Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

The cargo hold, launched by the Proton, was located outside the habitation module. It contained approximately 25 tons of cargo and was used to store food, water, spare parts, experimental consumables, and personal supplies. A berth was provided outside the cargo hold, where supplies delivered by Soviet cargo spacecraft were first sorted and categorized before being distributed to the various modules. It also served as a temporary waste storage area—garbage was packaged and stored here, to be loaded onto the spacecraft and burned up upon re-entry into the atmosphere.

Due to current technological limitations, the Soviet Union's power system was not very efficient. Considering the need to add a large number of compartments in the future and the increasing power load, Semyonov simply designed a power compartment, which was launched by the Energia satellite and weighed about 40 tons.

Its outer side features a large deployable solar panel array and heat sink assembly, some of which are installed outside this module and others outside the core module. Its current total power generation capacity is 120 kilowatts, far exceeding the old Mir's less than 30 kilowatts.

After all, this space station also needs to undertake processing and manufacturing services; the power consumption of the furnace, the plant lights in the agricultural module, and the experimental equipment in the pharmaceutical module operating simultaneously is not low. This module is not a pressurized section, so astronauts do not enter it; they only access it through extravehicular activity when maintenance is required.

Next was the agricultural module, a collaboration with China, weighing a total of 30 tons.

China has been conducting space mutation breeding since 1987, using cosmic rays, microgravity, and high vacuum in the space environment to induce gene mutations in seeds and screen out varieties with beneficial mutations.

Cosmic rays can cause a significant increase in DNA mutation rates. After seeds return to Earth and undergo multiple generations of selection, they are likely to yield new varieties that are high-yielding or disease-resistant. The Soviet Union itself has been conducting plant growth experiments on the Salyut and Mir space shuttles. In 1982, they even completed the first complete seed-to-seed growth cycle in space using Arabidopsis thaliana on Salyut 7.

China was very interested in this, at a time when China's manned spaceflight capability was basically zero—the 921 manned space program was not officially launched until 1992, and the prototype of the Shenzhou spacecraft did not yet exist.

After receiving the invitation, China was willing to fund the launch of the agricultural module in cooperation with the Soviet Union. China would bear 75% of the manufacturing cost of the agricultural module as well as its future maintenance costs. In return, China would receive a permanent, free seat on the new space station and could use the agricultural module's workstation indefinitely—unless China and the Soviet Union broke apart again in the future.

As socialist brothers, Chinese astronauts could sleep in the habitation module and use Soviet supplies for free, taking up one of the eight permanent resident slots. Other astronauts from the capitalist world could only sleep in the cooperation module that would be launched in the future, and they had to pay the Soviet Union.

The agricultural cabin will be used for plant growth research under microgravity conditions, including testing of hydroponic and aeroponic systems, photoperiod control, and closed ecological cycle experiments.

In terms of political propaganda, the Soviet Union claimed to the international community that this was "preparing for a lunar base and interstellar travel."

...

According to the current plan, even if we only consider the core module launched by the Soviet Union and the existing Mir space station, the total mass of the first phase of the new space station will reach more than 300 tons! The pressurized volume will exceed 1,200 cubic meters, which can accommodate 8 people permanently and 12 to 15 people for short periods.

If segments from Europe or other countries are subsequently added, the scale can be further expanded.

Semyonov attached a timetable at the end of the plan.

If full-scale construction begins now, the core module could be launched by the end of 1991. The habitation module and the first batch of experimental modules would follow, launching between 1992 and 1993. By the end of 1993, the first phase of the new space station, the Soviet Union's own core, would be essentially complete.

Prior to this, Mir continued to operate in orbit, while Kumganga 2 and Crystal were launched and docked as planned as a transitional phase. Once the core modules of the new station were operating stably, Mir would be towed over and docked to the new station as a whole.

The next day, Slava summoned Semyonov to the Kremlin.

“I’ve reviewed the proposal,” Slava said. “I have two questions. First… how much will it cost?”

Just as Semyonov was about to speak, Slava quickly waved his hand to interrupt him.

"Wait a minute, let me take a blood pressure pill first." Slava took a pill bottle from the drawer, drank it with water, patted his chest, took a deep breath, and waited for Semyonov's answer.

Semyonov glanced at the General Secretary with concern and asked if they should bring the medical team over first.

