Chapter 268: Recruiting Online With Million Annual Salary
In a certain well-known web novel, there is a line that perfectly describes the current feelings of the two people.
“Now you are in the Ascension Realm, with a narrow perspective, seeing me like a frog at the bottom of a well looking up at the moon; when you luckily reach the Fourteenth Realm someday, seeing me will be like a mayfly seeing the blue sky.”
The more of an outsider, like reporters, the less they can grasp the information density of this sentence.
Isn’t it just commanding how to perform an orbit change? Is this any different from other control centers?
Their judgment of how awesome Lin Ran is comes from the entire massive moon landing project being completed in just over a year.
From a macro perspective, they realize that Lin Ran is a genius in the field of aerospace engineering no less than in the field of mathematics.
What outsiders can see stops at this level; they can’t grasp such details.
The more of an insider, like Zhang Chaoyang, a physics PhD, upon hearing it, thinks there was ready-made code that was calculated and then read out by Lin Ran as a relay, and while the commanding was orderly and pretty awesome, that’s about it.
But for an insider at Wu Weiren’s level, the impact of just this one sentence far exceeds replicating the Apollo Moon Landing project itself.
This is simply like an iceberg, with a more terrifying Leviathan monster lurking beneath it.
“I was wondering why when we offered to provide our orbital calculation software for them to use, they said it wasn’t needed for now. I even specifically found Professor Lin and said that NASA’s open-source general mission analysis tool is okay for post-mission analysis, but if you really want to use it for orbit changes in Earth-Moon Orbit, the risk is very high.
Our analysis tools have at least been used for so many years. At that time, Professor Lin politely declined, saying it wasn’t needed for now.
I thought they had done secondary development based on GMAT, but unexpectedly…”
Wu Weiren didn’t even finish his sentence; he already didn’t know how to describe this matter.
NASA has a multi-mission open-source system called GMAT that supports orbital calculations from low Earth Orbit to deep space missions; it includes models of real-world objects: spacecraft and propulsion systems.
Then there is the commercial software called STK, which most NASA missions use for orbital planning and simulation, combined with GMAT and other tools.
Obviously, open-source ones can be used, but to a limited extent; for something as important as a moon landing, relying on open-source is equivalent to courting death.
Wu Weiren previously didn’t know where Lin Ran and their team’s confidence came from; were they planning to reinvent the wheel on the basis of GMAT?
The problem is, you wouldn’t even use our ready-made Queqiao, thinking it would waste time, so wouldn’t reinventing orbital calculation software take even more time?
Without sufficient testing and verification, this thing is no better than open-source.
Like Europe’s Ariane 5’s first flight, which ended in failure due to an error in the orbital calculation software.
In 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter failed an orbit change, also due to an orbital calculation software error, and this error was even more low-level because Americans used imperial units.
The ground computer software output results in pounds per second, not Newton seconds as specified in the contract NASA signed with Lockheed.
Ultimately leading to the spacecraft getting too close to Mars, passing through the atmosphere and disintegrating.
Precisely because orbital calculation software is so prone to problems, it still relies heavily on astronauts’ experience.
China Aerospace originally thought that Apollo Technology relied on Buzz Aldrin’s personal experience during the orbit change process.
The two astronauts personally trained by Buzz Aldrin, combined with much more powerful modern ground computing capabilities—at least the ground segments, including designing mission trajectories, tracking actual positions, orbit determination, creating orbit change maneuvers, are definitely much more perfected than in the 1960s, combined with the astronauts’ personal qualities and Buzz Aldrin’s unique moon landing experience.
Previously, experts from China Aerospace thought Apollo Technology was relying on these.
Only after seeing it with their own eyes today did they realize it was nothing like that; they rely on a pervert brain that directly gives the results.
With Ben Yue Hao successfully performing the orbit change, even more terrifying is that the results from their brain calculations were correct.
Wu Weiren murmured: “If it were us, in just this short half minute, could we form a complete concept of the parameters on the big screen in our brains?”
The colleague beside him stared at the screen and tried: “Impossible, or we wouldn’t be doing this job.
This is purely making things difficult for people. I tried, and the numbers drilled into my brain and stuck together; I couldn’t tell which was which at all.”
“How to evaluate Apollo Technology’s successful completion of the lunar flyby test?”
“Laxative, foreigners are already breaking down. I scrolled Twitter all day today, mainly watching foreigners break down. Basically all Americans have broken down, and Europeans are just watching the joke.
Everyone knows very well that America won the moon landing race in the Cold War. Why? Because Kennedy’s slogan was so attractive, so good at fooling rednecks’ ballots, precisely because the 1960s were too good for Americans.
Excluding the Vietnam War, a single worker could support a couple with three kids and still afford a dog, a big house plus two dogs, and every day the news showed Americans landing on the moon and such.
It can be said that the moon landing is the thing most able to awaken Americans’ memories of their golden age, and there is no other.
And now Chinese people have helped them achieve it ahead of time. Whether personally experienced the 1960s or heard about America’s glory in the 1960s from their fathers, all white men are extremely broken down.
