Chapter 361: They’ve Got Their Own Right Here
“Dr. Smith, you are an expert. Is it possible for us to start from this moon landing’s landing point and head to the Lunar South Pole to conduct preliminary exploration of the South Pole?”
Jonathan felt that the other party was speaking nonsense.
Young John Morgan had just introduced that this time they planned to land again at the location of Apollo’s first moon landing in 1969, which is at latitude 0.674°N, longitude 23.473°E on the Moon.
Jonathan suspected that Sharvin hadn’t studied history well, but he could only calmly reply: “Sir, this is probably a bit difficult. Our landing point is near the Moon’s equator, which is at least 2500 kilometers away from the Lunar South Pole.
Even if the astronauts stay on the Moon for a full 7 days, they couldn’t complete a full round trip.
The lunar rover in our Apollo Mission, in theory, would take 20 to 30 days, and even though technology has made great progress now, with improvements in battery, motor, and suspension system, moon dust and low gravity would limit its speed.
At the fastest, it would still take us ten days to reach the Lunar South Pole, and considering the round trip, that’s at least twenty days, plus time for searching and exploration, it would only take longer.
With the rocket’s payload capacity and the lunar module’s payload capacity in the Apollo Mission, it’s impossible for us to keep astronauts on the Moon for that long.”
Jonathan seriously suspected whether Sharvin was like Mr. President and had Alzheimer’s, which could be contagious? That would be too terrifying.
The White House officials in charge of this should at least know that their landing in the 60s was at the equator, and now the target is the South Pole, right?
Young John Morgan added: “Actually, we can develop an autonomous driving lunar rover, operate it on Earth through the communication system, and conduct exploration of our destination at the Lunar South Pole.
It can be equipped with map scanning function, solar charging panel, and communication function.
This way, we can collect geographical information on the Lunar South Pole.”
Jonathan nodded: “That would be much more feasible.
Equip it with lidar and multispectral imager, so it can compress data in real time and transmit it back to Earth.
For control, it should have both Earth remote control and autonomous exploration functions.
After all, communication quality is hard to guarantee in the Moon’s shadowed region.”
Young John Morgan added: “NASA has always had the VIPER project, which can be put to use this time.”
VIPER, full name Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, volatiles investigating polar lunar rover.
The name is a bit tongue-twisting; simply put, it’s a lunar rover, and one specifically developed for the Lunar South Pole.
Its predecessor was the Resource Prospector project, abbreviated RP, started in 2013, planned to explore the Lunar South Pole and search for water ice, originally scheduled for launch in 2020, spent several hundred million US Dollars, and was ultimately canceled.
VIPER continues to advance on the basis of RP.
After hearing Young John Morgan’s introduction of what the VIPER project specifically is, Sharvin turned his gaze to Melroy, “Director Melroy, can the lunar rover developed by the VIPER project be put to use this time?”
Melroy turned her gaze to her secretary Grov: “Grov, please answer Consultant Sharvin’s question.”
Grov was sweating profusely, he replied: “Consultant Sharvin, the VIPER project is a highly successful project that has been dedicated to exploring Moon resources, led and developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center.
It is equipped with its own lighting system, the first lunar rover capable of operating in complete darkness, able to rely on battery in permanently shadowed regions until reaching sunlit areas for charging.
The mission duration is 100 Earth days, with a battery-supported travel distance of up to 20 kilometers, and with solar charging, I believe it can complete the mission very well.”
Sharvin thought to himself, fortunately the Empire’s legacy is rich enough, so this can be put to use, right?
“Good, Mr. Morgan, please quickly evaluate on your side whether this time’s payload capacity can send the VIPER rover to the Moon. We must ensure it gets sent to the Moon; other exploration plans can be postponed.
We need to immediately start exploration of the Lunar South Pole; this is the top priority right now.”
After the meeting ended, Jonathan was muttering inwardly, why did Grov look so grave, like he had constipation? Is there something wrong with VIPER?
Shouldn’t he be proud?
