Chapter 409: Hurry To Shanghai And Get Lin Ran!
In the tropical rainforest of the Amazon River basin in South America, a butterfly carelessly flaps its wings a few times, which may cause a catastrophic hurricane in Texas, America two weeks later.
The hurricane has now arrived.
China’s BY-2 is really only the size of a butterfly compared to ordinary spaceships.
In Old John Morgan’s words, it is even lighter than a feather falling to the ground, a perfect return, with the hurricane sweeping from Yanjing to the world.
Today, this wind has finally reached America, the country that first sent humanity to the Moon, welcoming a category 14 hurricane.
All media, whether you support the Donkey Party or the Elephant Party, have only one topic after today’s hearing: NASA.
How many problems NASA had in the past, what Musk will do, how we can lead NASA to win this Moon war.
Countless problems waiting for America’s reporters to uncover.
The next morning, the Washington Post thrown by the delivery truck at the doorstep of every household in Washington had a huge and concise front-page headline:
“Lunar Rover on PPT, Ten Years of Idling: NASA’s Trust Crisis”
The article is not a simple news piece, but a 10,000-word in-depth investigative report co-authored by three Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters.
They had fully communicated with Musk’s side beforehand, obtained a large amount of firsthand intelligence, and the secrecy work was done quite well, just waiting for Musk’s hearing as the trigger.
The report meticulously traces the funding flows of the Resource Prospector to VIPER projects over nearly ten years.
Clear charts show that a total budget of nearly 700 million US dollars, over 80% ultimately flowed into the pockets of several traditional aerospace contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
The report interviews more than a dozen anonymous former NASA engineers, who confirmed the projects’ “idling” status: endless meetings, constantly changing designs, and samples from contractors that were never delivered on time.
The core of the report points directly to a military-industrial complex entrenched in Washington.
It’s not just the military industry that is the military-industrial complex.
Aerospace is also part of the military-industrial complex.
It reveals a pathological cycle: Congress approves sky-high budgets for ballots and employment, NASA’s bureaucrats outsource projects to avoid offending Congress and contractors, and contractors use part of the budget for political lobbying in exchange for more projects and looser regulation.
In the Washington Post’s editorial section, a commentary written by renowned columnist Thomas Friedman has an even sharper title: We used to gaze at the stars, now we only audit bills.
On Fox News’s 8 PM evening show, the ace host of Fox News roars into the lens with his signature provocative tone:
“See that, America! This is the swamp! This is Washington’s Deep State! While Mr. President is fighting for America’s interests, while patriots like Elon Musk are building real rockets in Texas with their own money, our taxpayers’ money is being used by a bunch of bureaucrats and lobbyists hiding in offices to purchase products from our biggest enemy!”
“They are not only incompetent, they’ve even gotten too lazy to corrupt themselves! They started outsourcing corruption! They send money to China just to complete the task and deceive us! This is not a scandal, this is betrayal!”
On the screen, Musk’s headshot and Mr. President’s headshot are photoshopped together, with the Stars and Stripes waving in the background.
The title boldly reads: “Swamp Cleaners”.
Fox’s narrative is very clear: this is not America’s failure, but the failure of “old America”.
And now we welcome the new president, bringing a brand new America.
Musk is the hammer picked by Mr. President to smash this old system.
If you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.
The reaction from liberal media is much more complex. They too are shocked and angry at NASA’s corruption, but they have deeper concerns about Musk’s solution.
If you can really solve this problem, what are we even playing for?
NBC’s evening show host analyzes in a calm tone: “Undoubtedly, NASA’s bureaucratic system has become rigid and needs thorough reform.
But are we witnessing an even more dangerous trend? Are we replacing a dysfunctional committee with a dictator?”
“Handing the future of America’s entire space program, this great institution concerning national security, scientific exploration, and the human spirit, completely to a volatile and extremely unstable billionaire like Elon Musk—is that really safe? Are we exchanging the known risk of bureaucratic corruption for a greater unknown risk?”
On The Atlantic’s website, a widely circulated article raises a more philosophical question: “Has America Lost the Ability to Do Hard Things?”
The article states: “The greatness of the Apollo Program is not that we landed on the Moon, but that it proved a democratic country can accomplish something seemingly impossible, purely out of ideals and courage, by mobilizing its best talent and its vastest industrial system.
Today, the VIPER scandal proves we seem to have lost that ability. We no longer talk about ‘we do it because it’s hard’, we only care about ‘we contract it because it’s profitable’.
