Chapter 233: Useful Old Timers
“Team Leader Li, really Moon landing?”
Wang Jiarui asked weakly.
In the past half hour, they had actually already done psychological preparation in their hearts.
From scale, from this setup, and from guesses about the identity of the security guy downstairs, Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan would never think that Professor Lin was just playing around no matter what.
But a mathematician, even if he is a top mathematician and graduated from Aerospace Major in the past, jumping out of China Aerospace framework to do a Moon landing alone still sounds too unrealistic.
Reality’s gravity is too heavy, Earth’s gravity is also equally heavy.
Logically speaking, humanity’s last Moon landing was about sixty years ago, and America not only completed it once, but completed several Moon landings.
As a result, after sixty years, America cannot do Moon landing, and other countries also cannot do Moon landing.
This is a very unreasonable thing.
After all, all aspects have progressed so much.
This is just like sixty years ago, building an IBM 7090 that could process about 229,000 instructions per second was already cutting-edge technology, and now China can produce a chip with single-card computing at 800 TFLOP/s on its own.
This is purely domestic, no need to rely on external forces.
The IBM 7090 born in 1959 even used 14,000 standard modular system cards.
The unit TFLOP/s represents performing 1 trillion floating-point arithmetic operations per second.
Rockets, Control System, computing power and other aspects have greatly surpassed America’s in the 1960s.
Not to mention China, even India has no threshold in terms of technology.
But no one can go up again, as if artificially locked on Earth.
Even besides China, America, Russia and India, other countries do not want to go up, not interested.
It is precisely because of this cruel reality that Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan, even though they guessed it is not just playing around, are still not certain, after all, rationally thinking Moon landing is not that hard, but the intuition created by media tells them it is very hard.
NASA has burned an unknown amount of US Dollars on the Artemis program.
“Just call me Engineer Li, of course it’s real, my initial idea when I came was similar to yours, but as I gradually delved into the specific work, I became more and more confident that we can complete the Moon landing,” Li Rui said.
He sighed: “To put it this way, regarding Moon landing, the professor is omnipotent, really, you will have the feeling that he is omnipotent.
From design of rockets, spacecraft, landers to calculation of Earth Orbit, Lunar Orbit, in short, ask the professor if you don’t know something.
The professor will tell you how to do it.
The professor sitting there is like the all-purpose machine in Doraemon.”
Li Rui sighed.
He had worked at the aerospace institute before, both internal and external, including private institutions, generally private enterprises dare to do aerospace and can attract investment because Big Shots jump out, he has seen quite a few Big Shots over the years.
Among these Big Shots, Lin Ran is absolutely a rare breed he has never seen before.
Lin Ran uses a very special structure, the core is him.
His management refinement can reach the individual level, once again showing his strong micro-management strength.
If McNamara saw this scene, he would definitely regret why he didn’t let the professor personally go to Vietnam to command the US Military.
Such a management method, only Lin Ran can pull it off, if changed to others it would cause the entire structure to collapse instantly.
“Generally, our understanding of project management is to grasp progress, grasp milestones, the head, he monitors the major nodes of each module.
At most during the process, care about how your progress is, what stage you are at now, what resources do you need me to coordinate for you.
This is what the head does, involving very little technical side, he understands technology, but not technical details, he understands how to implement the technology.
Whom to find, whether to find people or suppliers or contact external experts or professors.
The professor generally takes the field personally, anyway you will know the professor’s style after staying long enough.”
Li Rui initially took this outsourcing work somewhat as being fired and idle at home anyway, thinking of helping out with the alumnus project.
He even didn’t sign a contract with the labor dispatch company to avoid them paying Social Security and polluting his resume.
Work here while looking for opportunities, the labor dispatch company just WeChat him some living expenses based on working days.
Unexpectedly after coming, it is even more passionate than when he jumped from the state-owned aerospace research institute to private aerospace company back then.
The whole person is full of passion.
Not only can participate in the real Moon landing project, but also meet characters like Buzz Aldrin who live in legends.
If the world is Earth OL game, then Buzz Aldrin’s legend level is at least 30 points.
Li Rui doesn’t want to leave at all.
Of course, this also has to do with Lin Ran painting pies, when Lin Ran held meetings with these team leaders, he said that those with good performance will be regularized after the project ends.
This is a long probation period lasting more than a year.
“The professor is?” Liu Jiyuan asked.
Li Rui touched his slightly balding head: “Forgot to say, the professor is Professor Lin, everyone calls him that here.”
Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan looked at each other and then nodded.
They had originally wanted to back out a bit.
Every trip from Jiaotong University was about the same as rushing during the Spring Festival Travel Rush.
But if this project was really a moon landing, then it was different.
Not everyone could participate in such a project.
