Chapter 468: Ghosts Of History
A document from China Aerospace giant, the other party claimed that this document is top secret among top secrets.
Russians have no reason not to believe it.
No one would joke about something like this.
They sent their most elite “staff”, and after communicating with the Chinese side, the physical body brought the document from Shanghai back to Moscow.
Many times, the physical body is the safest method.
After obtaining the document, it proved that it was indeed not a joke.
But after careful examination, the doubts in Valentin’s heart not only did not subside, but instead gave birth to even more doubts.
First of all, the format of the document was very strange; it was microfilm.
What era is this? How could anyone still use microfilm.
After the film was enlarged and restored to paper documents, the content made him even more perplexed.
As a bureaucrat who slowly rose from engineer to management position, he had a sufficiently deep foundation in science and engineering knowledge.
This document, simply put, was information on the N1 rocket. N1 was indeed a monster in aerospace history, but it was an outdated monster; even the Russians themselves had never considered restarting N1.
Russia, inheriting the mantle of the Soviet Union, has always retained the dream of manufacturing super heavy rockets. In today’s China-America moon race, this dream is even stronger.
However, it was not restarting N1, but a new one, a completely new design approach.
After a young man named Randolph Lin in the distant East used Saturn V to create a miracle and achieve moon landing, there were indeed voices within Russian Space Agency suggesting whether they should follow the example of their Chinese counterparts and restart N1, but such voices quickly disappeared.
Because they had no confidence in being able to do it.
Now Randolph Lin passed them the N1 rocket document, making Valentin think, Comrade Lin, did you help us complete the N1 rocket design?
Otherwise, as inheritors of the Soviet Union legacy, we have these documents here too.
After close examination, he realized something was off. What was off? The traces on the document itself showed it was from Soviet Space Agency, with no signs of modern alterations.
And the NK-33 engine thrust curve diagram among them, from the smoothness of the thrust control curve and response time, indicated that it solved all the difficult problems regarding sub-synchronous vibration.
This was also the century problem that caused the N1 rocket to end without a result in the end.
Even up to today, Starship has only barely solved the problems brought by resonance from so many engines.
This document indicated that during the Soviet era, they had already solved it?
Valentin could hardly believe it.
He quickly assembled an expert group, needing them to provide more detailed analysis.
Alexei, propulsion system expert at Russian Space Agency, stared intently at the enlarged NK-33 engine thrust curve diagram on the projector.
“In terms of engineering data, this is almost perfect cheating! It solved all the nightmares regarding sub-synchronous vibration.
The design drawings indicate it used high-frequency pressure sensors and digital throttle valves that we never succeeded with back then.
I dare say that even up to 1970, with Soviet technology, they couldn’t manufacture high-frequency pressure sensors with such parameters.”
The gaze of another control system expert was focused on the control system architecture diagram.
“This is not the KORD system! This is a distributed digital control network, but look here,” he pointed to a chip diagram marked as CPU: “Its logic gate array design is not the Soviet-style modular layout we are familiar with, nor is it America’s style. This is a completely new style, very strange, like classical and modern intertwined at this moment.
Look at the wiring and signal flow here.
This architecture completely abandons the synchronous clock-driven mode widely used by the Soviet Union and America at the end of the 1960s.
It adopts asynchronous logic and highly parallel computing units.
In principle, it is closer to the event-driven architecture we are only starting to attempt today, which can greatly reduce latency and power consumption.
However, its underlying logic gates themselves carry a classical, minimalist elegance.
It does not use complex, highly integrated TTL gates, but instead extensively uses customized logic units based on basic transistors.
The wiring of these units follows an extremely strict graph theory optimization algorithm to maximize functionality and minimize transistor count.
This extreme saving of silicon wafer space and computation paths is typical engineer thinking under extreme resource scarcity in the 1960s.
This is the core of the contradiction.
The encapsulation and interconnection style of this set of digital circuitry uses relatively large, high-reliability wires and multi-layer board technology that we could manufacture back then.
This shows the designer was very clear about the manufacturing limitations of that era; they used the most cutting-edge logic architecture to adapt to the most primitive production process.
And in the redundant design of the central coordination unit, this is familiar to me.
I saw it in internal top secret documents; it adopted our internal dual hot backup specific proposal, which was rejected in a top secret study in 1973, but its design drawings were never made public.”
Archival and technical history expert Dmitry Orlov was responsible for comparing the physical and encoding features of the documents.
Dmitry picked up a restored printout: “Look at the footer.
The code here is not in modern Russian format.
It uses GOST 6.38-66 standard, which was the document format specification used by the Soviet Union at the end of the 1960s, especially the unique brush strokes and blue engineering pencil markings on the Cyrillic handwritten annotations on the drawings, which highly match the personal style of the late chief engineer Makarov of Korolev design bureau.
