Live Stream 1980: Netizens Teach Me How to Make a Rocket by Hand

The next morning, at the final assembly plant.

Li Jianguo was staring intently at a Soviet-made vacuum tube oscilloscope in front of him.

A straight, bright line appeared on the green, circular fluorescent screen.

That's channel A, which is connected to the pressure sensor.

"Pressure 2.5MPa, pressure holding normal."

Li Jianguo wiped the sweat from his brow and made a heavy checkmark on his notebook.

"I knew it! These designers love to scare people, talking about low-temperature leaks. Isn't that incredibly reliable?"

Lin Xi thought to himself: "Stable my ass! Your sensor isn't accurate enough; it's blind."

He leaned forward slightly, cleverly blocking Li Jianguo's view from the side.

At this moment, Li Jianguo was looking down to pick up the enamel mug placed on the table, his gaze leaving the screen for about three seconds.

opportunity!

Lin Xi's heart was racing, but his hands remained steady.

He practiced plugging and unplugging probes countless times in the lab in 2025, which had become muscle memory.

His hand slipped out of the wide sleeve, bringing with it a clump of enameled thread.

A very slight, crisp "click" sound.

The piezoelectric ceramic plate with a magnet is precisely attached to the fuel delivery pipe of the first-stage engine.

Immediately afterwards, the other end of the plug was inserted into the oscilloscope's unused "Input B" jack with lightning speed.

The movement was fluid and took 2.5 seconds.

[That hand speed! It's confirmed that the streamer has been single for twenty years!]

[Successfully stole the tower! I don't know what he did, but he seemed really impressive.]

[High-energy warning ahead!]

Li Jianguo took a sip of strong tea, put down the teacup, looked up, and returned his gaze to the oscilloscope.

He originally just wanted to take one last look at the phone as a routine before turning it off.

But that one glance made the old man's eyes widen and his brows furrow.

On the screen, which originally displayed only a straight line, a wildly jumping green line has now appeared—

That's a signal from channel B.

Unlike the stable A channel, the line in the B channel is jumping wildly!

Sharp, jagged waveforms exploded on the screen, creating a series of jagged lines.

"Um?"

Li Jianguo paused in his hand as he put down the teacup, then slammed it heavily onto the table with a loud "bang".

He reached out and patted the metal casing of the oscilloscope, making a "snap" sound.

This was the common rule for repairing electrical appliances back then: give it a tap, and it'll be fine.

But this time, the waveform not only didn't disappear, it jumped even more wildly, as if mocking his ignorance.

"This damn machine, it's gotten damp again?" Li Jianguo cursed and reached out to unplug the cable.

"Where is this interference signal coming from...?"

"Master!"

Lin Xi suddenly spoke, her voice not loud, but it interrupted Li Jianguo's actions at just the right moment.

He had an innocent, naive curiosity on his face.

He pointed at the screen, like a studious elementary school student:

"Master, why is the cable in channel B jumping around like crazy?"

"Is this oscilloscope broken?"

Li Jianguo glared at him:

"Go away, you don't know anything."

"This is power frequency interference, probably caused by a leaking current in the nearby air compressor... wait."

The old man's hand froze in mid-air.

If it is power frequency interference (mains power), the waveform should be a smooth, rounded sine wave with a fixed frequency of 50Hz.

But this thing on the screen is sharp and glaring.

Moreover, the frequency is so fast that it's impossible to see the number of them.

Lin Xi glanced at the lower left corner of her field of vision at the opportune moment.

[Long Five Screw - Retirement Version: The frequency has been calculated! It's stable at 1240Hz! This is the unique whistling frequency of metal when it impacts microcracks with high-pressure airflow! It's the legendary "ghost whistle"!]

[Physics Class Representative: Simply put, it's like whistling; the crack is the whistle, and the high-pressure gas is the airflow!]

Lin Xi immediately transformed the wisdom of the bullet comments into her own "nonsense".

He scratched his head and said casually:

"Master, this doesn't seem like power frequency interference to me."

"I've seen power frequency interference waveforms in the school lab; they're huge waves."

"Why are there so many sharp spikes?"

"And judging from this frequency... it must be over a thousand hertz, right?"

"Like that whistle."

"Blow the whistle?"

Li Jianguo was stunned.

He spent his entire life working with mechanics and has an almost instinctive intuition about vibrations.

Over a thousand hertz? A whistling sound from the air?

He abruptly turned his head and stared intently at Lin Xi:

"What did you just say, kid? Over a thousand hertz?"

"Huh? I was just guessing." Lin Xi shrank her neck, looking completely innocent.

"I thought the sound of the air compressor blades sounded like this..."

"Master, do you think it might be something vibrating inside the pipe?"

"There's something in the pipe..." Li Jianguo muttered to himself, his face turning deathly pale.

Under this pressure, if high-frequency vibration occurs inside the pipeline, there is only one possibility—

The seal has failed, and the high-pressure airflow is repeatedly tearing the sealing ring apart like an inflating balloon!

"Shut down!"

Li Jianguo suddenly roared, so loudly that the recorder next to him was so startled that he dropped his pen.

"Shut down all the air compressors!"

"Immediately! Everyone stop!"

Then, the workshop quieted down, with only the faint hum of the oscilloscope remaining.

Even after the air compressor is turned off, the pressure in the pipeline remains.

The waveform in channel B is still stubbornly pulsating, only with a slightly smaller amplitude, which further proves—

This isn't external interference; it's a scream coming from within the system.

"This is true..."

Li Jianguo's hands were trembling slightly.

Instead of hitting the machine, he moved closer to the jagged wave on the screen.

"It's not interference, there really is vibration."

He turned around abruptly and gave the intern a complicated look.

He glanced again at the ridiculously crude "ball of black tape" stuck to the tube wall.

"Someone, go and fetch Deputy Chief Engineer Zhang, immediately! Run there!"

……

Twenty minutes later, in the command center.

A group of elderly experts with gray hair sat around the table, the atmosphere heavy with tension.

In the center of the table lies the rubber sealing ring that was just removed.

Under a German-imported optical microscope with magnification of several tens of times, the truth was laid bare before everyone.

It was a gap that was almost invisible to the naked eye.

"That was close..." an expert said, his voice trembling as he took off his glasses.

"If it's this type of damage, the seal shouldn't be a problem at room temperature."

"But if the temperature drops to minus 30 degrees Celsius in the next two days, the rubber will harden, and this gap will immediately burst open."

"Once it breaks apart, there will be a propellant leak." The propulsion system expert next to him looked ashen.

"In just twenty-six seconds, the combustion chamber will explode into pieces due to pressure imbalance."

Dead silence.

Everyone felt a wave of fear wash over them.

It was so close.

If it weren't for that "malfunctioning" oscilloscope, if it weren't for that "meddlesome" intern...

Three days from now, this place will be a sea of ​​fire.

"Investigate!" Deputy Chief Designer Zhang slammed his fist on the table, making the teacup lid vibrate and buzz.

Who inspected this sealing ring?

"Also, who installed the B-channel probe that caused the problem?"