When the aircraft of the master company took off for the space materials transported by Huaxia, it completely stimulated the whole world, especially the United States and Russia. On the Russian side, while launching as many rockets as possible from its stockpile, it is also researching the engines of master companies, and by the way, it is also researching its own space shuttle.

In this regard, the United States is undoubtedly much faster, after all, it has a strong foundation; 200 years of technological power is not a joke.

On January 25, 2047, the first U.S. space shuttle with two K01 engines was designed and ready to fly today.

Because it was a temporary test flight and had not yet been finalized, the new aircraft did 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 aerospace leader, and it can be imitated and never surpassed. It's just that with the rise of master companies, NASA's position began to be challenged. Since the master company assisted Huaxia to successfully build the first Flying Dragon fighter, NASA has actually begun to pay attention, but the engine technology is really not a toy, a small engine needs more than 100,000 parts, extremely precise; Rashly disassembling a brand-new engine, almost no country or organization can be perfectly reloaded back - especially all the engine parts of the master company are installed by borrowing the convenience (encryption) of the formation, and therefore, those who do not understand the formation will definitely not be able to install it back after dismantling.

In this regard, in recent years, Huaxia has attached great importance to the ancient Chinese civilization because of the master company, and a large number of experts have been excavated, and every university has begun to regard ancient Chinese knowledge as a major course.

Since the forced lift-off, Zhang Jingyuan has begun to discuss internally, and cooperation with the state will gradually begin to enter the stage of complete stopping.

But here in the United States, today's Chief Engineer John is particularly excited and nervous, as the head of the research and development of the third-generation space shuttle in the United States, he shoulders a heavy responsibility and is under great pressure, especially the current top core engine, which is not the United States, and it cannot be manufactured. Of the 15 engines bought from the master company, 5 were placed here. One of the engines was sent to the power laboratory to be split up and prepared to be copied - but there was no hope of a reproduction so far, neither in terms of materials nor the strange way of mounting; After disassembling it, the power laboratory was unable to assemble it back after several attempts.

But this did not prevent NASA from producing the space shuttle with the engines of the master company; The current situation is that it is the most correct thing to do to let the plane take off as much as possible, and at least to maintain the public's confidence and support for the authorities.

In fact, the current national life in the United States is not good, and it is somewhat on par with China at the beginning of the 21st century. With the rise of China, Russia's strong oppression, the isolation of the European Union, the pressure of the United States is also increasing, especially even in South America, Central Asia, South Asia, Central Africa and other countries are also rising rapidly, so that the pressure on the United States is also increasing, in order to resist external pressure, the United States has to transfer the pressure to the people again, the former world police has been downgraded to a regional police.

It is in this situation that the United States has to spend a great deal of money to develop a new generation of space shuttles, which is also the third generation of space shuttles in the United States. The Columbia, Atlantis, etc., are far from meeting the needs of modern aerospace.

At noon, the current president of the United States arrived, and John led the NASA team to simply greet him, and in this regard, the United States politics was much more open, leaving the president's White House, and in other unofficial circumstances, the president did not have a superior position.

"Dr. John, what's going on?" The president asked with some concern as he looked at the plane on the flat ground. It has been known for a long time that the space shuttle has not solved some of the problems until now, such as the light and strong structure, because of the material problems.

"I can barely test the flight, and I should be able to give an explanation to the people in China." Dr. John is a little unconfident, to be precise, the current development of the space shuttle is only 20 tons of payload, although compared with the previous has been a great progress, but with a large load of launch vehicles, as well as the strong transportation capacity of the master company, the current situation is really not optimistic.

THE PRESIDENT: "Can you give us an overview of the situation?" ”

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

In addition, in order to be able to carry the thrust of 100 tons of two engines, the fuselage is made of titanium alloy as a whole. In order to achieve the maximum effect of strength, the overall main structure of the aircraft adopts integrated processing technology. The main frame is a fuselage frame with a field of 22 meters, a width of 20 meters, and a height of 3 meters, which is processed by using a titanium alloy with a length of 23 meters, a width of 21 meters, and a height of 3.3 meters, and the rest of the structure is ......"

"Wait!" The president interrupted Dr. John's words, "The main structure of the aircraft is machined from solid titanium alloy, what is the cost price!" Listening to Dr. John's introduction, the president's face changed. Such a large piece of titanium alloy, its cost value is absolutely terrifying, you must know that this is not a steel ingot, but to maintain every inch of high strength of aviation-grade materials, can only use the technology of segmented pouring and forging, and the success rate is very low.

"Uh...... Completed all processing, the cost price is 1.3 billion US dollars. In order to complete this unprecedented large component, we spent more than ten tons of tools, scrapped three top-of-the-line super-large combination gantry machining centers, and cut out a chip group of 460 tons. "Dr. John is a little nervous, but the cost is a bit big. However, there is no new material technology as strong as that of a master company, and only such a framework can narrow the overall gap.

"Okay, then you tell me, how much does the rest of this space shuttle cost except for the two engines?"

"$12 billion!"

"How much!" The president screamed, "$12 billion! Oh God, the engine is the heart, and it cost us $20 billion to buy it from Huaxia, which can be said in the past. But now you sue me for the rest of the parts, it still costs 12 billion US dollars, how do you let me explain to the people! ”

"But, Your Excellency, in order to achieve the best results, there are $4 billion in this that will be used to customize parts from expert companies."

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

It is a fact that NASA is relatively open, and the location is separated by a river, and Americans are free to visit the site of a qiē launch.