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

Chapter 551 Red Star·Giant Sword No. 2

In the temperature-controlled workshop 30 meters underground, applause mingled with laughter and tears.

Meanwhile, in the office building on the ground floor, Zhang Zhengguo froze at his desk, clutching the internal phone line that had just been connected.

On the other end of the phone, Zhao Qiang could barely speak a coherent sentence.

"It's done!"

"20,000 RPM at top speed! Surface runout controlled to the micrometer level! True five-axis, it's a done deal!"

Zhao Qiang took a deep breath, his voice trembling even more violently:

"Mr. Zhang, you absolutely won't believe it..."

"Manager Lin, he not only cut the nuclear submarine's propeller into a mirror finish."

"He even used this machine to carve the face of an eighth-grade fitter onto a piece of dead iron!"

These words came crashing down like steel nails, pinning Zhang Zhengguo to the spot.

Zhang Zhengguo hung up the phone, took two deep breaths, and forcibly suppressed his pounding heart.

Without hesitation, he immediately dialed the red top-secret hotline on the table, which had no dial but only a row of buttons.

"Sir, pick up the special plane, I need to go to Beijing immediately."

Fifteen minutes later, the roar of helicopters echoed from the valley surrounding the base.

The rotors whipped up a fierce wind, turning the snow on the ground into a white mist.

Zhang Zhengguo, wrapped in a military overcoat, crawled into the cabin, clutching a box of materials tightly in his arms.

The box wasn't big, but it was so heavy that it made my arms ache.

There are two things inside.

One item is a scaled-down model of a seven-bladed, large-skew propeller that Zhao Qiang just took down.

The other item is the miniature aluminum alloy bust of a worker.

The helicopter tore through the desert night sky, speeding toward the nearest Class A military airfield.

There, a military jet, already warmed up with a roar, received the highest-level special approval for a direct flight to the capital.

……

at the same time.

Pacific Ocean, Hawaii.

In the operations duty room of the Pearl Harbor submarine command, a huge electronic nautical chart screen glowed with a bluish light.

Green sonar scan lines swept across the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

The major general on duty held a coffee cup, crossed his legs, and leaned back in his chair.

A few red markers occasionally flashed across the screen; those were nuclear submarines of the Soviet Pacific Fleet.

"Did you see that?"

The major general tapped the screen with the bottom of his cup and gestured to his adjutant beside him.

"The Akula-class aircraft carrier was caught red-handed by our towed array as soon as it left Vladivostok."

"When the propellers spin, it's like banging drums on the seabed."

He took a sip of coffee, smiled, and shook his head.

"In the Pacific, they will always be a bunch of deaf and blind people."

The adjutant smiled politely.

Neither of them knew.

On the other side of the world, a machine that can shave propeller blades into a mirror finish has just completed its maiden voyage.

Starting that night, the hunting list on the seabed quietly gained a new variable.

……

Geneva, COCOM headquarters.

4 p.m. European time.

Inside the embargo review office, a technology blockade specialist is stamping the new quarterly embargo list.

"Multi-axis CNC systems are absolutely prohibited from export."

One red stamp after another was smashed down.

He was stamping documents while chatting with his colleague at the next workstation:

"To be honest, Red Star Technology's CAD software is really good. My wife's architectural firm uses it."

"But so what?"

He dipped the stamp into the inkwell and pressed down the last "Absolutely Banned" seal.

"As long as we shut down these valves, the dragon in the East will be stuck in the mud, relying on tens of millions of cheap laborers to sew clothes and tighten screws for us."

My colleague nodded in agreement:

"The ceiling of heavy industry cannot be broken through by intelligence alone."

……

Shanghai, a workshop of a heavy equipment manufacturing plant.

There was no Spring Festival Gala, and no dumplings.

Three Soviet welding experts, along with twelve Chinese engineers, were gathered around a huge vacuum electron beam welding test bench.

The titanium alloy test plate was sent into the vacuum chamber.

The moment the high-energy electron beam penetrates the metal surface, the weld seam appears as if an invisible hand has drawn out a silvery-white line.

A young engineer stared intently at the parameters on the control panel, his palms sweating profusely.

The recorder next to him didn't even dare to blink, his pencil tip moving rapidly across the paper.

