China's Space Program Thread II

[ZeEa5KPul]

By this logic, Starship is copying some caveman's dick.

There's no logic to this or anything else you've said.

Tell me, why is the LM9 using 200 ton methlox full stage combustion engines?

Because that engine architecture and fuel are the most reusable.

The same kind of engines that Starship is using?

Starship is using it for the same reason.

Not to mention other rocket designs like Rocket Lab's fully reusable 2 stage rocket doesn't look anything like Starship anyway.

And?

And again, China needs to forge it's own path.

No, it needs to attain a reusable superheavy launch capability as soon as possible. Whether you consider that "its own" or "someone else's" is completely irrelevant.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

I wonder how much time they could have saved if they went with a single stick cluster first stage to begin with...


I suppose if they can do a successful test flight from the outset and it more "before" rather than "after" 2033 then they might not lag behind Starship in an insurmountable way, if they can mass produce them properly.

No use crying over spilled milk. What's done is done.

I think the CZ-10 should be able to handle heavy/superheavy launches for 5-10 years until the CZ-9 is ready. It's suboptimal but it will at least tide China over until the proper reusable superheavy capability is ready. WS-10C/WS-15 situation.

 

[tacoburger]

No, it needs to attain a reusable superheavy launch capability as soon as possible. Whether you consider that "its own" or "someone else's" is completely irrelevant.

Well maybe they could have done it sooner if they had actually had the foresight to invest and develop the capability instead of waiting to copy Starship.

 

[Overbom]

Well maybe they could have done it sooner if they had actually had the foresight to invest and develop the capability instead of waiting to copy Starship.

You are arguing about the gov vs private method for developing space capabilities.

The US has been on the forefront of that change with China following behind it. Its only natural that a US private company would first achieve breakthroughs

People may not like it, but Governments are not as nimble and ruthless as private companies when profit and money is involved

 

[tacoburger]

You are arguing about the gov vs private method for developing space capabilities.

The US has been on the forefront of that change with China following behind it. Its only natural that a US private company would first achieve breakthroughs

People may not like it, but Governments are not as nimble and ruthless as private companies when profit and money is involved

I call bullshit. NASA worked miracles in getting onto the moon in such a short amount of time. Plenty of private American space companies are also completely stagnated, Boeing/ULA, Blue origin. Spacex is making so much money on the Faclon 9 that they can just sit on their workhorse rocket for another decade and just focused on starlink and Falcon 9 launches. But they're pushing for Starship with an immpressive focus, even thought it's going to be losing them money for another few years. Government or private, what matters is leadership, drive and culture. China clearly has complacency issues. Just look at how long they're sticking to decades old hypergolic rockets.

 

[Dante80]

China clearly has complacency issues. Just look at how long they're sticking to decades old hypergolic rockets.

You keep saying that while what we are witnessing these last years is a veritable explosion of designs, ventures, hardware and infrastructure in China. Both in the private and public sectors of the space economy.

It is a matter of time before said seeds flourish and start bearing fruit. It is actually inevitable.

And pretty exciting for any space buff to witness too!

 

[gelgoog]

What complacency? China put the LM-5 and LM-7 into service. They built a new launch site at Hainan island. They sent astronauts into space with their own space capsule, and they made their own multi-module orbiting space station. They sent robotic missions to the Moon and Mars. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Michaelsinodef]

China clearly has complacency issues. Just look at how long they're sticking to decades old hypergolic rockets.

Lmao, because they are using their old hypergolic rockets they are complacent?

Anyways, besides the 2 other posters after this post of yours, the actual reason for the continued use of hypergolics is basically because of demand and costs.

There's a huge demand (many satelites to be launched), not enough capacity (in the production and use of newer rockets), and costs are 'low enough' to both continue and making the older rockets (that have proven to be reliable, and with how many years they have been used, likely have somewhat quite cheap costs because of a mature production line)

 

[tacoburger]

You keep saying that while what we are witnessing these last years is a veritable explosion of designs, ventures, hardware and infrastructure in China. Both in the private and public sectors of the space economy.

Mainly Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy clones...

China put the LM-5 and LM-7 into service.

And still files dozens of two decade old hypergolic designs. That's hundreds of engineers and technicians, ground support systems, hundreds of millions of yuan a year spent on a dead end technology.

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Most of those examples are just repeating things that have already been done.

Lmao, because they are using their old hypergolic rockets they are complacent?

Yes.

the actual reason for the continued use of hypergolics is basically because of demand and costs.

So the same reasoning that NASA, boeing and ULA have fallen into. "We are using old space shuttle hardware because of costs, let's waste billions and many of our talented engineers on obsolete hardware instead of actually developing something new" China isn't a small country, modern rocket engines are a mature tech, they could have easily pushed for expanding production lines to provide more than enough engines for use without having to split production lines and complicate logistics by using an toxic dead end fuel system.

There's a huge demand (many satelites to be launched), not enough capacity (in the production and use of newer rockets), and costs are 'low enough' to both continue and making the older rockets (that have proven to be reliable, and with how many years they have been used, likely have somewhat quite cheap costs because of a mature production line)

If SpaceX had used this same line of logic, they would still be launching their Falcon 1. Or they wouldn't have even started work on starship and continued with the Faclon 9 for another two decades. ULA fell into the same trap and continued using the same general hardware for decades instead of aggressively pushing the envelope.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

China has a massive innovation problem, especially with their space program. They are the only modern space program that is still flying hypergolic rockets, not just one or two, but dozens of them every year. That's hundreds of engineers and technicians, ground support systems, hundreds of millions of yuan a year spent on a dead end technology.

That all money and manpower could have been for any other of innovative ideas and development, or at the very least on expanding modern liquid fuelled engine production for better economy of scale and a better train workforce. But nope, for unknown reasons, but probably because for reliability or corruption or maybe because some old dinosaur in charge doesn't want to see his beloved hypergolics go away, there's more hypergolic launches than ever, even though China has fully matured and domestic modern kerosene/hydrogen rocket engines and the ability produce them at scale to replace hypergolic rockets.

The smart thing would have been to very quickly phase out hypergolic rockets and standardise all ground support systems, fuel production and production lines for modern kerosene/hydrogen engines for better economy of scale, logistics and training. But at the rate things are going, the Long march 3B, 4C and 2F are still going to be flying when the Long march 9 makes it's first flight. It's embarrassing and pathetic.

This unwillingness to change demonstrates just how assbackwards the chinese space program is. Just imagine how Spacex would have turned out if they didn't stop developing and producing their Falcon 1 even after getting their Falcon 9, splitting up production lines and engineers to work on an obvious dead end.

Hypergolic are storable. LOX and LH2 aren't. This has strategic implications. They're also cheap and only require standard chemical grade handling equipment rather than both chemical and cryogenic.