Chapter 458: Reactions From The Outside World
Lin Ran finally showed a faint smile.
The Apollo Technology engineers around him, after reading the orbit change success signal from the data curve, all felt a sense of relief.
They were all professionals who knew the risks involved well, and they also knew there was no team at all—it was all based on Lin Ran’s individual judgment.
What divine power was this, leaving all the engineers in the room utterly convinced.
It was hard to imagine this was something a human could do.
During Lin Ran’s command process, everyone didn’t even dare to breathe loudly, afraid of indirectly affecting the success or failure of this rescue.
After all, this sudden major event had already become news sweeping the globe.
It spread from the temporary press hall in Florida outward.
From America across the ocean to China on this side of the sea, the heat of this event had overshadowed everything, becoming the current focus.
The construction progress of Big T Base, the unveiling after Big T Moon Base is built—these instantly became roadside news.
Previously Blue Origin was roadside news, now Big T and NASA are roadside news.
In Big T’s view, all narratives about America’s space ambitions were completely overwhelmed by a rescue operation from China.
What behavior was this from Bezos? This was betrayal, betraying great America.
This was the Donkey Party pulling conspiracy tricks behind the scenes.
Big T was so angry that he posted consecutively on his own social media, Truth Social:
“Scam! All of it is a show! In just two short years, I got NASA and SpaceX to plant our flag at the Lunar North Pole! We are building the grandest base in history, to be named T Base! And now? All media are talking about that Chinese rescue ship! This is a media coup orchestrated by fake news media and the failed Donkey Party behind the scenes! They stole our victory!”
“That loser Bezos owes America an explanation! His bulky rocket uses outdated design, producing defective lunar modules! This is an insult to American technology! Then he actually paid Apollo Technology! This is funding our biggest competitor! He should be stripped of all government contracts! This is shameful behavior!”
Conservative media jumped on it, attacking Bezos one after another.
Conveniently attacking international cooperation as well.
They believed there should be no international cooperation in the aerospace field; SpaceX succeeded relying only on American domestic power, while Blue Origin, deeply bundled with India, suffered a huge failure.
As for General Aerospace, this was a bug; conservative KOLs pretended not to see it, and Big T’s accusations were similarly ignored.
Because General was the first to cooperate with China.
In America, whether elephants or donkeys, everyone ignored General’s actions, whether cooperating with China or producing trash like Xiaomi lunar rover.
Everyone knew to pinch soft persimmons.
A tough nut like General, better leave it alone.
Besides, Old John Morgan is in Tokyo now, making a killing for everyone; Washington politicians all have a share in the famous names, not for the monk’s sake but the Buddha’s face.
“Washington suddenly discovered that in the most critical moment, they had to rely on their biggest competitor to save American astronauts’ lives—this was an extremely embarrassing political failure.
This also punctured the White House’s narrative logic about NASA catching up to China Aerospace.”
The Donkey Party seized on it: the White House was incompetent, so Bezos was forced to beg China for help on the astronaut issue.
Conveniently shaping Bezos into a moral exemplar, emphasizing this was responsible behavior toward life.
In China, “Blue Origin Lin Ran”, “Space Rescue China Talent is the Protagonist”, “Queqiao Rescue” these three entries occupied the top three on Weibo rankings respectively.
Apollo Technology’s official account urgently produced a 3D animation to explain to Chinese netizens the predicament Blue Origin encountered and their rescue proposal.
So everyone knows, this time Queqiao is responsible for the rescue.
“Didn’t the trolls previously say Queqiao was useless? Saying after reusable rockets, doing space electromagnetic rail was superfluous.
Where are they now? Isn’t this useful? Without space electromagnetic rail, how could we routinely deploy spaceships on the Moon? How could we complete the rescue immediately?”
“Their meaning isn’t that space electromagnetic rail is superfluous; they are dancing to dog whistles. Didn’t you notice, external networks hype the most about the Lunar Steel Dragon being space militarization?
Domestic ones dancing along are purely following external networks; whatever external networks say, they do a bit of localization and start barking domestically.
Now Queqiao is going to rescue Americans, so I want to ask back: is it useful or not? Are we weaponizing space, or upholding internationalist spirit for aid? Come out and speak!”
“I’ve always felt the name Queqiao is really inappropriate; Lunar Steel Dragon could be called Queqiao, after all its appearance is like a bridge.”
“From what I heard from Bezos, they only paid cost fees. Can Ran Shen not be so generous? Why not seize this opportunity to slaughter the Americans? If it were me, I’d charge at least 30 billion US dollars, 10 billion US dollars per person isn’t excessive, right?”
“When can domestic directors remake this space rescue? Isn’t this way more exciting than the trash topics you shoot? And you wonder why no one watches movies—because your topics suck, content sucks, not as thrilling as real events. Ghosts would go watch.”
“Better not remake it. I don’t believe domestic directors can tell this story well. Damn, by the end the lens would be a black female astronaut and white male astronaut kissing in the returning Queqiao, I’d be disgusted to death.”
“Indeed, if not directed by Guo Fan, with other directors, they’d probably focus on the love story of male and female astronauts, treating China space rescue as background.”
Chinese netizens were discussing heatedly too; this was China taking the protagonist role.
And this was a concentrated outburst of multiple complex emotions and national narratives.
The concretization of technical surpassing, the shattering of “Western myth”—of course this shattering wasn’t once or twice, just this time the shattering contrasted too sharply with the white saviors in Hollywood movies.
Completely breaking the long-standing leading myth constructed by the West in space exploration, humanitarianism, and high technology fields.
Finally, it was the extension of infrastructure maniac.
In the past, China infrastructure maniac—opponents always focused on how big infrastructure era all countries had it, nothing special; America, Japan’s big treasury department all went through this period.