“Call my personal doctor…” Slava’s heart rate was already accelerating.

Two minutes later, the Kremlin's medical team arrived.

"Okay, General Secretary. The core module is the most expensive. It's not simply a matter of multiplying the cost of four 20-ton modules by four, because the engineering complexity of large structures increases non-linearly: a completely new load-bearing structure design, a new docking mechanism, a life support center, a new generation of computer systems... each one is developed from scratch."

The estimated cost of designing and building this module is between 13 billion and 16 billion rubles. This figure includes design and development costs—because no one has ever built a space station module of this scale before, and many of the technologies are entirely new!

The living quarters are estimated at 4-5 million rubles, while the cargo and logistics compartments, with the lowest technological content—essentially just a pressurized container with standardized racks—are estimated at 1.5-2 million rubles.

"Hmm..." Slava's breathing became rapid.

"...The equipment inside the agricultural module needs to be specially developed, estimated at 2.5-3.5 million rubles. The protein crystallization equipment, medical monitoring instruments, and microgravity experimental platform in the medical module...some of these devices cannot be manufactured by us, but can be purchased from Western European partners or jointly developed, estimated at 2.5-3 million rubles..."

“Well…” Slava closed his eyes.

"The materials processing compartment contains small furnaces, crystallization equipment, and special materials processing devices. We have already conducted similar experiments on Mir, but the new space station needs to add more, estimated at 3 million rubles."

Although the power and cooling trusses are not pressurized structures, the manufacturing cost of the large-area solar cell array and deployment mechanism is not low, estimated at 3-4 million rubles.

"Ugh—" Slava's lips began to turn purple.

"Comrade General Secretary, your lips are a little purple, which may be a heart problem. By the way, we haven't even calculated the launch costs yet. There are at least three Energia launches, each costing 200 million rubles, and five Proton launches, each costing 60 million rubles. The total launch cost is about 900 million rubles."

Add to that the costs of ground control, astronaut training, and operational support... the total cost of the new station from project initiation to completion is estimated to be between 55 and 60 billion rubles. If the launch fails, the budget will need to keep increasing...

"General Secretary! General Secretary, wake up! The Alliance still needs you!"

...

The space station project alone would double the Soviet Union's space budget for this year, a figure equivalent to 1.2% of the Soviet Union's 1988 national budget. And if other experimental projects were to be planned—such as ecological experiments on a lunar base, military reconnaissance satellites, and a global navigation and positioning system…

The alliance is desperately short of money; they need to squeeze even more money out of Japan!

Slava has finally recovered. At worst, the budget will be allocated in batches. In two years, they will take down Japan anyway. By then, they can take the revenue from commercial launches, the costs shared by international partners, and the commercial value of the special materials produced by the space station manufacturing module... all these things combined should be enough to recoup some of the losses, right?

Slava sighed and looked at Semyonov, who was staring at him expectantly, and said, "I'll figure out the money problem. You don't need to worry about this; just go ahead and do it."

"I don't need to ask the second question I was about to ask. It seems we need to find a way to get Europe involved. I'll talk to Europe about this space station. The European Space Agency is planning the 'Columbus Science Module,' right? I'll see if I can secure that contract. It would be even better if they wanted to join the International Space Station."

The European Space Agency has the technology, the talent, and the money (which is very important), but it lacks one thing—the capability for manned spaceflight!

It can't build a space station, it can't launch astronauts, and its astronauts can only go to space by hitching a ride on someone else's vehicle. In the past, that "someone else" was the United States, but the credibility of the US space shuttle was severely damaged after the Challenger, and the US itself was also cutting its space budget during the Great Depression.

The Soviet Union's Mir was the only space station in the world in orbit, and now the Soviet Union wanted to build a new station that was larger, more open, and had interfaces for international cooperation.

Slava made a phone call immediately after seeing Semyolov off:

"Get me to Paris and tell them I need to discuss space cooperation with President Mitterrand."

Chapter 107 Establishment of the Soviet State Space Agency

President Mitterrand's opinion was brief—unless the Soviet Union had its own space agency, France could not bypass the United States and cooperate with the Soviet Union!

The Soviet Union still does not have a formal space agency.

True to the Soviet Union's bureaucratic characteristics, the Soviet space system was scattered like Russian nesting dolls among a bunch of different ministries, design bureaus, and military headquarters. Large ministries contained smaller departments, and a budget of 100 rubles would be reduced by about half before it actually reached the intended recipients after passing through the hands of these bureaucrats.

