Chapter 453: The Dawn Of The Space Age
Influence is a very mysterious thing.
You can’t touch it, and most of the time, there’s no intuitive sense of its power.
Just like how the vast majority of ordinary people can’t accurately discern the influence of a big V.
After Feng Ge was called out by a certain big V Yan Wang, he vanished from the internet, not daring to speak, let alone say what he used to love saying about this being a good thing; he didn’t dare to do live broadcasts anymore, not even post on Weibo.
This big V who fled overseas just simply made a video, its power comparable to Avada Kedavra.
This is a manifestation of influence.
Similarly, Lin Ran’s short sentence also had power comparable to Avada Kedavra.
The Douyin user he named had an avatar of a 2D girl; nothing could be seen from the avatar.
But lying on the sofa watching the live broadcast, this user was already trembling in fear in reality.
He knew he was indirectly working for the Foreign Ministry, traveling back and forth between Tokyo and Shanghai.
But he never imagined that just casually posting a somewhat professional show-off bullet screen would result in him being named by Lin Ran.
Amid thousands of bullet screens, it specifically picked his; the odds were comparable to winning the lottery.
With this one name-drop, his face turned ashen; he might never be able to return to China in his lifetime.
Lin Ran wouldn’t investigate, but netizens would, and relevant Chinese sides would.
He hurriedly switched to the settings interface, trying to cancel his account; his hand speed had never been this fast.
Lin Ran didn’t care at all and continued speaking to himself:
“Alright, just kidding; in terms of capability and technological prospects, it does indeed possess the ability to project weapons to the ground, as this netizen said.
But we absolutely won’t do that.
We are a private commercial aerospace agency; our goal is profit, and from beginning to end, we have nothing to do with kinetic weapons or geopolitics.”
After Lin Ran’s explanation, most netizens on the bullet screen were spamming: “I get it.”
Normal Chinese netizens know that having the capability and making it public are two different things.
Except for a very few abnormal countries, like Squid, which openly claims to control everyone’s mobile phone, others, even if they have such capability, won’t publicize it loudly.
“Next question: when will moon tourism be launched?
I estimate that before 2030, we will launch a super cheap version, a moon tourism project with a single-person cost of ten million RMB.
It will depend on the moon’s carrying capacity at that time and the moon base construction situation for opening to the outside; if few people register, you’ll just need to pass a physical exam to go; if many register, there might be a lottery draw or bidding.
Anyway, everyone definitely won’t have to wait too long; it will definitely be within our lifetime, not like nuclear fusion, which always has another fifty years.”
Lin Ran’s live broadcast ignited public opinion and attention to the moon.
Three days later, after successfully recovering Queqiao in the East China Sea area, the discussion reached a new height.
Although China has already connected different craters at the Lunar South Pole into a solid bloc, that was Joe’s doing; after I took office, in just two short years, I built a base at the Lunar North Pole; this could greatly boost his midterm elections.
As for the underwater transactions, with data and navigation system from China, leading to the rapid development of China’s semiconductor industry, even producing something like a 7nm fully independent domestic production line that exceeds the understanding of East Asia semiconductor practitioners, who would know?
In the viewing hall next to the Houston control center, the Stars and Stripes hanging everywhere showed the sufficiently enthusiastic atmosphere here, while the varied expressions of the guests revealed that this time it wasn’t entirely as America promoted—a great victory’s beginning, the opening of the Space Age.
Mr. President wore his signature red tie, sitting in the front row center.
He needed this victory, one that could completely overshadow their biggest competitor’s moon base infrastructure.
“Look at this beast, completely American-made, the best!” Big T said to the special envoy from Saudi Arabia beside him.
The Saudi special envoy inwardly grumbled: “Really completely American-made? It won’t be another laughingstock like the lunar rover, will it?
The former NASA director could cooperate with China; why can’t Musk now? He has big business in China; his ties to China are much greater than the previous director’s.”
But on the surface, he was all smiles and flattered: “Of course, America is of course the best!”
He didn’t even wait for the translator and continued signaling to the allied dignitaries around: “Joe gave the Lunar South Pole to China; that was a disaster.
And I, I will plant the flag at the North Pole and build a city called Big T Base! We will make America great again; this is something President Kennedy and President Johnson didn’t achieve!”
In another building in Houston, SpaceX founder Elon Musk stared intently at the main control screen.
He wore the most common black T-shirt, holding an empty coffee cup in his hand.
