Technology invades the modern world

Chapter 82: Establishing Authority (Please Order First!)
“Everyone, do you know what word I saw the most when I opened the NASA report?

It is precious!
Yes, it is precious!

Although Vanguard TV3 failed, it accumulated valuable experience.

Pioneer 1 failed and was unable to reach the moon as designed, but it accumulated valuable experience.

Pioneer 4 failed and was unable to reach the moon as designed, but it accumulated valuable experience.

I am very curious why we need to accumulate valuable experience while the Soviet Union does not.

Since this experience is so valuable, they deserve to fail."

If calling everyone garbage at the beginning had ignited a fire in the hearts of the NASA executives present, then Lin Ran's comparison of them with the Soviet Union was a naked stab to their hearts.

And using such a joking tone is rubbing salt into everyone's wounds.

They also have reason to argue because the Soviet Union's series of lunar probes also failed to land, and the Soviet side only took pictures of the back of the moon.

"I'm sorry, this is hard for me to understand, hard for the White House to understand, and even harder for the American people to understand!
NASA has more than 10,000 employees, plus the supplier team that works with us. With so many people, we have to accumulate valuable experience through continuous failures."

Lin Ran slammed the black North American oak tabletop, emphasizing the word "precious". The atmosphere in the entire tiered conference room became more solemn than ever before.

"After James Webb took office, he has been communicating with me, saying that we need to fight for more budget for NASA and expand the size of NASA to cope with the increasingly fierce space race.

But after reading NASA's historical reports, we all wonder if Congress would approve such a report. If I were a congressman, I would think NASA's pursuit of a larger budget isn't about winning the space race, but about gaining more valuable experience!

Director von Bryan, I communicated with NASA GS-6 engineer Haynes at the beginning of last year. I told him the 4th and 5th items of the Earth's gravitational perturbation model and told him that the moon also has gravitational perturbations.

On this basis, can NASA guarantee that the next Pioneer mission will allow the spacecraft to successfully impact the moon and land?"

Feng Brian had a blank expression on his face. In his mind, he was comparing the young Chinese man in front of him with his colleagues who he remembered had already returned to China. Compared with his colleagues in his impression, the other party was much more aggressive.

He couldn't believe that everyone here was trash. This was something a Chinese person would say. He quickly brought his thoughts back to Lin Ran's question:

"Professor Lin, I'm sorry. We've made internal estimates, and even if we take gravitational perturbations into account, the accuracy still won't be enough to achieve the effect of landing on the moon. There will still be a certain deviation."

Lin Ran was obviously not satisfied with this answer, not to mention that he came here to establish his authority: "So what is the specific number and compare it with the actual situation.

And have you calculated how much Pioneer 4 would have deviated from the lunar landing orbit if gravitational perturbations were taken into account? Is there any way to avoid such deviations?

"We already have a plan," Von Bryan said.

After President Kennedy announced the manned moon landing, we abandoned the Pioneer moon landing technology route because this route could only achieve a hard landing, not a soft landing.

We plan to adopt a brand-new technical route, adding controllable thrusters and solid rocket deceleration systems to the aircraft to achieve a soft landing.

In addition, the radio system will be improved to reduce delays, allowing our command center on Earth to make real-time command adjustments to the landing capsule.

As for the specific deviation, you'd have to ask Arthur Rudolph, who's in charge of the propulsion system. "Feng Brian knew very well that Lin Ran was here to establish his authority. He had come with the momentum of the Freedom 7 crash, and his question was also a veiled conspiracy.

Moreover, Feng Brian was sure that this number would be difficult to calculate, but Lin Ran, a top mathematician, had already figured out the answer.

At this time, Rudolph should be asked to take the blame. It was you who offended Lin Ran.

Not only did Lin Ran turn his gaze towards Rudolf Arthur, but all the senior executives present also turned their eyes towards him.

Rudolph broke out in a sweat. "Director Lin, I'm sorry. Because Pioneer is an abandoned technology, we haven't calculated its deviation after introducing the new parameters."

Rudolph was not stupid. He knew that the criticism was directed at him. At this time, he had to do his job, speak as flatteringly as possible, and apologize as sincerely as possible.

“So what’s so valuable about valuable experience?

Is Pioneer's experience in failure valuable if it can't be used? Our flight model team doesn't even do the most basic calculations.

If calculations show that we can achieve a hard landing for Pioneer simply by introducing more parameters, can we at least catch up with the Soviet Union in terms of landing probes on the moon?

Arthur Rudolph, if this is your attitude towards work, then I think you are fired!"

When Lin Ran said this, he finally understood why Lao Te liked to say this on the Apprentice show, because it was really cool.

Lin Ran waved his hand, and the military personnel standing on both sides of him stepped forward and took Arthur Rudolph away.

Arthur Rudolph's struggles were of no use to the prepared personnel.

He tried to take Lin Ran away in this way in 60, and now Lin Ran sent him away in the same way.

No matter how unwilling Arthur Rudolph was, he had no choice. With Lin Ran in power, it would be too easy for him to be crushed to death.

Once he leaves the Redstone base, there will be plenty of squids waiting to kill him.

Lin Ran didn't even raise his eyelids to give Rudolph a glance. He continued, "If this is NASA's work attitude, then we will never catch up with the Soviet Union. The valuable experience only remains in the report. In fact, you don't take the result of burning a huge budget seriously at all.

Today, I will teach you how to introduce a perturbation model, conduct multi-scenario simulations and optimize inputs on the ground, and further refine the launch window to achieve a hard landing on the lunar surface using Pioneer.

Lin Ran stood up, and the military personnel dragged the blackboard that had been prepared long ago from behind Lin Ran to the center.

“Your trajectory calculations are based solely on the classical Kepler orbit model, without fully considering the lunar gravitational perturbations and the Earth’s inhomogeneous gravitational field.

Here, we introduce perturbation theory through the Laplace method, manually calculate the deflection effect of the moon's gravity on the trajectory, and then use a higher-order Taylor expansion to improve the prediction accuracy of the initial velocity and angle."

Apart from establishing his authority at the beginning, Lin Ran spent the entire half day explaining difficult mathematical models and formulas. However, none of the engineers present were impatient; instead, everyone listened with great interest.

(End of this chapter)