American Soyus

Next year, after the latest 2-3 flights, the Space Shuttle fleet will be retired forever and for about 4-6 years the NASA and USA space program MUST rely ONLY on the russian Soyuz and Progress, the european ATV, the japanese HTV or on the very expensive (up to FIVE TIMES than Shuttle) and poorly designed COTS and CRS programs, based on the "commercial" (but HUGELY FUNDED with $4.8 billion of government's funds...) Dragon and Falcon-9 (a sort of "american Soyuz" with the same performances and capabilities of a '60s Soviet Union's Soyuz...) or the smaller Cygnus. In the mean time, the China space program runs very quickly with the design of new rockets, new big engines, new manned missions, lunar probes and rovers, a space station and, as recent rumors say, also a Military Spaceplane or RedShuttle. Of course, this rumor ISN'T a big surprise for me, since I've predicted the development of a chinese spaceplane OVER FIVE YEARS AGO in my first article about space, and, in the same article, I've also published a possible design (see image below) of that spacecraft that I've called Shenzhou 235.