The entire space system lacked a unified, publicly visible window. When the Soviet space program interacted with the outside world—negotiating cooperation with France, liaising with the European Space Agency—it always had to assemble a temporary delegation, drawing one person from each of several ministries, nominally representing the Soviet space program.

The delegation's authority is very ambiguous; it's unclear who has the final say. Every time outsiders interact with them, they have to guess who to contact.

As for who actually has the final say? That depends on the power dynamics behind this huge and complex power black box. Often, the military's representatives win in the end because the military contributes the largest proportion of funding. Even the Buran space shuttle was designed and funded by the military.

Therefore, for decades, the outside world has equated the Soviet Union's so-called "civilian space program" with projects hosted by the Soviet military, and Soviet spaceflight was regarded as part of the Soviet military.

So when Slava made the phone call, President Mitterrand thought the Soviet Union was actually going to cooperate with France on ballistic missiles under the guise of civilian space cooperation, which almost scared him to death!

The Soviet Union dared to propose it, but France dared not accept it. It was still during the Cold War, and Western Europe was the front line of the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union! If the Americans learned that the Soviet Union wanted to cooperate with France on "military spaceflight disguised as civilian use," the Congress would see it as France intending to completely abandon NATO and turn to the evil communist camp, and a heavy blow would be necessary!

The United States directly stated at the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) meeting that cooperation with the Soviet Union violated export control regulations. COCOM was a Western technology export control mechanism targeting the socialist bloc, with all NATO countries as members. According to COCOM rules, any high-tech products that could potentially have military applications required approval for export to the Soviet Union, and many categories were directly prohibited.

Space technology is inherently dual-use, and Soviet spaceflight had a strong military character. If these items were docked to the Soviet space station along with the Columbus module, the United States could easily claim that this violated COCOM regulations.

However, COCOM was responsible for transferring technology to the Soviet Union, not for prohibiting Europeans from conducting experiments on Soviet facilities. If the Columbus module was built and operated by ESA, Soviets were not allowed to enter, and the Soviet-built International Space Station had a stronger civilian character, then the argument for technology transfer would be less tenable.

French lawyers and diplomats will use this gap to hold the United States back.

The United States dared not impose economic sanctions. Theoretically, it could indeed threaten to impose an embargo on European companies involved in the Soviet space station, but the United States itself needed European trade and investment during the Great Depression, and imposing economic sanctions on Europe would be tantamount to self-harm.

Moreover, ESA’s major contractors have close ties with the U.S. aerospace industry, and sanctioning them would backfire on the U.S. aerospace supply chain itself. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and NASA all need orders from Europe now.

During the Great Depression, Congress was concerned with unemployment, the banking crisis, and social security. No one had the energy or political capital to fight a battle to "stop Europe from building a space station with the Soviet Union." As long as the Soviet Union successfully established a dedicated civilian space sector, France would have a pretext for lobbying and would be able to participate more easily in Soviet space cooperation.

Why did France not pursue projects with the European Space Agency but instead so eagerly seek cooperation with the Soviets?

Because space exploration is too expensive!

Western European countries all have their own national space agencies. In the late 70s, the European Space Agency (ESA) was established under the leadership of France, and the national space agencies of Western European countries joined this organization to coordinate with each other.

Initially, everything proceeded according to plan. Each Western European country performed its duties, and their strengths and investments were roughly equal.

But the Great Depression in the United States changed everything.

ESA originally approved the Columbus program in 1985, which consisted of three parts: a pressurized experimental module attached to the Freedom space station in the United States (which was still in the archives at the time), an independent unattended free-flight platform, and a polar-orbiting remote sensing platform.

The entire program was projected to cost $36 billion, and the ESA ministerial meeting formally approved the Columbus Project in early 1987. Meanwhile, ambitious France was pushing forward with the Hermes space shuttle—a small, manned space shuttle launched by an Ariane 5 rocket, capable of carrying three astronauts.

This was France's flagship project in its fight for European space independence. France undertook 50% of the work, contributing 43% of the funding, Germany 27%, Italy 12%, and the UK 7%. In October 1987, the European Space Agency also approved the preliminary research phase of Hermes.

