The train driver in the courtyard

"This is the Temple of Science you mentioned. Isn't it a little too small?"

Standing downstairs, Chen Xueru looked at the three-story building and felt a little puzzled.

After returning home in the afternoon, Li Aiguo excitedly took her and said that he would take her to a good place for a visit.

The result is a small building like this.

"A mountain is not high, but it is magical if there are immortals. A river is not deep, but it is magical if there are dragons. A building is not big, but it depends on who lives inside. Anyone picked out of this building has a higher education than everyone else in our neighborhood combined. Knock on any door, and everyone who opens will be a professor."

Li Aiguo had never expected that the "Special Building" which would become famous in later generations would be so simple in this era.

Especially since Building No. 13 and Building No. 15 have not been completed yet, Building No. 14 is like a lonely bachelor, with four edges like lines, straight and square, but a little lonely.

"They are all great professors." Chen Xueru's eyes lit up instantly.

The Chinese people have always respected senior intellectuals, even in this era when workers have the highest status.

"Let's go. Dean Qian is probably waiting at home."

Qian's family lives on the left side of the second floor. Li Aiguo's first impression of this place is that it is clean. Unlike ordinary Khrushchev buildings, every household here has an indoor kitchen and bathroom.

There was no firewood, cabinets, basins or other debris in the corridor. The stairs were swept clean and even the walls were whitewashed.

"This place is so beautiful." Chen Xueru couldn't help but exclaimed, "It would be great if we could live in a house like this in the future."

The couple climbed up to the second floor and found an electric light hanging from the ceiling in the corridor. The bulb was covered with dust and there was an old-fashioned black round light switch on the side of the door.

There is a small window on the turmeric-colored wooden door.

The doormat at the entrance was made of straw, with a hint of fine dirt underneath left behind by visitors' feet.

It seems that Mr. Qian often has guests here.

Chen Xueru was about to knock on the door when Li Aiguo hugged her and pressed a button.

Zizizi. A low electric bell sounded, startling Miss Chen so much that she opened her eyes wide.

It's worthy of being the place where great scientists live, it's full of high technology.

After a while.

The door opened, and a amiable middle-aged woman looked at the two people outside and asked, "Who are you?"

"You must be Teacher Jiang, right? My name is Li Aiguo, and I'm a train driver at Qianmen Railway Section. This is my wife, Comrade Chen Xueru." Li Aiguo said politely.

Just kidding, the person in front of me is a famous soprano singer and vocal educator.

"It's Comrade Aiguo. Come on, come in. Our Lao Qian has been waiting for you." Teacher Jiang looked Li Aiguo up and down. He was somewhat curious why Lao Qian, who usually didn't like to interact with outsiders, often mentioned a friend of different ages recently.

He is tall and strong with a handsome appearance. More importantly, he exudes the righteousness and simplicity that is unique to a worker, which makes people feel at ease.

As for his wife, she is very beautiful and always has a gentle smile on her face. At first glance, she looks like a virtuous young wife.

Teacher Jiang had a very good impression of the two men. After welcoming them into the house, he called out to the study, "Old Qian, the patriotic comrade is here. Come out quickly."

"I'm coming!"

Mr. Qian put down his pen and walked out, his eyes instantly falling on the bag in Li Aiguo's hand.

"Since you are here, why bring any gifts? This is not a custom in our country."

"These are walnuts that a friend of mine brought from Suzhou." Li Aiguo put the bag on the table with a smile.

When he heard that it was Suzhou walnuts, Mr. Qian swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue and his expression changed a little.

When Li Aiguo opened the bag and took out the plump walnuts, Mr. Qian couldn't help but say, "These are really walnuts from my hometown. When I was a child, I loved eating walnuts the most. I didn't expect that I would see them again after more than ten years."

Teacher Jiang nodded in appreciation. Walnuts are not worth much, but the walnuts from his hometown have a special meaning. This train driver really knows how to behave.

"Since this is a gesture of patriotism, please accept the money."

"Okay, okay." Mr. Qian really couldn't bear to part with these walnuts.

He is in a special position now, and he needs to report his travels in advance. If he returns to Suzhou, it will make too much noise.

As for asking people to purchase walnuts from Suzhou, it seems a bit like privilege.

The walnuts Li Aiguo sent were just what he wanted.

"Wait a minute. I got a package of tea a while ago." Old Qian personally went to pour tea for the two of them.

Li Aiguo also took the opportunity to secretly look at the layout of the house.

This house has three bedrooms, a living room, a study and a kitchen.

There is a large coal-burning stove in the kitchen, which is covered with white tiles. There are two large iron pots in front and behind the stove, and water is boiled in the middle.

There is a bathtub in the bathroom, so you can take a hot bath every day.

It can be seen that although the country is in difficulties, it still tries its best to provide the necessary material conditions for returning scientists like Mr. Qian.

