China's Space Program News Thread

[AndrewS]

And come to think of it, you're disparaging the engine for not generating enough thrust.

Yet it has the best thrust to weight ratio of any rocket engine around, which is way more important for space flight.

 

[Equation]

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500,000 Tesla cars is not unreasonable when you consider that the US has vehicle sales of 17million per year, and they have a headstart in that market. That market is enough to keep them growing. However, I doubt they will have much of an impact on the larger Chinese auto market when facing the local Chinese competitors.

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And I don't know where you get the idea that space launch costs can only go up in the US.

Arianne have recently brought out a new launcher which has substantially reduced launch costs, and they face the same labour/materials problem in Europe.

And SpaceX have already demonstrated that launch costs can go down in the USA, mainly with better design and manufacture. Remember that the supply of skilled labour is NOT fixed and more staff can be trained.

And remember that SpaceX have the lowest costs in the industry, so they can already have the highest profit margins of any rocket company. So they have no need to worry about their margins and it would make more sense for them grab as much market share and use that scale to lower costs/increase margins and then bankrupt their competitors.

Airbus and Boeing aren't good comparisons here, as both are mature companies with mature products which are technologically similar.

The cost for skilled labor is NOT fixed either. As a result Space X can NOT guarantee lowest cost in launches infinitely as the rise in cost of everything related to rocket launches goes up. In order for Space X to make significant profits that means they have to do like hundreds of launches which I doubt they could ever get that far, if not than the company under performs therefore their stock value goes down. And that's just for a good year with out any catastrophe, i.e. rocket explosion and so forth.

 

[AssassinsMace]

Private companies are in it for profit only. The US government already contracts out to private companies such as defense industries to make all their military hardware. Did they make defense cheaper? This is just another industry that will be privatized for government contracts in order for private companies to make profit. Sometime in the future Space X will be either bought out by a traditional defense corporations we already know of or it will be snuffed out by these defense companies when they use their influence to win contracts with their own private launch platforms. And then it will be no different from how it works already with private military contractors and people will forget how privatization was going to make it cheap.

We've already seen how private military contractors will cheat and buy cheaper alternatives in order to make as much money as they can. And then when exposed the government will help cover it up and spin that China infiltrated in a clandestine operation to replace good ole American parts with cheap counterfeits for a some nefarious purpose when it was simply only an American trying make ever penny he or she can especially in competition with other private entities. In order to win government contracts they would have to be the most attractive lowest bid but then they have to make a profit too and that's where the sacrifices and therefore risks will be made. Does anyone think privatizing space will be anything different? In the end it won't be anything less expensive as advertised.

This is a case where the argument that competition brings the cream to the top in cost and quality is weak. Could these private space companies survive without government contracts? No. When producer and/or customer are few and far in between, the process can be influenced negatively. It's not like these space companies are producing private spacecraft like auto companies building cars for a large consumer market. Trying to influence that many separate entities is too much trouble than it's worth. That's where the cream rises to the top.

 

[Engineer]

@Engineer

The point is that mass production, standardisation, reliability and low-cost go hand in hand.

You are assuming others such as China have not been doing this already. Not only have others done this, but they have been doing it longer and more successful than SpaceX: more launches and more reliable.

Therefore the number of engines produced and launched is a crucial metric because it is the engines which frequently cause launch failures.

So the number of engines produced/launched is NOT a funny metric as you call it, but a fundamental misreading of rocket reliability and economics.

Quantity does not equate to quality. A rocket can fail for other reasons even with all the engines working properly. Therefore, one rocket equates to one launch, simple as that.

Engine-count is crucial to you because of your desire to justify low number of launches as successful. Even with your funny accounting, your argument still fails because

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and SpaceX comes nowhere close. SpaceX does not represent mass production, standardization, or reliability.

And you also state that having a fewer number of engines is better than having larger numbers of smaller engines. Yet this is contrary to the philosophy of designing a rocket so that it can still succeed despite an engine failure. But the proof is that this design philosophy has resulted in lower launch costs than everyone else.

The principle design philosophy for rocket and space vehicle is KISS principle, which stands for keep-it-simple-stupid. Having more engines translates to more complexity such as plumbing, which is not keeping things simple. Hence having fewer engines is better.

Having less engines does not mean lack of redundancy. Saturn V had five engines on first and second stages. Not only was that sufficient redundancy for manned missions, that sufficiency have been proven on multiple occasions. Soviet could not build powerful enough engines, so they went with 30 engines on first stage of N1. All N1 rockets blew up spectacularly.

SpaceX is basically going down the Soviet's route. It is just a sign that Merlin engine is not powerful enough, not that the engine is better.

In the realm of rocket engines, reliability is more important than raw performance, particularly for a reusable rocket. And note that the SpaceX Merlin engines apparently already have a better reliability record than any other engine in existence.

