Chapter 410: What? Me?
Musk thought very clearly that this move of his was all-in. If he won, he could keep working at NASA, and truly mastering this massive machine would be no problem. If he lost, he would have to leave Washington completely, with no possibility of returning.
In the future, even SpaceX would face pressure from Washington, being split, dismantled, and so on. The bureaucratic system has plenty of ways to deal with you.
This was a gamble, a gamble that had to be made.
Apollo Technology’s electromagnetic recovery and the pressure from the White House forced Musk to choose to make a big bet.
And Lin Ran’s help was the trump card as he understood it.
Since the people at the White House swore confidently that selling NIL technology to China was no problem and that it was a trap after China got it, then he had to hurry. Before China realized it was a trap, he needed to cooperate with the Chinese side first and get what he could.
Regardless of whether the NIL lithography machine was a trap or not, he had achieved his purpose.
This was what Musk thought: to build America’s Moon Base at the Lunar North Pole in the shortest possible time.
Ideally, land at the Lunar North Pole this year and hand-build a preliminary base next year that could provide a natural life survival cycle.
Jonathan arrived in China Shanghai dusty and travel-worn. He had been here twenty years ago, but this time was worlds apart from then.
Because of the 144-hour visa-on-arrival, plus in recent years Shanghai as China’s representative city constantly appearing on the external network, from TikTok to Instagram, Shanghai was the unavoidable city for understanding China.
Foreigners’ first stop for tourism in China would also choose to land in Shanghai.
So, Jonathan’s first reaction upon landing was that there were so many foreigners here.
Compared to twenty years ago, the number had increased more than tenfold.
This was only referring to non-yellow people with obvious foreign features. If Japan and Korea were included, it was even more unimaginable.
“Boss, I’m Allen Wang, in charge of picking you up. You can just call me Allen.”
Holding a sign and confirming identity, the Tesla Greater China staff in charge of pickup smoothly received Jonathan.
Because this visit to China was a secret, non-public one, Tesla Greater China also adopted a strategy of keeping as low-key as possible.
After Jonathan got in the car and fastened his seatbelt, he asked: “I’ve seen on Reddit that China has L5-level autonomous driving cars, right?”
He saw one outside the window and pointed: “If I want to try that thing, how do I do it?”
Allen said: “Boss, that’s China’s Yun Ji. It’s currently still in a trial operation state.
Although it went online at the beginning of this year, and in the middle of the year Huawei also opened applications for enterprises. After enterprises apply, they can obtain purchase permissions for internal enterprise use only.
But it still needs time before large-scale release. From a regulatory perspective, there are still some very important issues that haven’t been figured out.
The most important is safety. For an L5-level autonomous driving vehicle, if it’s hacked causing a safety accident, how to assign responsibility?
For China, China hopes Huawei or Crimson Technology can prevent such things from happening; similar events cannot occur.
You can handle emergencies in crisis situations, but they also can’t avoid accidents from malicious attacks.
This seems still under discussion. Without a way to clarify it, Yanjing doesn’t want to rashly open it up.
As for you wanting to try it, later you can book on the mini-program. After arriving at the hotel, I’ll tell you how to operate it.
Just that booking might take a long time to wait, because now the first thing tourists do when coming to Shanghai for tourism is to experience Yun Ji.”
Allen explained in detail. He wasn’t clear on the new vice president’s style, but based on his past experience receiving foreigners, they all preferred the more detailed the better.
After Huawei opened enterprise purchase qualifications, Silly Girl was no longer called Silly Girl; it was renamed Yun Ji.
If users liked the Silly Girl name, they could still switch back in the settings.
Jonathan thought for a moment: “Do we have it?”
Allen said: “We have it, but we bought it mainly for research, not for receiving guests.”
Jonathan nodded: “Yes, that makes sense. We are Tesla after all; sooner or later we’ll surpass them in autonomous driving!”
He thought to himself, when will we achieve a reversal in the aerospace field?
Jonathan stayed in Shanghai for five days, basically experiencing all the streets and alleys of Shanghai, and gained a deeper understanding of Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory.
Especially gaining a brand-new understanding of China’s industrial endowment.
Five days later, at Apollo Technology headquarters, he finally met Lin Ran.
In the external network media, Lin Ran was promoted as an evil scientist single-mindedly plotting to destroy the world.
Reddit’s conspiracy theory section even had Lin Ran surpassing Bill Gates to become the new conspiracy theory protagonist.
After seeing the real person, Jonathan didn’t think the other was a villain; he just felt the aura, an aura of strong confidence, as if there was nothing in this world he couldn’t do.
“Professor, I’m Jonathan, Jonathan Smith, special envoy of Mr. Elon Musk.
Elon and I both extend our highest respect to you and your team for the achievements in the Lunar Project.
You not only landed on the Moon but also solved the core engineering problems of long-term survival on the lunar surface.” Jonathan said.
Lin Ran nodded: “Time is precious; let’s get straight to the point.”
Jonathan said: “Okay, Professor. Musk hopes you will fulfill your promise and help us build a base at the Lunar North Pole.
We hope to complete the construction of the Lunar North Pole Base by the end of next year.”
Lin Ran corrected: “Jonathan, my promise was to help you achieve Lunar North Pole landing, not to build the Lunar North Pole Base.”
He stood up and went to the Moon map in the office—accurately, the Lunar South Pole map—with craters densely marked, and three red flags already inserted.
As a lunar surface research expert, Jonathan saw at a glance that these three locations had actually firmly controlled the entire Lunar South Pole; there was no point in them going anymore.
“No, Professor, we provided top-tier technology like NIL.”
Lin Ran said seriously: “Jonathan, I greatly admire Mr. Musk’s boldness and the Starship system.