"Come on, Aiguo, Xueru, try this." Teacher Jiang also took out a plate of snacks from the cabinet.

"It must be Zhongguancun dim sum, it looks pretty good." Miss Chen exclaimed.

There is a saying in Beijing that "Lao Mo's cakes, Xinqiao Sanbao Le's bread and Zhongguancun's foreign snacks".

Li Aiguo didn't like eating this kind of foreign stuff, he just drank a few sips of tea comfortably.

After chatting for a while, a few people learned that Teacher Jiang was a singer. Little Chen, who had been interested in singing since childhood, pulled Teacher Jiang to learn bel canto.

Teacher Jiang was very envious of Miss Chen's sewing skills, and the two female comrades started chatting enthusiastically.

Mr. Qian brought Li Aiguo into the study.

The study is very large, with huge dark bookshelves on both sides filled with books, many of which are in English.

There is a blackboard hanging on the wall, covered with densely written calculation formulas.

Li Aiguo walked over, looked at it for a while, and asked, "Mr. Qian, are you calculating Qian Xuesen's trajectory?"

"Can you understand it?" Mr. Qian had just closed the door of his study and was standing at the door in shock.

"I can understand, but not much, only a little bit."

Li Aiguo picked up the chalk and added a line of calculation formula on it.

"You also know that I like reading a lot, all kinds of books."

"."

Mr. Qian discovered that the calculation formula just solved a difficult problem that he had been unable to overcome. He did not bother to worry about it anymore and quickly picked up the chalk to calculate for a while.

Half an hour later, Mr. Qian excitedly dropped the chalk and said, "This is the angle for entering the atmosphere. Now that we have the angle figured out, we can move on to the next step."

Mr. Qian suddenly paused, looked sharply at Li Aiguo, enthusiastically pulled his arm and asked him to sit down.

"Comrade Patriot, it seems that you know a lot about missile trajectories. Come on, tell me what you think."

Li Aiguo silently opened the system, took a look at the 100 points that were deducted, and complained in his heart: How can I not understand? I spent a lot of money for this trajectory.

However, if Qian Xuesen's ballistics can really be used on the Dongfeng-1, these points will be worth spending.

"Mr. Qian, the most important thing to consider with long-range missiles is how to prevent them from being intercepted."

As soon as these words came out, Mr. Qian slapped his thigh and said excitedly: "Foresight! Comrade Patriot, you are very forward-looking.

When I returned to China, I proposed developing a missile that could resist interception, but some comrades did not care. They thought that foreign countries did not have any good methods for missile interception.

They actually don't know that the American military has already developed computers and has worked with MIT to build a microwave early warning radar system.

Starting in 1953, the National Security Council of the United States established this radar system across the country - also known as the [Semi-Automatic Ground Environment] Air Defense System, abbreviated as Psyche.

This system can automatically identify missiles. Although it cannot intercept them for the time being, I believe that given the temperament of the Americans, intercepting missiles will definitely be put on the agenda soon.”

At this point, Mr. Qian suddenly stopped and looked up at Li Aiguo: "Computer, do you know what a computer is?"

"Yes, I've seen it in foreign journals. It's a device that can perform thousands of calculations in one second," said Li Aiguo.

Mr. Qian was now somewhat immune to Li Aiguo's magic. He nodded and said, "Although this information has not been announced to the public, my teacher has taught us many times that in the future, missiles without anti-interception capabilities can only be called firecrackers."

"Firecrackers? Mr. von Karman also knows about this thing?"

".The teacher is very knowledgeable about our Chinese culture and particularly likes our ancient fireworks, thinking they are the earliest rockets and missiles."

Fireworks, rockets and missiles all work on the same principle of burning explosives and launching them into space.

In principle, firecrackers are also a type of missile.

Ahem, Banggeng is really someone who can do big things. He can play with missiles just after he learns to walk.

Yesterday, the water bucket in Auntie's house broke, causing chaos in the compound.

Retracting his thoughts, Li Aiguo continued, "If you are strong, you can use flying bricks. If you are poor, you can use aerodynamic design. The Qian Xuesen ballistics you researched is the best way to prevent interception."

"The saying that when you are rich, you can use your strength to fly bricks, and when you are poor, you can use aerodynamic design is so true."

It was the first time that Mr. Qian saw someone use such popular language to describe the design of a missile.

The only way to defeat martial arts in the world is speed. As long as the missile is fast enough, no interception system will work.

However, increasing the speed of missiles means an increase in costs.

If you want to be frugal, you can only use your brain on aerodynamic design.

Only workers who are truly involved in front-line work can have such straightforward and intuitive insights.

Mr. Qian was no longer bothered by Li Aiguo's identity as a train driver, and continued, "The domestic rocket engine technology is underdeveloped, so I applied Qian Xuesen's ballistics to Dongfang No. 1, hoping to enhance the performance of Dongfang No. 1 and make it a killer weapon that the enemy fears. It's just that the difficulty is too great, and the effect is still uncertain.