China has a 100% successful launch rate in 2015 alone, whereas SpaceX only has a 86% success rate with less launches. SpaceX neither represents better reliability nor better performance.

So I do expect an professional apology from you for being wrong on the technicalities and also personally for using crude and uncouth remarks.

No, you give me an apology instead for even coming up with the above absurd request.

 

[Engineer]

In the realm of rocket engines, reliability is more important than raw performance, particularly for a reusable rocket.

And come to think of it, you're disparaging the engine for not generating enough thrust.

Yet it has the best thrust to weight ratio of any rocket engine around, which is way more important for space flight.

I like how your posts are self contradictory. The emphasis is mine.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

Okay I think it's time to move on from this argument, it's becoming entrenched and circular. Comparing space x with the long March is frankly a argument that will only keep spinning as opinions are blasted against opinions and egos against egos. In the end it's all for naught.
Personally I am a fan of Space X for what they intend to do and how they can change the market. I also love the concepts of their powered landing system yet at the same time I acknowledge that there are limits to what they can realistically do, and how their model could be really used beyond the short term.

Right now more interesting to me is what the CNSA is up to for their Modular space station which it seems to me is following a road map closer to how Salut lead to Mir, and the plans for a next gen manned space craft.
It seems to me that the CNSA is intent on using there current orbital labs as the basis or development for two tracks first as the components of the eventual space station and second as logistics modules in a manner not that far from concepts floated for the Orbital ATK Cygnus modules. Where ATK what's to launch a node module and about three or four Cygnus resupply vehicles dock them on the node then sent up a crew to wire it up. Of interest is what type of docking system would be used? ISS uses three types of docking system the Russian system on the Russian orbital segment, the US uses two more types one for manned docking and one more that docks large supply craft like Cygnus or the Japanese resupply craft as well as to actually berth the individual Pressurized modules.
Would the CNSA follow that with one for manned craft and one for modules or just follow the Mir with using the same docking system across aboard.
And speaking of manned capsules are the Chinese planning on a larger capsule then a 3 manned crew and how much larger? the Russian PPTS Federation capsule plans for 6 or more. Orion aims for 6 well the larger commercial crew goes to 7.

 

[AndrewS]

@Equation

I don't understand why you keep thinking that rocket launch costs have to go up. The space/rocket industry is still in its infancy, so we can expect significant improvements in performance and cost, as we have seen in real life in the past 5 years. And in terms of rocketry, labour is secondary to capital here.

Plus SpaceX is not the average private company, and you put forth arguments that make absolutely no sense.

It was explicitly started with the goal of colonising Mars - because the human race is too vulnerable as it is only located on a single planet.

Furthermore, it is a privately held technology company with very few outside shareholders who only have a minority stake - so a disaster which has very little bearing on its non-existent "stock price crash" as you put it.

And those shareholders (eg. Google with its hundreds of billions) are used to funding technology companies that make huge losses/mistakes at the beginning, as long as they can see huge returns ahead.

 

[AndrewS]

@AssassinsMace

SpaceX is aiming for profit yes, but it's mission and the reason why it exists is affordable spaceflight leading to the colonisation of Mars.

And you misunderstand the nature of the design/manufacturing model. It's not about counterfeiting, but you do have a point on cutting corners.

It's about rigorously designing the system so that the rocket has sufficient redundancy and huge safety margins that they can use significant cheaper parts which have a "very high" reliability rather than "perfect" reliability. But this should result in a system which is overall more reliable and safer, because it can tolerable failure.

And SpaceX is unlikely to sell out because they believe they can revolutionise (and dominate?) the rocket industry. That is worth far more than selling out early to an existing company.

 

[AndrewS]

Yes, I think it is becoming very circular now.

 

[Equation]

@Equation

I don't understand why you keep thinking that rocket launch costs have to go up. The space/rocket industry is still in its infancy, so we can expect significant improvements in performance and cost, as we have seen in real life in the past 5 years. And in terms of rocketry, labour is secondary to capital here.

Plus SpaceX is not the average private company, and you put forth arguments that make absolutely no sense.

It was explicitly started with the goal of colonising Mars - because the human race is too vulnerable as it is only located on a single planet.

Furthermore, it is a privately held technology company with very few outside shareholders who only have a minority stake - so a disaster which has very little bearing on its non-existent "stock price crash" as you put it.

And those shareholders (eg. Google with its hundreds of billions) are used to funding technology companies that make huge losses/mistakes at the beginning, as long as they can see huge returns ahead.

So Space X has some kind of magic money floating around in case things went sour? Specialized labor cost can only go up as the more sophisticated the R&D will get, especially as you said the Rocket launch industry are still in its infancy, because no scientist I know of would do it for below their current market value to make a living. Living costs in the US has been rising (and so is China), therefore the pay rate has to match the demand of the workers value. Even private held company needs continuing capital to keep going otherwise they would be able to successfully survive the already high cost and high risk space launch industry, not to mention the insurances for it as well.