Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China lands rover on Mars

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 359 posts

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#331

Post by 8bitsrule »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #297
brobdingnagians wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And, in addition, the Germans in the 1930s got a lot of good information from Robert H. Goddard Is that true? I have read that, unlike the German rocket club, Goddard was very secretive — more like closed-source. Thanks to the open German rocket club, they solved the engineering difficulty of a high speed pump to deliver fuel to the engines. Goddard appears to have stalled there. So the U.S. gets the German scienti…

"Wernher von Braun, a German physicist and a friend of Goddard [also a PhD physicist; emph. mine], instituted the German Rocket Society in 1927, following Goddard’s March 1926 launch." [0]

Goddard's early launches were made possible by a Smithsonian grant of $5000 by Charles Greeley Abbot from the Hodgkins fund. After being ridiculed in the NYT in 1920 he got more cautious about PR. After a Lindbergh visit, the Guggenheims helped him find another $100,000.

Germany didn't need 'help' from Goddard; they had Oberth, who did a PhD thesis on rocketry in 1922, and published The Rocket into Planetary Space in 1923. "Space historians typically name three pioneers as the founding fathers of astronautics: Tsiolkovsky [a Russian teachr when Goddard was still a teen], the American Robert Goddard, and the German (although Romanian-born) Hermann Oberth." [1]

[0] https://www.famousscientists.org/robert-goddard/ [1] https://www.airspacemag.com/space/russias-long-love-affair-w...

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#332

Post by adolph »

freshair wrote: post #311
adolph wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the phrase has several interpretations. The most basic is conveyance without judgement of human motives. To the extent that high value workers knew that they were treasure to be looted they might have decided that the US was a least worse option.

> To the extent that high value workers knew that they were treasure to be looted they might have decided that the US was a least worse option. Yes, that lines up with von Braun's account of his motivations. > We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else.…

We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through

He really write that? That’s some chutzpah.

Also interesting is that the V-2 missile was called a “ vengeance weapon” [0] but Allied bombing of Germany hadn’t started when the V-2 started. [1]

On 22 December 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the production of the A-4 as a "vengeance weapon", and the Peenemünde group developed it to target London.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_air_operations_during_...

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#333

Post by genera1 »

adolph wrote: post #332
freshair wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the extent that high value workers knew that they were treasure to be looted they might have decided that the US was a least worse option. Yes, that lines up with von Braun's account of his motivations. > We knew that we had created a new means of warfare, and the question as to what nation, to what victorious nation we were willing to entrust this brainchild of ours was a moral decision more than anything else.…

We wanted to see the world spared another conflict such as Germany had just been through He really write that? That’s some chutzpah. Also interesting is that the V-2 missile was called a “ vengeance weapon” [0] but Allied bombing of Germany hadn’t started when the V-2 started. [1] On 22 December 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the production of the A-4 as a "vengeance weapon", and the Peenemünde group developed it to targ…

Allied bombings of Germany began in 1939, the information is even present in the Wikipedia link you provided. V-2 launches against Allies started in September 1944, well after commencement of large scale strategic bombing of German cities, and the name was given to it after successful test launches, also in 1944.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#334

Post by xtracto »

ben_w wrote: post #182
Synaesthesia wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fuel cost means that almost all of us are destined to spend our lives here on earth. Only a handful will have the privilege of going up in a rocket.

Yes, but rockets aren’t the only way up. Musk’s million Martian metropolis is roughly where it starts to be worth thinking about developing Launch Loops and Orbital Rings. I can definitely believe China might give that a go. [0] https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop [1] https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_ring

I renember reading some Asimov writing where he mentioned that the earth is a very bad place to setup a launching base. He hypothesized that humans would create a launch base on the moon. And that with that gravity, something like magnetic launchpads could be used.

That would be fantastic!

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#335

Post by tomelgin »

amelius wrote: post #285
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…

> It seems pretty silly to get all up in arms about copying other peoples' stuff. Wasn't it an American who said "good artists copy, great artists steal"?

And the American who said it stole that phrase from a Spaniard (Steve Jobs popularized it but he was quoting Pablo Picasso).

