It's a pity, out of curiosity, Zhang Nan asked again: "There are two Burans?"

The space shuttle is a very interesting thing, even if the Americans gave up the space shuttle in the previous life because of the high cost, unpredictable risks and the policy of changing course, Zhang Nan still thinks that thing is really interesting.

Simple and complicated, that is the interesting thing about the space shuttle in Zhang Nan's eyes.

Hearing the boss's question here, Andre smiled a little bitterly, "Actually, there are three of them, and the one in this workshop is a simulated spaceship for ground use and a second practical spaceship that has not yet been completely completed." ”

As he spoke, he pointed to the distance, "Look, there's a big factory in the distance, where the Energy rocket and the one that went into space are stored, but it's also closed. ”

Speaking of this, Andrei sighed a little, everyone knows that the Buran space shuttle is no longer possible to go to space.

But for Andre and others, it's okay to sigh a little, life will continue to be not, people have to look forward.

In the past two years, the Red Devils have been loyal, Zhang Nan suddenly thought of something, and felt that saying it could adjust the mood of the Red Devils, so he said: "Actually, I personally feel that the development of the Space Shuttle is a strategic mistake, especially for the United States..."

The big boss issued a "strategic judgment", which is terrible, and everyone in the whole vehicle pricked up their ears - this kind of judgment and analysis in the general direction Zhang Nan rarely mentions it, but once he said it, he didn't miss it!

What is the cost of the wrong side?

Break your muscles and bones, and even break your bones!

"A spaceship and an airplane are two things, and with current technology, the two are shoehorned together, and the two ends are not pleasing and cannot be reached to the extreme.

The original intention of developing the space shuttle should be to reduce the cost of space exploration, but now the space shuttle needs at least two or three hundred million dollars for a launch, and if you count inflation, it has already exceeded four or five times what was expected 10 years ago, and after a few years, it will be no problem for a single cost to exceed 500 million US dollars.

Looking back, what is the cost of launching a Soyuz spacecraft plus a proton rocket?

Less than one-tenth of the space shuttle, or even one-twentieth of it!

The United States does not have a space station, and I don't understand space technology, but I can guess that some of the experiments done by the space shuttle in the sky can be completed in the space station, and in terms of empty time, the space shuttle is absolutely not comparable to the space station.

When the time is short, there will naturally be fewer things to do, and Washington and NASA are spending a lot of money to do small things, which is a deviation.

However, it is still a trivial matter that the money is used crookedly, and competition is the best catalyst for technological development, and it is best to see the red with bayonets, which will force new technologies to come out.

I guess Washington and NASA will not be able to play any new tricks in the next ten or twenty years, except for uniting with Russia and adding some Western countries to build a new space station.

Mir has long been out of service and cannot be used for another ten years, and the earth cannot afford a space station.

After more than ten years, counting the 20 years before the development of the space shuttle, since the stop of the moon landing, NASA will have at least 40 years without a substantial breakthrough!

Think about it, since the end of the moon landing program, what have we humans done in space?

Originally, it was good to honestly develop space station and spaceship technology, and the space shuttle was an honor guard horse adapted to the Star Wars program.

Good looking is good-looking, too expensive, flashy compared to spaceships and space stations.

Some people say that it can bring back equipment that needs to be repaired in space, which is not capable of the current spacecraft, but from my point of view, it is better to build it new. ”

Speaking of this, Zhang Nan glanced at the blue sky outside the window, "This person is always full of desire to explore, and the technical research that needs to be carried out in the space environment can be done relatively cheaply by using a combination of a space station and a spacecraft."

Anyway, we have to burn money, stop the space shuttle project, and save the money to develop deep space exploration.

Exploring space is exploring the unknown, and the old space shuttle is circling in low-earth orbit, burning much more money than deep space exploration, wasting!"

Zhang Nan is playing tricks from God's perspective, and he knows that according to the statistics of some US institutions for more than ten years: even if inflation is taken into account, the total amount of money spent by the United States on the space shuttle project far exceeds the sum of the moon landing, the construction of the atomic bomb and the excavation of the Panama Canal!

More than ten years later, around 2005, the then NASA administrator simply fired a gun: "The Space Shuttle and the International Space Station program, and even all the US manned space programs in the past 30 years, are strategic mistakes!"

The Space Shuttle is a flashy gold-swallowing monster, and the Soyuz spacecraft and proton rocket programs are cheap and easy to use.

Twenty years ago, if the United States had not built a space shuttle and used the money saved to learn from the Soviet Union to build a spacecraft and space station, it was estimated that there would be a large enough space station, and by the way, it would have been able to go to Mars soon.

......

The Buran is a tragedy, listening to Zhang Nan's words, the Americans' space shuttle seems to be a tragedy, and it is even worse?

Sadly, the sadness of the Buran can be seen by the world, and on the US Space Shuttle project, Washington and NASA still don't know it, and they will be dumb and can't talk about their suffering!

It's terrible to take a detour, the USSR walked and walked and walked away, and the United States, in a way, wasted at least 40 years!

When they returned to Lenin City, it was already night, and Zhang Nan and the others had to stay here for one night, and tomorrow morning they would go to the command center here to have a video call with Guan Xingquan.

After that, he went back to the United States and went to the United States, and went to China through Moscow, as for Zhang Nan, he had to stay in Kazakhstan for a few more days.

But there is no need to wait stupidly in the city of Lenin, tomorrow at noon with Nong Bosheng and others to Almaty, and six days later to South Russia, the city of Engels on the left bank of the Volga.

At that time, Guan Xingquan, together with the two astronauts who had been stationed on the Mir space station for a long time, will return to Earth on the Soyuz TM-17 spacecraft, and the landing site will be selected on the great plain, which is more than a kilometer southwest of Engels City.

Zhang Nan and Xiang Weirong have to wait for Boss Guan to return safely, and as for whether they want to stay in Moscow with him for a few more days after that, it depends on the situation.

When Zhang Nan was on a video call the next day, he saw Guan Xingquan almost floating in the air, surrounded by four smiling Russian cosmonauts.

Reduced budgets, the previous Soyuz AT-16 spacecraft was launched with only two astronauts on Mir, because every drop of water, every liter of oxygen, and every bag of food brought by the Soyuz manned spacecraft and the Progress cargo spacecraft was sky-high!

At that time, because of Guan Xingquan's height, when he returned, he would not take the Soyuz TM-16 spacecraft that had been on the Mir before, but the original ship, but fortunately, this spacecraft would not be bad if it stayed in space for one or two hundred more days.