“Hey, Engineer Li, we found Haines’s resume. A figure of such renown must be at least seventy years old. Instead of staying home to retire, he comes here to work. Isn’t that a bit too strenuous?” Liu Jiyuan said.
Li Rui shook his head: “No, you don’t understand.
Think about it, when you are in your seventies or eighties, would you choose to play Chinese chess with other old men, fight crickets, or dance in the square, or would you choose to do a moon landing?
The Americans don’t even have Chinese chess or fighting crickets.
They just lie in wheelchairs all day basking in the sun, with nurses coming occasionally to feed you medicine. Is hand-drawing graphs and rubbing out formulas by hand interesting?
I forgot to tell you, there’s also a hidden benefit here: you can get Buzz Aldrin’s signature.” Li Rui lowered his voice when mentioning Buzz Aldrin.
Wang Jiarui was a bit confused, “Who is Buzz Aldrin?”
Liu Jiyuan answered quickly: “He’s the second person to land on the moon, the American who stepped onto the moon after Armstrong.”
Wang Jiarui opened his mouth wide: “No way, Engineer Li, Buzz Aldrin was also invited?”
Li Rui nodded: “That’s right, he’s usually out, but occasionally comes back here to work.
During lunch break, you can sneak over to him to trouble him for a signature. I’ll point him out to you then.
Armstrong has passed away, Buzz Aldrin is the undisputed first person to land on the moon, and his signature has commemorative significance.
But you’d better think ahead about what to bring for him to sign; he’ll sign for you at most once.
Don’t treat him like a 90-year-old man; in fact, his memory is very good. If you go to him a second time, he will refuse.
Someone once casually took an office notebook for him to sign the first time, then later saw everyone bringing Saturn V models for him to sign, regretted it, hurriedly got a model and wanted to ask him to sign again, but was refused.”
Wang Jiarui swallowed: “No way, Engineer Li, doesn’t this count as digging up NASA’s grave?”
Li Rui smiled: “Compared to digging graves, this is more like summoning NASA’s heroic spirits.
Let’s not talk about this. Later, you should gradually see many old alumni from Jiaotong University coming here for re-employment.”
Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan thus began their “internship career” in Huaqiao.
They came two half-days every week, and a full day on weekends.
They watched as more and more people filled the entire building, starting from the top floors and slowly filling up downward.
At first, the 20th floor was full, then the 19th floor. By the end of 2020, three floors were full, with about a thousand people in total.
Even more outrageous was seeing Jiaotong University old alumni like Fan Benyao and Long Lehao appear here.
Apollo Technology not only summoned heroic spirits from NASA, but also from China Aerospace history.
Fan Benyao did aircraft design, but in the past, he did the most development work on satellites.
The first generation recoverable satellite, the first generation practical communication satellite, the second generation communication satellite, the first geostationary orbit satellite common platform, and the first generation navigation positioning satellite all had his involvement.
Long Lehao did rocket design and orbit calculation. In the 1960s, he followed Dean Qian in overall scheme design for long-range missiles, and later mainly did Long March Series Rockets design.
They came here also to participate in elderly re-employment.
These two were relatively famous, both academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. There were even more engineers who were not academicians but had deep qualifications.
The number of elderly in China was exactly twice that of NASA’s elderly.
Long Lehao tapped the table with the eraser end of a pencil:
“Haines, your calculation method really won’t do. Simplified formula based on the EGM2008 model. We used it countless times for verification in Long March Series Rockets missions; it’s both fast and accurate.”
The person responsible for translation next to them had already gotten used to so many technical terms; from stumbling at the beginning to fluency now, only two months had passed.
Haines nodded then shook his head, tone firm: “Long, in the Apollo era, we used the classic formula based on the J2 perturbation term, verified through multiple missions, simple and reliable.”
“Haines, the J2 model is too crude. Modern missions require higher precision. EGM2008 includes hundreds of harmonic terms; even the simplified formula is much more precise than J2. We can’t use outdated standards to cope with today’s challenges.” Long Lehao said.
Haines said displeased: “Long, precision is not the only consideration. Apollo used the J2 model to land on the moon, proving its reliability.”
Long Lehao’s tone was very firm: “Haines, we are not repeating Apollo; we are creating the future.
In our space station missions, we successfully completed orbit adjustments relying on the EGM2008 simplified formula. You want me to abandon verified experience and use a foreign model that may not apply?”
Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan’s most important work was interfacing with Haines, and later another big shot Long Lehao came.
Their workstations were also adjusted to face these two.
Every time they came, they could hear them arguing.
They couldn’t understand half of it, only what Long Lehao said; the other half, they could only tell that Haines was speaking forcefully.
“No, have you participated in the China space station project? I was genuinely involved in the Apollo Moon Landing project!
You weren’t even doing aerospace back then.” Haines said straightforwardly.
Long Lehao also started tapping the table: “Hey, what kind of talk is that? You did land on the moon, but that was how many years ago.
