Chapter 299: Lin Ran In The Interview
“This year is of great significance to us. After last year’s moon landing, there were various voices from the outside world thinking that we would slack off from then on, rest on our laurels, and feel that NASA would catch up right away.
To put it this way, unless NASA invites me to be the NASA director, the probability that they will ever catch up to us in moon landing progress is infinitely close to 0.”
At this time at Yenching University, Xu Xian was also watching the live broadcast with Li Yiqing. Li Yiqing sighed: “Ran Shen is really watertight.”
Xu Xian felt that what the other said was a bit inexplicable. This was nothing yet, what did it have to do with being watertight: “What do you mean? I don’t get it.”
Li Yiqing explained: “Actually, Ran Shen should have said ‘impossible forever’ here, which would be more in line with his speaking habit and normal people’s way of speaking.
But do you remember? At this year’s July Fields award ceremony, that Ukraine winner Marina wanted Ran Shen to promise never to cooperate with Russia, and Ran Shen said he would never say forever.
Here Ran Shen had already let the word ‘ever’ slip out but forcefully held it back and changed his wording. I estimate he thought of that ‘never say forever,’ not giving even the slightest flaw. This is still during a live broadcast. No wonder he’s a master-level mathematician famous for rigorousness, whose Arxiv paper drafts even Terry Tao can’t find fault with.”
Li Yiqing felt deeply emotional because compared to Lin Ran, Wei Xuhang, who was clearly much older, was far inferior in expression.
“But we didn’t stop this year. We completed a total of four moon landings, three unmanned and one manned, and these footsteps were all in the lunar south pole that humanity had never set foot in before. Unprecedented.
This includes successfully finding three water ice samples and confirming that Shackleton Crater is a suitable location for moon base construction, laying the foundation for subsequent moon base construction.
This certainly owes to the two astronauts Wei Xuhang and Li Cong having maxed-out luck values, but more importantly, thanks to NASA. If it weren’t for NASA’s sufficient preliminary preparation work, our search for water ice wouldn’t have gone so smoothly.”
Killing people and hurting their hearts, indeed.
The bullet screen was all brushing killing people and hurting their hearts.
“Ran Shen is really too bad! Americans have no problem!”
“Holy crap, I feel like the NASA officials watching the live broadcast must be puking blood from anger.”
“NASA officials puking blood is fine, but if the White House sees the clip, won’t the old man be so angry he has to be hospitalized? What if something happens to him?”
“This is indeed a bit too direct.”
Wei Xuhang couldn’t keep up with the bullet screens from various live broadcast platforms at all, but Lin Ran could clearly remember every single one in his brain.
“This year we did more work than last year, advancing our moon base plan step by step as I planned.
Even in my grand plan, Burning One Modified is just negligible work.”
Lin Ran said lightly, without any show-off intent, but the audience in the live broadcast room all sensed a strong flavor of the king of showing off from it.
Burning One Modified, though its payload capacity is below Falcon 9, is also one of the only two reusable rockets, even a reusable rocket capable of launching a fuel tank into lunar orbit.
In Lin Ran’s view, it was surprisingly just negligible work.
“Holy crap, Brother Ran, too much showing off, I can’t take it! This show-off I can only give 6 points to, barely passing.” Xu Xian complained, “Back in high school, Brother Ran was like this, scored 149 in math and told us he didn’t do well, this time he’s done for.
Having gone through a thousand sails and returned, still using the same old high school show-off tricks, too unoriginal.”
Li Yiqing’s voice drifted into his ears: “Don’t you think if we see this as Ran Shen doing a year-end summary to the national public,
Then he didn’t even include his own Fields Medal win in his year-end summary. Fields Medal is just so-so. Maybe that’s the show-off he’s doing.”
Purely in terms of winning difficulty, with its 40-year-old age limit and held every four years, the Fields Medal is a whole level harder than the Nobel.
Both were current PhD students in mathematics from the mathematics department. Applied mathematics is still mathematics. They recognized the value of the Fields Medal even more.
“Holy crap, if I could get a Fields Medal, I’d be willing even for an annual salary of a million!” Xu Xian wailed.
Li Yiqing said: “If you could get a Fields Medal, it wouldn’t be a million annual salary. In the early years, at least five million annual salary, and you couldn’t finish all the foundation bonuses.
Too small, vision still too small. Don’t even dare to dream big in your dreams!”
On the tablet computer in front of the two, Lin Ran and Wei Xuhang were sitting opposite each other, both facing the camera.
“More importantly, what we will do in the future. I see this episode today as an interview and a future work report.” Lin Ran continued in the video.
Li Yiqing gave Xu Xian a smug look: See, I guessed right.
“I hope through this way to arouse everyone’s enthusiasm for commercial aerospace, for space, for humanity heading to the sea of stars.
Reality’s gravity is too strong. Smartphones, computers, game consoles, all kinds of electronic products are too fun, making it hard for us to deeply understand the significance of space to humanity, hard to perceive the meaning of humanity stepping toward the stars at this time when Earth resources are still abundant.
