Chapter 408: Winds Rise In Washington
“However, it is not completely without value to us.
Everyone, what I say next, you must study seriously in the remaining learning time, with special focus.”
Chen Lei said:
“The NIL lithography machine route may not have a future, but the technology it contains may still have value.
We can completely extract the valuable parts of this technology and use them in our lithography machine route.”
Chen Lei’s words instantly energized the other experts present.
“These past few days, I’ve been reviewing every detail of Canon’s FPA-1200NZ2C.
Its core nanoimprint ‘mold head’ and the matching UV curing system are poison apples to us, because they are incompatible with our DUV system and bundled with a materials trap. If General Manager Lin can’t provide a solution later, I believe we must resolutely spin it off.”
He picked up a pen and drew a big red X on the imprinting core part of the NIL structural diagram in the notebook.
“However,” he changed the subject and circled three other parts of the structural diagram with the pen, “this machine’s skeleton, nervous system, and circulatory system have extraordinary value to us.”
Engineer Wang asked with great interest: “Dr. Chen, tell us specifically? What are its skeleton, nervous system, and circulation?”
Dr. Chen Lei: “The skeleton refers to its ultra-precision wafer stage system.” He pointed to the base part of the blueprint. “NIL is contact lithography, and every alignment and movement requires flatness, stability, and positioning precision of the wafer stage that are even more demanding than we imagine.
Canon is, after all, a giant in optics and precision instruments; their accumulations in motion control, shock absorption, and materials science are very deep.
One of the biggest bottlenecks in our lithography machine right now is the stability and overlay accuracy of the wafer stage under high-speed motion.
If we can thoroughly figure out the design logic, control algorithm, and drive method of Canon’s system, even if we only learn 70% of it, our overlay accuracy metric can improve by at least 50%.
This is my guess based on public information; the specific amount will require further concrete judgment after we integrate Canon’s technology into our process.”
Engineer Wang rubbed his chin: “If we can really do that, our yield rate can improve by a big margin.”
Chen Lei continued: “Yes.
Next is the nervous system, its full-process defect detection and measurement unit.
NIL’s fatal weakness is the defect rate, so Canon must have deployed the world’s top real-time detection system inside the machine to quickly scan the wafer before and after imprinting, locating nanometer-level particles and pattern errors. This technology is general.
General Manager Wang, our production line now mainly relies on offline sampling inspection, which is low efficiency, and many defects are discovered too late.
If we can transplant or replicate this nervous system and integrate it into the existing process flow, our yield rate can climb another big step.
Whether it’s domestic production lines or those using ASML production lines, this system can be used.”
“And the last one, the circulatory system?” another Engineer Li asked.
Chen Lei said: “This is the part I think has the most value and is the most unexpected: the inkjet precision photoresist coating system.”
He pointed to the device in the NIL equipment that resembled a print head: “Traditional DUV lithography coats the wafer with photoresist by spin coating, and over 95% of the expensive photoresist is wasted.
But for precise imprinting, NIL developed inkjet printing-like technology, spraying a drop of resin exactly where a pattern is needed, using an extremely small amount, and with controllable uniformity.”
He looked at Engineer Li and said slowly: “Engineer Li, imagine if we could graft this inkjet technology onto our DUV production line to spray our own photoresist.
What does that mean? Photoresist cost can drop over 90%, and edge effects and spin coating unevenness issues will become history.”
Chinese people are like this; even when there’s no road, they find one, and they can find value even in traps.
What Chen Lei didn’t expect was that Lin Ran wasn’t thinking about disassembly at all, but reconstructing the entire optical system on this foundation.
Washington D.C., Hart Senate Office Building, hearing room, where the air felt exceptionally stuffy due to anger and anxiety.
All senators of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee were seated, and behind them were packed media reporters and suit-clad lobbyists from major aerospace contractors.
Musk sat alone at the witness stand, wearing a slightly ill-fitting dark suit.
“Director,” the committee chairman, a senior Elephant Party senator from Texas, began the questioning in an unfriendly tone, “this country’s people want to know, two weeks ago, when Chinese people on the Moon used a nuclear reactor and electromagnetic rail to send things back to Earth like playing golf, where was our NASA? Where was our Moon program? Why did we spend billions of taxpayers’ US dollars and get only a few pages of PPT and the continually delayed Artemis program?
The only Moon trip, yet still relying on technology from China?”
Reporters’ flashbulbs lit up like a storm.
Musk didn’t look at the senator, but spoke calmly into the microphone in front of him, in his characteristic slightly pausing tone.
“Congressman, your question is exactly the one I’ve been asking myself every day for the past six months as NASA Director.” His voice carried through the amplifier across the entire room: “And after investigating dozens of projects, I found a sample that perfectly answers all your questions.”
