Chapter 81: I am not talking about anyone in particular

Kennedy's speech and everything that happened at Cape Canaveral spread across the world via newspapers in just one week.

During this week, it made the front-page headlines of countless media outlets.

From newspapers to television to radio, every medium you can think of was discussing this event.

However, the vast majority of the media's attention was focused on Kennedy and the White House; no one cared at all about Lin Ran's prophecy.

It was already considered quite good if Lin Ran's prophecy received a single paragraph in a front-page newspaper report.

Even when newspapers specifically talked about this matter, the focus was not on the prophecy itself, but rather on the belief that the whole thing was a conspiracy orchestrated by the White House.

Just like when Kissinger caused trouble all over the world—even if he led many of the events, people at the time felt it was the White House's idea.

But within NASA, the reaction was completely different, because NASA was able to see Lin Ran's predictions and had the complete data on the crash of Freedom 7.

This included the fact that this incident directly led to the suicide of Robert Gilruth, the director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, and there was no telling how many subsequent staff members would be implicated.

Everyone wondered if McCarthy was about to make a comeback.

Only this time, McCarthy's targets were different.

"What the f**k! How is this possible!" Ernst Stuhlinger, director of the Ion Propulsion Laboratory at the Marshall Space Flight Center, held Lin Ran's prophecy and compared it against NASA's internal report on the Freedom 7 crash, discovering that the other party's predictions regarding the timing were incredibly precise.

Stuhlinger had heard the name Lin Ran a long time ago; he had seen it in a letter written to him by Haynes, in which the other party described this young man with yellow skin he had encountered as a rare talent the likes of which the world had never seen.

Haynes also mentioned in the letter that if the other party could join NASA, it would be very helpful for their Mercury program, and he hoped Stuhlinger could help arrange an interview.

Stuhlinger was Haynes's boss's boss, a scientist brought over from Germany by America during Operation Paperclip.

Unlike von Braun, who was always in the rear responsible for rocket research, Stuhlinger belonged to the group of second lieutenants who had personally participated in combat and been sent to the front lines, even participating in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Therefore, it could be said that Stuhlinger possessed an iron will; anyone who could walk back to Germany during that cold winter was a tough character.

Stuhlinger and Haynes were on good terms, and he soon arranged the interview, but after Haynes returned to the Redstone Arsenal, he told him that the other party had gone to Columbia University to teach.

Stuhlinger didn't pay much attention to it; after all, there were too many geniuses among the thousands of scientists at the Redstone Arsenal, and Lin Ran's genius remained only in Haynes's letter, as he had never seen it with his own eyes.

The next time he heard the name was in the newspapers, in the science section, where this young man named Randolph Lin was constantly creating new miracles in the field of mathematics.

This made Stuhlinger regret a little that he hadn't been more decisive and gone to New York to meet the other party in person at the time.

The most recent time he heard the name was because the other party had indeed come to work at NASA, only not as an engineer under him, but as his direct superior—the direct superior of all of NASA.

And the moment he arrived, he gave everyone a show of force.

Using an incredibly precise prophecy, he was slapping everyone at NASA in the face.

Lin Ran's handwritten prediction manuscript had already been copied everywhere, and almost every NASA scientist had a copy.

Aside from being shocked that the other party had accurately predicted the time of the crash, the angle of deviation, and the final cause of the crash, everyone had only one feeling: that they had been slapped in the face, slapped hard.

As a high-level NASA official, Stuhlinger felt this even more intensely.

In his office, besides him, Kurt Debus, the launch operations director at Cape Canaveral, was also present. He asked:

"Kurt, you were there the whole time Lin was watching at the Cape Canaveral launch site?"

Kurt nodded: "That's right, I accompanied him the whole time. Lin toured the rocket and Freedom 7."

"But the circuits were sealed; he couldn't see the inside from the outside, he could only look at the internal design of Freedom 7 from the blueprints."

"When Administrator Webb was touring the rocket, Lin only took a look from afar; he spent most of his time in the conference room looking at the design blueprints for Freedom 7."

"I thought at the time that he was very interested in the control system design of Freedom 7, but I didn't expect he was there to find fault."

"Furthermore, from the completion of Freedom 7's manufacturing to its installation and launch, the entire process was watched by security personnel; no one from outside the launch base had contact with it during that period."

Kurt was indignant—if you saw the problem, you should have said so earlier; if you had said so earlier, we wouldn't have wasted such an opportunity in vain.

"I know," Stuhlinger sighed deeply. "Who told them to find our handle?"

"But I still don't understand, how did he dare to gamble?"

Kurt asked: "Gamble? They must have prepared for both scenarios, right? If we had launched successfully, they could have just changed their story."

Stuhlinger explained: "Of course, they must have considered success or failure. What I mean by gamble is, how did Lin dare to write the failure process so precisely, down to the minute?"

"Wasn't he afraid the prophecy would fail?"

"What's even more terrifying is that he predicted it correctly; the predicted time and the actual situation were exactly the same."

"This cannot be explained by prior preparation. Just by looking at the circuit diagrams, he could predict this failure."

"Problems that we spent half a year checking back and forth couldn't find, the other party could see just by glancing at it, and then make such a precise and bold prophecy."

"This is telling us that his attainments in the aerospace field are no less than in mathematics; don't treat him as a layman."

"In management, there is James Webb; in technology, there is Randolph Lin."

"NASA is about to face a period of turmoil, and we don't even have any reason to oppose it."

If you lose, you have to admit it.

If someone finds your handle, you have to admit it even more.

In addition to being a Special Assistant for Aerospace Affairs, Lin Ran also added a new position: Director of the NASA Manned Spaceflight Office.

This was a newly established internal office responsible for centrally managing NASA's manned spaceflight programs, which also included manned lunar landings.

It could be said that this was the internal agency with the most real power in the Apollo program.

After the Freedom 7 incident, whether it was James Webb or the White House, everyone felt that only Lin Ran could be trusted in terms of technology.

In addition, Lin Ran also joined the NASA Accident Investigation Board, serving as an investigation committee member responsible for assisting James Webb in rooting out problematic personnel within NASA.

In the Redstone Arsenal conference room, engineers and management personnel at the GS-9 level and above gathered together, and Lin Ran sat in the very center of the tiered conference room.

Facing the crowd of NASA staff below, the person in the first row looking directly at him was none other than von Braun.

"Hello everyone, this is my first time meeting all of you at NASA in such a formal setting since I took office as Special Assistant for Aerospace Affairs."

"I am not talking about anyone in particular; I am saying that everyone here is trash."