Reborn in 2011, I am the chief designer of aerospace.

Song Xingye turned around, his gaze sweeping intently over the crowd, his voice steady and powerful:

"With the approval of the institute, our lightning-inducing rocket project has been officially named the 'Thor' series."

"The first phase of funding will come from 500 million yuan from the group's Youth Innovation Fund and 500 million yuan from the institute's matching funds, to develop the first generation of Thor—that is, Thor 1.0."

"Mr. Hu from the group said that if the market response to Thunderobot 1.0 is good and it brings considerable benefits, then they will continue to add a second and a third batch..."

Song Xingye gave a brief overview, and everyone listened intently.

Everyone present knew perfectly well who Mr. Hu was.

This "General Manager Hu" is not the same kind of "General Manager" as Liang Jianping, but rather the "General Manager" of general manager, which carries much more power than the chief architect.

Therefore, everyone was in high spirits.

How could these greenhorns not be excited to be able to participate in a research project right after graduation, and even be an important member of it, especially since it was a project personally overseen by their boss's boss?

Chang Jian, who always loves to show off, blushed and couldn't wait to take out his phone and brag about it.

"Knock knock."

Song Xingye tapped the blackboard, his expression turned serious, and he said solemnly:

"You are probably all familiar with the working principle of the Thor rocket. To put it simply, it launches a rocket from the ground, dragging a metal wire as it soars into the sky."

"Before a thunderstorm arrives, as charged water molecules collide, the potential difference between the clouds and the ground increases. When a certain critical point is reached, an air breakdown discharge occurs."

"And this metal wire is meant to artificially puncture the air before reaching the critical point, connecting the positive and negative electric fields of the ground and the clouds to trigger lightning in advance..."

With Song Xingye's explanation, everyone gained a deeper understanding of the Thor rocket.

Although I had studied relevant materials and published papers from home and abroad before coming, none of them were as intuitive and thorough as this in-depth yet easy-to-understand explanation.

Then, Song Xingye quickly sketched a few lines on the blackboard and continued describing:

"Sounds simple, right? Like flying a kite, just let the kite fly with the string, that's all. But... if it were that simple, there would be no need to make such a big fuss and invite everyone here, nor would there be any need to spend ten million on research and development!"

Song Xingye's gaze was solemn:

"Next, I'll talk about the difficulties, and these difficulties will be your next challenge."

"The first is the rocket. It has to pull the metal wire into the sky, but it can't fly too fast or too slow, otherwise it will break the wire or miss the opportunity to trigger the lightning. This puts the reliability of the fuel design to a severe test."

"The second is the metal wire. According to my rough estimate, the distance for attracting lightning cannot be less than 500 meters, otherwise the success rate will be greatly reduced, and the longer the better. This tests the reliability of the material structure."

At this point, Song Xingye glanced at his three companions and sighed:

"The third point, and the most difficult one, is how to determine the timing for triggering lightning."

Chang Jian joked carelessly, "Why don't we find an old man? I heard some of the old folks in the village are really good at predicting the weather; they say it'll be windy, and it'll be thundery, and it will be thundery..."

The three of them rolled their eyes at him.

Song Xingye said seriously, "To predict lightning, we need to consult someone at the Atmospheric Research Institute. Ultimately, it still comes down to computers; it would be best if a machine could assess the timing of lightning strikes."

Chang Jian frowned and pondered, "Should we let the computer make the decision?"

"Yes. I originally planned to call in a few more elite soldiers to help, but Qin Rui is staying at the Ninth Academy, and the dean is unwilling to let him go, so I can't transfer him."

Song Xingye scratched his head, "And then there's that kid Cao Que... The Fifth Academy is even less willing to let him go, so in the end they only want the three of you."

Zhao Yuehe pouted and complained, "How could Cao Que possibly come? He's a member of the 'Starry Sky Summer Camp,' and he's practically the mascot of the Fifth Academy. They say it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond, right?"

"Alright, let's not talk about them anymore. Let's talk about the present. It was expected that Cao Que wouldn't come, but it's a big loss that my roommate from when I was doing my PhD didn't come. We've lost a key player in computer science, and the burden is all on Chang Jianshen."

Chang Jian tentatively asked, "So besides being responsible for modeling and testing the Thor rocket, I also need to design software to evaluate the timing of lightning strikes?"

"That's right, so you have the heaviest burden."