China’s lunar electromagnetic launch device is certainly terrifying, but more terrifying is the death of that ambition deep in our own hearts.”
Lei Zong wakes up from sleep, not feeling like the sky is falling, but finding it wondrous and magical, a bizarre world line.
Musk holds a tablet displaying a car with the Xiaomi LOGO, and this photo is published as the front-page headline by global media.
This is a bit too magical realism.
Every group he’s in is exploding with discussion about this.
“@Lei Jun Lei Zong, impressive, this marketing is so worth it, and it even brings echoes!”
“Brother, you’ve essentially spent one share of money for two shares of promotion. I’m in Europe now; though I don’t understand much of what their television stations are saying, that host keeps mentioning Xiaomi.”
“Lei Zong, last year during the presidential election, we were discussing America’s deep state in the group, wondering if Big T returning to the White House could really handle Washington’s deep state. I never expected you to be part of Washington’s deep state too.”
In a certain big shot group, filled with top Chinese entrepreneurs, the focus of attention is that unexpectedly, a homegrown Chinese entrepreneur like you is connected to the deep swamp in Washington, America.
This has made everyone curious.
You grew up in Xiantao, never studied or worked abroad, so how did you get connected to Washington?
Many of these entrepreneurs have had tough business in recent years and also want to take chestnut from the fire; America’s money is money too. After watching the hearing, they all feel America’s money is too easy to earn—PPTs can fool for so many years. If they could also mingle with Washington’s deep state, couldn’t they earn that money too?
If Lei Zi can touch it, I can touch it too! That’s roughly the idea.
So this group of people all @ Lei Jun one after another, hoping to get further explanations.
Lei Jun only felt it was a disaster out of nowhere.
He replied in several important groups: “Thanks to all the big shots for your concern. I just woke up and I’m confused too. I’ll check the specific situation later and give everyone a detailed explanation then.”
Then he hurriedly called the driver to drive to the company, and on the way in the car, he called together the heads of public relations, investment, and finance for an emergency meeting:
“Lei Zong, our stock price in Hong Kong’s pre-market trading has gone crazy. One side thinks this is a shocking scandal, the other side thinks it’s good news, and the bulls and bears are currently fighting fiercely.”
The head of investment projected the pre-market trading data onto the screen.
Then the head of marketing said: “Currently, all the American media that I have connections with are asking us whether we secretly participated in a plan to sell aerospace equipment to NASA.
Europe suspects we violated technology export regulations.
Most domestic netizens are still playing memes, thinking it’s a good show, not pointing the spear at us, but there are still a few netizens who think we have an unusual interest relationship with America and are trying every means to steer public opinion to attack us.”
After listening to the reports from his subordinates, Lei Jun thought thoughtfully: “Do you think this could be a good opportunity?”
Xu Fei, in charge of marketing, was the first to understand Lei Jun’s meaning: “You mean go all in, directly turn the crisis into a turning point? Directly do marketing?”
Lei Jun nodded: “Exactly, the truth behind this is simple. Didn’t Musk mention at the hearing that the lunar rover came from Shanghai in China, from a subsidiary under China Aerospace?
Does it have anything to do with us?
As for why we reached a sponsorship cooperation with General Aerospace, just admit it openly. Say that Qualcomm’s CEO entrusted us to help with a small favor. We have always had a tradition of sponsoring aerospace. Didn’t we also sponsor Apollo Technology’s moon landing?
So after ruling out commercial and legal risks, we agreed.
For subsequent clarifications, tell the truth. Facts are our best weapon to protect ourselves.
Just as our competitors are about to attack me, let them come. Take this opportunity to pay attention to collecting evidence and let the platform clean up a wave of black PR.
Joke, I, a small-town exam warrior, could really get involved with the deep government over there in America?
Once public opinion has fermented enough and the timing is right, throw out the video with the detailed explanation. I’ll personally shoot this explanation video.”
After Lei Jun finished speaking, he turned off the remote meeting and pondered: Right, I, a small-town exam warrior, and General Manager Lin is also a small-town exam warrior. How did he get mixed up with those people in America? And left Musk with a perfect handle.
In the meeting room sat the heads of various NASA departments, as well as several core engineers Musk brought from SpaceX.
This was the first project meeting after Musk stirred up the storm.
The topic of this meeting was a classic problem in the field of aerospace engineering: POGO vibration.
