Half-immortal civilization

When the plane of the master company took off to transport the space materials for China, it completely stimulated the whole world, especially the United States and Russia.On the Russian side, on the one hand, it will launch the rockets in stock as soon as possible; on the other hand, it is also researching the engine of the master company, and by the way, it is also researching its own space shuttle.

In this regard, the United States is undoubtedly a lot faster, after all, it has a strong foundation; the 200-year technological power is not just for fun.

On January 2047, 1, the first U.S. space shuttle with two K25 engines was designed and ready to fly today.

Because it is a temporary test flight and has not yet been finalized, the new aircraft does not have a code name, but only a set of numbers: 301, the first space shuttle of the third generation.

As the largest aerospace agency in the world, NASA has always been the leader in the world's aerospace industry. As the saying goes, it can be imitated and has never been surpassed.Only with the rise of master companies, NASA's status began to be challenged.Since the master company assisted Huaxia in making the first Dragon fighter jet, NASA has actually begun to pay attention, but the engine technology is really not a luxury toy. A small engine needs 10,000+ parts, which is extremely precise; rashly disassembled a brand new one The engine, almost no country or organization can perfectly reinstall it - especially the installation of all the engine parts of the master company borrows the convenience (encryption) of the array, and therefore, those who do not understand the array will absolutely It cannot be put back on.

In this regard, Huaxia has attached great importance to ancient Chinese civilization in recent years because of the master company, and a large number of experts have been excavated. Every university has begun to regard knowledge of ancient Chinese as a main course. The country's multi-faceted cooperative research and development has given Huaxia a preliminary knowledge of the basics, but that's all.

Since the incident of forced ascent, Zhang Jingyuan has started internal discussions, and the 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 person in charge of the research and development of the third-generation space shuttle in the United States, he shoulders heavy responsibilities and is under great pressure, especially the current top-notch core engines are not from the United States. Unable to manufacture.Of the 15 engines bought from the master company, 5 are placed here.One of the engines was sent to the power research room for disassembly and research, and it was ready to be copied—but so far there is no hope of copying it, whether it is the material or the strange installation method; Cannot be assembled back.

However, this does not prevent NASA from producing space shuttles with engines from expert companies; the current situation is that the most correct way is to get the plane into the air as soon as possible, and at the very least, it is necessary to keep the public's confidence and support in 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, the isolation of the European Union, and the increasing pressure on the United States, especially countries in South America, Central Asia, South Asia, and Central Africa are also rapidly rising, making the United States The pressure is also increasing. In order to resist external pressure, the United States has to shift the pressure to the people again. The former world police has been downgraded to regional police.

That is to say, under such circumstances, 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 former Columbia, Atlantis, etc. have been far from meeting 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 president’s White House, the president does not have a superior status in other informal situations. .

"Dr. John, what's the situation?" The president looked at the plane on the flat ground and asked with some concern.It has been known before that due to material problems, the space shuttle has not yet solved some problems, such as a light and strong structure.

"It's barely ready for a test flight, and I 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 has a load of only 20 tons, although it has made great progress compared to before. However, with a large-capacity launch vehicle and the strong transportation capacity of a master company, the current situation is really not optimistic.

THE PRESIDENT: "Can you briefly introduce the situation?"

"Okay." Dr. John pointed to the space shuttle in the distance, "The fuselage as a whole borrowed from the design of the Raptor fighter jet, with a slight change. Because the working medium of the engine is air, in the atmosphere, mainly in the stratosphere, use Natural air works, so the aircraft still retains the air intake; in addition, it carries three tons of liquid air, which is used as a working medium when the air in space and the atmosphere is thin. This design can reduce the weight of the aircraft by about three tons.

In addition, in order to be able to carry the 100-ton thrust of the two engines, the overall fuselage is made of titanium alloy as the frame.In order to achieve maximum strength, the overall main frame of the aircraft adopts integrated processing technology.The main frame is 22 meters wide, 20 meters wide, and 23 meters high. It is made of a piece of titanium alloy with a length of 21 meters, a width of 3.3 meters, and a height of [-] meters. The rest of the structure..."

"Wait!" The president interrupted Dr. John's words, "The main frame of the aircraft is made of a solid titanium alloy. What is the cost price!" Hearing Dr. John's introduction, the president's expression 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 segmental pouring and forging technology. And the success rate is very low.

"Uh... to complete all the processing, the cost price is 13 billion U.S. dollars. In order to complete this unprecedented large component, we spent more than ten tons of cutting tools and scrapped three top-level ultra-large combined gantry machining centers. The waste chips from cutting Group yo and 460 tons." Dr. John was a little hesitant, because the cost was really high.However, there is no such powerful new material technology as the master company, and only by adopting such a framework can the overall gap be narrowed.

"Okay, then tell me, except for the two engines, what is the cost of the remaining parts of this space shuttle?"

"$120 billion!"

"How much!" the president screamed, "120 billion dollars! Oh, God, the engine is the heart. We bought it from China and spent 200 billion dollars. This can be said. But you tell me the rest of the parts, still If you want 120 billion US dollars, how do you ask me to explain to the people!"

"However, Your Excellency, in order to achieve the best results, 40 billion US dollars are used to customize parts from expert companies."

"..." The president was stunned for a moment, and then waved his hands in frustration, "Let me see the test flight. You can see that tens of thousands of enthusiastic citizens are already watching."

This is actually a fact. NASA is relatively open, separated by a river, and Americans can freely visit all the launch situations at the site.