A Chinese private aerospace technology company completed the entire process from the Mercury Program to the Gemini Program to the Apollo moon landing test in just one and a half years.
Although this time astronauts Qian Fei and Zhao Jianguo did not set foot on the moon’s land, it’s no different from having done so.
Because in terms of process, there was no difficulty at all; the whole process went perfectly, next time it’s just doing it again.
To put it this way, if it were Americans on Ben Yue Hao today, they would definitely not listen to commands and go up to the lunar module to complete the landing.
So realizing that a Chinese company used Apollo moon landing rockets and lunar modules to complete the moon landing, white men on Twitter are uniformly breaking down, all complaining why the White House and NASA are so useless.
Then there are also the awakened faction, who think America’s moon landing was a conspiracy; they landed on the moon in a photography studio back then, but unexpectedly Chinese people actually built the thing they only calculated on paper.
This group’s point is that there was no Saturn V back then at all; it was a built model, then photos taken by a special effects company, parameters all made up, and the specific engineering drawings were just drawings, never actually built.
That China could build it is not because they replicated American technology, but because Chinese people are awesome.
This viewpoint is like the cuckold insisting that the wife seen in the video isn’t his wife, just looks like her, and as for why his wife isn’t home, it’s because she’s working overtime.
I call this the NTR breakdown faction.
There is another kind calling on the White House not to let Chinese people go up first, saying even if restoring Nvidia graphics card supplies to China, they must stop Chinese people’s moon landing, thinking it will seriously damage America’s international image; this belongs to the dying struggle faction.
Oh right, forgot to say, there is also an LGBT faction. This faction thinks that in the past only white people have been to the moon, now yellow people are going too, but it’s not diverse enough, meaning China should bring a black woman.
Everyone knows that Ran Shen said in an interview that he wants Buzz Aldrin to go up. Looking at the setup, these two manned spaceflight missions are both executed by astronauts Qian Fei and Zhao Jianguo, and compared to the Apollo moon landing, there’s even one less person.
Buzz Aldrin at his advanced age definitely can’t withstand consecutive accelerations and decelerations; he will definitely be added for the last formal moon landing.
So it’s clear that the missing spot is Buzz Aldrin.
The external network thinks so too, so a lot of people are calling for Buzz Aldrin, already so old, not to go, and give the last spot to Xian Proctor, who is an American black woman born in 1970.
em Her titles are many; she is the first black woman to do art creation in Earth Orbit, anyway created many firsts, when prefixed with black woman.
And the ones calling the loudest aren’t black people, but white people; the ones on Twitter calling the loudest for Xian Proctor to go up are white people.
This group is so obsessed that they think the White House should even spend money to send Xian Proctor up together.
In the past, Americans’ breakdowns were fake; this time Ran Shen dealt real damage.
I have never seen Twitter with such high heat on aerospace; previously the NASA senior officials who resigned over vacation were dragged out and whipped another round.”
On Zhihu everyone is reveling, while on Quora (American Zhihu) it’s uniformly reflection.
Reflecting on problems with NASA, reflecting on problems with America, even reflecting on whether white people are just not up to it, and the past two hundred years were just accidental flukes.
“I am Gerard, an engineer at SpaceX. Click my homepage to see my verification. What I want to say is that before Apollo Technology appeared, for a company to replicate the Apollo Program in just one and a half years and achieve a moon landing is almost an impossible task.
Or rather, just impossible.
When China Aerospace announced the successful R&D of an engine named Moon No. 1 but actually F-1, Apollo Technology this company entered our field of vision, but at the time the news was fiercely debating, all discussing whether Chinese people made F-1, shameful thieves.
But our internal reaction at the time was generally impossible; they are lying, either the announced parameters are fake, or the fact that they replicated F-1 itself is fake.
No one believed China could replicate the F-1 rocket engine, even though it’s a product from sixty years ago.
When China’s lunar flyby plan is completed, I think no one will question the authenticity of F-1 anymore; Saturn V is real, and even if the five engines under Saturn V aren’t F-1, they are definitely rocket engines no less than F-1.
Considering Apollo Technology only took one and a half years, this is really too astonishing, too astonishing, too astonishing!
Whether in terms of time, cost, or number of participants, it is an indisputable miracle in human engineering history.
According to the Planetary Society’s prediction, the Apollo Program started in 1961, Apollo 11 successfully moon landed in 1969; the program ran from 1961 to 1972, total cost about 25.4 billion USD, equivalent to 182 to 257 billion USD today.
At its peak, it involved over 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 supplier employees, showcasing a massive collaboration effort.
What is China’s number? Apollo Technology’s employee count, as Professor Lin said in a public interview, does not exceed 2,000 people, and supplier numbers are estimated not to exceed 20,000, meaning the number of people they used is less than one-tenth of the Apollo moon landing, the time used is one-fifth, and in between there was also highly valuable work like Burning No. 1.
What does this mean? It means rapidly conceptualizing extremely complex engineering systems, from F-1 to J-2 to structural components and navigation systems. Not to mention replication saves time; if replication really saved time, Artemis should replicate instead of reinventing the wheel.
