China's Space Program News Thread

[RedMercury]

Re:

The spacex discussion needs its own thread.

 

[hmmwv]

Re:

You need to post some evidence that supports your opinion. Can you do it?

Meanwhile as posted earlier Space X picked up a contract to launch commercial payloads for Intelsat. Sounds like a money maker to me.

Tesla has been selling cars since 2008 yet it hasn't made a cent, Musk has my respect but it'll be a while before SpaceX is profitable.

 

[vesicles]

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Another drawback of private companies is the lack of communication. In the business world, information is money and life. If you have some great ideas, you want to keep it as secret as possible. Losing it means losing the market. Yet, development of science and engineering needs communication and flow of ideas. If it weren't because of the university labs, which are non-profit and funded by the govn't, the high tech development would have been so much slower than what it is now. With the highly collaborative environment shared among govn't-funded labs, different ideas are bounced around and multiplied in no time. When do you think the same can happen among private companies? NEver!

 

[NikeX]

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Tesla has been selling cars since 2008 yet it hasn't made a cent, Musk has my respect but it'll be a while before SpaceX is profitable.

And you saw this in your crystal ball. What else are you seeing?

---------- Post added at 11:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 PM ----------

You are the one who needs "to revise your thinking". One or two private companies may be leading the way in doing some awesome projects. However, the key here is "awesome" projects, like Mars expedition which likely generate a lot of buzz and attract funding from sources other than govn't agencies. For instance, some billionaires might be fascinated with the idea of travel to Mars and would like to dedicate whatever he has to that cause. I challenge you to find a company that makes products that are meaningless and boring, and that nobody cares and wants to have anything to do with.

Apples and oranges pal. Stick with your protein research and leave the space stuff to the pioneers

We hear about Mars landing on the news. All these fascinating projects start out as boring math equations and some nasty chemicals in the lab that no one cares about. How many of those projects do you hear about on the news? None! How many billionaires will fund something like that? None! Schools send little kids to visit NASA all the time. Do they send kids to visit an organic chemistry lab that studies highly strained small-ring aromatic compounds to better understand the effect of structural distortion on bonding and orbital overlaps in molecules? Did I put you to sleep with the above sentence? These are the things nobody cares about, but are the foundation for the exiting stuff you have in your mind. Without these boring things, you will NEVER get to the exciting and awesome things, like traveling to Mars. Yet, who will invest in these boring things? Will you? I know I wouldn't. If you ask me if I will invest in the projects that I myself am doing now, my answer is a big NO! Why? who knows if my stuff is going to work or not. If it works, I will cure cancer! If it doesn't work, I'll move on to another project. I can afford to do that because NIH funds my projects. Can individual afford to pour in ~$2000/day for 5-10 years into something he/she doesn't even know it would work? Any sane people would say no. But will people invest 10-15 year later WHEN I finally crack the code and develop a theory that finally solves cancer? You betcha! All the big pharmaceutical companies will swarm in like bees and invest hundreds of millions to develop new drugs using my theory. I know I may sound like I'm day-dreaming, but I at least get a chance with all the govn't funding I have now. Will I ever get a chance if I work in a company? My project will be killed instantly since it's a black hole that nobody wants to fill with their hard-earned money.

Sounds like you have an axe to grind because somebody cut your project funding. Well it happens even to the best of projects. Pick yourself up and try to carry on

As I mentioned in my previous post, my former postdoc mentor developed a new drug that is going onto the market shortly. A number of mega pharmaceutical companies, like P&G, are trying to acquire his company. If you look at him now, you will use him as an example of how efficient a private company works in putting out new products. In fact, all the drugs in the world have been developed by companies. However, he spent almost 20 years working on his controversial theory in the lab. This theory has absolutely nothing to do with drugs. It's about how human stomach protects itself against acid erosion. Exciting stuff, huh? his theory was not only not accepted by his peer, but was actually ridiculed. You think any company would invest in him 20 years ago when he was being laughed off the stage at conferences? He was able to continue his research because NIH keeps funding him since his hypothesis is scientifically sound. This is the importance of govn't-funded programs. The non-profit nature of these programs allows many crazy and meaningless ideas to mature into exciting stuff like a new drug or a crucial technology that makes space traveling possible.

