Anyhow equivalent engines to the Raptor on the Chinese side are either still on paper or in early prototype testing.
Sure, I really want to see how LM-5 is more advanced. F9 is partially reusable, has higher payload fraction even when reusable and has higher cumulative success rate. Also, I'm pretty sure F9 launch costs are also lower although i don't think there are any public info on LM-5 launch cost.
To be honest, the United States mainly has an advantage in existing assets. In this regard, China still needs about ten years to catch up and address many shortcomings, primarily in heavy-lift rockets.
However, frankly speaking, it’s hard to see how much technological advantage the U.S. still holds in the aerospace sector. It’s not felt anymore. In many micro-level details, the presence of U.S. technological innovation in aerospace is no longer perceptible.
To be honest, including SpaceX, I really don’t think they are leading. I just feel regret for U.S. aerospace.
SpaceX has completely led the U.S. aerospace industry astray with misguided and inefficient technological approaches. Of course, the same goes for Boeing and the ULA launch alliance.
Falcon 9 is acceptable, but the Falcon Heavy is mostly忽悠外行 (deceiving laymen), and the Starship is basically胡来 (reckless).
When strategic concepts and direction are wrong, no amount of tactical-level achievements can make up for it. The Starship is precisely such an existence.
The public now thinks the Starship is advanced because it excels in singular metrics (specifically two: maximum lift-off mass and thrust), along with the imagined low cost of full reusability.
The current design and operational thinking behind the Starship are charging full speed down the wrong path (it’s not that reusability is wrong—it’s that they’ve completely messed up the sequence of technological development).
Right now, the Starship has no competitors in its class, so not many people recognize its problems.
But once the Long March 9, a rocket in the same class, completes its maiden flight, you will hear U.S. aerospace professionals come forward and angrily condemn SpaceX for squandering its technological advantage.
Elon Musk’s collusion with the CCP has harmed the development of U.S. aerospace.
Finally, if SpaceX adjusts its strategy, I will retract the above conclusions. However, there is currently no sign of such adjustments.
Right now, I am almost certain that in ten years, facing Chinese aerospace, the U.S. aerospace sector will basically lose (mainly because if the U.S. had taken the correct path, it could have maintained its technological advantage until 2045, but now, with the wrong path, the U.S. technological advantage will largely disappear by 2035). Congress, NASA, SpaceX, and Elon Musk must all bear responsibility for this.