Although the outside world thought he had victory in the bag, Musk’s heart was filled with anxiety that only he knew.
This moon-modified Starship not only had to complete the parallel super-long-duration ignition of multiple Raptor engines to ensure precise entry into the trans-lunar injection orbit, but also guarantee the structural integrity of the bracket-style landing legs upon landing, as they would bear the huge weight of the base prefabricated parts.
Actually taking on huge risk is completely different from testing.
Musk thought to himself: “Damn, 500-ton payload; this is a challenge to the structural limit; we’ve solved the ‘Raptor’ chain failure from the last launch, but is it really okay this time?”
This stemmed from doubts about the Starship’s ultra-multiple engine parallel setup.
This technology is still a distance from maturity.
He cast his gaze toward the jumping navigation data stream on the screen.
This core set of ultra-high-precision inertial measurement unit and Earth-Moon space navigation data was precisely the product of their secret technical exchange with China.
This system’s error rate in deep space environment is far lower than any existing NASA product.
Its reliability has already been verified multiple times; this is actually the least to worry about.
Ambassadors from various countries all smiled and raised their wine glasses to toast Big T, though many inwardly harbored dissatisfaction.
Japan was required to make a 500 billion US dollar massive investment in America; they didn’t want it all going into America’s AI infrastructure projects.
This timeline is 500 billion because America faces much greater pressure; they need to suck more blood from allies to ensure their own development.
The Japanese side hoped some of the funds could go into aerospace, into the moon base project.
The reason is simple: on one hand, risk diversification—you can’t put all your treasure on AI; the distance between LLM and general AGI doesn’t seem to have shrunk; on the other hand, America’s harsh revenue split ratio: Japan 1, America 9.
If you split the cake like that, I’d rather invest in aerospace, a field that doesn’t even talk about profit; I wouldn’t get much anyway, but at least I’d have shares in your moon base, have presence, be able to send Japanese people up, and along the way do some frontier materials research, which is Japan’s strength.
But, regrettably, it was flatly rejected by America.
They only accept Japan’s investment in the projects they selected, namely AI infrastructure.
The chairman of the European Commission turned to the French ambassador beside him and whispered in French: “Chinese people are speaking with moon base infrastructure capability; America is chasing.
They all treat the moon as their own backyard.
We in Europe must accelerate our Ariane plan, or we won’t even get a ticket to the moon in the future.”
Europe excels at having a sense of crisis—lots of it—but no action, or rather, action worse than none.
Kennedy Space Center, countdown: T-10 seconds.
Big T stood up; his movement made everyone else rise as well.
“1098”
“4321”
T-0!
Twenty-nine Raptor engines ignited simultaneously, orange-red flames surging out, heat waves rolling. The Starship slowly and steadily rose from the ground amid massive white smoke.
The ground shook violently; the glass in the viewing hall buzzed.
“Liftoff!” Musk’s voice rang through the venue.
The Starship began accelerating, passing through the clouds.
Houston control center, 2 minutes after liftoff.
“Acceleration normal! Thrust curve perfect!” A smile finally appeared on Musk’s lips.
He knew the most dangerous phase was past.
After the Starship successfully entered the trans-lunar injection orbit, thunderous applause erupted in the viewing hall.
Big T stood at the podium, waving his arms, his voice filled with the zeal of a victor: “We succeeded! America is back! Not only will we send people to the moon, we will build a permanent, beautiful, great Big T Base there! We will prove that in space, freedom and innovation are always the best weapons! Let those guys building railways at the South Pole see—we are the true masters of space!”
His words were impassioned and full of incitement.
In fact, out of his sight, the Starship was relying on that covert Chinese navigation system to correct the tiny deviations in entering the Earth-Moon orbit.
Shortly after the deafening roar from Kennedy Space Center, at the launch pad in Florida, another giant rocket was ready.
This was the moon landing project jointly built by Blue Origin under Jeff Bezos and Indian industrial giant Tata Group.
Blue Origin’s new rocket, codenamed “Odyssey.”
Bluntly put, it’s Saturn V.
After the Apollo Moon Landing success, Bezos has always aimed to replicate Saturn V.
Whether collecting information from America itself or openly poaching people from General Aerospace.
Bezos could be said to have spared no effort.
Three-stage design, massive size, classic black-and-white coloring.
And this mission cost up to 50 billion US dollars, a combination of America and India’s technological and capital ambitions.
Clearly, this launch only had Tata Group high-level officials, Indian diplomats, and the Blue Origin team present.
