might become NASA's most loyal supporters.

As Lin Ran and Nixon spoke in hushed tones, the images on the screen began to move, and sound came from the speakers on both sides.

"We are now conducting our evening routine, and we will show you how we live in space."

In the footage, mission specialist Alan Spencer floats slowly in front of the camera, holding a bag full of water in his hand.

With a gentle squeeze, a crystal-clear water sphere, like a giant tear, solidified in the air.

"My goodness!" the engineers present exclaimed in admiration.

Many of them have spent their entire lives dealing with numbers, formulas, and graphs.

But at this moment, they were captivated by the spectacle before them.

Alan Spencer pushes the water balloon toward Armstrong.

Neil gently sucked with the straw, and the water ball disappeared without a trace.

“In space, we lose weight, but we gain freedom,” Allen’s voice continued. “Here, we can fly freely.”

Aldrin then floated to a corner of the living quarters and showed their home to the ground.

This is a small space filled with various pipes and equipment.

The astronauts demonstrated to the camera how to secure their sleeping bags to the wall to prevent them from drifting away while sleeping; they also showed how to use specially made tableware to prevent food from scattering.

The astronauts showed everyone their kitchen.

Their food is dehydrated and needs to be rehydrated with heated water.

When they squeeze the dehydrated shrimp out of the bag, it floats in the air like a giant, dry, white foam ball.

They had to use straws to eat in order to prevent food crumbs from scattering into the air.

Showering and washing hands are challenges in space.

The astronauts demonstrated how to use special wipes to clean their bodies and how to use a special waterless hand sanitizer to clean their hands.

They also showed the audience that in space, their hair would stand up due to the lack of gravity, like they were wearing an afro.

They also placed a container filled with liquid in front of the camera, allowing viewers to see that, without the interference of gravity, the liquid would form a perfect sphere.

The whole process was very interesting.

It's a completely different experience compared to landing on the moon.

When the live stream ended and the screen turned to static, viewers on Earth felt an indescribable sense of loss.

Nixon turned to the reporters behind him and said loudly, "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the two-hour live broadcast has left a deep impression on everyone."

On television screens, the headlines of the evening news every day were lists of casualties from the Vietnam War, with the lives of young soldiers being replaced by cold, hard numbers.

On the streets, anti-war slogans rose and fell, and hippies used flowers to protest against guns and cannons, mocking Washington's decision-makers with their ideals of love and peace.

Hoover's death and the emergence of mysterious videotapes cast a shadow of the Kremlin over the White House. The nation finally began to doubt itself.

However, we did not give up; we are still fighting, and we insist that freedom is an ideal.

This live broadcast from Freedom further tells us that amidst the chaos on Earth, there is still a hopeful space dominated by the American people.

In the future, we will train astronauts for our allies.

Our space station is called Freedom, not America. Our space station will be open to our allies, and our allies will be able to send astronauts to the moon.

On Earth, we are divided into different nations, but in the universe, we are one whole, and we all have only one name: Humanity.

Nixon's final speech once again elevated the entire live broadcast.

In Fred's apartment in Queens, the family of Francisco, Italian immigrants, sat around a black-and-white television.

Francisco was a construction worker who spent his life dealing with gravity and bricks.

He couldn't understand the physics of space, but he could understand the smiles on the astronauts' faces.

When he saw astronauts flying freely in space, he turned to his son beside him and said, "Look, son, only we can do that."

His tone was filled with envy and pride—pride that he had brought his son from Italy to a more promising country.

In his context, "we" changed from Italy to America.

On a small farm in Kansas, the farmer, John, sat in a rocking chair watching a live broadcast on television.

He couldn't understand the science of space either, but he could understand the pride on the astronauts' faces.

When he saw the astronauts waving to Earth, he felt that those waving hands also represented him.

After Nixon finished his final speech, John Sr.'s opinion of the new president rose sharply: "Nixon is a good man, much better than that damn Johnson."

The masses are blind, and they blindly follow.

If you ask him to explain exactly what was good about Nixon, he can't really say. He can only give you a vague but certain answer from an emotional perspective.

That's why the media is so important in countries with electoral politics.

They will shape that feeling.

Of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the originator of the "bread and butter" theory, could never have imagined that short videos could be such an entertainment product, capable of causing multiple emotional shifts within 15 seconds.

