Traveling Back to the 1960s: The Entire Internet Teaches Me How to Build Missiles

On the Gobi Desert at the Dongfeng base, the sun blazes fiercely and the heat is oppressive.

After the negotiations with the Surinamese expert team ended in discord, Ye Siling and Political Commissar Sun immediately reported the results of the negotiations to their superiors.

Surprisingly, when people in Jingzhou heard the news, they didn't react with the expected indignation or outbursts of profanity.

Chief Chen, who was in charge of national defense scientific research and the implementation of Project 596, calmly suggested:

"I understand. We'll do as you say. If our comrades can truly overcome the difficulties and produce high-standard special liquid oxygen, then everyone will be very happy!"

"If we can't do that, then there's nothing we can do but give in to the Soviets and buy their liquid oxygen at a high price... It just means we'll have to tighten our belts and suffer for a few more months..."

Although Chief Chen didn't emphasize the last sentence, Ye Ling and Political Commissar Sun felt a heavy weight in their hearts.

The price for transporting liquid oxygen from Sultan from Siberia to Manchuria is exorbitant!

It takes about a thousand kilograms of rice to exchange for one ton.

Nowadays, many people can't even fill their stomachs by eating tree bark and digging for wild vegetables, so how can they be so generous as to give away these grains for free?

Since things have come to this point, we can only try anything as a last resort.

Hopefully, that kid Zhou Yunxiao can really improve the purity of liquid oxygen!

……

Meanwhile, at Base 9, in the liquid oxygen production workshop.

The machine emitted a rumbling roar.

Zhou Yunxiao was discussing the modification plan for the air separation tower with several laboratory and workshop technicians.

"To produce high-purity liquid oxygen, we absolutely need an argon-removing distillation tower, but our industrial conditions are too backward. Even our air separation tower... was borrowed from a fertilizer plant in a neighboring province. We simply cannot build a distillation tower..."

"We might not be able to build a high-precision one... but we're more than capable of building a crude distillation tower!"

"The underlying technology relies on the different boiling points of various air components to remove nitrogen, argon, water, hydrocarbons, and particulate impurities through low-temperature crude distillation..."

Zhou Yunxiao stood in front of the air separation tower in the workshop, facing several technicians below who were holding laptops. He was full of youthful vigor and ambition.

Of course, this is all thanks to the viewers in the live stream.

If it weren't for their occasional suggestions and help Zhou Yunxiao improve his thinking, he wouldn't be standing here with such confidence.

Zhou Yunxiao was a student at Beihang University in his previous life, and now he has inherited the original owner's memories from the Moscow Aviation Institute, so his theoretical foundation and logical thinking are not bad.

Therefore, with just a few pointers from netizens, even someone who is completely ignorant about liquid oxygen production can easily transform into a "senior expert" by taking advantage of others' knowledge!

At first, the technicians in the workshop didn't quite trust this young man.

I was thinking, what right does someone majoring in rocket and missile engineering have to instruct those majoring in chemical engineering?

But as the other party kept throwing out various arguments, and spoke with great logic, even Professor Yu from the laboratory was somewhat bewildered but impressed.

Zhou Yunxiao continued speaking at length:

"During air compression in the crude distillation column, to facilitate subsequent heat exchange and cooling, the screw compressor needs to increase the air pressure from 0.5 MPa to 0.8 MPa!"

"For impurities that are relatively easy to remove, such as water and carbon dioxide, a finer molecular sieve adsorber can be used..."

At this point, Professor Yu from the laboratory couldn't help but ask, "Comrade Zhou... we only have silica gel for removing water and carbon dioxide, what is a molecular sieve?"

Zhou Yunxiao opened his mouth and coughed lightly twice as a tactic.

That is indeed a problem; we've been so focused on offering suggestions that we've forgotten to consider the national context.

These days, there are no molecular sieves, not even zeolites.

In Suriname and the United States, activated alumina is usually used for adsorption, but it's not available in Japan.

"Everyone, please calm down, let me think about this..."

So Zhou Yunxiao rested his chin on his hand, made a deep thought expression, and paced back and forth.

"Hey Chovy, give me some good feedback! Who mentioned upgrading molecular sieves just now? These days we can't even make zeolites, can we please stop with the empty talk and grandstanding?"

The live streamer, Xiao Zhou, interrogated the viewers in the live chat.

After viewers flooded the live stream with a bunch of emojis, someone finally offered a solution.