This was Sergeyev's bargaining chip in exchange for the debugging of the five-axis machine tool.

Complete process for vacuum electron beam welding of titanium alloys.

Right now, it's being eaten by the Chinese people, bite by bite.

……

New York, General Electric headquarters.

Jack Welch sat in his office, flipping through the latest issue of Fortune magazine.

Ranked 218th. Hongxing Technology Group.

He closed the magazine, then opened it again.

My gaze returned to that ranking and lingered there for a long time.

This self-proclaimed world's number one professional manager fell into deep thought.

……

The camera then zooms back to China.

On the television, the countdown to the Spring Festival Gala is underway.

The host's voice came from the television speakers in every household.

At the entrance of the alley and in the family compound, children ran around holding firecrackers.

The adults sat around a round table making dumplings, with the TV on.

Most people on this land don't know what five-axis linkage is.

I don't even know what a ceramic bearing is.

They only hope that the factory will be more profitable next year, that they will receive more bonuses, and that they won't have to scrape together money for their children's school fees anymore.

Lin Xi stood in the underground workshop, watching the faint sound of firecrackers coming from the direction of the ventilation ducts, and murmured to herself:

"Family members."

"Happy New Year."

The comments scrolled rapidly:

Happy New Year, host!

【Happy New Year!】

……

Four and a half hours later.

The capital city, a top-secret meeting room of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

At 4:30 a.m., the windowless room was brightly lit.

Vice Chairman Xie of the State Commission of Science, Technology and Industry sat at the head of the long table, flanked by three veteran leaders from the military industry system and two top precision manufacturing experts.

They were all woken up from bed by phone calls.

When Zhang Zhengguo pushed open the door, his military overcoat was still covered with ice crystals from Northwest China.

He placed the metal box in the center of the table and unlocked it with two clicks.

The lid of the box was opened.

He first took out the scaled-down model of the seven-bladed large skew propeller.

The silvery-white aluminum alloy blades refracted a cold luster under the fluorescent lights.

Before anyone could introduce him, an elderly expert with white hair took out a marble reference platform that he had prepared in advance and set up a dial indicator with a magnetic base.

The experienced expert secured the propeller and carefully pressed the dial indicator probe onto the most complex blade root transition surface.

Push the base of the meter, allowing the probe to slowly slide along the curved surface of space.

The hands on the dial trembled slightly.

Shift the position and test again.

Seven highly complex toolpath lines were cut in succession.

The conference room was so quiet that the only sound could be the faint clicking of the dial indicator gears meshing.

The old expert straightened up, took off his reading glasses, wiped them, put them back on, and stared intently at the watch face.

"The fluctuation is less than five micrometers."

His voice was trembling violently.

"The entire curved surface has an error of less than five micrometers, no tool marks, and the curvature is absolutely continuous!"

He loosened the watch holder and abruptly turned to look at Zhang Zhengguo:

"Was this produced by a five-axis, one-step milling process?"

Zhang Zhengguo nodded.

The old expert didn't say anything more, sat back in his chair, crossed his hands and pressed them on the table, the veins on the back of his hands throbbing.

Just as Deputy Director Xie was about to speak, Zhang Zhengguo took out a second item from the box.

The aluminum alloy bust of a worker was placed steadily on the table.

The air in the conference room seemed to have been sucked out.

Several veteran coaches stood up at the same time.

It's not because of the material, it's not because of the weight.

It's because of that face.

Every wrinkle under the brim of the hat, the depth and direction of the crow's feet at the corners of the eyes, the warp and weft of the goggles' woven strap, and the raised curve of the callus on the fingers holding the micrometer.

Everything is crystal clear, down to the smallest detail.

This is not an engineering verification sample.

This is a declaration of war.

It is telling everyone in the most straightforward and domineering way:

China's CNC machine tools are no longer constrained by any geometric shape.

Round, square, twisted, freeform.

It can hit any target, and do whatever it wants.

The red "Absolute Embargo" stamp on the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) register is now invalid.

An elderly man reached out, his fingertips hovering above the statue's face. He paused for a few seconds, but ultimately didn't dare touch it.

Deputy Director Xie stood up, walked around the table, and bent down to look at it for a full half minute.

Then he straightened up and said two words to his secretary:

"Secret."