Now the technology is completely different from back then.
Back then, IBM needed half a day to calculate that data, but now it gives you the answer in one second.
Continuing to use that J2 term formula now is purely clinging to outdated methods, isn’t it?”
Liu Jiyuan helplessly shook his head. Every time, these two gradually escalated, from arguing about technology to attacking qualifications.
They had also indirectly learned from Li Rui that the valuable content in these old men’s work might only be one percent.
Li Rui privately sighed that only the professor had the patience to find useful parts from their work achievements and put them into the project.
However, Li Rui also said that these old men’s fundamentals were all very solid, and for the students, learning their fundamentals would definitely only have benefits and no drawbacks.
But in modern aerospace projects, if it were him, he would definitely treat these people as mascots.
“Let’s go, let’s go, find the professor! We must get Randolph to judge this.”
“Fine, let’s go then. You think I’m scared of you?”
Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan saw this routine segment that happened almost every time they came, exchanged a glance, and indicated they had to keep up.
They had no choice; every time they saw Lin Ran settle these two old men with just a few words, they found it very amusing.
“The core of this argument lies in the choice of manual calculation method, with the focus on the Earth’s oblateness model and its influence on orbital inclination.
The J2 term and other perturbation terms describe the Earth’s oblateness, as it causes minor changes in the spaceship orbit, affecting the inclination.
In the Apollo era, engineers used the classic model based on J2 for manual calculation, which was simple and verified.
China Aerospace has used simplified formulas based on the EGM2008 high-order gravity model for the past ten years or so, with higher precision but more complex calculations.”
After Lin Ran explained their dispute in both Chinese and English, he concluded: “This is the most appropriate way.”
Then he signaled the intern responsible for translation to take them back to their workstations.
Wang Jiarui and Liu Jiyuan also followed back to their workstations. “The professor still has the best approach; coaxing old men is just like coaxing kids.”
“Yeah, I’d say their methods are all outdated. Haines’s J2 term is already technology from sixty years ago, and even Academician Long’s EGM2008 is a model from over ten years ago, which has been iterated countless generations by now.”
Even past big shots cannot withstand the waves of the era.
But as tides rise and fall, Lin Ran will prove that wherever he is, the center of world aerospace is there.
If the old men are mascots, there really is one who isn’t; no one can replace his work.
That is Buzz Aldrin.
With Buzz Aldrin’s clarity of mind and limb flexibility, he doesn’t look 90 at all; people would believe it if you said 60.
More importantly, it’s the experience. For the astronaut job, especially the training for moon landing astronauts, no one else but Buzz Aldrin can really handle it.
From the interview to training to the final moon landing process, Buzz Aldrin has to follow through the entire way.
Wind came in through the window, and outside the window some sycamores were visible.
On the wall hung photos of the Apollo 11 mission and an oil painting of the lunar surface.
Buzz Aldrin himself sat at the head of the table, waiting for the candidates to arrive.
For the stack of resumes translated into English, honestly, he couldn’t tell the true level of these former Chinese Air Force pilots.
Because from his understanding, these information and real abilities definitely differed.
In Chinese person terms, this is called hiding one’s abilities.
A tall man wearing a blue shirt walked into the room.
Buzz Aldrin cleared his throat and began the interview: “Welcome to Na, not Apollo Technology Company. We need to select a pilot with sufficient ability to complete this historic mission.”
“Mr. Qian, please first introduce yourself and talk about your flying experience.”
The already 45-year-old Qian Fei was confused about the situation.
His name relates to flying, and his subsequent career indeed couldn’t detach from flying; he had been flying almost his whole life.
Qian Fei was a former Air Force pilot who participated in astronaut selection, made it to the second round, but was ultimately eliminated. After retiring from the military, he flew international routes at an airline company.
This time he came as he was sent, said to spend two years completing the task.
Starting this year, international flights had drastically reduced, so compared to before, he was much more idle.
The one who found him was his former superior, and the airline company also agreed that if he came here to carry out the mission, they would handle a leave without pay for him, and after finishing, his position would still be his when he returned.
Being able to fly international flights, his English was naturally no issue.
“Historic mission? Would something like this ever come to me?” Qian Fei thought.
He was already at this age.
He often heard about missions, after all, as an airplane pilot, safety meetings were frequent, and the most common word was mission, but his mission was to fly the plane well, ensuring passenger life safety and company property safety.
Linking mission with historic, he really hadn’t heard that before.
Qian Fei felt doubts inside.
“Okay, sir.
My name is Qian Fei. I served 15 years in the Air Force, piloted planes like J-7, J-8, J-10, and J-11, and participated in multiple support missions. After retiring from the military, I joined China Eastern Airlines as an international route pilot. I have over 5000 hours of flying experience.”
