Chapter 4: Ghost of History

"Qian Xuesen has been back in the country for five years, and McCarthy should have been gone for a year or two.

If I had a choice, I really wouldn't want to get involved in the NASA vortex at this point in time.

After returning to 2020, I will carefully collect detailed information about 1960 and use the information gap to fully exert my advantages. Even if I want to join NASA and participate in interesting projects like manned moon landings, I have to get my identity, background, and appearance—all the links that might cause suspicion—sorted out before seeking to join NASA.

But now I can only take it one step at a time." Lin Ran thought while walking.

"The Door" had a cooldown time; it could not be opened anytime, anywhere.

It would take seventy-six hours, more than three days, to return to Earth in 2020.

According to the information the door gave him, the initial cooldown time was 72 hours, and the more things you brought, the longer the cooldown time would be. The things here were only related to mass. Even if his weight increased in the future, the cooldown time would increase accordingly.

Counting clothes, shoes, mobile phones, etc., the extra time was not much, only four hours, which was within an acceptable range.

However, if he wanted to use the garage door to drive a 2020 car to the 60s, the cooldown time would be at least a year.

If it was just to survive in New York for three days, Lin Ran felt that with his current abilities, there would be no problem at all.

But his current crisis was not just a simple survival problem, but a more serious identity exposure crisis.

He was carrying an iPhone XS released by Apple in 2018.

Now was the peak of the confrontation between America and Soviet Russia. Once the iPhone XS was exposed, this kind of thing that could be seen at a glance to be different—whether it was suspected to be an alien product or a product from the future—once it was exposed, he would have no peace in 1960.

Don't say anything is impossible. The legend of Area 51 had a long history. At present, America and Soviet Russia were at the peak of their imagination, and all kinds of brain holes were emerging one after another. In order to win, they even engaged in superpower research and invested heavily in this area.

Once the iPhone was exposed and suspected to be a product from the future, it would be perfectly normal.

The North Face down jacket he was wearing looked exceptionally abrupt in Times Square, New York, in 1960. From the fabric and design to the details, it was out of place with the attire of this era.

Just following Haines, Lin Ran could see curiosity and scrutiny in the eyes of every passerby who saw him.

The waterproof and windproof fabric used in the North Face down jacket was smooth and shiny, a material that did not exist at all in the 1960s. At that time, the coats worn by passersby were mostly made of wool, cotton, or tweed, with a thick and rough texture. His clothing fabric might reflect a strange luster in the sun, which could easily cause unnecessary trouble.

Lin Ran sighed inwardly. Fortunately, he didn't like flashy bright yellow or red, and he didn't choose the blue snow mountain; he chose deep blue camouflage. This color was not so strange among the generally black, gray, and brown coat colors of winter at that time.

So the survival crisis was secondary; finding a place to stay for three days and not letting the iPhone in his pocket be exposed was the top priority.

Better safe than sorry.

The appropriate contact with Haines was a controllable risk, and if he kept to a principle, there would be plenty of room for compensation in the future.

But once a major event like an iPhone leak occurred, no matter how much he tried to compensate, it would cause an irreversible and difficult situation.

Let alone joining NASA; he would be lucky if he wasn't locked up until the end of time.

So a place that could fully recognize the value of his brain was a good place to stay.

Compared to the degree of abnormality shown by his brain, the down jacket was obviously not so eye-catching.

The conversation with Haines also verified Lin Ran's conjecture; the other party's attention was entirely on the Newton gravitational perturbation correction formula and didn't pay attention to the abnormality of his attire at all.

Wasn't it just wearing a conceptual garment that looked a bit like a spacesuit? What was the big deal?

And as an outstanding graduate of the former aerospace major, forced to change careers due to survival pressure, what could be more exciting than being able to participate in the aerospace race of the 60s with his own hands?

It just so happened that this was also a good entry point; why put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Under various considerations, Lin Ran chose to complete the Newton gravitational perturbation correction formula on the glass of the telephone booth, giving this era a little bit of future shock.

In the private room of the restaurant carefully selected by Haines, Lin Ran said proactively: "Randolph Lin."

Lin Ran didn't say anything else; the situation was still unclear, and Lin Ran hadn't thought about what kind of identity he should fabricate for himself.

Haines, sitting opposite, didn't care about the background of this Huaguo person; he only cared about how the other party calculated the Newton gravitational perturbation correction formula.

"Randolph, you know what I wrote on the glass just now, right?"

Lin Ran leaned back on the brown leather sofa with an expression of course: "When a satellite passes over the equator, the gravity generated by the Earth's excess mass will be greater than at the poles. This extra gravity will cause the satellite's orbit to wobble. If this problem is not solved, the satellite's lifespan will be very limited."

Sure enough, the other party not only saw at a glance that what he wrote was the Newton gravitational perturbation correction formula, but even knew what the formula was for.

This was not something an ordinary person could do.

As for completing the fourth and fifth terms of the formula so easily, in his cognition, no one could do it at all.

So when he saw the formula, after thinking about it, he had a ghost-seeing expression.

It was not wrong to feel like seeing a ghost; in a sense, Lin Ran was indeed a ghost of history.

"Of course, now, whether it's you or the Soviet Russia side, everyone is still pursuing the realization of functions, not precise control.

So although it will affect the lifespan, the equatorial bulge, which is the second term, causes the satellite's perigee to deviate from the scheduled orbit by 3 degrees per lap. Even if the lifespan is limited, it can stay in the sky for ten or twenty years. This is not fatal at all."

When Haines heard 3 degrees of orbit, he had the illusion that lightning struck his brain. His carotid artery jumped, and the Asian in front of him accurately reproduced the angular deviation that the Houston laboratory spent 237 hours calculating.

Now that the influence of McCarthy had gradually dissipated, there were indeed a very small number of Asian engineers who had returned to NASA's work positions.

But as far as he knew, there were no Chinese working in any astronomical observatory in the United States.

Secondly, America's first artificial satellite, Explorer 1, was launched two years ago, and it was only last year that they accurately calculated the impact of the Earth's non-spherical perturbation on it.

Only with data could the impact be calculated, and then the J2 term in the Newton gravitational perturbation correction formula could be deduced from the data.

That was the second term.

This guy in front of him casually stated the results they had accumulated over the past two years.

"Who on earth are you?" Haines couldn't hold it in anymore. ===== CHAPTER 5 =====