Chapter 31: Chapter 31 Establishing Written Proof_1

On October 5th, during the National Day holiday week, the peak of travel was in full swing.

This year’s Golden Week had two traditional events: the grand military parade and a new record for tourist arrivals, as well as a new event: at 14:00 on October 5th, New Yuan 1B was scheduled for its maiden flight and the first attempt at Core Stage One recovery.

By 11 a.m., more than 700 people had gathered outside the launch site in New Yuan Town, with over 100 being melon-eating onlookers from out of town.

Employees from New Yuan Aeronautics, acquaintances from Southern Machinery Institute, and several individuals from the 6th Institute had all arrived at the launch site to witness the launch of New Yuan 1B.

As a two-stage rocket, New Yuan 1B appeared shorter and fatter compared to New Yuan One, with its four folded support legs giving it a more rugged appearance.

This time the launch control room and observation area were moved to a position 3 kilometers away from the rocket launch site, where only a small white object could be seen with the help of the terrain.

There was no choice, after all, this area was also the landing site. Should the rocket deviate and explode among the crowd, it would be a repeat of the Nedelin catastrophe (Note: A violation in missile launch protocol by the Former Soviet Union, resulting in the death of most personnel from a rocket design bureau, including Marshal Nedelin and over 160 designers, who were all vaporized).

A big shot was also present this time: Tang Weitian, the old guy who had heard about the reusable rocket and specifically came to watch what he expected to be a fiasco.

"Lin Ju, whether your technology is feasible or not is one thing, but first of all, the process is all wrong.

With New Yuan 1B employing too much new technology, from its engines to the body of the rocket, it completely violates the safety standards of spacecraft. The new technology accounts for absolutely more than 70%

Moreover, there is not a hint of preliminary research on rocket recovery, and trying to achieve it in one go is not advisable. Plus, this path is inherently unfeasible—the future should belong to aero-space planes, not reusable rockets."

Tang Weitian unceremoniously poured cold water on the proceedings, but Lin Ju was not very surprised, as skepticism about the success of the rocket recovery was an industry consensus at this time.

Some big shot from the Space Administration had openly expressed the opinion that vertical recovery technology was a completely unrealistic fantasy and not viable, and it was normal for others to harbor the same view.

Truth be told, this rocket recovery experiment didn’t cause much of a stir in the aerospace community. Everyone was just waiting to poke fun, except for Lin Ju himself and the system engineers, the bystanders were generally pessimistic.

During discussions, they would shake their heads while looking at the rocket, muttering phrases like "too aggressive", "wrong technical direction", and were filled with distrust.

To avoid external influence in the control room, Lin Ju outright banned entry and exit to the room, where the system engineers would just keep encouraging each other.

Of course, there were still those who were insecure, like Ai Yuanwei, who had been poached from the 6th Institute and was now monitoring engine status from the launch control room.

It had to be acknowledged, although he had joined only a month ago, he quickly grasped most of the K120 technology and was equally clear about the high reliability of K120V.

But the notion of vertically recovering a rocket was too mysterious, and he had no confidence whatsoever.

The bored Ai Yuanwei walked over to the live broadcast area, wanting to check the situation.

There were many platforms broadcasting the rocket launch, but the majority were centered on blogs and the official website, with blogs being the most numerous.

Just from these two platforms alone, there were more than 50,000 people watching; Ai Yuanwei guessed that adding up others, there might be around 100,000 people tuned in, making him sweat.

On the screen, comments fluttered by, most of which were asking about the launch time; Ai Yuanwei thought perhaps they couldn’t see the countdown at the bottom right of the screen.

A few, as he expected, were discussing whether the recovery would be successful. The netizens did not doubt whether the launch would fail but were more focused on the recovery.

Some even started betting on at what stage the rocket recovery would explode, whether it would be in the air or on land, and whether it would land at the planned site as designed.

The PR department had chosen a girl with a sweet voice to be the hostess, who would occasionally ask the system engineer, serving as the technical guest, some idiotic questions (at least, that’s what he thought) and would crack a few light jokes to liven up the mood.

The screen switches between the launch site, the live chat room, and the control center.

When it switches to the beautiful host, a string of compliments about her beauty pours in from the comments; when it moves to the control room, what’s seen are rows of small screens, an oversized screen on the wall, rows of serious staff wearing headphones, and... Lin Ju, lying on a single sofa, facing the large screen showing the launch site.

At this moment, Lin Ju is interacting with netizens in a live stream, flipping through comments and bullet screens like a host.

"Why not call it a tractor factory? To the net friend asking, you can come and see our company. I still keep the tractor factory sign and have it hung up. Feel free to visit when you have time."

"Is New Yuan imitating Ma? Of course... not. How can you call it copying in the aerospace field? This is called convergent technological evolution."

"Ma has already blown up ten rockets; how many is Boss Lin planning to blow? To the net friend asking, I now feel that I will definitely succeed. If not... I’ll do a headstand and wash my hair live!"

Lin Ju recalled a meme from the future and immediately sparked a heated response; the comments surged as everyone insisted that he could not go back on his word after witnessing his promise.

Fortunately, short videos hadn’t taken off at this time, or else if he posted one, he could probably rake in a hundred thousand likes in minutes and be remembered for several years.

Of course, if he really did fail, Lin Ju wouldn’t actually do a headstand to wash his hair.

But this did liven up the atmosphere, and the comments started to veer off-topic.

"Mr. Lin has given his word, no going back!"

"Boss Lin is awesome, so young and brash." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Has the host gotten married?"

"..."

Before the launch, the atmosphere on site was still acceptable. However, if it failed, public opinion would absolutely turn in an instant.

Countless tabloids and the newly emerging self-media were already drafting articles, most of them based on the assumption of failure, all waiting to publish immediately after the launch to compete for attention.

Many big shots in the aerospace sector took notice, but they were all shaking their heads, indifferent to the outcome.

Yet, there were others whose blood was boiling as they watched Lin Ju’s live stream.

They too harbored aspirations of entering the aerospace industry. According to history, they would establish their private space companies in a few years, but now they were motivated ahead of schedule.

Initially, they were afraid and worried about the high difficulty; now that there was a pioneer ahead, they were all restless.

Why couldn’t they do it?

The live stream was also broadcast on foreign websites, though with some delay, watched by a modest number of foreign netizens.

Ma... He had spent half a day figuring out how to circumvent censorship, and now, seeing Lin Ju breeze through his online chat with netizens, he couldn’t help addressing his assistant:

"This Chinese Lin is a lot like me; we’re cut from the same cloth. Just not sure how he’ll handle failure. The technology of the X1B seems very risky to me, and New Yuan’s technical strength is far inferior to ours."

Lin Ju wasn’t very concerned about the various reactions; in fact, he was in a rather good mood since his influence had grown even further. The increase in his benefits would definitely be higher.