Buzz Aldrin frowned; this resume obviously did not satisfy him. “I see on the resume that you once participated in astronaut selection. Please elaborate on that experience.”
Qian Fei also frowned: “Sorry, I don’t think participating in your simulator test flight requires astronaut experience.”
Aldrin countered: “Who told you we’re doing a simulator test flight?”
Qian Fei was puzzled. He asked: “Aren’t you making moon landing simulation equipment, just like a car simulator, and then wanting to recruit people to help test it?” This was what his superior had told him.
He naturally said it out loud at this time.
Simulation equipment, after all.
Young people nowadays are just into this kind of thing.
Qian Fei could somewhat understand racing simulators. After all, ordinary people can’t drive race cars in real life, so they rely on machine equipment to simulate and satisfy that sense of novelty.
He could even understand ordinary driving simulators. After all, no one can afford nice cars in real life. Simulating the exterior and interior is pretty good too.
But he really couldn’t understand truck simulators. If you haven’t had enough of work during the day, you come home and set up a car simulator to drive a truck? Qian Fei once went to his son’s house and saw him playing this thing, and he got so angry.
Precisely because he had seen it, he could understand. After all, this was also an opportunity.
The company is named Apollo Technology. They make a moon landing simulator, then ride on the gimmick of the Apollo Moon Landing and put it in major malls. Young people might just be into this.
Qian Fei came here first to earn some extra money, and second to figure out if simulators are really that interesting.
After all, astronauts have long faded into the wind with time.
Although that selection process still often appeared in his dreams, even in dreams, he at most dreamed of himself passing the selection, never the follow-up.
Because he hadn’t experienced the follow-up.
Aldrin then realized this guy had come without understanding the situation. He didn’t answer, but opened his mobile phone browser, found Buzz Aldrin’s Wikipedia page, and handed it to Qian Fei:
“Here.”
Qian Fei took it and had some trouble reading it. He was fluent in listening and speaking but struggled with reading and writing. “Aldrin, moon landing. What? Mister, did you hire Aldrin to endorse for you?”
As a former potential astronaut, Qian Fei naturally knew who Aldrin was.
Aldrin thought this guy’s reaction was way too slow. He angrily slapped the table: “I am Aldrin!”
Only then did Qian Fei react. He compared it back and forth, then searched on his own mobile phone. He was indeed face-blind with white people, and it took a good while to confirm that the other man was really Aldrin.
He quickly stood up and saluted: “Sorry, Mister, I really didn’t recognize you. You look way too young for your age.”
This was a salute to a former moon landing hero.
Only then did Aldrin calm down: “Qian, we’re recruiting astronauts. The astronauts we’re recruiting need to go to the moon with me.
I’m leaving my villa in Beverly Hills, California, to come to China. It’s never been about any moon landing simulator.”
Speaking of this, he got upset. My villa in Beverly Hills is even up for sale, and he says we’re playing with a moon landing simulator!
“Sorry, I participated in China’s astronaut selection, but these are all under secrecy regulations, so I can’t reveal more.”
Aldrin nodded. “Alright, let me ask you a question: What do you think is the biggest challenge in the moon landing mission?”
All the previous events now connected in Qian Fei’s mind. He finally understood why his previous leader told him not to miss this opportunity, and why it was phrased as a simulator. He also figured out why the security guy downstairs gave him a familiar feeling.
Hearing this question, his brain raced, trying to exhaust all his lifelong expertise. He had missed one opportunity before; this time he couldn’t miss it again:
“I think the biggest challenge is precise control during landing. The moon has no atmosphere, so aerodynamics can’t be used to slow down. It must rely entirely on the engine to control descent speed and direction. This requires extremely high precision and reaction speed.
Additionally, the lunar surface terrain is complex, with many craters and mountains. Choosing a suitable landing point and landing safely is extremely critical.”
Aldrin nodded. “Well said. Indeed, landing is one of the most critical parts of the moon landing mission.
I remember when Neil and I landed on the lunar surface, we had to manually override the computer to avoid a boulder field.
That was a tense moment.”
Qian Fei was very envious inside.
If he had the chance, he also wanted to go to the moon and see it.
Aldrin continued, “How would you handle high-pressure situations?”
“In my flying career, I faced emergencies multiple times, like engine failure or bad weather. I learned to stay calm, quickly analyze the problem, and take the right action. I believe this ability is equally important in space missions.
During my Air Force service, I once encountered strong crosswinds during a night landing. The situation was very dangerous, but by focusing, I landed successfully.
Mental resilience is an essential quality for a pilot.”
Aldrin asked: “Finally, why do you want to participate in this moon landing mission?”
Qian Fei knew he couldn’t say now that he had no idea this was a real moon landing.
He clenched his fist. “Since childhood, I’ve dreamed of becoming an astronaut and exploring the unknown universe. Participating in the moon landing mission is an opportunity to realize my dream for me.”