Even stranger, in the startup validation program of the control module, there is a seven-digit KORD system diagnostic code.
This code is specifically used to test D/A conversion errors in analog computers; it only appears in internal test reports destroyed after the 1971 explosion accident.
It is a ghost code; no one outside a few high-level engineers could know it.
But strangely, this code is different from the information I checked; same format, but different numbers. If I remember correctly, unlike the error code, this is a success code.”
The Russian experts analyzed for a long time and found only one explanation: that in the long river of history, the N1 rocket actually succeeded.
Valentin urgently wrote a written report to the Kremlin, applying to immediately go to Shanghai.
His application was quickly approved, and he hurried to Shanghai overnight.
In Shanghai, he met that terrifyingly young Chinese person. Compared to the powerful display in technology last time, this meeting made Valentin feel that the other party was shrouded in a layer of mystery.
Looking back now, perhaps the other party already had this layer of mystery veil at that time; he just overlooked some details.
“Professor, the microfilm you provided has enormous value.
I believe it is real, but I also believe our archives are complete and reliable.
I am very curious where your document comes from?” Valentin’s expression was serious, his heart eagerly awaiting the answer.
Sitting opposite him, Lin Ran replied in an even more standard Moscow accent than Valentin: “Comrade Valentin, you were an engineer of that era; you know best how easily archives can be adjusted.
Especially those involving high-level politics and failed projects.
The archives you saw may be the adjusted ones, while the document I gave you is the real history.”
Which one is the true history? At this moment, history has been confused.
What Lin Ran said was the history he changed, but the confidence he showed made Valentin hesitate: could it be that we really succeeded with N1 in history?
Lin Ran’s accusation about the archives made Valentin frown, making him feel unwell all over.
These words were directly poking at the Russian’s lungs.
Because in Soviet history, Russians were best at doing this.
Lev Trotsky’s records were systematically removed from all official photos, history textbooks, and official documents.
There is a famous photo of Lenin giving a speech in Red Square, with Trotsky standing on the steps at the time.
But in the later official Soviet version, he was completely erased, as if he never existed.
Like Nikolai Yezhov, similarly systematically deleted.
“Trotsky, Yezhov, Kamenev, Zinoviev”
Lin Ran listed the major figures systematically erased from Soviet history like naming dishes, with a clear and round Moscow accent, making Valentin in front of him feel as if he was back in the 1980s. He quickly waved his hand: “Enough, professor, enough! I know what you mean; you’re right.”
Valentin did not want to recall the 1980s; that was the most painful memory of the Soviet Union, with the entire aerospace system facing unprecedented predicament.
At that time, he was still a senior engineer on the Energia rocket project.
On the surface, they were working hard for the grand Buran space shuttle project, and the Kremlin’s propaganda machine was still singing great odes of contending with America.
But Valentin clearly remembered that behind the gorgeous curtain, everything was rotting.
It was a hopeless predicament, permeating every corner.
He remembered at Baikonur Cosmodrome, the biting cold wind blowing through the huge assembly building and over the unfinished fuel pipes.
It was not a technical problem; it was funds.
Project budgets were cut layer by layer, workers became lazy and alcoholic because they couldn’t get full salaries.
Those idealists who once burned passionately for humanity’s conquest of space now worried every day about whether they could buy a decent pair of shoes.
He remembered in the design bureau, he had to personally beg those military procurement staff just to get a few reliable integrated circuit chips.
They knew the West had more advanced, smaller digital processors, but due to strict embargoes and the backwardness of domestic semiconductor industry, they could only rely on those bulky, low-computing power, low-reliability Soviet components.
Every rocket test firing, Valentin had to pray to God that key sensors would not fail at the moment of ignition.
The most painful was the loss of talent.
Those old experts who had struggled with Korolev and Glushko for a lifetime, carrying their experience and honor, retired one after another.
The young engineers replacing them no longer had fervor for space in their eyes; instead, they yearned for Western electronic products, jeans, and free life.
They no longer believed in ideals, ism, or other great slogans; they only believed in foreign exchange and actual materials.
Thinking of this, Valentin’s throat felt blocked.
He took a deep breath sharply, suppressing those moldy memories back into his heart:
“Professor, maybe you are right. After the project was officially canceled in 1974, all public information about the entire project was completely erased.
The existence of the N1 rocket was denied by the Kremlin for decades.
The engineers at the time were required to destroy all drawings, photos, and hardware.
It was only during the open policy period that the outside world truly learned the scale and failure details of this project.
But such a statement may convince the outside world, convince those who don’t know the inside story, but it absolutely cannot convince me.
I have been at the space agency for decades. If N1 had really succeeded in history, even if just the hope of success, I would definitely have known from relevant personnel; they couldn’t hide it from me, they wouldn’t hide it from me.”
Lin Ran said faintly: “I don’t know either; I have no way to give you an answer.