France's ambition is to create a complete European independent manned spaceflight system consisting of the Ariane 5 rocket, the Hermes space shuttle, and the Columbus space platform, without relying on the United States or the Soviet Union!

The plan is wonderful; anything is possible in dreams.

The so-called Freedom space station in the United States has been plagued with problems since its inception in the late 70s. Congress did not think that building a space station was of any value, so from 1984 to 1987, the Freedom project was repeatedly cut in budget, from $21 billion to $17 billion and then to $15 billion, and the design was repeatedly revised.

As of 1989, the U.S. space station Freedom was still in the folder stage, but where did the billions of dollars it burned through each year go? Where did the money go?!

It's obvious to everyone now that the Freedom Project has become a money-making scheme for Commissioner Smith and his cronies, so everyone can leave now.

Unable to rely on the United States, France had to fend for itself. The cost of Hermes soared from $19 billion to $45 billion. During this period, the United States consistently opposed ESA's use of Columbus as the cornerstone of a future independent European space station, fearing the creation of a commercial space competitor.

This has led to the European Space Agency, just like the United States, being stuck in a situation where billions of dollars have been poured into it for over a decade, but the actual results are either newly created folders or substandard products that fall far short of the plan.

It's a case of Europe and the United States dragging each other down, harming each other in the TV sector.

In October 1988, with the effects of the Great Depression still lingering, the U.S. Congress abruptly shut down the Freedom space station program. In another timeline, if Freedom was nearly cancelled even with a much better U.S. economy, a space station project costing $2 billion annually could not have survived under the Great Depression.

ESA has suddenly lost Columbus's destination. This is the most embarrassing situation in European spaceflight—they spent years and nearly $80 billion designing an experimental module to be mounted on the American space station, and now that space station is gone!

Europeans face three choices: convert Columbus into an independent space station—technically feasible but extremely expensive, and France is unwilling to be ripped off again; wait for the United States to recover—we'd be grateful if the US stopped taking advantage of Europe, as it's uncertain how long it would take for the US to recover; or find another space station to attach to.

The only operational space station in the world is the Soviet Union's Mir, and the only new space station under construction is also Soviet.

法国和西欧这群混蛋合作快十年现在是看明白了，有时候1+1+1+1是＜1的，法国、西德、英国、意大利四国投了那么多钱和精力现在啥都没捞到。

They had to start from scratch. Fortunately, Franco-Soviet space cooperation was very close. French astronaut Jean Chrétien had already visited the Salyut 7 space station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in 1982, becoming the first Western European to go into space. In November 1988, almost simultaneously with the launch of Buran, Chrétien flew to Mir for the second time, this time on a month-long official mission that included an extravehicular activity (EVA).

France had incredibly smooth channels for bilateral cooperation with the Soviet Union in the aerospace field, and the psychological barrier to direct involvement was far lower than that of other Western European countries.

The Soviet Union's Energia rocket is the only operational rocket in the world capable of sending a 100-ton payload into orbit, while ESA's Ariane 5 can only send 20 tons. The Soviet Union already had an operational space station and had accumulated many years of experience in long-term manned missions. It would take ESA more than ten years to build an independent space station from scratch, but it would only take a few years to attach it to the Soviet space station!

The Soviet Union could also sell on-orbit experimental time—for protein crystallization under microgravity—to large pharmaceutical companies in Western Europe and the United States, such as Roche, Bayer, and Pfizer, on an hourly basis. The pharmaceutical companies didn't care who built the space station; they only cared about obtaining the data.

Most importantly, Soviet launch costs were far lower than those of the American Space Shuttle. While each American launch cost approximately $4 million, a Soviet Proton launch cost only tens of millions of dollars. With the American Space Shuttle already sitting in storage, the Soviet launch service was highly competitive.

What if other Western European countries object?

France is the dominant force! If the boss wants to run away, should he be stopped by a bunch of waving underlings? France is the most powerful driving force in the ESA, directly controlling the agenda-setting power.

The Ariane rocket was led by France, Hermes was promoted by France, and the French National Space Agency is the most active member agency of the ESA. France is at the forefront of the pressure! If France decides to align itself with the Soviet Union, it is absolutely capable of pushing this direction into ESA policy, or at least taking some ESA members with it.