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#336

Post by mike_d »

simion314 wrote: post #212
mike_d wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is quite a bit of whataboutism when Chinese espionage comes up, however the key difference is that the government has a financial interest in most companies and often shares loot from foreign competitors with local businesses. Yes, the US, Russia, France, etc. do this too. The big difference is when the government gives Lockheed the design plans for a new Chinese fighter jet the goal is to develop countermeasur…

My issue with this comments here is, do you have any proof? China made a rover with 6 wheels and this means it is stolen? WTF is the "round corners" issue again? I would like to see something more real, like Patent 1234 "Mars rover with metal wheels" then show how China somwhow broke this ridiculous patent. OR show that US rover contains some super secret tech that is also present in China stuff. As far as I know Chi…

A great example is the Chengdu J-20, which was a direct clone of the F-22 using plans stolen from Lockheed Martin. The J-31 is heavily inspired by but not a complete clone of the F-35 because the latter was still under heavy development when the plans were stolen. (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-who-conspire...)

The J-15 is a clone of the Russian Su-33, reverse engineered from a physical jet they obtained from Ukraine. The only real modifications are the use of lighter composite materials so that the inferior launchers on Chinese carriers could get them in the air. (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/high-cost-china-payin...)

These examples are all military because private companies are unwilling to publicize their designs were stolen, and the government is unwilling to admit they couldn't protect private industry.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#337

Post by walty8 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #309
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…

> Copy what works and innovate on top of it I think the main gripe with China's process is that they don't do the latter. They produce replica's then herald them as original works of the mightiest country on the planet. Everyone everywhere steals, but China does it with a little more 'F-U' than most countries, and tend to use what they steal to oppress. I spent a few years working for a defense contractor out of coll…

> I know the immediate response to this is going to be "But America did such and such...". I don't care what America did. When someone is on trial for stealing a car, talking about how someone else stole a bike isn't a defense.

Well, this actually reminded me the case of Apple issued Microsoft for the infringement in 1988 [1], and Apple did not win because the Mac UI was actually 'referenced' from Xerox as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros....

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#338

Post by fsloth »

cameldrv wrote: post #304
fsloth wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I think the Soviets realized the shuttle was a badly designed and expensive frankenvehicle that did not fit any mission profile particularly well.

Perhaps. The Energia booster was quite good. The real reason they stopped flying it is that the Soviet Union went broke, which is also why there is no Soviet Union anymore.

I think the political narrative of the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a bit more complex than that. The root cause was a political dissatisfaction in the "member" states and as Kremlin under Gorbachev tried to create a more financially dynamic political system, they accidentally also gave enough leash to the vassal states to create an unstoppable tidal wave of reforms. They could have rolled the tanks in as during earlier decades (e.g invasion of Checkoslovakia during the Prague spring incident -68) but didn't - for which I think the world is ever grateful for Mr. Gorbachev.

So it was not only about money. Although the financial problems were certainly one of the biggest root causes.

Then soviet system had faced several humiliating defeats a few years earlier, robbing it's system of it's facade of invincibility - the invasion of Afganistan and Chernobyl disaster among them.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#339

Post by publicola1990 »

publicola1990 wrote: post #236
sean1524 wrote: post #198

I'm curious, their landing vehicle seems to have less moving parts than the respective US rovers that use a complex sky-crane. Is there a particular benefit to using the sky-crane?

I think overall they got a greater mass into Mars orbit than Perseverance. They have bundled a rather large orbiter and the rover into a single mission, whereas Perseverance payload is entirely the surface rover and related modules.

It appears it is about 3+ ton orbiter, and 400kg rover/lander.

Re: China lands rover on Mars

#340

Post by FooBarWidget »

mike_d wrote: post #336
simion314 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue with this comments here is, do you have any proof? China made a rover with 6 wheels and this means it is stolen? WTF is the "round corners" issue again? I would like to see something more real, like Patent 1234 "Mars rover with metal wheels" then show how China somwhow broke this ridiculous patent. OR show that US rover contains some super secret tech that is also present in China stuff. As far as I know Chi…

A great example is the Chengdu J-20, which was a direct clone of the F-22 using plans stolen from Lockheed Martin. The J-31 is heavily inspired by but not a complete clone of the F-35 because the latter was still under heavy development when the plans were stolen. ( https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-who-conspire... ) The J-15 is a clone of the Russian Su-33, reverse engineered from a physical jet they o…

There are instances of copying. That doesn't mean all successful technologies are copied. Some technologies are harder to independently develop. Supposedly advanced jet engines are really really hard, but space technology strangely less so, because of lower safety requirements.

In other words: for the claim "their space technology is stolen", more proof is needed. Just because they copied some other area is not enough proof to say they copied this area.

Post reply on HN