I believe among the audience friends watching my live broadcast, the vast majority of you are so interested in Apollo Technology, so concerned, including pouring so much gaze on me personally, which has to do with aerospace, the universe, humanity heading to the solar system, but more because our moon landing is an achievement, one no one in the past could achieve.
Everyone likes the feeling of winning, hoping I can lead Apollo Technology to continuously bring the feeling of winning to everyone.
So that’s why you all spend your precious time watching my live broadcast, caring about Apollo Technology’s news, seeing what remarkable achievements Apollo Technology has recently, even if you’re not that interested in aerospace.
Is that bad? Of course not.
The first satellite was completed by the Soviet Union, the first manned spaceflight by the Soviet Union, the first spacewalk by the Soviet Union, the first lunar satellite, first Venus satellite, first Mars probe, first Venus probe, first space station, etc. These firsts were completed by the Soviet Union.
Yet America declared itself the winner of the space race because it was the first country to complete a manned moon landing.
But we completed the moon landing this century, once using the 1960s America command module-lunar module separation and recombination method, and once more using lunar surface fuel transfer. In the past, newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, The Times, etc., that announced America won the space race—did they announce our victory?
No.
They can deprive the Soviet Union of its achievements to win, ignore the achievements we have obtained to win.
So the pursuit of winning is human nature. People in every country around the world are like this.
It’s just that we Chinese people have always been too honest. We must have achievements to feel the winning sensation, while America, India, or other countries can manipulate media to create the winning feeling for their own people.
But I hope—this is just my personal hope—that the audience friends watching the live broadcast can take my program as an opportunity to become interested in aerospace.
To turn from wanting the feeling of winning into curiosity and love for aerospace.
Of course, the feeling of winning, we will definitely continue to bring to everyone, and this winning is winning with achievements, not winning for the sake of winning.”
While Lin Ran was speaking, Wei Xuhang listened very seriously. Besides thinking about the meaning of Lin Ran’s words in his mind, he also had one thought: the professor sure can talk.
For a long time, entrepreneurs were keen on expressing their viewpoints in the media.
From the PC era to the mobile internet era, not just Jack Ma and Pony Ma liking to express viewpoints, but also Meituan Wang, ByteDance Zhang, etc., were all pros at posting on Weibo, with posting frequency rivaling self-media bloggers who live off Weibo.
After 2018, this trend started to fade, but another group of entrepreneurs began building their personal IP, led by Lei Jun. This group of entrepreneurs leaned toward physical industries.
These entrepreneurs build personal IP, trying to put themselves ahead of the company image, using strong binding relationships to exchange IP recognition for convenience in company business.
Unlike the new batch of entrepreneur IPs emerging in China, in recent years, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have been keen on participating in podcast programs, talking extensively in podcast programs about topics related to their careers, more like preaching and spreading their viewpoints.
Among them, Peter Thiel, who supported Vance’s rise and a key member of the PayPal Mafia, is keen on going on podcasts to preach.
Lin Ran building personal IP is not quite like either of the above two.
As an absolute To B company, Apollo Technology doesn’t need to do this; it brings not even a bit of business convenience.
Lin Ran simply feels that in the past, NASA used a series of actions to promote space popularization. He thinks China Aerospace has done too little in this aspect, far from enough. He hopes to do some space knowledge popularization and interest cultivation by building personal IP.
Not only to generate interest in space among young people, but also indirectly influence the next generation through these young people, letting the next generation develop more interest in aerospace.
“Next, let’s ask Wei Xuhang. Previously, Xuhang went to the moon with me, but last time he watched me and Buzz Aldrin go from the command module. This time he went himself. How did it feel?” Lin Ran asked.
After organizing his thoughts, Wei Xuhang said: “When I was interviewed by CCTV, I said I felt very excited and thrilled.
After more than a month of reflection, my deepest feeling was in the lunar shadow regions, standing in that shadow, feeling like I was exploring the secrets of the universe.
Professor, you know, in the shadow regions the temperature is over minus a hundred degrees, extremely extremely cold, and a piece of silence and vastness.
No sound, no life, nothing. I felt like I was exiled to the edge of the universe. I felt not 380,000 km from Earth, but so far that I could never return.
But the moment we dug out the ice, the light refracted from the ice pulled me back from illusion to reality in an instant.”
While talking about this, Wei Xuhang’s expression had already drifted to the moon.
Lin Ran deeply related to Wei Xuhang’s words. Light is hope.
Though he hadn’t been to the lunar south pole shadow regions, he had experienced the pain of losing his five senses, deprived of five senses for an unknown long time. Without light waking him from the darkness, he felt he would eventually lose his consciousness.
“So would you want to go again?” Lin Ran asked.
Wei Xuhang said matter-of-factly: “Of course, Professor. Next time send me again. Though I feel millions of miles from home, I know my work is very meaningful.
