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

The Buran was launched into space by the Energia spacecraft, which cost hundreds of millions of rubles per launch, while launching the cheaper Soyuz or Progress spacecraft only cost 30 to 40 million rubles.

Ultimately, the Soviet Union chose to cancel the construction of the remaining four Buran aircraft, keeping only Buran No. 1 and Little Bird No. 2 in service. Construction on No. 3, which was 60% complete, was halted and stored in a warehouse. The remaining aircraft were dismantled and recycled for parts. The resources saved were invested in developing modular cargo return capsules and improving Soyuz aircraft.

The Soviet Union needed to maintain a limited flight capability for the space shuttle, keeping a fleet of two, one for maintenance and one on standby, flying once or twice a year for large-scale assembly missions of the space station.

"Our Buran spacecraft shouldn't be positioned like the Americans, operating as a shuttle bus between the ground and the air. It should more accurately be called a 'fire truck on rails.' We won't drive a fire truck to work every day, but we can't do without it."

Unlike the United States, the Soviet Union did not rely on the Space Shuttle as its sole system for traveling between Earth and space.

In the Soviet Union, every module of the space station, whether it was Salyut or Mir, was launched directly by rocket. Each module had its own propulsion system and docking mechanism, and after launch, it flew and docked autonomously without the need for the Space Shuttle.

The Soviet Union began accumulating experience with this process with the artillery salute series, and it is now very mature.

What truly required the assembly of the space shuttle was the American design concept. In another timeline, the American segment of the International Space Station had a massive truss structure with solar panels, radiators, robotic arm tracks, and other such components mounted on it.

These trusses don't have their own engines, docking mechanisms, or navigation systems; they're just structural components. These things can't fly to the space station on their own to dock; they have to be transported up in the space shuttle's cargo bay, installed in place by a robotic arm, and then astronauts exit the spacecraft to tighten bolts and connect cables.

But why did the Americans adopt this design? Because they already had the Space Shuttle, so the space station's design was planned around the capabilities of the Space Shuttle!

This is a classic case of "I have a hammer, so everything looks like a nail." If the United States hadn't had the Space Shuttle, their space station would have adopted a modular design with autonomous docking, like the Soviet Union's.

The Soviet Union finally realized that it wasn't "because a space station was needed, the space shuttle was required," but rather "because the space shuttle was available, the space station was designed to require the space shuttle to build."

It's too late to know the truth now. All the necessary investments have been made, and most of the construction is complete. What to do? It seems we can't just follow the crowd anymore, as that makes us vulnerable to being misled by our opponents' strategies and wasting money on inefficient and low-value projects.

By the end of November 1992, all assembly and commissioning work on the International Space Station was completed, and it officially began operation.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

It yielded results in its first month of operation. In December 1992, the materials processing module, named Xinghuo, was launched and successfully docked. The module contained a crystal growth furnace and supporting materials processing equipment.

East German astronauts and Soviet astronauts operated this furnace together and conducted the first semiconductor single crystal growth experiments in a microgravity environment.

The result startled the people on the ground: 35 kg of gallium arsenide single crystal and 22 kg of cadmium telluride single crystal had a defect density that was two orders of magnitude lower than that made on the ground!

High-purity gallium arsenide is used in high-frequency electronic devices, and cadmium telluride is used in infrared detectors—the buyers of these two items are obvious: military enterprises and high-end electronics manufacturers.

As soon as the sample data was released, procurement calls from the West flooded the commercial department of the Soviet Space Agency. People from West Germany, France, Britain, and even the United States came!

The Soviets themselves didn't realize it until they came to their senses and realized one thing: they were now supplying Western military industries!

Half of the first batch of monocrystalline silicon was snapped up by Western military and electronics companies, and the high price was hard for even the space agency's finance staff, who were constantly struggling with budgets. Even the United States managed to obtain some through some less-than-reputable intermediary channels.

After the news spread, things began to get out of control.

Pfizer called. They said they didn't want semiconductors, they wanted protein crystals. Protein crystals grown in microgravity have more perfect structures, which can be analyzed more precisely using X-ray diffraction—crucial for new drug development.

Pfizer directly provided the Soviet Space Agency with additional funding, requesting adjustments to the launch plan to prioritize the launch of the biological experimental module. Pfizer also paid $5 million of its own money for the launch and provided a complete set of protein crystal growth and structure analysis equipment for testing in space.

French scientists used Pfizer's equipment to conduct the first experiment in the Spark's materials compartment, and the crystals grew perfectly for the spacecraft.

The moment these results came out, pharmaceutical companies around the world were on edge. Roche, Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck contacted Moscow one after another. The Hippocrates spacecraft, the Soviet space agency's pharmaceutical experimental module, was still nowhere to be seen on the ground, yet the availability of its experimental equipment was already booked until the end of 1993.

