Elon Musk Told Me Everything!

"Gao, come over here," Director Dan called.

"Coming!" Gao Jian hurried over. Seeing trouble brewing, Song Yaozu immediately slipped into the crowd, but Director Dan said nothing about it.

Introducing Song Yaozu to Gao Jian had been the most underhanded thing he had ever done. He had always felt guilty toward Gao Jian over it, and part of his reason for choosing Gao Jian as an observer had been to make amends.

Gao Jian came up to Director Dan, while Deputy Director Bian and Old Li flanked him on either side.

Director Dan pointed at the Intercontinental Missile still flying across the screen and asked, "Gao Jian, tell me, does this missile have anything to do with you?"

Gao Jian bristled. "How could it have anything to do with me? Director, what kind of person do you take me for?"

He had already checked. Throughout the bureau, Director Dan, Deputy Director Bian, and even Old Li were all ordinary people, not mental-state cultivators. Since they were ordinary people, he had nothing to worry about. He just had to bluff his way through.

Director Dan chuckled. "Don't get worked up. Bian told me the investigation the State Security Bureau people conducted into you caused quite a stir. The whole city was talking about it."

Gao Jian said helplessly, "Director Dan, I was traveling on official business. Getting caught up in all that was sheer bad luck. I really don't know anything else."

Old Li snapped at Director Dan, "Enough, stop asking. What matters is that he's all right. Are you seriously treating Gao like some kind of spy? Don't believe those rumors going around. Having him safely back is better than anything. Gao, from now on, come work with me on theoretical research."

Gao Jian asked anxiously, "Old Li, are we really giving up on the moon landing? The Long March 10 is already built. Aren't we launching it? I don't want to work on theory. I want hands-on work."

Old Li sighed and pointed at the screen as well. "Look at the mess out there. Intercontinental Missiles are being thrown around willy-nilly. Who would dare land on the moon without knowing what's going on? I may not think much of those people at NASA, but they've landed on the moon. They definitely have more experience than we do. At the very least, we couldn't bring four Astronauts home safely under those circumstances. We have a responsibility to keep people safe."

The NASA return capsule's emergency landing had deeply shaken the old hands at CNSA. Many veteran space workers had been so frightened watching the livestream that they kept exclaiming, "Spaceflight science no longer exists!"

Judging by that return flight alone, the gap between China and the United States was at least fifty years.

Director Dan added, "Gao, the higher-ups also want safety to come first. They even said it wouldn't matter if we suspended things for eight or ten years."

"Eight or ten years?!" Gao Jian's eyes widened.

Gao Jian shook his head repeatedly. "No, no, absolutely not. If we wait eight or ten years, the Americans' lunar bases will have sprouted new ones on the moon while we're still going in circles on Earth. We'll miss the age of exploration. We absolutely cannot miss the space age of exploration too."

Dan Zhongde remained silent.

Deputy Director Bian said earnestly, "Gao, some things come down to politics. The national space agency serves political needs. When the political climate tightens, forget a moon landing. Even launching a satellite requires advance paperwork and reports, and approval still isn't guaranteed."

Director Dan grunted. "Bian puts it bluntly, but he's right. You're still young and have no political experience. It's only natural you don't understand."

Old Li's expression was even harder to describe.

Gao Jian frowned without speaking.

Just then, another unusual announcement came from the large livestream screen.

[Emergency notice: our calculations were incorrect. The Russian intercontinental nuclear missile's detonation will be delayed by approximately five minutes.]

Another wave of discussion swept through the inner hall.

A question arose in Gao Jian's mind: How are the higher-ups calculating when the Russian missile will explode?

Suddenly, someone spoke up in the noisy hall. "Hold on, guys. When the nuke explodes, will we be able to see it?"

The entire inner hall fell silent.

Everyone present was a professional, after all, and someone soon worked out the figures.

"At an altitude of 2,800 kilometers, the nuclear fireball's instantaneous brightness will definitely exceed that of a full moon. We'll certainly see a dazzling ball of light flash."

"No, there's no air in a vacuum to form a huge plasma fireball. The visible light mainly comes from the instantaneous flash pulse produced by the explosion. But its peak brightness could approach that of the sun. We won't see a ball of light, just a flash across the sky..."

"We won't see the flash pulse either. It only lasts microseconds, so our eyes would have trouble catching it. It might be more noticeable at night, but it's noon now, and the sky outside is clear."

"No, no. Once the high-energy particles from the nuclear explosion bombard the upper atmosphere, they can create an artificial aurora. Surely we'll be able to see that."

"I've seen so many auroras this month that I'm sick of them."

"That won't work either. Sunlight will wash out the diffuse aurora, making large clouds of light hard to see."

"So can we see it or not?"

From among the research and development staff, Song Yaozu said quietly, "Why don't you go up to the roof and find out?"

