Chapter 81 - 79 Linear Algebra_1

On June 28, the B-level Base was completed. The engineering team from the mysterious forces of the system disappeared after the acceptance check, leaving the engineers they sent behind to take over and carry out minor modifications.

By July 22, over 100 former C-level Base employees and an equal number of newly recruited apprentices had taken their positions, bringing some of the equipment into working status.

When Lin Ju arrived, the wasteland he had seen at the end of last year had completely vanished, replaced by a massive aerospace manufacturing base with a 5000-acre plant, fully equipped with two runways.

Even if all the people from the cooperative colleges were recruited to work, the B-level Base was still short of 300, urgently needing to expand the workforce.

The parts of the base currently in operation included the high-altitude engine testing platform, an assembly line, and an automatic production line for silicon carbide chips. It was expected that more than 25% of the equipment and machinery would be operational next month.

Lin Ju had the illusion of a snake trying to swallow an elephant because, once the full production power of the base was activated, heavy-lift rockets like the New Yuan-2 could be produced four at a time, with a manufacturing cycle of 50 days, averaging less than half a month for each.

Following the in-plant signage to the huge and advanced aviation engine test stand, Lin Ju found that work was already underway there.

A small bypass ratio engine, clearly an XW-9 high-thrust turbofan with its intake connected to the wind tunnel simulating high-altitude high-speed airflow, had its nozzle at the rear narrowed, ejecting a long blue flame.

The XW-9 differed little from its original purpose as the jet portion of the WCR-9 combined engine, so the test data Lin Ju saw from the testing stand completely met expectations.

To adapt to high-altitude high-speed environments, the bypass ratio of the XW-9 was a stunning 0.29, even lower than the 0.34 of the F119 engine used by the F22.

Even with such a small bypass ratio, the XW-9 still managed to produce a maximum thrust of 14.4 tons in afterburner mode. Although not the highest in the world, this small volume and high-speed adaptability was unique.

When a flying vehicle operates above 28,000 meters, thrust is no longer the most affecting factor; instead, aerodynamic drag and the thin air that can cause engines to surge, lose power output, or even shut down pose risks.

The XW-9 is best applied to aircraft that fly at high altitudes at high speeds for long periods, such as supersonic passenger planes, supersonic bombers, or medium-sized interceptors.

The modifications for the XW-10 with an increased bypass ratio to enhance non-afterburner thrust were extensive, and it was still in the design stage. The team would talk about it once they were familiar with the XW-9.

Leaving the aviation department, Lin Ju continued to tour the base. Upon reaching the runway, he saw something very out of place on the apron:

A neat row of various large agricultural machines, including wheeled tractors, tracked tractors, cotton harvesters, round cabbage harvesters, and corn harvesters.

Seeing that there were company employees present, Lin Ju hurried over in his car to inquire what was going on.

"Boss, the tractor factory had a buildup of unsold farm machinery and parts before the upgrade. They were left outdoors without care, so we repaired these machines, assembled the parts, and now we’ve got almost ten complete units. We moved them here since there wasn’t enough space over there."

"What do we need this junk for? Which department are you from?"

Lin Ju was completely confused, but it turned out these people were the same ones working on the XW151 intelligent driving system with Xin’an, and they had the idea of also making intelligent agricultural machinery.

While tractors and cars operate in vastly different environments, creating intelligent, unmanned agricultural machines is much simpler than cars. The largest changes to fields and base stations are much easier to manage, making it a minor side project.

Perhaps out of nostalgia, Lin Ju even climbed aboard a wheeled tractor and found himself speechless, gripping the gear shifter and interior trim made from titanium alloy scraps from rocket construction.

Forget it, let’s just splurge on making it with money to burn.

...

At 10 a.m. on the 23rd, the second space lecture broadcast by Progress began, with the first lesson officially airing.

The last time China conducted a space lecture was during the Tiangong No.1 mission in 2013, when over 80,000 schools and about 60 million primary and secondary school students watched, causing a huge stir.

Although there was a big response this time as well, it didn’t come close to the spectacular scene of 60 million students.

That’s because Zhou Rui was talking about mathematics... linear algebra.

The previous day’s broadcast had been space experiments suitable for all ages, like drinking floating water globules in space, observing gyroscopes in zero gravity, and showing bean sprouts just sprouting in space.

There were live campus broadcasts, but it was still largely restricted to the schools cooperating with the Sichuan Education Bureau, and the effect was quite good.

The next day, the broadcast was aimed at all higher education institutions, and while Zhou Rui originally planned to talk about his specialty, sensors, the news from the previous night was that many students had failed linear algebra, so he decided to use this unique method to rekindle everyone’s passion for mathematics.

The ground center didn’t care, as they were not the national space agency, and the astronauts were not bound by rigid rules.

So, when Southern Machinery Institute and many other universities saw the live broadcast, they witnessed a kindly looking Zhou Rui introduce himself along with his three-person team, before Deng Lei and Zhao Xiaowen held up a whiteboard behind him.

Zhou picked up a pen and wrote "Lecture 1":

"Hello, students, good day to you all. Today in our space lecture, we will cover: Linear Algebra Lecture 1, Determinants.