Simply put, this is a self-excited oscillation produced during rocket flight due to coupling between pressure fluctuations of fuel in the pipelines and structural vibrations of the vehicle body.
It is very dangerous and can easily cause fatal danger.
Similar problems had once appeared on Saturn V.
“Based on the data from the SN32 prototype static ignition test conducted in Boca Chica last week,” a young SpaceX propulsion system engineer was reporting to the NASA veterans in the room using PPT, “we did capture in the Raptor engine’s liquid oxygen turbopump a very slight POGO vibration trend at a frequency of 25 Hz. The amplitude is within our safety threshold, and we have also designed a solution.”
He flipped to the next page, which had complex charts and code.
“The solution is simple: by modifying the engine’s controller software to fine-tune the fuel injection timing, and at the same time installing a small accumulator on the main fuel pipe as a hardware buffer.
We plan to apply this solution to SN33 in two weeks for the next flight test to obtain data in a real flight environment.”
This is typical SpaceX style: discover the problem, fix it quickly, and verify and iterate through high-frequency actual flight tests.
What they are developing now is not the Starship to Mars, but the Starship to the Moon.
Why not Saturn V? Because Saturn V is too massive and not suitable for routine round-trip goals.
Ultimately, they still have to rely on Starship, even though Starship has not succeeded yet.
After the report ended, the meeting room was silent.
Musk sat in the main seat, looking around at the NASA supervisors present.
Finally, Dr. Eleanor spoke. She was the director of NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center.
This is an institution independent of all projects, with “one-vote veto power” over any mission.
“Thank you for your report, young man.” Dr. Eleanor said: “POGO vibration is an extremely serious topic for NASA.
In the Apollo 10 and 13 missions, the second stage rocket of Saturn V had caused engine premature shutdown due to POGO vibration, nearly causing catastrophic consequences.”
Her gaze turned to Musk.
“Director, our NESC greatly appreciates the efficiency of the SpaceX team.
However, for an engine that will soon carry American astronauts back to the Moon, the most powerful engine in human history, to proceed to the next flight test merely based on a trend discovered in one static ignition and a software patch + hardware buffer solution, forgive my bluntness, this is unacceptable. This is gambling with astronauts’ lives.”
Her words made the atmosphere in the meeting room turn cold.
“According to NASA’s mature safety protocol that has been in place for seventy years,” she stated unhurriedly, not like a NASA scientist but like a judge: “For a level-one risk like POGO, we must initiate a complete, independent review process.”
“The process is as follows:”
First, we will establish an independent POGO vibration investigation team composed of experts from Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Glenn Research Center, and Marshall Space Flight Center to fully reproduce and analyze SpaceX’s test data.
Second, before any flight test, the Raptor engine must undergo at least six months of full-condition ground vibration modal testing on the ground.
Finally, SpaceX must establish a brand-new computational fluid dynamics model for the full-flow staged combustion cycle methane engine, which has been peer-reviewed by our NESC.
Note, it must be brand new. Your past Falcon 9 RP-1 kerosene engine models are not applicable here.
Dr. Eleanor said indifferently: “After completing all the above steps, you need to submit to this committee a safety certification report of no less than one thousand pages on this solution.
We will organize a hearing for a three-month review.”
After she finished speaking, she calmly looked at Musk and gave the conclusion: “We expect that the entire process will take about 18 to 24 months.
Only after that can we approve the ignition and liftoff of SN33.”
Musk had been listening quietly all along.
When “24 months” came out of Dr. Eleanor’s mouth, he smiled. He knew the swamp would fight back; he just didn’t expect the fight back to come so quickly.
“Dr. Eleanor,” Musk said coldly, making the atmosphere in the room even colder: “I have great respect for you and the Apollo era engineers, but this is not 1965.”
“You say our data is insufficient.
In the past three years, the Starship prototype has conducted more than twenty high-altitude flight tests.
The engine telemetry data we have from real flight environments exceeds the total of all your projects over the past fifty years! We have data! We don’t need to spend two years simulating on a computer something we’ve already flown dozens of times!”
“This process you’re talking about,” his voice suddenly rose, “is not for safety; it’s for liability exemption! It’s to let every bureaucrat find a signature on a future possible accident report proving they ‘fulfilled all procedures’! The sole purpose of this process is to protect the system itself, not to send people to the Moon!”