Moreover, the feeling of going to the moon is really awesome, something that can’t be simulated no matter what in the training center.
Besides, Professor, think about it, in the future if we really open moon tourism, one trip would definitely cost billions of RMB, right? Going now, not only no cost, the company even pays me upside down. Isn’t that earning billions per trip? Definitely going.”
Lin Ran smiled helplessly: “You, you. Just now there was a netizen in the bullet screen asking, Japan is throwing you an olive branch, would you join the Japanese Space Agency?”
Wei Xuhang’s expression became extremely serious: “Absolutely not. National hatred and grievances, never to be forgotten!”
The bullet screen was all brushing good good good.
On the Chinese Internet, if you dare say anything bad about Japan, people jump out to whitewash and attack you, saying it’s this day and age and still national hatred and grievances. But when the numbers are large, in public spaces discussed by massive public, such voices disappear and dare not emerge.
Lin Ran nodded, then turned to the camera: “Everyone hear that? Let’s witness together. As Zhu Yuanzhang said, we drink together from the golden cup, white blade shows no mercy.”
Wei Xuhang puzzled: “Professor, what does this poem mean?”
Lin Ran said: “It means you went to the moon, enjoyed the benefit of going for free, if you dare jump ship to Japan, absolutely no mercy. The netizens in the live broadcast room are witnesses together.”
“Next year, if Qian Fei or Zhao Jianguo recover well, then this time it will be you and one of them going to the moon. Soon, even early next year departure. Anyway, get ready.
We definitely won’t be once-a-year frequency. Our moon-going frequency will only get faster.
Let me tell everyone, if going early next year, we will lay some solar cells at the lunar south pole.
Because everyone knows, the lunar surface has solar wind, dust, various high-energy particles brought by solar wind. In such an environment, the service life of solar panels becomes very limited.
Possibly 30 years lifespan on Earth, on the moon can’t even guarantee three months.
This time we will first lay some solar panels. On one hand, breakthrough in materials, on the other hand, see if design structure can be optimized.
Including fuel tank disassembly and laying and a series of work, should start advancing early next year.”
“Professor, guarantee mission accomplished!” Wei Xuhang said seriously.
Lin Ran nodded, then said: “I see many netizens asking why Wei Xuhang doesn’t call me boss, General Manager Lin or Ran Shen, but calls me professor.
Let me explain. When I first recruited them, my main identity then was still Jiaotong University professor, so everyone got used to calling me professor. Buzz Aldrin’s nickname is PhD.
One PhD, one professor. I quite like this title, so it continued from then until today.”
Wei Xuhang inwardly sighed. The professor is really good at making up stories one after another. It’s not that you like everyone calling you that. When everyone discovered calling you this makes you suppress your tyrant side in work coordination, and calling something else triggers the on-business tyrant mode, everyone changed to calling professor.
“Alright, the interview is about done. Let’s start today’s bullet screen Q&A session. I’ll pick bullet screens and answer.” Lin Ran said.
“First question, want to ask Wei Xuhang what is the secret to his good luck?” Lin Ran glanced at the other.
Wei Xuhang quickly said: “Actually, I’m not particularly lucky. In my view, everyone has times of good luck. Everyone should silently accumulate energy when luck is bad, and seize it when luck is good.
I’m a retired air force. Back when I served in the air force, I participated in astronaut selection but didn’t get selected. In the long years after retiring and transferring, I never gave up exercising my body, so I could smoothly get selected when Apollo Technology was recruiting.
If I were like many retired comrades I know, with a beer belly, cigarette always in pocket, no matter how good my luck, I couldn’t get selected.
So I don’t think I’m lucky, because if I were lucky, I should have been selected that time as an astronaut, not wasting half a lifetime to become an astronaut in my forties.”
“Second question, Ran Shen, how do you view the matter of Musk falling out with the White House?”
After reading it, Lin Ran thought to himself, Musk falling out with the White House? Is that strange? “I’m sitting and watching.”
“Third question, how do you view Musk saying in an interview that my achievements are packaged by Chinese official, concentrating others’ achievements on me.” After reading, Lin Ran smirked: “Still sitting and watching. Their opinions don’t matter.
Why do we always care about foreigners’ opinions? Not important, okay. To put it this way, sitting waiting for the defeated dog to bark madly. Musk thinks changing people in the White House will bring change. Sorry, changing people in the White House won’t bring any change either, because America’s problems can’t be solved by changing people.”
“Alright, won’t answer any more questions about outside opinions later. Their opinions really don’t matter.
When will we bring drones to the moon, when will the moon drone center be built.
This question is like this: first need complete communication equipment, sufficient energy supply, then we can talk drones.
Drones also consume electricity. Secondly, as mentioned earlier, the moon has high-energy particles, serious interference to communication. Building communication system is quite difficult.
In the plan, this is next year’s thing. Early next year, a series of lunar satellites will be deployed in communications, then from next year we will start building Earth-moon cargo space route.
After this is built, the entire moon construction will accelerate.”