I don't think you understand the aerospace world and are trying to impose your bitter experiences in the pharmaceutical world on the world of spaceflight and dreams of interplanetary exploration.

Another example from my own personal experience. The protein I work with is a key protein in cancer. ~20% of ALL human tumors are found to have mutations in this protein. Thus, all the big drug companies had invested huge amount of resources in an attempt to find an inhibitor to this protein. After almost 10 years and billions of $$$, no one could do it. So this protein has been deemed "undruggable". And all the big companies dropped projects on this protein about 10-15 years ago. No one was even allowed to whisper this protein as it would be seen as an attempt to waste company's money. Yet, scientists in university labs still work on this protein with NIH funding. With the advancement in another field that sounds like having nothing to do with cancer biology, university labs, including mine, supported by govn't funding are proposing new hypotheses on how this protein may function. Seeing all these new activity, many companies also join in and are reviving their old programs on this protein. Within the past 5 years, 8 new drugs have been developed and put into clinical trials, based on the hypotheses proposed by university labs, which are, again, supported by govn't funding. All this would have been impossible without govn't-funded projects since all companies had changed their direction and deemed this protein "undruggable".

Again I must inform you that aerospace is NOT cancer research. Sorry but it is true.

---------- Post added at 11:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:03 PM ----------

The spacex discussion needs its own thread.

Start the thread

 

[hmmwv]

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And you saw this in your crystal ball. What else are you seeing?

I saw it based on Elon Musk's track record of those startups, and failures of other semi-private space ventures such as Sea Launch. Oh I also saw that you simply refuse to accept the fact that private space ventures in their current state is pretty far from being profitable.

 

[vesicles]

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Apples and oranges pal. Stick with your protein research and leave the space stuff to the pioneers

It sounds like you know nothing about doing research. Research is research, no matter it's biology, physics, archaeology, aerospace engineering, or even paranormal activities. It's all out proposing a hypothesis and design experiments to test it. In fact, the current trend is "interdisciplinary research", meaning collaboration across different fields, like biology and physics. ever heard of biomedical engineering? When I was in graduate school, we used to collaborate with NASA to study how human body sense gravity. It's biology combined with aerospace engineering. I had absolutely no problem working with those aerospace engineers as we speak the same language, i.e. the language of science, reasoning and logic!

And the people doing "protein research" are not pioneers??? I thought the definition of a pioneer is the first one to venture into the unknown. I don't think I like your tone when discussing medical research. We, biologists, biochemists and biophysicists, are working on things that might potentially save millions, if not billions, of lives. So show some respect!

Sounds like you have an axe to grind because somebody cut your project funding. Well it happens even to the best of projects. Pick yourself up and try to carry on

Who says my funding is cut? I clearly said in my previous post that NIH funds my projects, as in present tense. In fact, I just got TWO million $$ grants from NIH and am feeling on top of the world now. I don't know where you got the idea that my funding was cut... Go back and read my post again!!

I don't think you understand the aerospace world and are trying to impose your bitter experiences in the pharmaceutical world on the world of spaceflight and dreams of interplanetary exploration.

Well, what I wrote may sound bitter to you, but it is what doing research is like, pal. Do you actually think designing a space craft/battle ship/tank is like celebrating Christmas everyday. Go read an autobiography of any scientists/engineer/explorer, or as you like to call it, pioneer, see how much happy time they actually had when they did their research. My parents worked on China's first atomic bomb. Ask them what spending 4 hours/day 6 days a week inside of a super nuclear reactor is like. See if they would tell you it's such a happy place that they can't wait to go back??? Tell the astronauts in Apollo I that their experience is not bitter!! Ask Jim Lovell if he was "thrilled" to be lost in space in Apollo13 and could "bitter" even get close to describe how they felt locked in Apollo 13. Go read a book about aerospace and see what the pioneers had to go through to give you that exciting launch! "Bitter" would be a serious understatement.

Everyone would be doing it if it is that easy. triumphs after triumph? If doing research is that easy, we would be conquering the entire Milky Way galaxy by now. It takes a special kind of people who are not only smart, but, even more importantly, patient and resilient and dedicated.