He stood up and walked to the wall hung with photos of Apollo astronauts.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest risk we face today is not POGO vibration.
The greatest risk we face is sitting in this room, spending two years writing a thousand-page report for a single engine test!
And in these two years, Chinese people have already built their permanent base on the Moon, built their Lunar Ultra-Low Temperature Laboratory, and even now they’ve built something like an electromagnetic rail!”
“This is the real risk that our country cannot afford!”
The meeting room was deathly silent.
The flame that Lin Ran wanted to ignite in the modern era first ignited Musk.
Musk’s eyes were full of flames, flames to burn NASA’s old world to ashes. He had had enough of the current NASA; the lunar rover had already been exposed by me, and you still dare to play like this?
Dr. Eleanor’s face still insisted on correct procedures; if procedures weren’t correct, they wouldn’t need to play at all.
That flight preparation review ended unpleasantly.
Musk took his engineers and left Washington that same day.
He didn’t argue with anyone else at NASA headquarters again, nor did he submit any appeal documents.
In the following week, Washington’s bureaucrats enjoyed a moment of victory.
Their so-called victory.
Dr. Eleanor’s NESC methodically established the “POGO Vibration Independent Investigation Team” and sent SpaceX a 300-page email requesting initial data.
Everything seemed to return to that familiar, year-long slow rhythm.
A week later, without any advance notice, Elon Musk’s Twitter account suddenly started a global live broadcast.
The background of the live broadcast was not any office or press room.
It was the open-air factory building of SpaceX factory filled with huge stainless steel ring parts and the roar of machinery.
Musk was standing in front of a Raptor engine that had just completed final assembly and was about to be hoisted onto the test bench.
He was wearing a black T-shirt printed with “Occupy Mars,” looking more like a workshop director than a NASA director.
“Hi, everyone.” He waved at the lens, and millions of global audience surged into the live stream room. “In the past few weeks, I’ve had a series of productive meetings with my colleagues in Washington and at NASA.”
His opening remarks temporarily relieved NASA’s headquarters public relations department that was watching the live broadcast.
“We discussed history, discussed safety, discussed every rigorous step needed to return to the Moon.” He continued, “I learned a lot.
The most important thing I learned is: we are too slow.”
“We are trapped by processes, committees, and reports thousands of pages long.
And our opponents are on the Moon, using electromagnetic cannons to mock every one of our PPTs.”
“So, starting today, we are going to change the game rules.”
He walked around the huge Raptor engine, announcing to the lens while walking his most disruptive “executive order” as NASA director.
He said: “I will disband the Artemis Acceleration Council that I established when I took office. Because it created a new department, and we don’t need more departments.”
“In its place is a new working principle called extreme transparency.
Starting next week, all non-classified NASA engineering meetings, weekly progress meetings, and even budget discussions on the return to the Moon program will be live-streamed in full on NASA’s official website.
All meeting minutes, technical documents, and test data will be uploaded in real time to public servers for any America taxpayer to download and review.”
This statement was like a bomb.
“I know what you’re going to say: don’t we need secrecy? What about our secrets? What if our technology leaks?
Come on, everyone, look at the sky—China’s electromagnetic rail is pointing at us. They are ahead of us by far too much. If we continue following NASA’s past code of conduct, then the gap between us and them is not the five years that NASA experts say, but fifty years, or even an eternal fifty years that will never shrink.”
He walked to the very front of the lens, his expression shifting from lightly teasing the gap between the two sides to serious: “Regarding POGO vibration.
This is a serious engineering problem.
Last week, NASA’s top-tier safety experts and our SpaceX engineers had an intense debate on this.
They require us to spend 18 to 24 months conducting ground simulations and writing reports.
They are right; based on past experience, this is the safest approach. However, the greatest safety is winning this competition!
So, I have decided to launch the largest-scale public peer review in history.
At this moment, we have uploaded all test data for the SN32 prototype, including that controversial POGO vibration spectrum, as well as our designed software and hardware solutions, to GitHub and NASA’s open-source website.
Here, I invite every aerospace engineer in the world, every university fluid mechanics professor, every smart amateur scientist watching the live broadcast, to review our data and challenge our proposal.
Including Randolph, if you are willing, you can also come give me some pointers; I believe you can help us find the problem, or even the solution!
Let’s use one week, with the wisdom of all humanity, to complete work that would take a committee two years.”
Finally, he walked back to the Raptor engine and gently patted its cold casing.