The essence of replication saving time is that you really understand every node of the engineering extremely well; replication in the engineering field is material replication, not information replication. Replicating a paper, I just need to memorize it, repeat it once; someone else’s 1-year paper, with good memory I might do it in three days by memorizing and copying.
Information replication is very simple.
Engineering replication, even with very basic engineering like reproducing biology paper experiments, the time you spend is not much different from the paper author’s total time from design to realization.
So Professor Lin absolutely has extraordinary design and development abilities.
Secondly is manufacturing and testing; for manned missions, manufacturing and testing are especially critical. From procurement to manufacturing to testing, the entire process needs strict control; I estimate this is the merit of China Aerospace, they were able to strictly oversee this process.
Finally, infrastructure; on infrastructure they could also leverage China Aerospace’s existing facilities, including launch, mission control center, and training facilities. In the past twenty years, China Aerospace has rapidly improved in this aspect.
Then to refute the conspiracy theory: China wanted to replicate the Apollo moon landing and prepared for decades, finally succeeding now.
Still the same words, what is decades? Moon landing costs money; decades ago China didn’t have the capital, and in the face of breakthroughs in key engineering, money alone isn’t enough.
If money could achieve moon landing, Russia, Japan, and India’s moon landing attempts wouldn’t have failed repeatedly.
If China could have built F-1 engine and Saturn V early, China’s space station could be designed more aggressively, not just 90 tons like now.
Finally, to sum up, Professor Lin has shown extraordinary abilities in technological innovation, resource mobilization, project management, and risk management; America letting him return to China was likely a fatal mistake no less than money.”
The Imperial Seal couldn’t return in the 60s timeline, and in 2020 it showed no engineering abilities at all; how could they not let it return.
Discussions are heated on Zhihu and Quora, and similarly lively on Weibo, Bilibili, Douyin, and other platforms.
Lei Jun has started what he claims is his last entrepreneurship in life, his self-proclaimed last time—maybe he can do a few more. He posted on Weibo saying:
“After watching Apollo Technology’s lunar flyby test, I have a bit more confidence in our team’s car manufacturing. After I announced car manufacturing, many friends came to advise me, saying others have been making cars for decades, even other new forces are ahead of us; what right do we have to compete with others, what is our advantage.
Apollo Technology and Professor Lin tell us it’s through technological innovation, team collaboration, and sufficiently excellent team leaders. Of course I may not be as excellent as our Professor Lin in technological innovation, but I believe our foundation is still stronger than Apollo Technology’s foundation in moon landing.
They could shorten moon landing from ten years to one year; we too can shorten others’ decades of car manufacturing road to three years. I can’t wait to push the car made by the Xiaomi team to the market, let consumers experience the fun that technology brings to ordinary people once it’s no longer high above!
Finally, I will also respond to Mi Fans’ calls and cooperate with Apollo Technology as soon as possible: this year’s Xiaomi 12 will launch a moon landing exploration edition co-branding, and by then Xiaomi Car will also do a moon landing exploration edition for everyone!”
Once Lei Jun’s Weibo was posted, the comments below were all:
“Very urgent, can the moon landing exploration edition come out soon?”
“Can we get Ran Shen’s signature? If moon landing exploration edition can’t come out, co-branding can at least come first, right.”
“Support Lei Zong! Already expecting it, already canceled my ordered Tesla.”
“Can Lei Zong invest some money in Apollo Technology? I’m afraid their cash flow is tight. Can you drive out Tencent? Xiaomi and Apollo Technology’s genes are more compatible; Tencent is a game company, what are they mixing in moon landing for!”
Public opinion has never paid so much attention to aerospace.
Qian Fei and Zhao Jianguo’s story was dug up; as former China Aerospace astronaut reserves, after leaving halfway through life, circling around and stepping onto the moon landing journey again—this story about dreams and effort, persistence and luck, is self-media’s favorite.
Three days after the lunar flyby test, in Yenching University campus, Li Yiqing, who had disappeared for an entire day, returned to the dorm and patted Xu Xian’s bed:
“Holy crap, what a pervert interview.”
Xu Xian quickly put aside the recently super popular mobile game Genshin Impact; ever since Lin Ran solved his big graduation problem, he started a decadent life.
As for doing more achievements, the brain thinks that way, but in reality there is no motivation at all.
The type that is intermittently ambitious, habitually muddling along waiting for death.
“What happened! What happened!” He quickly stuck his head out.
Li Yiqing said: “Didn’t you see the group? The group @ everyone.”
Xu Xian then clicked to look: “Holy crap, 1 million annual salary? Specifically recruiting math majors? Or state-owned enterprise solving household registration? No degree limit, no experience limit, bachelor’s master’s PhD all okay, only look at ability not resume, no experience required?
Requires proficiency in analysis and algebra?
Holy crap, isn’t this talking about me!”
He looked at the time again: “Good, good, almost missed the big thing playing Genshin Impact! Good that the deadline hasn’t passed.”
After hearing this, Li Yiqing hesitated to speak, then said: “Yeah, rare opportunity, you must not miss it!”