This young Henan woman generally only spoke in her native dialect to Gao Jian. The rest of the time, she sounded perfectly normal, at least around outsiders.

At Yaozu's reminder, everyone quickly caught on. Someone looked toward Director Dan.

Director Dan nodded. "If you want to watch, go up and take a look. The roof isn't locked."

Only then did everyone surge toward the elevators. Some of the quicker thinkers ran straight for the fire stairs.

The building housing the China National Space Administration, CNSA, was a twelve-story gray concrete structure with ten floors aboveground and two below, already more than twenty years old. It did not belong exclusively to the space agency; floors two through six belonged to the defense science and technology industry bureau.

The two bureaus worked in the same building. The inner hall was on the seventh floor, so reaching the rooftop only required running up four flights of stairs.

People charged upstairs in a dense throng.

Among them were staff from the neighboring defense science and technology industry bureau in the stairwell. Seeing the space agency people racing toward the roof like mad, they thought there was a fire.

"What's happening? What's happening?" the uninformed industry bureau staff asked urgently.

"A nuke's about to explode!!!" someone explained in passing.

"Holy shit?" The industry bureau staff stared in disbelief.

This is the fucking capital. What the hell do you mean, a nuke's about to explode?

Is World War III about to kick off?

"Then why are you running upstairs? Shouldn't you be heading for the underground civil defense shelter?" one industry bureau employee asked in terror.

"To admire the moment of nuclear detonation." Song Yaozu patted the employee's shoulder, leaving a jaunty departing figure before vanishing into the crowd.

The industry bureau employee watched them, dumbfounded.

He knew the space people were nuts, but how were they all this nuts?

People shoved the industry bureau staff blocking the stairs aside in droves. Even so, those behind kept urging, "Hurry, hurry! The nuke could explode at any moment. If we're late, we'll miss it."

"Go, go, go!"

"Start recording on your phones."

"Charge!"

For a while, the fire stairs, emergency passages, elevator access areas, and freight elevator access areas were all packed. The industry bureau employee steeled himself, stamped his foot, then bounded down three floors and rushed into his own department's inner office hall on the fourth floor, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"A nuke's about to explode?!"

Heads popped up from every workstation at once.

The defense science and technology industry bureau had no giant screen showing a live broadcast, and phones were strictly prohibited during working hours for security reasons. Thus, no one had received the news. They had, however, all noticed the commotion in their neighboring department upstairs and were already itching to find out what was going on.

But wanting to watch the drama and wanting to take a nuke to the face were two different things.

The employee's terrified expression did not look fake. Word spread like wildfire, and the industry bureau's inner hall descended into chaos too.

The building's occupants split into two streams. The national space agency people flowed toward the rooftop, while the defense science and technology industry bureau people fled toward the civil defense shelter in the underground parking garage.

Gao Jian scanned the commotion throughout the building with his divine sense, feeling utterly baffled.

Only after everyone else had crowded upstairs did Gao Jian, Director Dan, Deputy Director Bian, and Old Li take the elevator at their leisure and make their way toward the roof.

The four discussed the incident.

Director Dan frowned.

"Could Russia be doing this to intimidate eastern Ukraine?"

Deputy Director Bian shook his head.

"Russia and Ukraine have been fighting for years, and it's turned into a complete mess. There's no need to throw a nuke around just to scare people. Besides, this one's being launched into space."

Old Li was a living relic of the Cold War, after all, and had seen a great deal.

"As I recall, the last nuclear detonation in space was the United States' Starfish Prime test in 1962. But in 1963, the Americans and Soviets signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. The Soviet Union was one of its principal signatories, and Russia inherited its legal standing. There's no reason for them to suddenly pull something like this out of nowhere."

None of the three could make sense of it.

Gao Jian said quietly, "Director Dan, Deputy Director Bian, Old Li, suppose-and I'm only saying suppose-this nuke could reach the moon?"

"An Intercontinental Missile isn't fast enough. It can't reach orbital velocity," Old Li said, shaking his head.

Gao Jian suddenly spoke plainly. "What if gravity stopped working, and an Intercontinental Missile became an interplanetary missile?"

All three turned to stare at Gao Jian. Dan Zhongde reacted first. "Gao, what do you mean by that?"

Gao Jian finally asked the question that had been weighing on his mind all along. "Director Dan, I've always wanted to ask: how did we send the Chang'e 3 lander, the Yutu rover, the Chang'e 4 far-side lander, the Yutu-2 rover, the Chang'e 5 lander, and the Chang'e 6 lander to the moon? Elon Musk told me that gravity along orbital trajectories is anomalous. Lunar probes can't slow down at all during flight. They'll smash to pieces on the moon... so how exactly did those things land?"

All three of their expressions shifted slightly.