The people in the space agency's business department have started working overtime. Their job used to be writing reports explaining why the project had gone over budget again; now their job is to stand in line—a long line of foreign companies waiting with checkbooks in hand.

In February 1993, Hippocrates was completed ahead of schedule and launched into space, successfully docking and entering operation, thanks to the financial power of pharmaceutical giants around the world.

In March, an optical fiber drawing machine manufactured in East Germany was sent to the Xinghuo material compartment and placed in the last available space inside. This is a machine specifically designed for drawing fluoride glass optical fibers.

When this type of optical fiber is laid on the ground, gravity causes the glass to microcrystallize, resulting in significant signal loss. Theoretically, optical fibers laid under microgravity conditions would have tens of times lower loss.

The space agency's engineers began to calculate: once this production line was up and running, the orders for specialty optical fibers alone would be enough to cover the cost of a single Proton launch.

Then the pressure is on the power system—there's not enough electricity!

The crystal growth furnace, alloy smelting equipment, and fiber drawing machine in the Spark material module, along with the experimental equipment in the Hippocrates medical module, bring the total power output to 90 kilowatts! The solar panels in the Origin power module output 130 kilowatts at full load, with the remaining 40 kilowatts needed to maintain the life support, communication, attitude control, and lighting of the entire space station.

Moreover, the space station is not always flying on the sunlit side of the Earth, so it must maintain sufficient backup power.

Although the old Mir space station has a 40-kilowatt power system, that's a backup and cannot be used. If the power system of the new module fails, Mir's backup power will be the last resort.

This 40 kilowatts is just enough to power the entire space station's life support system, maneuvering system, and central computer control system.

The Soviet space agency and the European Space Agency held a week-long coordination meeting and concluded that the launch of the manufacturing equipment would be suspended and the focus would shift to the scientific research module.

The business department staff started writing another report—they needed to explain to clients why the previously signed contracts were now being rescheduled.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

In April 1993, the agricultural module of Harmony was completed and launched.

In July, the Columbus science module, which the French had been waiting for for almost three years, finally launched into space aboard a Soviet Energia super-heavy rocket and docked with the space station. Chrétien stood at the hatch waiting for docking to complete, saying nothing, but simply tapping his finger on the hull and listening to the sound.

In September, a Soyuz spacecraft launched from Baikonur, carrying two Soviet cosmonauts and one Chinese cosmonaut. Three days later, the spacecraft docked with the space station, and the Chinese cosmonaut entered the agricultural module to begin his first work cycle.

The International Space Station currently hosts 10 people: five Soviet cosmonauts, one East German cosmonaut, one French cosmonaut, one West German cosmonaut, one Italian cosmonaut, and one Chinese cosmonaut.

Soviets, East Germans, and Chinese lived in the Soyuz cabin, while French, West Germans, and Italians lived in the European Solidarity cabin. East Germans and West Germans always deliberately avoided discussing sensitive topics when they met, and eventually, to avoid awkwardness, they simply separated their watch duties.

It seems that the Berlin Wall on Earth still exists in this form even in space.

In the public areas of the space station, signs are in both Russian and French, and the operating manuals are available in four languages. Emergency evacuation procedures are announced in both Russian and French. Every morning at 8:00 AM Moscow time, everyone gathers in the central passageway of the Zvezda core module for a 15-minute morning meeting before dispersing to their respective modules to work.

From the Warsaw Pact to China to Western Europe, from the first module in 1989 to the tenth astronaut in 1993, this project, spanning two major camps, was finally completed in five years!

It is now 1993, 41 years since Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech.

That curtain is still there. NATO missiles are aimed at the Warsaw Pact, and the Warsaw Pact missiles are aimed at NATO. Tens of thousands of nuclear warheads sit quietly in their respective silos, waiting for an order that will never come.

For 41 years, the world’s brightest physicists have been calculating yield and trajectory, the best engineers have been designing penetrating warheads and interception systems, and the best mathematicians have been modeling preemptive strikes.

The wisdom of two generations was thus poured into ensuring each other's destruction, while at the same time, the most brilliant culture and the fastest technological progress also occurred in this era.

But these species, which are only a few hundred thousand years old, live together 400 kilometers overhead.

The Soviet-built modules were connected to the Italian-built modules, the French experimental equipment was attached to the robotic arms installed by the Germans, and the Chinese and East Germans worked together to debug the crystal growth furnace. They breathed the same air filtered by the same environmental control system, drank the same water recycled from the same condenser, and slept no more than twenty meters apart, separated only by a hatch and a height that was beyond the reach of the border.

Humanity, through its own ingenuity, built the Tower of Babel, which is over 400 kilometers high, and reached the position of God.