“Director Melroy, sorry, I didn’t report to you at the White House earlier; there’s a problem with the VIPER project.” Grov’s face looked bad; he knew that at this point, he had to let Melroy know the specific inside story.
Melroy was full of confusion: “What problem?”
She had just taken office not long ago and only learned about projects like RP and VIPER because of this meeting.
NASA has too many projects every year; she simply didn’t have the energy or ability to check each one.
Not every manager is Superman, able to cover everything.
“The VIPER lunar rover probably can’t be launched to the Moon by the end of the year on General Aerospace’s Saturn V.” Grov said.
Melroy was speechless: “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
You said during the White House meeting that this project was highly successful and could complete the mission very well, and now it’s saying it can’t.
Grov murmured: “Director Melroy, this project is just like RP; it’s a concept.”
“Concept?” Melroy repeated the word and asked: “What does concept mean?”
Grov said: “After the RP project started back then, it was originally planned for launch in 2020, but after spending hundreds of millions of US Dollars, it was canceled by the NASA director at the time, and the resource prospecting mission was handed over to private enterprises.
Due to budget constraints, schedule delays, and technical challenges, RP was officially canceled on April 27, 2018.
Although in our information, the RP project was canceled, its technical legacy was inherited into subsequent projects, which is the current VIPER.
In the report, VIPER inherited many of RP’s instrument designs, but in reality, RP was zero; it was a project with only concept diagram and PPT materials.
Similarly, VIPER is just a project with concept diagram and PPT materials.
It has no physical prototype, do you understand? No physical prototype, so how could it be carried on a spaceship to the Moon?
Originally, the previous NASA director’s plan was like RP, to scrap VIPER under the pretext of exceeding budget, so that both RP and VIPER would settle into the dust of history, and once time passes, no one would remember.
If there wasn’t this matter, without Apollo Technology, NASA would announce on July 17, 2024: Due to overall funding constraints, future budget risks, and lander delays, they plan to stop the VIPER mission.
The reason is also completely absurd: we’ve already spent 450 million US Dollars, continuing development would add extra expenses, canceling it would save an estimated 84 million US Dollars, so we won’t develop it.
Spent 450 million and then saved 84 million—godly logic.
In reality, there was nothing at all, only concept diagrams; there was never a physical prototype.
This is also why Grov was very nervous on site; by the end of the year, they couldn’t produce the VIPER lunar rover no matter what, and now there’s less than 4 months to the end of the year—not to mention less than 4 months, even 1 year and 4 months, they couldn’t build it.
After hearing this, Melroy was dumbfounded: “Nothing at all?”
Grov nodded: “Yes, nothing at all.”
This is also why the Americans later had to hand over lunar rover development to Japan—an important reason being that they really only had PPTs and concept diagrams.
Melroy took a deep breath: “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
Grov smiled bitterly: “How was I supposed to know someone could buy Apollo Technology’s moon landing technology?
I thought this time, like every time in the past, we could muddle through.”
“Didn’t you ever think about what if you couldn’t muddle through?” Melroy asked.
Grov explained: “Everyone has always gotten by like this; no one thinks we couldn’t muddle through.
Director, Artemis is a massive plan; this massive plan can be handed over to enterprises, and ultimately the responsibility can be shifted to the enterprises.
Take the lunar rover as an example: we developed it ourselves upfront, then handed it over to enterprises, claiming we transferred technical legacy to them—would the enterprises that receive NASA’s orders dare to deny it?”
In the original timeline, in February 2025, NASA issued a partner proposal announcement, seeking American companies to deliver and operate the completed VIPER rover, completely terminating the VIPER project.
As for the American company that receives the order, would they dare say there is no rover at all? Wouldn’t they still have to obediently build one themselves and cover for NASA?
NASA gives them orders worth several hundred million anyway; even if they build a lunar rover themselves, they can still make a profit.
This has also been NASA’s enduring trick for decades.
Who knew a catfish would suddenly barge into this stagnant pool, catching the NASA officials off guard.