Again I must inform you that aerospace is NOT cancer research. Sorry but it is true.

Again, I must inform you that research is research, no matter what the subject is. Actually, aerospace should be even harder than cancer research. Why? At least, we enjoin open communication with our peers and we can collaborate with many in the field. People working in the aerospace typically have to hammer it out on their own since most of the stuff they work on are top-secret and no one will share anything with them. Also, we work with cell cultures. We can simply throw away the cells if we fail an experiment. What happens if those aerospace engineers fail, people die! So they must be under tons and tons of pressure. Never ever think these things are easy. It's disrespectful to those who sacrifice so much including their lives to realize a dream.

BTW, my argument is private companies has their drawback, such as lack of long-term planning and lack of communication among peers. If you don't think my argument is correct, attack my argument.

 

[vesicles]

I don't think you understand the aerospace world and are trying to impose your bitter experiences in the pharmaceutical world on the world of spaceflight and dreams of interplanetary exploration.

I went back and read my previous post again and found that my stories were actually pretty up-beat. I mentioned my former postdoc mentor finally got his theory accepted by the world and has a new drug that is about to be sold in stores. This means he is about to make millions! I also mentioned that my projects getting renewed attention, which means more funding opportunities and more high-impact publications, which will lead to promotions and salary increases. All good news.

If you think these are actually bitter, you ain't see nothing yet, pal. You might have nightmares and have to go through therapy if you decide to visit a lab (any kind of lab) and get a chance to see what the daily operation is like. What do you think it's like to design a new space craft? projects being killed on a daily basis. Thousands upon thousands of dead-ends. Countless disappointing negative results. Spending years perfecting your design and only at the last minute find out that your design suffer serious issues. Having to scratch what you have worked on for so long and are so proud of and having to go back to the drawing board again and again and again and again and again? And these are the things you will have to face only when you have made it to the top and become a PI, primary investigator, or a project lead. Most likely, you will be stuck with meager jobs like washing dishes, mopping floors, for years to actually get a chance to do some real work. Note the things I list here are NOT worst case scenarios, but the norm. No matter what field you are in, you WILL face these things on a daily basis. I wonder how you can cope with all that if you actually think my stories were bitter...

Note that these are also the kind of things that private companies are LESS able to cope with since every dead-end, every negative data means serious money wasted and closer being bankrupt... That's why private industries tend to choose very mature projects. You don't see companies working on time machines using string theories? You ask WHY? It's so cutting edge! and It's the pinnacle of interplanetary exploration! But why? Let me tell why. The technology is not mature. Any company who wants to work on a time machine will go out of business in no time. Then you ask:" but how do we ever get to time-travel if no company is working on it????" Let me tell me my friend:" don't worry. plenty university labs funded by the govn't, like NSF, are working tirelessly on the problem." They may seem inefficient to you, but one of these days, they will crack the code of time travel. By that time, your private companies will swoop in and design some cool machine and get all the credit. How is, my friend, how it is done.

 

[no_name]

^^^ That actually sound a bit like a more serious version of PhD study. Your doctoral research pretty much comes to a finish just when you have finally found the right research direction. If you have a good supervisor, he or she will make it clear to you from the start not to expect revolutionary discoveries. Doctoral study is a learning curve on how to conduct proper research.

And the majority part of it is actually tedious work.

 

[vesicles]

^^^ That actually sound a bit like a more serious version of PhD study. Your doctoral research pretty much comes to a finish just when you have finally found the right research direction. If you have a good supervisor, he or she will make it clear to you from the start not to expect revolutionary discoveries. Doctoral study is a learning curve on how to conduct proper research.

And the majority part of it is actually tedious work.

Yep. One of the most important things anyone in graduate school would learn is patience and how to deal with frustration, both of which are integral part of doing research.

However, I have to disagree with you on the part of expecting revolutionary discoveries. I feel that you should always expect the big thing. That is the motivation, either in graduate school or out of it. I was taught not to let go of any little weird things you might observe cause it might lead you to the next big thing. Howevever, I do get what you are saying, expect the best and planning for the worst.

 

[escobar]

Yuanwang-6 arrived at Fiji to monitor the SZ-9 docking mission.