There are no physical borders here anymore, no barbed wire or sentries. The only obstacle that can stop humanity from advancing together towards the stars is the border in their hearts.

Perhaps in the near future, the Iron Curtain will finally rise.

Perhaps this generation will not be able to eliminate the estrangement in their hearts even after the Cold War ends, but their children, and their children's children, will surely play and frolic on the green lawn under the sun. No one will go hungry, there will be no war or conflict, and this small and young human race will one day unite and move towards the new world that their ancestors have looked up to.

Earth is the cradle of humankind, but humankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Chapter 110 The Thirteenth Five-Year Plan

At a time when Soviet spaceflight was making strides onto the international stage, at a time of unprecedented change and when the Union was at a crossroads in the world, the Union's new helmsman was preparing his own guidance plan.

Historically, the 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held in July 1990. At this congress, the past 12th Five-Year Plan was summarized, and the 13th Five-Year Plan for 1991-1995 was announced.

That 28th Congress of the CPSU broke many traditions—Yeltsin publicly resigned from the party, open confrontations emerged between the platformists and democrats within the CPSU, and delegates' speeches were no longer under control... A Soviet Union in the midst of economic collapse, the continuous disintegration of the Eastern Bloc, and the rise of internal separatist forces was powerless to suppress these chaotic phenomena and could only watch helplessly as the country split and disintegrated.

The conference did not discuss the 13th Five-Year Plan, even though in the Soviet five-year plan system, the 12th Five-Year Plan (1986-1990) was supposed to be the last five-year plan formulated according to the traditional State Planning Committee model, and theoretically, the 13th Five-Year Plan should have followed suit. However, by mid-1990, Gorbachev's leadership had effectively abandoned the traditional planned economy framework and turned to a market-oriented reform path—

The summer of 1990 was a time of intense debate within the Soviet leadership regarding the 500-day plan proposed by market economist Shatalin, and a period of back-and-forth struggle between shock therapy-style market transition and gradual reform.

Against this backdrop, the formulation of a traditional five-year plan has lost its political and practical basis.

Slava knew that this was the last congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union before the collapse of the Union. The program adopted at the congress marked a historic decline in the role of the CPSU—the CPSU relinquished its monopoly on power, and the party's nature changed from a Leninist vanguard party to a social democratic and parliamentary party.

At that congress, Gorbachev's political report was divided into only three parts: situation analysis, reform policy assessment, and party reform. The core issue was the transformation of the political system, the establishment of a multi-party system, a presidential system, and the separation of party and government.

As for the most important economic issue, Gorbachev only vaguely mentioned "the need to develop an economy with multiple forms of ownership."

Gorbachev's calls for economic reform were merely slogans; he still believed that political reform was the core solution to the Soviet Union's current problems. His report at the congress, titled "Continuing Along the Path of Reform," refuted the view that all mistakes were blamed on reform and advocated changing the single state-owned system and developing a multi-ownership economy... This was just a statement of his policy direction.

However, in this timeline, after Gorbachev's radical reformist group was overthrown by the moderate reformists and Slava was put on the throne as the leader of the Soviet Communist Party's reformists, he successfully pulled this alliance, which had one foot in the grave, back into the ICU, and then successfully transferred the alliance from the ICU to a regular ward.

When he inherited the mess left to him by Gorbachev, the Union was in chaos, plagued by ethnic conflicts, economic turmoil, and political division. Now, the Union can finally catch its breath.

Moscow, May 1990.

Slava's desk was piled high with papers. The summary report on the completion of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan had been sent from the State Planning Committee. Also sent were draft targets for the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan submitted by various ministries and constituent republics.

Slava needed to review all these materials before the 28th Congress of the CPSU. The 28th Congress required a clear account to the entire Party and the nation; the achievements of the past five years had to be verifiable, and the vision for the next five years had to be presented!

Director Nian sat next to him, with a copy of her work spread out in front of her. The two looked at their own work and occasionally exchanged a few words.

Slava opened the summary report of the 12th Five-Year Plan.

The first page was the general overview, which he skipped immediately—as always, it was just empty rhetoric from the Planning Commission, all bureaucratic jargon. He turned straight to the statistical reports from various departments:

The first subject he turned to was agriculture.

During the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period, several things happened in Soviet agriculture that he considered to be the most pride-worthy events of those years.

Grain production has stabilized. When he came to power in 1987, the Soviet Union's grain production was entirely dependent on the weather. In good years, the harvest could reach more than 200 million tons, while in bad years it would drop to 170 to 180 million tons. During Brezhnev's era, the country even had to rely on its gold reserves to buy grain!

By 1990, the Soviet Union's staple grain production had stabilized at over 200 million tons, and the fluctuations had become much smaller.

