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

......

Preparations for the blasting lasted for five days.

The engineering corps worked through the night.

Four intersecting guide tunnels gradually drill into the rock strata from the bottom of the mountain.

Cold water seeped from the cave walls, and the sound of the pneumatic drills continued night after night, making one's ears ring.

The enormous medicine room was gradually unearthed.

Three hundred tons of explosives were sent in, box by box, and stuffed into the heart of this side peak.

The morning of the sixth day.

Temperatures plummeted in the Daliang Mountains, and snowflakes began to fall from the sky.

The base's loudspeakers blared a piercing air raid siren.

All personnel and machinery were evacuated from the danger zone.

Along the various routes leading to the old launch tower, technicians stood ready, constantly monitoring the ground settlement gauges.

Old Ding and Deputy Commander Zhao stood in a bunker three kilometers away, holding binoculars in their hands.

Neither of them spoke; the only sounds in the air were the howling wind and the fluttering of the red flag outside the bunker.

"Each unit reports on its deployment status."

The adjutant shouted loudly into the walkie-talkie.

"Sector One is safe!"

"Equipment in Zone 3 has been shielded and protected!"

"Monitoring team in position!"

"Detonation circuit normal!"

Deputy Commander Zhao put down his binoculars and turned to look at Old Ding.

Although Mr. Ding was nervous, he still nodded heavily.

"Detonate!"

The engineering corps pressed the red detonator hard.

There were no earth-shattering flames or fireballs shooting into the sky like in the movies.

Because the explosives were buried deep inside the mountain.

First came an extremely deep, muffled roar, as if it came from the depths of the earth.

"Buzz—"

Old Ding felt the ground beneath his feet suddenly rise, and his chest was hit hard by an invisible sound wave, causing his breath to stop for half a second.

Immediately afterwards, the distant side peak began to disintegrate from the inside.

The surface of the mountain first bulged up.

Then, the hard rock seemed to be cracked from the inside, and countless cracks quickly spread across the entire mountain wall.

Three hundred tons of explosives were released simultaneously deep within the mountain.

High-pressure gas breaks through the rock structure.

next moment.

"Boom!"

The entire mountaintop, following a calculated northward tilt, suddenly slid down and collapsed.

Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of earth and rock poured down with destructive kinetic energy.

The originally rugged valley floor was instantly filled and flattened.

Gray smoke and dust followed closely behind.

Like a wall, or like a sea, it rolls out in all directions, covering everything.

The light was dimmed.

The valley suddenly lost its outline.

Ignoring the fine dust flying around him, Old Ding hurriedly grabbed the phone on the command platform:

"Monitoring team!"

"How's the old tower doing?"

The technician's excited voice came from the other end of the phone:

"Reporting to the Chief Engineer!"

"The amplitude is within the safe threshold, the foundation has not settled, and the guide rail is level!"

Old Ding's heart, which had been hanging in his throat, finally settled back into his stomach.

The deafening roar of the explosion still echoed among the mountains, and the smoke and dust had not yet dissipated.

A bugler stood on a boulder at the edge of the field, his face flushed and cheeks bulging, blowing a loud bugle call with all his might.

"Beep beep beep—beep beep beep—"

This was once a voice that struck fear into the hearts of enemies on the battlefield.

Now, in this desolate wilderness, it has become a clarion call to declare war on nature.

"Comrades!"

"superior!"

As soon as the horn sounded, the roar of the engines echoed through the valley.

Hundreds of heavy bulldozers and excavators, spewing black smoke, roared into the flattened work area like a steel torrent.

The smoke and dust settled.

Machinery first.

The gravel was still hot.

The person has already pushed it in.

Following closely behind were more than 10,000 engineering soldiers dressed in green military trousers, white shirts, or shirtless.

They pushed hundreds of wheelbarrows, carried shovels and pickaxes, and shouted deafening work chants as they rushed onto the battlefield like a tidal wave.

The soil was pushed away truckload by truck, and the boulders were crushed by robotic arms.

The special cement mixer began to hum.

In this valley located in the heart of western Sichuan, the monetary power of capital is perfectly combined with the mobilization power of the national system.

The substantial financial support provided by Hongxing Technology ensures that logistical support is no longer a concern.

These tireless Chinese soldiers and workers, undeterred by the bitter cold, pushed the mobilization power of the national system to its most terrifying efficiency.

The foundation of Project 851 was being driven inch by inch into the deepest rock strata of the Daliang Mountains amidst the deafening shouts.

......

Northwest Base, 714th Waste Material Transfer Station.

Security on the ground has been noticeably tighter these past few days.

The sentry posts were replaced with two-person posts, and armed soldiers patrolled back and forth. Even trucks transporting waste materials had their documents checked three times.

Meanwhile, underground, in the hidden, temperature-controlled workshop, a burnt smell wafted up again.

In front of the five-axis machining center test machine, Zhao Qiang scratched his head vigorously.

On the chuck, an aviation-grade aluminum alloy impeller used for high-speed extreme testing was still emitting blue smoke.

A broken carbide end mill was stuck at an angle in the metal surface, the cutting edge was badly chipped, and there were even traces of high-temperature welding around it.

"It's dead again."

Zhao Qiang's voice was hoarse, and his eyes were red from lack of sleep.

Li Jianguo stood beside the spindle box, holding a thermometer, and shook his head as he looked at the numbers on the instrument.

"The spindle housing is 130 degrees, and the internal temperature is at least over 300 degrees."

He put down the thermometer, reached out and tentatively probed the side of the spindle box housing, then immediately withdrew his hand.

"The steel ball expands when heated."

"The bearing clearance, which was originally only a few micrometers, was completely filled, and the speed of 20,000 revolutions was brought to a complete stop."

They returned to China from Moscow before Linxi.

During the time after landing, Zhao Qiang hardly left the underground workshop.

Using the memories he brought back and the "codes" he had recorded along the way, he managed to replicate the mechanical structure of the Toshiba machine tool.

The underlying parameters have also been imported.

But when it came to the most difficult extreme full-load test, everything stalled.

"Toshiba's parameters are based on special bearing steel from Japan and their dedicated micro-lubrication and cooling system."

Zhao Qiang stared at the blueprints, his brows furrowed.

"Their extreme pressure lubricating oil is something that our domestic chemical industry simply cannot produce."

"Without that membrane, the frictional heat from 20,000 revolutions cannot be dissipated, and it will jam no matter what kind of steel you use."