Song Xingye nodded. "The timing of lightning strikes is the most crucial part of the Thor rocket. It determines the ignition time. If the launch is too early, the potential difference will not be enough to trigger the lightning, which is equivalent to wasting a rocket."

"On the contrary, if the takeoff is late, the cloud charge will have already broken down the air and discharged, and it will be too late."

"Therefore, the timing must be just right, so that the rocket launch can attract lightning and release as much of the drifting charge in the clouds as possible."

Chang Jian gave a vague "Oh," scratched his head, still clueless, and thought it was a bit tricky.

Seeing this, Song Xingye gave him a hint, "Old Chang, do you know what AI is?"

"Of course I know! How could anyone who works in computers not understand AI? It's artificial intelligence, you know. Like Apple's Siri, isn't that AI? You can chat with it, but it's a bit dumb."

Song Xingye nodded, then changed the subject:

"In the traditional sense, AI is usually used for data mining and predictive analysis. But true AI should be a machine that can think like a human, capable of deep learning and autonomous evolution."

"Old Chang, I hope you can use AI to create a lightning weather warning model. By feeding it a large amount of lightning weather data and related databases, we can enable it to autonomously identify lightning weather."

"I won't interfere too much with the specifics of how it's done; you're the expert in that area. The only thing I can guarantee you is funding. How much money do you think it will cost to make it?"

After hearing this, Chang Jian thought for a moment and quickly came to a conclusion.

"Actually, there are already quite a few people working on AI internationally, but the main difficulty in creating this kind of model is algorithm innovation; computing power and cost are secondary... If Cotton could spare some time to help me get the algorithm working..."

Song Xingye glanced at Jiang Mian and replied before she could respond: "Jiang Mian will fully cooperate with you. I'll also ask Chen Xin to help out when he has time."

Chang Jian grinned and said, "You really know how to exploit your juniors."

Song Xingye raised an eyebrow, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"The algorithm innovation is done, but as for the computing power cost... to develop such a weather warning model, I estimate it would require at least a thousand computing cards. Compared to the scale of large enterprises and servers, this is already a very affordable price..."

"Okay, then let's get a thousand computing cards, just enough to get the model up and running..."

"The current market price is 20,000 yuan per ticket."

"..."

Zhao Yuehe's eyes widened: "How much?"

Jiang Mian gasped, "Twenty million?!"

Song Xingye: "No way! It's too expensive. Our budget for the first phase is only ten million. Is there a cheaper way?"

Chang Jian shrugged helplessly and spread his hands: "Then we can only find a breakthrough in algorithm innovation. We should retain as many effective algorithms as possible and discard all inefficient and low-cost-performance calculations... But this is a delicate and troublesome task."

"It's alright, labor costs aren't high. Chen Xin can work hard without complaint even if you pay him 30 yuan an hour."

Chang Jian couldn't help but complain, "Hoshino, I've discovered you already have the potential to be a ruthless miser."

"I won't talk about it."

Song Xingye said seriously, "In that case, let's proceed according to this approach. The cost of computing cards is too high, so I can only give you a budget of 250 cards, which is 5 million in R&D funding. You can fill in the gaps in the model with algorithms."

Zhao Yuehe blurted out, "So, our budget for the rocket, metal wire, and related equipment is only five million left? That's a direct cut of half?"

"A little pressure can stimulate creativity; there's no point in always fighting a war of attrition."

Song Xingye said in a deep voice, "We can't just let Lao Chang face the difficulties. I'll reduce the costs on the rocket side. As long as we reduce the number of trials and errors, we can save money."

The group discussed the matter animatedly for a long time until all the details of the "Thor" rocket were finalized and specific tasks were assigned to individuals before the meeting was adjourned.

……

Although the research group's office is not large, it is more than enough for four people to sit.

With Chang Jian's arrival, the computer and network cable were also connected.

He immediately and enthusiastically contacted his former junior classmates, intending to legitimately "freeload" off some cheap labor.

After all, even if he had ten hands, he couldn't type out all the code for a weather warning model by himself.

Song Xingye scoffed, "I think you're even more of a shrew than me. You just treat your juniors to a meal, and you expect to order them around doing chores?"

Chang Jian, without batting an eye, said confidently, "Nonsense! If you could raise more funds, why would I have to swallow my pride and do this? Isn't it because of my prestige as the president of the Beijing Institute of Technology Student Union that these junior students are willing to work?"

"Fine, fine, you're right."