[Don't panic, host! Trust me! The alkaline cleansing method is absolutely effective. Just go to the logistics department at the Dongfeng base and ask for some caustic soda. Simple and straightforward!]

[The person upstairs is right. Dilute the caustic soda to a concentration of 10%~15%, let air blow from the bottom of the crude distillation column upwards, and let the soda solution spray down from the top of the column. The countercurrent contact will absorb carbon dioxide and water. The reaction equation is here...]

[Additionally, to increase the contact area with the alkali solution, you'll need Raschig ring packing. If you don't have any, just collect some broken bricks or tiles, wash them clean, and fill them in. It's a makeshift method, but it works!]

Upon seeing the netizens' ideas, Zhou Yunxiao perked up and immediately stopped walking.

He recited the new plan in its entirety and pulled over the blackboard to write the chemical equations on it.

After reading it, Professor Yu stroked his stubble and couldn't help but exclaim in admiration, as if struck by a sudden enlightenment:

"I didn't know you could do it this way... Comrade Zhou, your method is really good, much better than the previous silicone method. Why didn't you bring it up sooner?"

Zhou Yunxiao gave another flimsy excuse, "It's just that I came across some literature while studying in the Soviet Union, but I couldn't remember it at the moment..."

Seeing Professor Yu's hesitant expression, he quickly changed the subject, clapping his hands and saying:

"Alright, alright, now that the plan is almost finalized, let's get on with the implementation. The sooner we produce 99.5% pure liquid oxygen, the sooner Dongfeng-1 can be test-fired. We absolutely cannot let the Soviets lead us by the nose anymore!"

The others nodded enthusiastically and got to work with great energy.

……

After spending the day in the liquid oxygen workshop, Zhou Yunxiao and Professor Yu from the laboratory returned to their base at No. 10 in a GAZ truck in the evening.

After getting off the bus and saying goodbye to Professor Yu, a large green Jiefang truck pulled up outside the checkpoint. Jiang Weimin jumped out of the truck and ran over happily.

"Wow, Yunxiao, you've even gotten a GAZ truck to pick you up and drop you off! Is this the treatment of a base commander? Tell me, what good deed have you done this time?"

Zhou Yunxiao smiled and briefly recounted the matter of the Soviet experts raising the liquid oxygen standard again, avoiding the main issue.

Jiang Weimin was so angry that he cursed loudly, "These bastards are ungrateful wretches! We've treated them so well, and they actually resort to such underhanded tricks. They're clearly cheating us!"

Zhou Yunxiao shushed him, "Keep your voice down, don't let anyone hear you. If it gets back to Ye Ling, you'll put the leader in a difficult position."

Jiang Weimin then fell silent, but continued to mutter complaints.

"No wonder we finished work so early today, turns out the liquid oxygen wasn't up to standard. The maiden flight of Dongfeng-1 is just around the corner, and then this has to happen, it's infuriating!"

Zhou Yunxiao patted him on the shoulder reassuringly: "There's nothing we can do. Our industrial base is weak. Don't worry, one day we'll stand up and won't have to depend on others anymore!"

"Yunxiao, will this day really come?"

"Of course. Not only will our Project 596 be a great success, but we'll also have stealth fighters, strategic bombers, aircraft carriers, reconnaissance satellites, and intercontinental ballistic missiles with a global strike range!"

"Heh, Yunxiao, you're even more outlandish than me. Fighter jets can become stealthy, fine, but missiles that can cover the entire globe? How ridiculously long would that range be?"

"Emmm...it's only a mere 18000 kilometers range."

Zhou Yunxiao calmly showed off.

"One...one hundred and eighteen thousand kilometers? How far is that?"

Jiang Weimin was utterly astonished. He wasn't highly educated and had never traveled far from home, so he couldn't possibly imagine what kind of range that was. "Further than the journey from here to Jingzhou?"

"Ha ha!"

Zhou Yunxiao burst into laughter, "That's far more than that. I already said it covers the entire globe! Whether it's Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London, or Washington, New York, and Los Angeles in the US, as long as the target is on Earth, we can strike without any blind spots!"

Jiang Weimin was completely stunned, muttering, "Such a powerful missile, wouldn't the Westerners be terrified?"

"Absolutely! Once we make our move, we can destroy the target in as little as half an hour, with an interception rate of less than 40%. If it's a saturation attack, the rate could even approach zero; anyone would be in trouble!"

Jiang Weimin was overjoyed. "Alright, I'll have that dream tonight!"