Fair enough although the ISS has allowed more US and Russian, astronauts to spend a long time in space.
China's Space Program News Thread
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Sure, but that data - at least for physiological aspects - has been published and freely available. The spacecraft aspects are where China needs to have that experience and it's something that can only be gained by doing.
Yet, if the US and Russians don't follow up with their stations afterwards, the knowledge gained is academic. If no other reason, that is why the DSG is a good idea. As for the Russians? We will have to see. I have nontrivial doubts they will be able to build a follow-on to the ISS. Time will tell, as I have said, and I may be wrong: I have been before and will be again. Yet, even so, I doubt.
Back to China, now that they have their LM5 sorted again, I'm stoked to see the Sino-centric space station get launched. We have found over and over independent access to space and competing programs seems to incite more progress than merely one nation leading or a vast cooperative program. We will get a jog, at least, again, rather than merely a meandering stroll in space.
Not related to China directly, but as SpaceX and Elon Musk was a god like person for many space fans when talking about China's program, it is relevant to set the stage for "how much can one trust what he says. how much value/truth does his concept hold."
Here is a extraction from 2019 published by SpaceX. Interestingly and not surprisingly it is removed by SpaceX for you know why.
The boasted payload to LEO was 300t fully reusable (super-heavy 1st stage and starship 2nd stage), or 550t expendable. A whooping 10500t liftoff mass. What on earth could any material be strong enough to enable a rocket like that to cross the sound barrier, aerodynamic stress to even get into orbit, let alone to return? Only Alien knows, not even God.
Guess what, by 2020, the reusable payload has been paddled down to 100+ tonnes. It is much closer to the reality dictated by known physical laws. Let's see if he keeps on climbing down the ladder further. I won't be surprised if he does so because he has been doing that to Falcon Heavy multiple times.
This is Elon Musk, a "clever" deceiver and businessman but certainly not a honest technician, and his usual tactic of bloating, bragging loud in a fanfare, then silently un-noticeably backtrack the promises. When he makes bloated promises, every fan is excited of his vision, takes his word for granted as technological fact, begins to blame any other space agencies for technical incompetence and financial wasting. NOBODY even bother to ask "did Elon just find a new physical law unknown to other tens of thousands scientists and engineers all over the world including NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and CNSA?".
But when he silently revises the target (moving his goal post), NOBODY asks the question "why? what is the technical problem? or was he lying all this time?" Fans just keep on being happy to be fooled by him, while the investors are just happy to pass on the "pie in the sky" to the next so long as the hype keeps the "value" of the "never reachable pie" or "ever smaller pie". The last one who eventually got the pie will have to eat it regardless the size of the pie and how much has been paid.
The conclusion is, Elon Musk does not dictate the physical law, the law dictate him, but he does dictate his fans and the money.
Here is a extraction from 2019 published by SpaceX. Interestingly and not surprisingly it is removed by SpaceX for you know why.
The boasted payload to LEO was 300t fully reusable (super-heavy 1st stage and starship 2nd stage), or 550t expendable. A whooping 10500t liftoff mass. What on earth could any material be strong enough to enable a rocket like that to cross the sound barrier, aerodynamic stress to even get into orbit, let alone to return? Only Alien knows, not even God.
Guess what, by 2020, the reusable payload has been paddled down to 100+ tonnes. It is much closer to the reality dictated by known physical laws. Let's see if he keeps on climbing down the ladder further. I won't be surprised if he does so because he has been doing that to Falcon Heavy multiple times.
This is Elon Musk, a "clever" deceiver and businessman but certainly not a honest technician, and his usual tactic of bloating, bragging loud in a fanfare, then silently un-noticeably backtrack the promises. When he makes bloated promises, every fan is excited of his vision, takes his word for granted as technological fact, begins to blame any other space agencies for technical incompetence and financial wasting. NOBODY even bother to ask "did Elon just find a new physical law unknown to other tens of thousands scientists and engineers all over the world including NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and CNSA?".
But when he silently revises the target (moving his goal post), NOBODY asks the question "why? what is the technical problem? or was he lying all this time?" Fans just keep on being happy to be fooled by him, while the investors are just happy to pass on the "pie in the sky" to the next so long as the hype keeps the "value" of the "never reachable pie" or "ever smaller pie". The last one who eventually got the pie will have to eat it regardless the size of the pie and how much has been paid.
The conclusion is, Elon Musk does not dictate the physical law, the law dictate him, but he does dictate his fans and the money.
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The video is from a TV program. Two key things that got my attention.
1. Beidou satellites communicate with one another, meaning without separate constellation of communication sat, any ground user anywhere in the world can communicate with stations in China by text messaging.
2. Beidou III satellites use GaN based amplifier. This is from 2015 onward. For comparison, all GPS satellites in orbit so far (at the time of speech) use travel wave tube (TWT).
The original Spaceship rocket is totally different. For one it was supposed to use composites. But they later realized not only they were expensive like heck, they couldn't get them to work at the designed temperatures and pressures. Quite bad. One example would be the water pressure test on a propellant tank they did which was a failure but they tried to spin as a success.
As time goes by the rocket keeps getting smaller too. But this makes sense. The original proposal was obscenely big.
These kinds of changes are not news for anyone following SpaceX. For example Falcon 1's Merlin rocket engine used an ablative nozzle which they claimed would be simpler and cheaper. But with time they had to go to channel wall nozzle and regenerative cooling.
Right now they are claiming they can reenter the second stage with ceramic TPS. I kind of doubt that will be effective.
But it is better that they do things this way than to insist on using a solution which does not work.
SpaceX does have superb in house modeling software tools. Just read about their software used for combustion testing. It basically allowed them to design and test the Raptor engine virtually with minimal issues after it was manufactured.
As time goes by the rocket keeps getting smaller too. But this makes sense. The original proposal was obscenely big.
These kinds of changes are not news for anyone following SpaceX. For example Falcon 1's Merlin rocket engine used an ablative nozzle which they claimed would be simpler and cheaper. But with time they had to go to channel wall nozzle and regenerative cooling.
Right now they are claiming they can reenter the second stage with ceramic TPS. I kind of doubt that will be effective.
But it is better that they do things this way than to insist on using a solution which does not work.
SpaceX does have superb in house modeling software tools. Just read about their software used for combustion testing. It basically allowed them to design and test the Raptor engine virtually with minimal issues after it was manufactured.
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There's also the issue of money. For the original Spaceship, building a spaceship of that size, out of whatever materials, would be so expensive that it would seriously undermine the cost benefit calculation for reusability, vs. just buying more of a smaller reusable super heavy launcher.
Seems a little unfair to pick on Musk for one unreached target goal considering Musk's planning style of ambitious plans with not much risk aversion.
At the end of the day he proved the viability of reusability, it was possible before and the tech and money was there but the inherent inefficiency and elitism associated with state run programs didn't allow it, so kudos to that remember when ULA used to say it was impossible to cut down the cost of launcher to sub 100 mil then they later admitted the real cost of building the rocket was under 60 mil ( still bs I think)
China won't be affected that much since LM5 is meant to be a stopgap solution for the Tengyun space plane however reusability has some attractive military applications so we will see China develop it as well and then implement it into everything fron LM5 to Condoms to recover the dev cost.
China won't be affected that much since LM5 is meant to be a stopgap solution for the Tengyun space plane however reusability has some attractive military applications so we will see China develop it as well and then implement it into everything fron LM5 to Condoms to recover the dev cost.
Musk talked big to gather his acolytes‘ attentions and get fundings.
But when it comes to space he does actually deliver... unlike some of his other publicity efforts to attract excitement and funding e.g. Hyperloop.
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