Live-Streaming a Rocket Ride to Rescue a Space Station Sends the Aerospace World into a Frenzy

Hardcore DIY creator Lu Ye started a livestream in the northwestern Gobi Desert, launching a “handmade, homemade rocket” to gain followers. Just as the countdown to ignition began, the Great Xia Nation’s Tiangong space station was struck by a micrometeor storm. Its orbit shifted severely, and it was about to plunge into the atmosphere and burn up! The three astronauts tearfully bade their final farewells to Earth, and the whole nation mourned. Then an unregistered red dot suddenly appeared on the space agency’s radar: a tin-can rocket emblazoned with an ad for “Professional Drain Cleaning” was speeding beyond the first cosmic velocity, zeroing in on the space station’s falling orbit! Sitting inside his leaky homemade capsule, Lu Ye watched the frantic warnings in the live chat and activated the All-Purpose Aerospace System. “Streamer, run for your life! The nation itself can’t do anything. What can that hunk of junk possibly accomplish?” Lu Ye gripped the control stick, eyes bloodshot. “I built that docking module by hand overnight. What if I’m the only one who can give it that last little push?!” When telescopes at observatories around the world captured the sight of the crude homemade rocket bracing against the enormous space station, its blazing exhaust flaring brilliantly in space as it forced the station back into a safe orbit, the global aerospace community went into an uproar!