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China lands rover on Mars

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Re: China lands rover on Mars

#271

Post by reducesuffering »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #223
iso1210 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

I was just telling my wife about this yesterday and how Wernher von Braun basically saved the US rocket program; or, at least, it was having major difficulties before, and major successes after he joined up. And, in addition, the Germans in the 1930s got a lot of good information from Robert H. Goddard, the inventor who built the first liquid-fueled rocket; Werner von Braun said, about him, "His rockets ... may have…

> I think that having more people doing more science enriches everyone. Without American and German scientists working sharing information, it would have taken a lot longer to have the space technology that we currently do.

> That is true even when two countries have political tension, as Germany and America had in the 1930s. China may have political rivalry with America, but science should take a lead in exchanging ideas, learning from each other, and developing new ideas that will enrich all of humanity.

You're only saying this because America stopped Germany. You might as well be telling the French why sharing their science with 1930's Germany is a net good. What about a hypothetical where that French 30's science was the defining factor in Germany being able to conquer them?

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#272

Post by finnh »

gutfhjkvdsw wrote: post #268
iso1210 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

Is it really stealing when the individuals who did the work for America voluntarily left Germany due to its foray into authoritarianism? Seems more like a windfall for a country with better human rights than a theft, to me.

That's not quite how it went down - the really top guys were running the show in Nazi Germany until the very end, and only came to the US after Germany lost the war.

See siblings comments about Mittelwerk, eg. Also Chabon's (fictional) novel Moonglow covers some of this history well.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#273

Post by abledon »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #223
iso1210 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

I was just telling my wife about this yesterday and how Wernher von Braun basically saved the US rocket program; or, at least, it was having major difficulties before, and major successes after he joined up. And, in addition, the Germans in the 1930s got a lot of good information from Robert H. Goddard, the inventor who built the first liquid-fueled rocket; Werner von Braun said, about him, "His rockets ... may have…

> China may have political rivalry with America, but science should take a lead in exchanging ideas, learning from each other, and developing new ideas that will enrich all of humanity.

What % of the scientific community would it take to convince their government to be open about sharing their knowledgebase? seems unrealistic with their current 'climate'.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#274

Post by Jeff_Brown »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #255
RocketMan9999 wrote: post #208

I'm a Chinese guy and I don't like this at all. Here's some Chinese perspective: 1. The CNSA is severely underfunded in recent years, to the extent that a considerable amount of space tech graduates went directly into other more "lucrative" fields such as the IT industry. 2. This landing operation was not announced beforehand. This is a bit unusual, when compared to the past operations, e. g. the first manned space f…

> 1. The CNSA is severely underfunded in recent years, to the extent that a considerable amount of space tech graduates went directly into other more "lucrative" fields such as the IT industry. To be fair, NASA has the same problem. Rocket science just doesn’t pay as well as a FAANG programming job, even if you are trained up for the former. At lot of fields that traditionally attracted smart people are suffering sim…

On the other hand, NASA ends up with people who really care about space, whereas FAANG have a lot of employees whose hearts are not in the mission. Money can do wonders for motivation, of course, but it has its limits.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#275

Post by Jeff_Brown »

thunderbong wrote: post #151

For me what has always been amazingly fascinating about all of these missions (even more so for the Voyager missions) is to be able to work with so much latency! In today's world, where we are used to working with millisecond latencies across thousands of kilometers, just to be able to do something with latency of minutes to tens of hours, boggles my mind! Amazing accomplishment of humankind!

The development cycles in space exploration are heroic. My own code takes literally one minute to run and the wait is a serious drag on my productivity.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#276

Post by throw0101a »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #223
iso1210 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

I was just telling my wife about this yesterday and how Wernher von Braun basically saved the US rocket program; or, at least, it was having major difficulties before, and major successes after he joined up. And, in addition, the Germans in the 1930s got a lot of good information from Robert H. Goddard, the inventor who built the first liquid-fueled rocket; Werner von Braun said, about him, "His rockets ... may have…

If anyone wants to get into some of the obscure history niches, see the book Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants (ISBN13: 9780813507255):

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/677285.Ignition_

It's not about rockets in general, but about rocket fuel specifically. It's the "#1 Best Seller in Petroleum (Engineering)" category:

* https://www.amazon.com/Ignition-Informal-History-Liquid-Prop...

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#277

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #274
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. The CNSA is severely underfunded in recent years, to the extent that a considerable amount of space tech graduates went directly into other more "lucrative" fields such as the IT industry. To be fair, NASA has the same problem. Rocket science just doesn’t pay as well as a FAANG programming job, even if you are trained up for the former. At lot of fields that traditionally attracted smart people are suffering sim…

On the other hand, NASA ends up with people who really care about space, whereas FAANG have a lot of employees whose hearts are not in the mission. Money can do wonders for motivation, of course, but it has its limits.

Yes, but don’t think our industry’s success hasn’t had some negative effects on the others.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#278

Post by Jeff_Brown »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #277
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, NASA ends up with people who really care about space, whereas FAANG have a lot of employees whose hearts are not in the mission. Money can do wonders for motivation, of course, but it has its limits.

Yes, but don’t think our industry’s success hasn’t had some negative effects on the others.

Absolutely. The enthusiasm effect compensates, but not completely.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#280

Post by 908B64B197 »

iso1210 wrote: post #209
kstenerud wrote: post #188

It seems pretty silly to get all up in arms about copying other peoples' stuff. That's how humanity has innovated throughout the ages: Copy what works and innovate on top of it. None of our inventions arise from a vacuum. Cars are still as wide as Roman chariots for good reason. Power transfer uses the same base principles as were in play during the dawn of steam engines and before. Energy conversion has been an iter…

> Crying "No fair! You stole it!" sounds more like a petulant child than anything else. It's also exactly what made nasa in the first place, with America stealing much of rocket science from the Germans in the wake of WW2.

I think a lot of German scientists were pretty happy to be "stolen" by a democracy and given the means to leave 1930's Germany.

Not at all the same as what's going on right now [0]

[0] https://www.justice.gov/usao-az/pr/former-raytheon-engineer-...

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