This is what I found when searching NASA documents in America, a document about the N1 rocket. At the time, I didn’t think much of it.
Because the N1 rocket was a failed project; in history, it left only regret and no other impression.
But a simulation curve diagram in this document caught my attention; the simulation curve diagram showed it had success potential.
Later, even after I returned to Shanghai, I kept asking our ‘staff’ in America to help me collect this archive completely.
After collecting it completely, I found it seemed real; at least its solution approach was feasible, even based on late 1960s technology.
Its design philosophy is extreme adaptation to the backward productivity of the late 1960s. After simulation calculations with supercomputers, the curves match that simulation curve diagram almost exactly.
I can hardly imagine which buried genius back then, using the worst semiconductors and minimal resources, achieved this miracle that should have required the entire national machine.
This document, in my view, is the soul of Soviet engineers unwilling to accept failure.”
Valentin was already in tears.
He did not try to wipe them, just let that complex emotion churn in his chest.
He really could not imagine.
He once thought that as a firsthand witness, he had completely sealed the tragedy of the N-1 rocket in the coffin of history.
He once thought the truth of failure was nothing more than political arrogance and technical limitations.
He even once believed that if they had even a little more funds, a little more trust back then, the result would not be different; it would still fail.
Unexpectedly, in a foreign country, there was still an engineer from Soviet Space Agency persisting with this dream, the super big rocket they all dreamed of together at Baikonur Cosmodrome back then.
No one dislikes a big guy.
He suddenly reached out and grabbed the enlarged, perfect flight curve diagram on the desk.
That curve should have been the victory ode of Soviet aerospace, yet in the real world, it became a ghostly nothing.
“It’s Zakharov!” Valentin’s voice trembled, hoarse almost inaudible, “It must be Zakharov! The distributed control he proposed back then, we all thought he was crazy, thought it was fanciful.”
His thoughts were suddenly pulled back to Moscow in 1974, that young Kiev engineer, with untimely confidence, showcasing his overly radical proposal.
At the time, Valentin sat in the audience, listening to the experts on stage reject him on grounds of insufficient resources and backward processes.
In the later years, Zakharov disappeared.
Valentin thought, so he went to America, and continued the dream from back then in America.
Thinking of this, Valentin shook his head helplessly. Even if he was a high-level official at Soviet Space Agency back then, he couldn’t push N1.
The reason was simple: because the Soviet Union had no money.
It was not politics and dogma that killed this great concept.
But the Soviet Union’s barren resources and inherent economic disadvantage meant that no matter how awesome the concept, they couldn’t provide resources for early trial and error.
It wasn’t possible back then, but it is now.
Valentin raised his head, eyes burning with rekindled fire.
“Professor, you brought back a ghost,” Valentin’s voice was full of determination, “You brought back our buried souls. Professor, name your price.
Do you have the original design notes there? Besides the film, do you have test reports and programming instructions for that digital controller? We must inject this soul back into the body of Russian aerospace! We must let the world know that Soviet engineers back then did not lose in technology, but in not having as many resources as NASA.”
Lin Ran thought to himself, as expected, not everything needs to be explained clearly; you just need to give a rough idea, and the other party will naturally fill in the blanks.
They will complete the entire narrative logic.
In the Russian perspective, whether this document comes from Lin Ran or from Yanjing official, whether Lin Ran commissioned people to collect it, or after the 1991 disintegration Yanjing became interested and collected it in Moscow, is still unknown.
In this world without superpowers, science dominates all seemingly impossible phenomena; even if it really was caused by superpowers, people would wrap it in a layer of scientific veneer.
Just like UFOs: in the past, people were fanatically enthusiastic about them, with countless UFO enthusiasts taking searching for aliens as life’s goal, but now? Even if UFOs really appear, people’s first reaction is, this is another top secret national project.
Reality does not need logic, because reality can always find self-consistent explanations.
Lin Ran added: “We have all of it; my documents are complete. Comrade Valentin, I want to remind you of one thing: would you consider buying the rocket itself from us?”
Valentin showed hesitation, “Buy from you? What do you mean?”
Lin Ran said: “We have rich experience in historical replication, a huge engineer team, and ready production capacity.
Additionally, I want to remind you that buying from us will definitely be much cheaper than you making it yourselves.”
Valentin read the subtext of Lin Ran: you didn’t have enough resources in the past, do you have enough now?
2026 is Russia’s military budget year, with national defense expenses accounting for 8% of GDP, a staggering figure.
How much resource tilt can their aerospace get?
It would be better to buy ready-made from China, assemble it themselves back home, which counts as spending money to complete a moon landing, set off a big firework to console the Soviet heroic spirits, and also prove to the world that in this moon race, Russia has not given up, and still has the ability to appear at the table.
After hesitating for a moment, Valentin firmly shook his head: “No, professor, we will return to the moon with our own power.”