Fertilizer use has become more scientific, agricultural machinery has received timely maintenance, and the mechanization and scientific level of farming have improved, as has the quality of seeds...

The agricultural production and research consortium he personally promoted has played a significant role, and this is his proudest achievement!

He had envisioned this since the day Andropov sent him to the cotton fields in Uzbekistan. When he and his mentor met Andropov alone, he described the information-based future to him and even proudly used his experience from the time-traveling old clock to evaluate the future economic reform path of the Soviet Union.

At that time, he was young and impetuous, and had not conducted any field research. All he had were various proposals that Andropov found somewhat reasonable but were even more far-fetched. Andropov did not take offense at his offense and was willing to trust him during this crisis when the alliance was in turmoil, sending them to the front lines to let harsh reality test his beliefs.

He withstood the test, and his ideals and beliefs did not fade under the polishing of reality. He became more pragmatic, but at the same time, he did not change his core beliefs due to the setbacks in reality.

After Uzbekistan, he also visited Amur and Ukraine. He traveled across the vast lands of the Union, witnessing mountains and seas, the complex contradictions within the people, and the corrupt bureaucracy and various dark aspects of the Union...

He was ousted from the central government three times, but rose again each time. Every hardship made him grow, every failure made him more determined in his ideals and beliefs, and every rise brought him one step closer to the center of power.

From a seed-like concept to its successful promotion and practice throughout the Union, Slava's agricultural research and production consortium has proven to the entire Union the feasibility of informatization, that a planned economy can take root, sprout, blossom, and bear fruit on this land, and that the Sovietization of Marxism has been successful!

Although Andropov died prematurely and did not live to see the day when the Soviet Union emerged from its predicament, he was able to give his answer to his teacher Andropov, who was like a father to him.

Slava believed in the real dream he had in Uzbekistan. He believed in the final evaluation of his mentor who had received his documents, and he believed in the existence of a heaven where the predecessors could always watch over the actions of their successors and see how they followed the path to achieve their ideals.

Every General Secretary of the Soviet Union claimed to be the most loyal student of the mentor, everyone said they would follow the mentor's path, and everyone swore allegiance to the Party and the people under the hammer and sickle flag!

But what can a mentor lying in a crystal coffin and hanging on the wall do?

Slava looked up and glanced again at the portrait of his mentor on the wall of the General Secretary's office. In the spotless frame, his mentor's deep gaze was fixed on the distance.

“Professor Nian, if I were suddenly killed by an assassin right now, how would history judge me? Could I face my mentor with a clear conscience?” Slava suddenly asked.

Director Nian took off his sunglasses, tucked them into the report, gently closed it, and then looked at Slava's profile.

"What are you thinking about now? You're just trying to put your mind at ease. Just as there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's minds, everyone's understanding of their mentor is different."

So, rather than saying you want to meet your mentor openly and honestly, it's more accurate to say you want to meet the mentor in your heart openly and honestly. Director Nian smiled and glanced at the portrait of his mentor on the wall.

"Velikoslav Ivanovich Ivanov, I don't care how history will judge us, that's for posterity to decide!"

Matter is indestructible, it merely crumbles. We are born with a few pounds of flesh, and after death, we leave behind a few pounds of ashes—that is our future. Whether posterity hangs us on a pillar of shame, kneels before a Lenin statue, or hangs us on a wall as a new idol, or fades into oblivion in history books, it doesn't matter. Your posthumous evaluation is not something we, the living, should concern ourselves with; whether you can actually report to your supervisor is also none of my concern.

Both of them put down their work, and Director Nian turned off the overhead light. The two of them leaned back in their chairs and gazed out the window in a daze.

Outside the window are thousands of lights.

Director Nian suddenly said, "I really like a poem left by our predecessors, Slava."

Slava tightened his grip on her hand; he was listening.

"Some people are alive, but they are already dead."

Some people die, yet they still live on.

Some people ride roughshod over the people: 'Ah, how great I am!'

Some people humble themselves and serve the people like cattle and horses.

Some people carve their names into stone, hoping for 'immortality';

Some people would rather be wild grass, waiting for the fire to burn them from the ground.

Some people's lives are such that others cannot live;

Some people live so that the majority can live better lives.

Those who ride on the backs of the people will be overthrown by the people themselves.

Those who serve the people like beasts of burden will be remembered by the people forever!

Those whose names are carved in stone, their names decay before their corpses.

Wherever the spring breeze blows, there are green wild grasses everywhere.

He's the kind of person whose life prevents others from living; we can see what his fate will be.

He lived so that the majority could live better lives; the masses held him in very high esteem.

"I hope that when we reach the final moment together, when we turn into a handful of dust and meet our final resting place, you can face yourself with a clear conscience."