Chapter 1532 Houston, we are in trouble

When talking about Houston, many people in Daxia first know about the NBA team Houston Rockets. After all, Yao Ming, who is known as "Daxia's largest single export of goods to the United States", spent his entire NBA career in Houston.

Of course, Houston is really famous for being the 'Space City'. The Johnson Space Center and the Space Mission Control Center are both in Houston, and the first word spoken on the moon in human history was 'Houston'.

When it comes to the history of space exploration, Houston is always an unavoidable hurdle: the most famous sentence in the entire history of human space exploration is: "Houston, we are in trouble!"

In 1970, Apollo 13 was on a moon landing mission. As a result, the oxygen tank in the service module exploded in lunar orbit, which directly led to a large loss of power in the command module and service module. The moon landing mission was forced to be canceled. The three astronauts in space were urgently transferred to the lunar module and used it as a lifeboat to return to Earth. This feat can be regarded as one of the most successful "failures" in the world.

Upon arriving at the Houston airport, Xiao Peng discovered that it truly lived up to its name: "Space City." Billboards and other items were all space-related. He even saw a photo of Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev.

"Oh my god!" Xiao Peng pointed at the large billboard and said, "There's even a picture of Krikalev right here!"

Bruch was stunned: "Boss, who is it?"

Xiao Peng rolled his eyes at him and said, "I shouldn't have told you this. If Kasim were here, he'd probably climb up that billboard and kiss that photo!"

"Is it that exaggerated?" Aisha said.

Xiao Peng laughed and said, "Krikalev is almost the most legendary figure in human space history. He's known as 'the last Soviet man,' but more people prefer to call him 'the unluckiest man in human history.'"

After that, he told a few people the story of Krikalev.

Krikalev, a former Soviet cosmonaut, launched on May 18, 1991, aboard the TM-12, the last Soviet space shuttle, with two cosmonauts to the Mir space station. Mir, the pride of the Soviet space program, could accommodate up to 12 astronauts. Since its commissioning in 1986, it has served as a space station for astronauts from around the world to conduct space projects.

The female astronaut who traveled with him stayed in the Mir space station for eight days before returning to Earth, and the other astronaut also returned to Earth with the Austrian astronaut five months later, leaving Krikalev alone to stay in the space station - in fact, he should have returned at that time, but no one replaced him.

There had to be someone on the Mir Space Station, so he had no choice but to stay there.

And then... the Soviet Union collapsed!

At that time, the former Soviet Union had broken up into fifteen countries, all busy dividing up Soviet assets. As for Krikalev, he was forgotten and even put on a wanted list. Before the Soviet Union's collapse, Krikalev served in the military. After the Soviet Union's collapse, all armies underwent personnel redeployment, and Krikalev was assigned to the Russian army. However, when Russian officers checked the soldier's roster, they discovered that he hadn't returned to his unit! Furious, the Russian military issued a wanted list for Krikalev, accusing him of desertion.

But thanks to this wanted order, the Russians discovered: Oh, we still have someone in space who hasn't returned yet!

But at that time, the Soviet Union had just collapsed and Russia had just been established. The country was facing a huge economic crisis: India took advantage of the situation and robbed Russia of a lot of money. The whole of Russia was almost bleeding from the point of urinating blood because of India's tampering.

The way Indians cheated Russians is similar to how Swedes cheated Germany:

Before World War I, Sweden owed Germany an astronomical amount of money it couldn't repay. However, after its defeat in World War I, the German mark depreciated dramatically, so Sweden used the Deutsche Mark to repay its debts. Not only did it pay off the debt, but it also became Germany's largest creditor at the time. India also learned this trick. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, India also owed the Soviet Union an almost unpayable debt. After the Soviet Union's collapse, the ruble depreciated dramatically, and India used the ruble to repay its debts to the Soviet Union.

But the Russians aren't the Germans. Once they recovered, they started playing all sorts of tricks on India. India currently has the INS Vikramaditya, the aircraft carrier that famously exploded and killed people in its toilets, suffered at least three fires, had seven of its eight boilers fail, and suffered a series of aircraft crashes. It was actually a gift from Russia. Granted, the old carrier was a free gift, but repairs and aircraft maintenance cost money. Over the years, Russia has cost India $2.9 billion using this carrier—more than it costs to build a new one! As for submarines and aircraft, they've also ripped them off countless times. They've long since paid back what they ripped off Russia.

But in fact, Daxia has to thank India in a sense. It was because India cheated Russia so badly that Russia had no choice but to sell various advanced weapons in exchange for money. That is, many of the former Soviet Union's most advanced weapons and equipment, such as the Su-27 fighter jet, entered Daxia at that time.

Well, Daxia had no money at that time, so how did it get these weapons and equipment?

Barter!

Instant noodles, slippers, clothes, alcohol, dog skins... all kinds of supplies were continuously shipped to Russia. Anyway, at that time, there was nothing that Russia didn't want...

In short, Russia at that time was simply poor! How poor was it? They simply couldn't afford to launch a spacecraft to bring Krikalev back, so they had to wait and see. He spent 311 days in space before returning to Earth. His citizenship was Soviet when he went up, but Russian when he returned, earning him the nickname "the last Soviet citizen."

But he is truly a man worthy of respect: others who encountered such an incident would probably never dare to go to space again, but he continued to explore space, directly coming to the United States to join the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery, becoming the first Russian astronaut to fly on an American space shuttle, and later remained at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to participate in ground control. Later, he participated in the assembly mission of the International Space Station, becoming the first astronaut to enter the International Space Station, and later became one of the first permanent residents of the International Space Station, serving as the International Space Station Commander, and now has the longest cumulative time in space.

Even at his age, he still hasn't left the aerospace industry. He left the United States and returned to Russia. He is now the director of the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center. Seeing his photo here can only mean that people who are worthy of respect are worthy of respect everywhere.