Behind him, a massive crane was slowly lifting the upper half of the SN33 Starship, preparing to mate it with the lower half.
“Based on our own data, confidence in first principles of physics, and the consensus from the global engineering community that I believe is coming, I announce that the SN33 Starship, equipped with the new POGO suppression system, will undergo flight testing next month as planned.
We will use real flight to acquire the most precious data.
We will iterate and progress at the fastest speed.”
Mr. President did not ask me to write a perfect report.
He asked me to lead America back to the Moon, and to win.
We have two paths before us: one leading to more documents, one to higher skies.
I choose the sky.”
Musk seized the only possible world node and flipped the table.
In a normal, peacetime Washington, Musk’s way of playing would absolutely not be allowed.
He would be jointly strangled by Congress, law, process, and media.
But at this moment filled with crisis and humiliation, he seized the only opportunity.
Because the current Washington is no longer a normal Washington.
It is a power center stunned by double shocks.
The recovery of BY-2 shocked America no less than a small-scale Pearl Harbor Incident.
It indisputably proves that America has been overtaken by China in some key future technology fields.
This turns “winning the space race” from a political slogan into the highest level of emergency.
In the face of this new form of space race, all bureaucratic discussions about process, budget, and procedure seem pale and powerless.
All of Washington, from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, began to be permeated with a panic emotion of chasing at all costs.
Musk’s hearing caused the credibility of NASA and the traditional military-industrial complex to collapse overnight.
It deprived Congress establishment and NASA old bureaucrats of the moral legitimacy to counterattack.
Thus, a new, eerie power balance formed within Washington.
The White House undoubtedly absolutely supports Musk’s approach, because for them, Musk’s behavior is simply a gift from heaven.
This perfectly fits the narrative of draining the swamp; Musk is staging a real-life version of draining the Washington swamp in the most direct way.
Every bureaucrat and contractor he attacks becomes a living target for the White House’s deep state and corrupt elites.
And at this moment of intense pressure from China’s technology breakthrough, a sky-descended tough guy like Musk, full of personal heroism, is the perfect spokesperson for the White House to show voters America’s power and determination.
His only flaw is that he is not a native-born American, he is a South African white person, but in the face of AI in America being uniformly Chinese descent, Musk’s race is already impeccably politically correct.
Congress’s establishment faction naturally hates Musk thoroughly.
His behavior not only challenges their budget authority but also humiliates the local interests deeply tied to military-industrial enterprises that they represent.
But now, they are trapped in a political desperate situation:
Opposing Musk equals supporting corruption: in the face of the lunar rover scandal, any congressman trying to obstruct Musk with process will immediately be labeled by media and voters as “colluding with corrupt contractors.”
Opposing Musk also equals weakness toward China; in the national frenzy of chasing China’s lunar progress, any behavior stepping on the brakes for the lunar plan is no different from political suicide.
Therefore, although Congress will verbally reprimand Musk in various hearings, in actual funding and authorization, they dare not and cannot truly obstruct.
Musk completely bypassed NASA’s old system with his own plan; Grov thought Musk would first rectify personnel, pull out people and projects one by one, first clean up the embezzlement and corruption within NASA, then train the team, gradually streamline personnel, and keep those who do the work.
Instead, Musk directly pierced through NASA’s shell, discarded the shell entirely, bypassed it completely, and relied solely on SpaceX to operate the moon landing.
In this situation, Washington is not allowing him to do so; rather, besides supporting him, they have no other choice.
This way of playing, for a guy like Grov, undoubtedly puts him on the fire to roast; how does he cash in the interests for the military-industrial complex? If the military-industrial complex’s appetite is not satisfied, his life is truly in danger.
“No, I still have a chance; as long as Musk makes a mistake, it’s my opportunity,” Grov thought.
Similarly, Musk knows he is dancing on a steel wire; the more intensely he plays now, the more ferocious the counterattack will be once he shows a flaw.
After the live broadcast, he called Jonathan, who had been transferred from Aerospace Corporation to special vice president of Tesla Greater China.
On the surface, working in Greater China, but actually always Musk’s left and right arm.
As for why Musk trusts him, because Jonathan provided a large amount of secret internal NASA documents to Musk, the kind where if Musk publishes them, he wouldn’t live past the second night.
“Jonathan, I’m entrusting you with a crucial task: go to China and have a good talk with Randolph. We need his help, and it’s time to fulfill his promise.”