He signaled to his assistant.
The assistant placed a huge, beautifully printed color display board next to him.
On the display board was a lunar rover with an extremely futuristic design, exploring at the edge of a crater at the Lunar South Pole.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is VIPER: Volatile Investigatory Polar Exploration Rover,” Musk pointed to the display board: “As planned, it was supposed to ride the ‘Falcon Heavy’ rocket next year, delivered to the Moon by Astrobotic company’s lander, to find the crucial water ice resources for our Moon Base, a great project costing 430 million US dollars.”
He paused, his gaze sweeping over everyone present:
“It looks great, doesn’t it? But there’s one small problem: it doesn’t exist.”
The entire hearing room erupted in an uproar.
Because everyone remembered this thing clearly; General Aerospace sent it to the Moon just last year.
And it sparked heated discussion because of the Xiaomi LOGO on it.
Yet now Musk was telling everyone that this thing doesn’t exist?
Musk ignored the commotion and continued to uncover this sore spot.
“According to official documents, the VIPER project inherited the technical legacy from the previous canceled project named Resource Prospector, abbreviated as RP.
The RP project, from inception to its cancellation in 2018, cost taxpayers over 250 million US Dollars in total.
That is, these two projects together cost the Federation up to 680 million US Dollars, but this project actually does not exist.
I had my team pull up all the technical files of the RP project. Guess what we discovered?” He looked at the senators, “We discovered a large number of concept diagrams, thousands of pages of PPT materials, beautiful visions, and project timelines that could never be achieved.
But we did not discover any flyable hardware, not even a single qualified engineering prototype.
It was a project that only existed on paper.
So, VIPER inherited ‘zero’ legacy from a ‘zero’ project.”
The commotion in the audience grew louder, and experts who knew about the overstaffing at NASA realized that something was seriously wrong.
Musk continued in a sad tone: “I know you will ask, didn’t we just send it to the Moon last year?
Isn’t the VIPER concept car still racing across the Moon?
Hasn’t it been transmitting data back to Earth all along? Why would I say that it only got prettier PPTs, more refined concept diagrams, and budgets that overrun just like the RP project and timelines that keep getting delayed.
Doesn’t it already have a physical object?
Sorry, everyone, please recall, doesn’t it have a Xiaomi LOGO?
Didn’t its front have a Xiaomi LOGO, and later in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, these best domestic media, didn’t we see news of cooperation between Xiaomi and General Aerospace?
But time, everyone, didn’t you notice the time?
The cooperation came after, VIPER launch came before.
That is to say, this was a cooperation agreement deliberately signed later to cover up the truth of the matter.
That lunar rover came entirely from China, very likely from Apollo Technology. Apollo Technology’s previous lunar rover was sponsored by Xiaomi, with a Xiaomi LOGO on it, so our lunar rover also has a Xiaomi LOGO, sponsored by Xiaomi.
Apollo Technology had cause before effect, while our VIPER reversed cause and effect!”
“It has no physical object, do you understand?” Musk’s voice was filled with anger: “It has no working drive wheel, no battery that can withstand the Moon’s low temperatures, no drill bit that can drill into moon soil! It could never be carried on any spaceship to the Moon!
If not for our Chinese counterparts helping us, it would be a paper lunar rover!
Now it is thoroughly made in China.
And the most exciting part is coming,” Musk picked up a document from the table and held it high, “This is an internal memo from the former director’s office.
Originally, this plan would be exactly like the RP project: when the next launch window approaches, cancel the VIPER project again on the grounds of insurmountable technical challenges and severe budget overruns.
In this way, two projects, totaling nearly 700 million US Dollars in funds, would be swept into the dust of history along with their PPTs, ignored by all.
But they never imagined that General Aerospace actually bought back the Saturn V and the supporting lunar landing technology from China, so they had to launch immediately, even if it was a concept car, it had to be shot to the Moon.
So they were at a loss and could only buy a lunar rover from China.”
The hearing site was so quiet that breathing could be heard.
The lobbyists from Boeing and Lockheed had extremely ugly expressions.
They also participated in the VIPER project and got their share.
More importantly, what exactly was Musk trying to do?
Expose such a scandal.
“I know everyone will ask for evidence?
They will think I’m making up a story, that the time stamp difference in newspaper reports of Xiaomi and General Aerospace cooperation is not convincing enough.”
Musk looked at the committee chairman and continued:
“After I took office, some anonymous engineers who had worked at NASA for thirty years and had a sense of justice provided it to me at great risk.”
Jonathan’s role came into play at this moment.
As a lunar geology expert who had been in the NASA system for forty years, Jonathan was one of the rare experts with a conscience, and he also knew many engineers inside NASA who still had some conscience.