Even the most outrageous entertainment in the past was at most refined carbohydrates, but short videos have a blood sugar-raising effect comparable to direct glucose injection.

The very people who set up democratic elections could never have imagined that a medium like social media could elect a new monster to power.

The live broadcast from the space station completely reversed Nixon's decline.

It pulled Nixon out of the quagmire of the Vietnam War and Hoover.

But it was clear that the media controlled by the Democrats did not want to let Nixon off so easily.

You can shift the blame, everyone can, but neither GPS nor the space station is your achievement; you're just reaping the benefits.

This foundation was laid during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

The New York Times, for example, emphasized that another important reason for its intervention was that Jenny also needed to attribute the credit to Lin Ran, not Nixon.

"Although the Nixon administration has been blaming the Republican Party for the past six months, blaming the previous president for leaving him a mess that is difficult to solve."

They believe that the Democratic Party is responsible for everything, including the Vietnam War, Hoover Institution, the unequal relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and the unilateral signing of nuclear restraint agreements.

As Nixon's approval ratings gradually rose, his administration emerged from the mire in just six months, a glimmer of hope appeared on the front lines of the Vietnam War, and we gained a new foothold in space.

We don't have a lunar base, but we do have a space station.

But in reality, NASA had already set its sights on the more distant future even before landing on the moon.

The professor first proposed the great idea of ​​a space station in 1961 and has been working at NASA ever since, single-handedly building the Apollo moon landing, the Freedom space station, and the GPS satellite positioning system.

The world was deeply moved when astronauts waved to Earth from space during a live television broadcast, showing them drinking coffee, sleeping, and working in weightlessness.

At this moment, we forget all the things that have divided this country in the past, and what we see is America's hero exploring a whole new future for all mankind.

President Nixon's speech in Canaveral was also a declaration to the world that the free movement was fighting for the future of humanity.

We built the Freedom space station, the starting point for humanity's conquest of the universe.

On the front lines of the Vietnam War, with the help of GPS, Hanoi took the initiative to propose peace talks for the first time.

Nixon shifted the blame to his predecessor, but attributed the credit for GPS and the Liberty space station to himself. Is this a double standard?
He was able to enjoy these two great achievements thanks to his professor.

Thanks to President Kennedy for discovering the professor from Columbia University, and thanks to President Johnson for giving the professor greater trust and more support.

What did Nixon do? He did nothing; he simply enjoyed the fruits of others' labor.

The report, written by one of Jenny's reporters and the final draft of which was completed, claimed throughout that all the credit went to the professor, and that Nixon was simply getting lucky.

Of course, that wasn't the point. The real point was to tell Nixon that he should give the professor more support.

What constitutes greater support?
Naturally, it means more budget and more trust.

In addition, the Hearst family has always been a Democratic Party member, with two of their previous members serving as Democratic Party members.

Therefore, it's normal for the Democrats to question Nixon.

This is a form of indirect communication.

That's the good thing about having media outlets.

Many things don't need to be said by you; the media will say them for you.

If Nixon wanted to question it, Lin Ran only needed to pretend to shake his head helplessly and say that he didn't know about it and would ask when he got back.

Tell Nixon the next day that it was Jenny's own decision.

You can't even find a reason to lash out.

As for Nixon not reading the New York Times, that's impossible.

As America's most influential newspaper, its influence in this era reached every American family.

Jenny's report was like a starting gun; after it was published, media outlets leaning towards the Democratic Party found an angle, attributing the credit to Lin Ran and continuing to criticize Nixon.

Nixon will shift the blame; are the Democrats just sitting idly by?
Media outlets leaning towards the Democratic Party were able to find all sorts of creative angles to criticize Nixon.

Just like what the media did when Nixon lost the election for governor of California in 1962.

By this time, the media had found Nixon's Achilles' heel: the elephant party.

The logic is clear: the Democratic Party promoted the civil rights bill, and the Democratic Party appointed minority officials to high-ranking positions in the White House. If the Democratic Party were to replace him, it would be impossible for them to give Randolph Lin, a person of mixed Asian and Jewish descent, the high position of NASA administrator.

This demonstrates both that Nixon got lucky and why the Elephant Party's propositions were unacceptable.

Meanwhile, on the front lines of the Vietnam War, things were also subtly changing, and things were far less optimistic than Nixon had anticipated.

　I attended the Galaxy Awards event for the past two days, so there will only be one update.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)