Melroy knew about NASA’s chaos, inefficiency, and various embezzlement behaviors, but she used to manage the astronaut training center and didn’t have such a deep experience.
Now she finally somewhat understood Musk’s mood from last year.
Last year, Musk came to NASA for a meeting with them, and after the meeting, he went back and posted wildly on Twitter, the one that impressed Melroy the most: “The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient because it is an employment maximization plan, not an achievement maximization plan. We need something entirely new to compete with China!”
She even felt that what Musk said was still too conservative; Musk accused NASA of building an LGBT group display system with a 14 million US Dollar budget—at least that had something you could see.
Now what she heard from Grov, the so-called lunar rover project—there was absolutely nothing.
On the books, in news promotion, in the internal management system, there exists a lunar rover named VIPER; it has already been built, just missing the final drill bit, because it needs to drill into the moon soil, and the drill bit in their plan is hoped to penetrate one meter below the moon soil for sampling.
Now it’s just missing the drill bit.
But in reality, nothing, absolutely nothing.
Neutron spectrometer system, lunar operation mass spectrometer, lighting system, rover, constant system, etc.—nothing at all.
Melroy really couldn’t think of how to explain this to the White House, and once this mess is exposed, she would be the first to go.
“Director, actually this isn’t unsolvable; this matter is easy to handle.” Grov said.
Melroy was full of confusion: “Only 4 months left, and this is easy to handle?”
Grov said seriously: “Of course it’s easy to handle. Young John Morgan could buy Apollo Technology’s technology from China; why can’t we buy a lunar rover from China?”
Right, this idea made Melroy suddenly see the light—yes, we can buy one too.
“Because of mission changes, we need to launch a lunar rover; use that as the reason to give General Aerospace a 500 million US Dollar order, then let them take that 500 million US Dollars, report our requirements to Apollo Technology, and have Apollo Technology build and ship the lunar rover before the moon landing—isn’t that perfect?
China has gone to the Moon so many times; they definitely have similar products. A little modification—no, even if starting from scratch, four months is more than enough.”
Calmness and wisdom returned to Grov’s brain; the panic from being suddenly questioned in the White House meeting room had vanished without a trace.
He saw clearly that this woman Melroy had a strong desire for power and definitely wouldn’t flip the table.
Grov guessed half right; Melroy suddenly became determined: “Secretary-General Grov, you are fully responsible for the work. I need to see the VIPER lunar rover on the Moon.”
“Director, about the order to General Aerospace?” Grov understood the other’s meaning—she clearly didn’t want to touch it even a little.
He figured it out; although the other party wasn’t very clear-headed, her skill in seeking profit and avoiding harm was maxed out.
“What General Aerospace? You handle all of that. If modifications to VIPER are needed, or if there are issues with existing technology, advance it in task-priority mode.”
In Apollo Technology’s office, Lin Ran called Li Xiaoman over; there was fun to share with her.
On Lin Ran’s computer was NASA’s official website, and the website’s interface featured a project named VIPER: “Sister Xiao Man, take a look.”
Li Xiaoman leaned over to his side, looked carefully, and then asked: “What’s up? Isn’t this their Artemis lunar rover?
Pretty sci-fi.”
(VIPER lunar rover concept diagram, from NASA’s official website; the project has now been terminated)
Lin Ran then opened his email and clicked on the attachment at the same time: “Take a look at this too.”
Li Xiaoman first glanced at the email content; the email address was Young John Morgan’s. She had received an email from this address when she went to Hong Kong to help Lin Ran with the property transfer earlier.
Then she continued to look at the attachment content; the attachment was a PDF file, and the first page was a lunar rover concept diagram, exactly the same as the one she saw on NASA’s official website:
“This is?”
Lin Ran said helplessly: “Exactly, this is NASA’s lunar rover. Young John Morgan hopes we can help them build one.”
Li Xiaoman asked in confusion: “But don’t they have their own lunar rover?”
Lin Ran pointed to the concept diagram on the screen: “They have their own right here.”