Determinants are a very important concept in..."

"Ahem, ahem, cough!"

In front of countless computer screens, students who had just suffered through mathematical torment felt their breath halt, and their vision darken.

Before the broadcast, everyone thought space lectures would be fun and they would surely see lots of fascinating experiments and unique physical phenomena, but the content turned out to be:

The floating high school teacher, lying sideways, gave a lecture on linear algebra while swaying back and forth, occasionally bracing against the cabin wall?

Why does it feel like the no-signal icon from an old TV set is wandering all over the screen?

Although the live stream content was so dull it made countless people groggy, very few were willing to switch it off, with the buff of a space class forcing them to watch two full hours of non-stop linear algebra broadcast.

When Zhou Rui finished the live stream and learned from the feedback on the ground that the viewership hadn’t changed much, he felt quite pleased, firmly believing his innovative teaching method was highly effective.

"Zhao, why don’t you give the lecture during tomorrow’s stream? You can cover Chapter Two, I am not very familiar with the rest."

"Mr. Zhou, is that really a good idea?"

"You have to trust an old teacher’s experience! Let’s hurry up and finish the experiment, a few of the culture mediums seem problematic, and we should spend some extra time preparing for the lesson before bed. Look at these students, the quality drops with each passing year. How can we continue to contribute to the country like this?"

"Ah... If that’s the case, then so be it."

"..."

Commander Deng Lei had no interest in the two people’s discussion on how to torment the fragile souls of college students; he just floated over to the camera at the front of the cockpit and kept snapping photos of the stars and Earth.

Although there was no spacewalk scheduled for this mission, the spacesuits were ready; next time, driving Unity, they would be able to exit the craft.

Only then would they truly feel the magical sensation of being enveloped in darkness, suspended in space, as astronauts who had already performed spacewalks told him.

What they didn’t know was that a screenshot from the live broadcast had already started to spread quickly on foreign networks.

Search for "China space class" on YouTube, and the top video, published less than 7 hours ago, has already garnered over 4 million views.

The cover is hilarious - Zhou Rui and Zhao Xiaowen are positioned to the left and right around a whiteboard displaying the universally painful topic of linear algebra, while Commander Deng Lei holds a plastic-sealed red tea, quietly observing the stars from the cockpit.

The title on the cover reads: "The Most Boring Space Class in History."

The 2013 space teaching not only caused a sensation in China but also stirred up a significant buzz on foreign aerospace forums, with comments like, "Demolish it, demolish it, demolish it."

Although America and the former Union had sent humans to space and live-streamed the first spacewalk decades ago and built large space stations, the Internet didn’t exist back then, and TV broadcast quality was poor, leaving little impression on the new generation.

Therefore, China’s space efforts were getting a lot of attention, and in 2015, the Great Firewall wasn’t as strict, allowing for considerable exchange.

After the Lin Ju rocket was launched, he liked to browse YouTube and Little Blue Bird to see what foreigners thought.

"Space shuttles are unreliable, the Gagan Yang plan will be implemented next year, and our spacecraft will not only be more advanced but will also undertake transportation of ISS astronauts."

This is the first highly liked comment Lin Ju saw - a glimpse revealed it was from India, nothing to worry about then.

The Gagan Yang plan proposed in the ’70s hadn’t shown any progress after 50 years right up until the time Lin Ju traveled to this era, implying that the implementation next year was as illusory as the H-20 flying tomorrow.

Moving on to the next comment:

"粗悪な中国製です,H2Aはより強力です (Inferior Chinese knockoff, not as mighty as the H2A rocket)"

Hmm, seems like a Japanese enjoying too much Fukushima seafood is having a good time, enough nuclear wastewater has been released by 2013 to cause biological mutations.

No, wait, they haven’t started dumping nuclear wastewater into the sea yet.

Lin Ju decided to note down in his memo to stop the discharge of nuclear wastewater and figure out a way to prevent it later; if the Foreign Ministry dares propose dumping it into the sea, he would make their rocket launch fail and crash eastward.

"H1 plagiarized America’s space shuttle! Progress is a poor imitation of Energia, made with knockoff parts!"

"Our missiles are no longer the world’s best; mainland companies are stronger than us."

"Love from Tanzania, can China send African astronauts to space?"

"They stole technology from the former Union, ***"

"I don’t want to watch math at all, why isn’t there silkworm spinning silk?"

Most of the remaining comments are a chaotic mess, with only a small portion being somewhat interesting. In fact, on YouTube, Lin Ju could understand many comments without translation, but the most are in traditional characters and, ironically, the least interesting.

Next, onto Little Blue Bird to see the latest from Ma Yilong, the top comment teasing his Dragon Spaceship. Lin Ju thought it over and gave Ma Yilong a like, leaving an English comment from a secondary account:

"Keep it up, Dragon Spaceship is better than H1, you must persevere."

A few hours later, Lin Ju logged back onto Little Blue Bird to find that Ma Yilong had replied with a simple thank you and an emoticon.

Screenshot, saved for later - to whip out during a trash-talking duel with Ma to make him laugh and lose his composure!