But France will not relinquish its independence. France's national policy is to remain independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union. It is willing to cooperate with the Soviet Union, but it is absolutely unwilling to become a vassal state of the Soviet Union.

For Slava, France's attitude was actually the best possible outcome—a proud partner is more valuable than a subservient vassal. France brought not only funds, but also technological capabilities and political credibility. If France joined the Soviet space station project, other Western European countries had no reason not to follow suit.

That's why he called Mitterrand first.

If France were to come first, West Germany would hesitate but would ultimately follow. West Germany was the second-largest contributor to the ESA and the main contractor for the Columbus project. Although West Germany was more Atlanticist than France and had closer ties with the United States, its instinctive reaction would inevitably be to wait for the United States to recover.

But the Freedom mission had been cancelled for almost two years, and the German aerospace industry was facing a severe order gap—thousands of engineers were out of work, and investments were going down the drain. Under this pressure, German industry would push to emulate the Soviet space station.

If France and Germany follow suit, Italy will likely follow as well, as the Italian aerospace industry is very adept at this kind of hedging strategy.

Although the current Labour government in the UK is moderate towards the Soviet Union, it is the least likely country to join. This is because the UK's contribution to the ESA is only 4%, and the main customers of the British space industry are the United States and Commonwealth countries. Due to its extremely low participation in the ESA, the UK has no veto power, and if France and Germany were to jointly push for it, the UK would be unable to stop it.

As for other smaller European countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and others are all watching the moves of France and Germany.

Slava decided it was time to get this done.

------

In March 1989, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held its March Plenum, at which Slava proposed the establishment of the Soviet State Space Agency.

The main voice of opposition came from Yuri Pavlovich Yashin, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces. Yashin had spent most of his life in the Strategic Rocket Forces, one of the most unique branches of the Soviet military—it was in charge of intercontinental ballistic missiles and was one of the Soviet nuclear triads.

Soviet launch vehicles, from the R-7 to the Proton to the Energia, almost all grew from the technology tree of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Rockets and missiles in the Soviet Union were two branches of the same tree—it was difficult to distinguish which branch was for military use and which was for civilian use, because they shared the same engines, the same group of engineers, and the same production line.

"Comrade General Secretary, I must point out that separating civilian aerospace from the existing system involves major national security issues."

He gave several reasons.

First, aerospace and military technologies are highly intertwined. Launch vehicles and ballistic missiles share key technologies. If civilian aerospace were separated into an independent space agency, these shared technologies would have to be divided between the two agencies, or each agency would retain a set of them.

The separation of technologies makes it much more difficult to keep secrets. What used to be a closed system now requires exchange between two systems, and each exchange carries the risk of leakage.

Secondly, the newly built International Space Station needed to accommodate foreigners. France and West Germany were both NATO members; were they really going to let them work and live with Soviet cosmonauts on Soviet orbital facilities? What would they see? What would they be able to access? How could Soviet state secrets be protected at an altitude of hundreds of kilometers?

If we become deeply involved in international cooperation, what if the US, in a desperate move, sends terrorists to hijack the space station? What if the data from experiments conducted by the Soviet Union on the space station is stolen?

Asia's concerns are partly valid; issues of technology entanglement and confidentiality do exist, but these have solutions in reality.

Slava knew the bigger reason lay in self-interest.

For decades, the Soviet space program operated within an informal power structure. Nominally, spaceflight was under the General Machine Building Ministry, but in reality, the military wielded enormous influence over the entire space industry through the Ministry of Defense and the Military-Industrial Committee.

Which projects to launch, how much money to allocate, whose design scheme to use, what to prioritize for development... these decisions are not made within a transparent, chartered institutional framework, but rather through informal power operations at the central committee level.

To put it bluntly, it was a black box. Inside this black box, military generals, officials of the military-industrial commission, and heads of various design bureaus divided up this multi-billion ruble aerospace business through private relationships, tacit understandings, and deals.

How much of the budget, allocated from the central government, evaporates by the time it reaches the design bureau and factory after passing through several layers of informal "coordination"? What benefits do those "coordinators" receive for speaking favorably of the project and securing funding for that design bureau? How much money that should have been spent on civilian projects has been diverted to the military's unaudited black accounts due to those blurred lines between military and civilian sectors?

These things have been going on for decades without ever being formally and publicly audited. Everything operates through informal channels, with no accounts, no audits, and no accountability.