Knowing he was in the wrong, Song Xingye didn't bother arguing with him.

He opened his email and checked a message from Moschko.

The sender was Lyudmila Ivanovna Volkova, an Aerospace Force officer who had maintained occasional contact with him since returning to Moskov.

The two sides went through life and death together in the cold wave of Baikonur for a period of time, and a good revolutionary friendship was established. Therefore, Song Xingye asked Mira to help him look up information about "Salyut 7".

However, Mira took some time to check the existing information and said that there were indeed some strange things, such as the disappearance of an entire crew.

To be precise, everyone died in an accident, but one person has been missing for decades, with no trace of his body.

This was similar to the clue Song Xingye obtained from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics library; that was all the information he could get.

Mira indicated at the end of the email that she would check the KGB's archived files from the past, and then ended the conversation.

Since the other party couldn't find out anything for the time being, Song Xingye had no choice but to refocus his energy on the matter at hand.

The East China Academy of Space Technology (ECST) quietly established a research group on the "Long March 5 rocket coking pulverizer" in the academy's headquarters building, and Song Xingye was listed as one of its members.

However, he spent most of his time working on the Thor rocket. As for something like a coking pulverizer, he only had a flash of inspiration and came up with an idea. How to implement it would have to rely on the senior experts in the institute.

The trial production of the Thor rocket was undertaken by the 307 Red Star Aerospace Equipment Manufacturing Plant.

The factory is located in Songjiang District, which is quite a distance from Zhuanqiao Town. Therefore, Song Xingye has to travel back and forth between the institute building and the factory every day.

Factory Director Cheng Long had already received a call from Lu Zhenhuan, who promised to do his best to help Comrade Xiao Song to test-produce the "Thor" rocket, and even specially arranged a workshop for him to be in charge of this matter.

[Deputy Director of Workshop 5, Fourth Business Division, Hongxing Aerospace Equipment Manufacturing Company].

Looking at this long list of titles, Song Xingye's tongue almost tied in knots. "This work ID is for me?"

"Yeah, how about it? I've treated you pretty well, haven't I? As soon as you arrived, I arranged for you to also serve as a deputy director. Looking at all the interns in Dongyu Group over the years, which one didn't work as a technician for two years before being promoted to director?"

Cheng Long patted his shoulder heavily, looking like he knew exactly what was going on. "Anyway, it's just a temporary position to make it easier for you to manage people. Without a specific title, these workers in the workshop won't listen to you."

Song Xingye smiled, carefully putting away the documents. "I am indeed flattered. But it used to be called Aerospace Equipment Manufacturing Plant, right? When did it change its name to Manufacturing Company?"

"Oh, that happened at the beginning of the year. The company underwent restructuring." Cheng Long chuckled. "I'm not the factory manager anymore. My official title is now 'Chairman and Secretary of the Board of Directors of Hongxing Aerospace Equipment Manufacturing Company'."

"Then I should congratulate Chairman Cheng?"

"Forget it, forget it, don't embarrass yourself." Cheng Long waved his hand. "It's just the same old thing in a different guise. You're still half-dead."

"Alright. By the way, how many workers are in Workshop 5?"

"Uh... there are 3 so far."

Cheng Long scratched his head awkwardly. "Previously, the Fourth Business Division only had four workshops... This workshop was added temporarily specifically for the Thor rocket project, dedicated to this project. The workers were all recently transferred."

Song Xingye slowly extended a fist. "There aren't enough people. Director Cheng, you should at least help me gather ten, right?"

"this……"

Cheng Long originally intended to just go through the motions, but he didn't expect that this Comrade Song was quite greedy.

But he grinned and finally agreed, "Okay, I'll go ask around in the other workshops for you."

Just as Cheng Long waved for the office director to come over, Song Xingye added, "As long as you're willing to come to the new workshop, I can guarantee that within three months, everyone will receive their full salary and bonuses."

He was taken aback. "What did you say? Pay the full salary and bonus within three months? Don't be ridiculous..."

"I'm not joking."

Song Xingye said earnestly, "As long as the 'Thor' rocket can be developed, its market returns will far exceed expectations and will definitely be worth everyone's efforts."

Factory Director Cheng remained hesitant, simply instructing the office director to continue recruiting.

He chatted with Song Xingye as they walked toward the office building.

Looking at the empty and clean road, Song Xingye casually joked, "Aren't the workers doing military training today?"