Many people in the project team felt that the already mature parabolic trajectory should be adopted.”

Li Aiguo said decisively: "It will definitely work. I have foreseen it."

"You foresaw it." Qian Xuesen wanted to ask why. Li Aiguo continued, "Mr. Qian, the biggest reason why the Americans didn't let you leave was because of Qian Xuesen's trajectory. The Americans are bad, but not stupid. This is enough to illustrate the importance of Qian Xuesen's trajectory."

As soon as these words were spoken, all kinds of expressions changed on Mr. Qian's face.

He had never looked at the problem from that perspective.

But when I think about it carefully, it makes some sense.

The more your opponent values ​​something, the more important it is!

Mr. Qian nodded heavily: "Patriotic, I will try my best to use Qian Xuesen's ballistics on the Dongfeng-1."

Li Aiguo breathed a sigh of relief.

At that time, Mr. Qian did not realize the importance of Qian Xuesen's trajectory.

However, Li Aiguo, who possesses the power of the Sky Eye, knows clearly that the Qian Xuesen ballistic missile was destined to become the nemesis of the missile defense system since its inception.

Qian Xuesen's ballistics has a great origin, and it was derived from the unfinished "black technology" of the German country - the Silver Bird aerospace strategic bomber.

Eugen Sanger and Wernher von Braun, who proposed this plan, were abducted to the American home after their homes were smashed to pieces in Germany.

After Qian Xuesen proposed the Qian Xuesen trajectory based on the Silver Bird aerospace strategic bomber in 1948, it did not fail to attract attention, but was artificially suppressed.

Otherwise, why would the Americans be so nervous when he, a small scientist, returned to his home?

Generally speaking, the trajectory of a ballistic missile is a parabola, and the trajectory cannot be changed after launch, so the missile can be easily intercepted.

Qian Xuesen's trajectory is simply the "unpowered lifting body re-entering the atmosphere gliding trajectory"

Does it look familiar? Yes, it is the space shuttle.

Its advantage is that the missile enters aerodynamic gliding at the end of the ascent phase, and the entire flight phase is fully controllable on the aerodynamic surface.

By adjusting the flow field, the aircraft can be placed in a high-speed aerodynamic flight state, that is, it can perform maneuverable flights such as circling, diving, sideslipping and even rolling. It can flexibly change the target of attack and the flight trajectory. The flexibility of use is increased by an order of magnitude compared to traditional ballistic missiles.

The "Qian Xuesen" trajectory was just proposed longer time ago, but it does not mean that it is a "backward theory".

On the contrary, Qian Xuesen's ballistics is a great theory that transcends the times, is extremely forward-looking, and is great.

This theory can not only be used in weapons, it can also be used in many industries such as aviation travel and extraterrestrial exploration.

It was just that it was not taken seriously in the beginning. It was not until the Dongfeng 17 used the Qian Xuesen ballistics that the Americans and other countries were at a loss.

With the previous DF-21, they could calculate the trajectory and try to intercept it.

Even though the DF-21 has the ability to change orbit, it is still predictable to a certain extent.

[Note: Dongfeng 21 is a land-based mobile medium-range ballistic missile that was put into service in 1991 and belongs to the second-generation missile.

The DF-17 is a third-generation hypersonic medium- and short-range conventional ballistic missile that debuted in 2019.

The DF-17 is different, its trajectory is completely unpredictable.

Later, the Dongfeng 26, which also adopted Qian Xuesen's ballistics, was hailed as an aircraft carrier killer.

Precisely because there is no way to intercept, the Americans have to place their defense systems at the Koreans' homes, trying to buy time to respond by using spatial distance.

As for whether the Koreans will be bombed, that is not something the Americans need to consider.

Who would care about the safety of a tool?

When a tool breaks, just throw it away.

The application of Qian Xuesen's ballistics was a long and difficult process.

Now, under the personal supervision of Mr. Qian, the Qian Xuesen ballistics have been used since the DF-2, abandoning the parabolic trajectory of the Russian P- missile. This means that the domestic development of firecrackers has avoided twenty years of detours.

Perhaps the Americans’ large iron-hulled ships will not dare to hang around their doorsteps in the future.

Subsequently.

After feeling that Li Aiguo had good insights on missiles, Mr. Qian raised his own concerns.

"Another difficulty now is the design of the rocket engine. We can copy the engine of the P-2 missile, but its thrust is too small to be used as an intercontinental ballistic missile."

Of course, there is one thing Mr. Qian didn’t say.

Last year, the authorities included the development of rocket technology in the country's 12-year science development plan.

This year, Mr. Qian suggested to his superiors that research on artificial satellites should be started immediately, and his proposal was quickly approved.

In order to send our first satellite into space, we need a high-load rocket.

Li Aiguo said: "If one engine is not enough, then we can add a few more."

(End of this chapter)