I’m not sure if Elon can get the Moon-landing version of Starship ready in one year.
If he can, you indeed have the ability to transport large amounts of materials to the Moon.
But this is only one of the foundations for building a base on the Moon; it’s not all.”
Lin Ran changed the subject: “To be frank, I have a general understanding of the purge storm Musk stirred up in Washington. He successfully knocked down NASA’s internal bureaucratic system and those inefficient contractors; he won the war against the deep state.
For that, I personally congratulate him.”
Jonathan felt puzzled; he didn’t catch the meaning between them.
“But the problem is,” Lin Ran continued, “what he knocked down—was it just the bureaucratic system?
A plan to support a Moon Base requires more than just a rocket that can fly.
It needs a massive, healthy industrial system with extremely high reliability.
It needs thousands of reliable suppliers who can deliver on time, on quality, and in quantity, from a radiation-resistant screw to a perfect life support system valve.
He looked at Jonathan and asked the most fatal question: “Does America now have such conditions?
Your old NASA system, though corrupt and inefficient, at least maintained a complete supplier network tested through the Apollo era.
Now that Musk has bypassed those bureaucrats and contractors, has he considered that he also destroyed that old but existing industrial ecosystem?
Now, he has won the victory; he has absolute power.
Maybe he can send a thousand tons of materials to space in 12 months.
But, Jonathan, think about it: who will produce that battery thermal control module that still works stably in the -170°C low temperature of the lunar night?
That life support system that filters carbon dioxide from astronauts’ exhalations with a 99.9% recycling rate—which of your new suppliers has the ability to pass manned spaceflight’s extreme safety tests in 12 months?
Those special alloys and ceramic components that need to withstand huge temperature differences and cosmic radiation—are you planning to take them directly from 3D printing labs for use in the crew module?”
Lin Ran slowly walked back to the chair, sat down, and looked straight at Jonathan:
“Of course you can solve these problems.
But that requires time, massive R&D and certification from scratch.
This completely contradicts the speed Mr. Musk promised the President.
Of course you have another choice: import from China.
We have all this ready-made.
If old NASA could come to us to buy, why can’t new NASA?
You can purchase mature, fully project-verified life support systems, energy modules, robot units from us, then slap on NASA’s label, and launch them to space with your Starship.
But the problem is, how do you ensure it won’t be discovered in the process?
What you’re importing is far more than a small lunar rover.
The difficulty of hiding it from everyone, I think, is on par with studio moon landing.”
Lin Ran struck fatally, finding the loophole in Elon Musk’s strategy.
A Moon Base isn’t just about getting things up there; you need a system. SpaceX can solve the vehicle problem—what about the rest?
After bypassing old NASA, how does your new NASA find over ten thousand suppliers again? To achieve such complex high-end industrial products?
Did Jonathan know about the problems Lin Ran mentioned? Of course he did; how could he not after working at NASA’s fringe institutions for so many years.
He clapped and said: “Professor, your analysis hits the nail on the head.
This is our current dilemma. Yes, we currently cannot produce a supplier list that can provide a full set of flight-verified Moon Base life support and energy systems within 18 months.
But you also made a mistake: you assumed that the old NASA system we wanted to destroy actually existed and was useful.”
Lin Ran’s understanding of NASA was still largely stuck in the 1960s.
Jonathan spoke rapidly and calmly: “The battery thermal control module, carbon dioxide filtration system, special alloy components, etc., you just mentioned—do you think before Musk flipped the table, companies like Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman could immediately provide us with flyable versions of these things?”
Jonathan smiled self-mockingly, his smile full of contempt for Washington’s bureaucratic system.
“Professor, that VIPER PPT concept lunar rover isn’t an isolated case; it’s the norm.
In the old NASA system, there are countless such ghosts.
We have a $3 billion next-generation spacesuit program, and so far, all we’ve gotten is a ground model where the elbows can’t bend.
We also have a brand-new life support system project with a 99.9% recycling rate—sounds as advanced as your technology, right? But in Houston’s ground tests, it has failed seven times in a row, and each time the contractor gets a new, higher-amount improvement contract.
So, Professor, what Musk shattered wasn’t an old but fully functional industrial ecosystem.
What he shattered was a hallucination.
It was a gorgeous illusion of ‘we can still do it’ built jointly by PPTs, concept diagrams, endless review meetings, and astronomical budgets after the Cold War ended, when NASA was already dead in name only.
In reality, we simply couldn’t do it anymore.”
Jonathan’s definition of NASA was more precise; after all, he had watched firsthand how NASA sank bit by bit.
“The output of that old system was never flyable hardware, but PPTs that could pass Congressional budget reviews. Its only purpose for existing was to keep the entire system surviving, not to send people to the Moon.”
Jonathan said firmly: “So yes, we are starting from scratch on a pile of ruins.
But this pile of ruins wasn’t blown up by us; it had long existed.
We just bravely tore down that canvas painted with castles in the air covering the ruins.”
Lin Ran listened quietly.
Jonathan then stated the real intention: “Professor, this is also why we’re coming to you. Going to the Lunar North Pole is just one purpose; becoming the bridge between us and the effective parts of old NASA is an even more important purpose.”
Lin Ran and Jonathan’s meeting showed bewilderment for the first time.
Me? Help you become the bridge between new NASA and old NASA? Did you find out something? I served as NASA Director for eight years; did you discover that I could have stayed on into the 21st century if I wanted?
Jonathan said seriously: “Yes, Professor, you didn’t hear wrong.
I hope you can become the bridge between us and old NASA. Only then can we achieve the seemingly impossible goal of building a preliminary small Moon Base at the Lunar North Pole next year.
We need cooperation; we need the relatively effective parts of old NASA.”
