When the master company's plane took off to transport space supplies to China, it completely stimulated the whole world, especially the United States and Russia. Russia, on the one hand, is launching its inventory of rockets as soon as possible, and on the other hand, it is also studying the engines of the Master Company, and by the way, it is also studying its own space shuttle.
In this regard, the United States is undoubtedly much faster. After all, it has a solid foundation; being a technological power for 200 years is no joke.
On January 25, 2047, the design of the United States' first space shuttle using two K01 engines was completed and is ready for test flight today.
Because it is a temporary test flight and has not yet been finalized, the new aircraft does not have a code name, just a set of numbers: No. 301, the first space shuttle of the third generation.
As the world's largest aerospace agency, NASA has always been the world's leader in aerospace. As the saying goes, it can be imitated but never surpassed. But with the rise of expert companies, NASA's status began to be challenged. NASA has actually started to pay attention to it since Gaoshou Company assisted China in successfully producing the first Dragon fighter jet. However, engine technology is really not a luxury toy. A small engine requires hundreds of thousands of parts and is extremely precise; rashly dismantling a brand new Almost no country or organization can reassemble the engine perfectly - especially the installation of all engine parts by the master company has borrowed the convenience (encryption) of the formation. Therefore, those who do not understand the formation will not be able to reassemble it after disassembly. There is absolutely no way to put it back.
In this regard, Huaxia has attached great importance to ancient Chinese civilization in recent years because of the Gaoshou Company. A large number of experts have been discovered. Every university has begun to regard ancient Chinese knowledge as a main course. In addition, the Gaoshou Company is working with The country's various aspects of cooperative research and development have allowed China to initially master some basic knowledge, but that's all.
Since the forced liftoff occurred, Zhang Jingyuan has begun internal discussions, and cooperation with the country will gradually begin to enter a stage of complete cessation.
But here in the United States, Chief Engineer John is extremely excited and nervous today. As the head of the research and development of the third-generation U.S. space shuttle, he shoulders heavy responsibilities and is under great pressure, especially since the current top core engines are not from the United States, and they are not from the United States. Unable to manufacture. Five of the 15 engines bought from the master company are placed here. One of the engines was sent to the Power Research Laboratory for disassembly and research in preparation for replication - but so far there is no hope of replicating it, either in terms of materials or the strange installation method; after being disassembled, the Power Research Laboratory tried several times but failed. Cannot be put back together.
But this does not prevent NASA from using engines from Gaoshou Company to manufacture space shuttles; the current situation is that the most correct approach is to get the aircraft into space as soon as possible, and at the very least, the public must maintain confidence and support for the authorities.
In fact, the national life in the United States is not good now, and it is a bit on par with China in the early 21st century. With the rise of China, the strong oppression of Russia, and the isolation of the European Union, the pressure on the United States is also increasing. In particular, even countries in South America, Central Asia, South Asia, Central Africa and other places are also rising rapidly, which makes the United States The pressure is also increasing. In order to resist external pressure, the United States has once again shifted the pressure to the people. The former world police has been downgraded to a regional police.
It is under this circumstance that the United States had to spend a great deal of money to develop a new generation of space shuttle, which is also the third generation of space shuttle in the United States. The Columbia and Atlantis of the past are far from being able to meet the needs of modern aerospace.
At noon, the contemporary president of the United States arrived, and John led the NASA team to simply greet him. On the one hand, American politics is much more open. After leaving the presidential White House, informally elsewhere, the president does not have a superior status. .
"Dr. John, how's the situation?" The president asked worriedly, looking at the plane on the ground. It has been known before that due to material issues, the space shuttle has not yet solved some problems, such as a lightweight and strong structure.
"It's barely ready for test flight. It should be able to give an explanation to the domestic people." Dr. John is a little unconfident. To be precise, the space shuttle currently being developed only has a load capacity of 20 tons, although it has been greatly improved compared to before. , however, with a large-capacity launch vehicle and the powerful transportation capabilities of the master company, the current situation is really not optimistic.
President: "Can you briefly introduce the situation?"
"Okay." Dr. John pointed to the space shuttle in the distance. "The overall fuselage draws on the design of the Raptor fighter jet with slight changes. Because the working medium of the engine is air, it uses It works with natural air, so the aircraft still retains the air inlet; it also carries three tons of liquid air, which is used as a working medium when the air is thin in space and the atmosphere. This design can reduce the weight of the aircraft by about three tons.
In addition, in order to be able to carry the 100 tons of thrust of the two engines, the entire fuselage is made of titanium alloy. In order to achieve maximum strength, the overall main structure of the aircraft adopts integrated processing technology. The main structure is a fuselage structure with a length of 22 meters, a width of 20 meters, and a height of three meters. It is processed from a piece of titanium alloy that is 23 meters long, 21 meters wide, and 3.3 meters high. The rest of the structure..."
"Wait a minute!" the president interrupted Dr. John, "The main structure of the aircraft is made of integral titanium alloy. What is the cost?" Listening to Dr. John's introduction, the president's face changed. The cost value of such a large piece of titanium alloy is absolutely terrifying. You must know that this is not a steel ingot, but an aviation-grade material that must maintain high strength in every inch. It can only be processed by segmented pouring and forging technology. And the success rate is very low.
"Well... the cost of completing all the processing was US$1.3 billion. In order to complete this unprecedented large component, we spent more than ten tons of cutting tools and scrapped three top-notch ultra-large combined gantry machining centers. "The combination is 460 tons." Dr. John was a little hesitant because the cost was really high. However, there is no new material technology as powerful as that of the master company. Only this kind of structure can be used to narrow the overall gap.
"Okay, then tell me, except for the two engines, how much does the remaining parts of this space shuttle cost?"
"$12 billion!"
"How much!" the president screamed, "12 billion U.S. dollars! Oh, God, the engine is the heart. We spent 20 billion U.S. dollars buying it from China. This is reasonable. But now you tell me the rest of the parts, still It costs 12 billion US dollars, how do you want me to explain it to the people?”
"But, Your Excellency, in order to achieve the best results, US$4 billion is used for custom-made parts and components from master companies."
"..." The president was stunned for a moment, and then waved his hand in frustration, "Let me see the test flight situation. You can see that there are already tens of thousands of enthusiastic citizens watching around." This is a fact. NASA is relatively open. The location separated by the river allows Americans to freely visit all the launch conditions at the site.