These engineers, upon learning that Musk was going to take action on VIPER, provided a large amount of corroborating materials through indirect anonymous means.
He paused, then pressed the remote control in his hand, exposing a large number of photos:
“However,” Musk’s voice turned icy, “many designs of this car have subtle but unmistakable differences from the concept diagrams published for VIPER.
The most direct evidence is:”
Musk pressed the remote control in his hand, enlarging a certain detail of the photo to fill the entire screen.
“That is an exposed circuitry board.
And in the center of the circuitry board, on a main control chip responsible for data processing, a line of letters is clearly etched: SMIC.”
The hearing site was in complete silence, everyone staring at that unfamiliar yet somewhat familiar logo.
SMIC, a company from China, often discussed in America hearings.
Musk continued: “Not enough, this is still not enough.
I also commissioned the best private detective agency in Washington to investigate a problem: in the past two years, has there been any strange cargo similar to a lunar rover entering America.
They initially found nothing.
“Until they expanded the investigation scope from Florida’s Cape Canaveral and Houston’s Aerospace Center to New York Harbor.”
Musk pressed the remote control again, and a customs import declaration document that had been scanned with exceptional clarity appeared on the big screen.
He pointed to the entry on the document and read it out word by word: “Cargo name: Unmanned geological rover.
Manufacturer: Shanghai Space Technology Application and Development Co., Ltd.
This is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Aerospace Technology Group.
Country of origin: China.
Port of entry: New York-New Jersey Port.
Date: November 2024.”
The entire hearing site fell into a deathly silence.
A senator subconsciously took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard, as if he couldn’t believe everything he saw.
“We also got this.” Musk showed the last photo.
That was a photo accidentally taken by a customs employee in Minato Ward with a mobile phone. A huge container was open, and inside was unmistakably the same lunar rover as in the NASA internal photos, with the Xiaomi LOGO shining brightly on it.
Musk turned off the screen, turned to face all the senators, and posed that fatal question.
“Now, please tell me. Why? Why would a NASA unmanned rover for moon exploration abandon the nearby option and not ship it to our own launch base in Florida, but instead sneak it in like smuggling, mixed in with millions of containers from China, through New York Harbor?”
He didn’t wait for anyone to answer, but gave that only answer himself.
“Because the former NASA bureaucrats needed a prop!
If it was just a physical prop for taking photos, videos, and showing work progress to you congressmen to defraud more budget, they wouldn’t have to go to China to buy it.
But what they needed was a lunar rover that could really run on the moon, transmit data and information, really conduct exploration, soil sampling, and automatic charging for continued operation—such a rover could only be imported from China.
They couldn’t make it themselves; they used an empty-shell VIPER project to apply for 430 million US dollars from Congress.
Then, they secretly spent maybe less than ten million US dollars to buy a lunar rover with the same Xiaomi LOGO from China and ship it to New York, then secretly transport it by truck to Glenn Research Center in Ohio, disguise it as VIPER there, take the photos, write the report, and finally ship it to the launch center in Florida to send it to the moon.
China’s lunar rover, China’s rocket—how much more Chinese goods do we need?”
Grov was dumbfounded in the audience; he realized it was all over—Musk this guy was here to flip the table?
Musk has been working at NASA for almost a year, Grov thought all of his energy was focused on Starship, but surprisingly he still had this move up his sleeve.
His brain was racing, hoping to find a solution: “What to do?”
Musk looked at the congressmen whose faces had turned pale from shock and anger or some other emotion, and delivered his final declaration:
“Senator, this is why we lost.
This is not an isolated case; this is the deeply entrenched corruption culture formed over decades within NASA internally, as well as among those old-era contractors symbiotic with it.
What they excel at is not manufacturing spaceships, but manufacturing PPTs, manufacturing budgets, manufacturing a closed interest cycle that allows them to perpetually and legally waste taxpayers’ money.
Mr. President asked me to lead America back to the Moon and to win. To complete this mission, what we need is not more money.
Musk stood up, his gaze sharp and resolute, never so determined:
“We need a thorough, top-to-bottom purge.
I will use this project as the entry point to conduct a comprehensive audit of all ongoing NASA projects.
All contractors holding massive funds yet failing to deliver actual achievements will have their contracts permanently terminated.
All bureaucrats obstructing the reform will be removed from their positions.
I came here not to request Congress’s approval.
“I am here to notify everyone that, in order to catch up with our opponents, in order to complete the President’s orders, this war has already begun.”
At this point, Grov felt relieved. He originally thought it was just targeting VIPER. You’ve set such a big goal, so just wait to be devoured by Washington’s swamp.