So now? Does every country have “space new infrastructure” symbolized by lunar electromagnetic rail?
China’s unique low-cost, reusable Moon transportation system brought unparalleled pride to Chinese people.
Just like Starship chopsticks recovery, it could make Chinese netizens following this feel frustrated, sensing a big gap with America in aerospace field.
But normal Chinese netizens’ feeling about this event was: we can do it, just need time; we need five to eight years to catch up, sooner or later we’ll have our own reusable rockets, sooner or later fix Starship.
American netizens are different; after experiencing California spending hundreds of billions US dollars on high-speed rail only building one kilometer, their first reaction to Lunar Steel Dragon was: America can never do it.
Because they no longer have such ability.
On Reddit and Twitter, netizens’ comments were surprisingly consistent—not “we should build a better one”, but with heavy self-mockery: “We can never do it.”
This collective pessimistic sentiment stemmed from a painful close association.
That was the California high-speed rail project.
It consumed hundreds of billions US dollars from taxpayers, yet in the desolate Central Valley barely completed a short section, ultimately becoming Commissioner Smith’s symbolic project.
“Look at that abandoned rail in California, then look at the Steel Dragon on the Moon.
We can’t even build a straight rail in the desert, yet talk about launching spaceships from the Moon?”
This was the common question in American netizens’ hearts, the collective lament of all insightful Americans facing their own decline.
History is a cycle.
Current Black Sea shipyard director Yuri Makarov, when asked how to complete the Varyag half-built at Soviet Union dissolution, Makarov replied:
“I need Soviet Union, Moscow, State Planning Committee, Military Industrial Commission and nine defense industrial ministries, 600 related majors, 8000 supporting factories—in short, a great country to complete it.”
Makarov’s words were an epic portrayal of the whole-nation system, the highest ode to an era’s industrial capability.
American netizens directly projected this sentence onto China’s lunar orbit:
“China built the Lunar Steel Dragon because they have that great country.
They have the ability to integrate top-tier superconducting material technology, nuclear reactor technology, moon soil 3D printing technology, and the will of hundreds of thousands of engineers, realizing a national-level will projection.
And us? We have Wall Street capital, top creativity, and Musk’s genius, but they are shackled by endless political infighting, interest group haggling, and excessive pursuit of cost.
We long ago lost that cost-be-damned, goal-only collective mobilization ability, and this ability will never return.”
This space rescue was an unprecedented muscle show.
On the day the event happened, at a public forum at Harvard, when Mearsheimer was asked about it by a student in the audience, he said:
“In the cold jungle of international politics, only power is the ultimate currency.
US Dollar is the endorsement of power; we are losing power.
This seeming rescue is actually strategic deterrence.
We must peel off the civilian technology veneer to see its core military potential.
GPS started from Vietnam War, its impact—the systematized, informatized war mode fully matured in Gulf War.
Similarly, China’s core capability shown this time is cross-million-kilometer, high-precision, ultra-fast response orbital maneuver ability.
They can precisely calculate and intercept a target drifting in deep space, completing orbit change in an extremely short time window.
In civilian use, it’s life-saving technology; but in military, it’s an ultimate space weapon.
If China can precisely intercept a high-speed drifting escape pod, then they can equally precisely intercept or strike any satellite or military asset operating in Earth orbit or even Earth-Moon space.
This rescue proved China has rapid reaction and power projection capability in the vast lunar gravity field.
This means they have the ability to establish a no-fly zone on the Moon.
They can pose huge threats to any foreign assets entering lunar orbit without launching chemical rockets or producing visible flames.
In fact, we have already lost the Moon.
So why no one cares about the base built by the president on the Moon.
That’s just a toy.
No matter how splendidly it’s built, its existence relies on China’s benevolence.
Deterrence logic is: can do means already done.
Deterrence lies not in actual action, but in potential capability.
I’m not saying China has already weaponized their lunar electromagnetic rail.
But the point is, they can!
This is the essence of deterrence.”
After Mearsheimer finished, he seemed somewhat dejected: “This event will fundamentally change our and our allies’ perception of space security.
In the near future, we will have to spend hundreds of billions US dollars trying to develop similar counter systems, and before that, we will all live under the shadow of the other’s space deterrence.”
Mearsheimer concluded with a tone of slight helplessness: “In space, there is no friendship, only indisputable capability.
And China is using America’s contribution opportunity to show the world its unique capability.”
“How is it? Jansen.” Lin Ran asked.
“Sir, this feeling is unprecedentedly good, like a wonderful resurrection.
Whether the rescue ultimately succeeds or not, at least we can see the Moon now, instead of drifting in endless void.” Jansen even had the mind to joke.
This showed his mood was indeed pretty good.
“Good, now the rescue will proceed in three steps, executed jointly by the unmanned spaceship’s automatic capture system and our ground control throughout.” Lin Ran said, “This is the key to the rescue.”
“Lena and Sarah, now prepare for extravehicular activity.
You two will transfer first.
Jansen, you stay in the escape pod, controlling the final attitude stabilization system.
When the spaceship enters the predetermined orbit, Lena, you exit first; your target is spaceship number one.
Pay attention to observe the spaceship top; our flexible capture arm will deploy and deploy a high-strength tether rope.
This rope has automatic tensioning and buffering system.”
Lena was a bit nervous: “Sir, received.
Rope deployment, received.”
Lin Ran instructed: “Remember, the spacesuit propulsion backpack can only be used to detach from the escape pod, not for long-distance maneuvers.
You must grab the rope within the zero-speed window when the two spaceships’ relative speed drops to the lowest.
This is the most critical step; absolutely cannot make a mistake, must calmly complete this step.”
