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China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

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Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#41

Post by bell-cot »

Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #32
nitwit005 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

You are missing that the money and research into figuring out how to solve many engineering and scientific challenges related to the missions had tremendous benefit to industry later. As we gain ability to do my re in space more cheaply it will get more important

I'm thinking that Apollo covered 90% of the useful spin-offs from developing tech for manned travel to the moon or Mars. And at least 90% of what's left was either covered by the ISS, or could be covered by a few small LEO space stations.

The economic cases for manned moon or Mars programs look really iffy these days. The US has poured tens of $billions down the SLS rat hole, with very little to show for it. And Wienersmith's A City on Mars is a pretty damning dissection of the whole concept of Martian colonies.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#42

Post by danny_codes »

poszlem wrote: post #39
nitwit005 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

This doesn’t make any sense. You must be trolling or a bot.

What good does inter-planetary bombardment do me? I already have enough nukes to destroy the world. I mean it’s a bit redundant

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#43

Post by stackedinserter »

xnorswap wrote: post #20
MichaelNolan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to lose a contest you won 60 years prior... If you pick a random person off the street and ask them who discovered the Americas will they answer 1. Leif Erikson, 2. Indigenous peoples or 3. Christopher Columbus? If you ask people who invented the smartphone will they say Apple or some other company? It’s absolutely possible to lose a race you had previously won.

Or indeed, ask them who won the space race, because by most measures, that was the Soviets too. Soviets achieved: - First artificial Orbit ( Sputnik ) - First animal to orbit ( Laika ) - First Man to orbit ( Yuri Gagarin ) - First Woman to orbit (Valentina Tereshkova ) - First EVA ( Alexei Leonov ) - First moon landing ( Luna 9 ) - First landing on another planet ( Venera 8 ) Many of these years before the USA achiev…

They are still jerking on these 50+ years old achievements, without having new ones. "Space race" didn't stop after Venera landing, and soviets/russians are thing of the past now. Aside of useless ISS trips, they have no relevance in space anymore.

> "Won the space race" because of the moon landing is Hollywood nonsense.

"Won the space race" because they were first at the very beginning is a nonsense too. Following this logic, China won rocket race because they invented first rockets centuries ago.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#44

Post by poszlem »

danny_codes wrote: post #42
poszlem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

This doesn’t make any sense. You must be trolling or a bot. What good does inter-planetary bombardment do me? I already have enough nukes to destroy the world. I mean it’s a bit redundant

You open by calling me a bot, which is an odd way to start a serious argument.

It isn’t about extra ways to blow things up. It’s about survivability and leverage. A platform you can’t detect or preempt changes deterrence dynamics, just like subs do. The advantage comes from being untargetable, not from adding more warheads.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#45

Post by ggm »

poszlem wrote: post #39
nitwit005 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

> Good luck competing with China if they get there first.

The French, the English, the Dutch and the Portuguese all got to Asia.

Which one was first and which one(s) were last to leave is not the same.

The far side of the moon doesn't have a magic "dibs, it's mine" quality. It's big, and it's an extreme environment.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#46

Post by poszlem »

ggm wrote: post #45
poszlem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

> Good luck competing with China if they get there first. The French, the English, the Dutch and the Portuguese all got to Asia. Which one was first and which one(s) were last to leave is not the same. The far side of the moon doesn't have a magic "dibs, it's mine" quality. It's big, and it's an extreme environment.

By "there first" I don't mean - whoever sets the foot there. I assumed that was obvious.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#47

Post by Dylan16807 »

poszlem wrote: post #39
nitwit005 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

A concealed base with perfect third strike capability that costs a zillion dollars per bullet to load with ammo is actually not that useful.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#48

Post by bell-cot »

poszlem wrote: post #39
nitwit005 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

That Far Side base is irrelevant unless is can be supplied, at scale. Talk to a few folks who served in Afghanistan about the costs and miseries of long logistical pipelines to great-in-theory locations.

Then, the base has to easily project serious military power to places that matter to us. Lunar escape velocity is ~2.4km/s, which is not trivial. After that, transit time to Earth is multiple days. Vs. current ICBM's can put nuclear warheads anywhere, in under an hour, without actually achieving LEO.

BTW - if nation C can haul enough stuff to the Far Side to build a substantial base, then obviously it's neither untargetable nor unreachable for nation U.

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#49

Post by kbaker »

poszlem wrote: post #39
nitwit005 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical part of space flight is launching satellites, and weapons. Both countries are already doing both. If we're discussing manned missions to the moon or Mars, as an American I'd prefer China spent all the money and the US didn't bother. It'd be cool to see it happen, but no one can identify practical benefits, aside from a political win.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

> The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception.

What prevents someone from sending a Lunar-orbiting imaging satellite to image everything on the Far Side? The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has already been imaging the Far Side for over a decade.

I agree with your general points about it being a difficult location to get to, but if it's possible to put regular satellites in Lunar orbit, surely its possible to park some warheads too just in case...

Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights

#50

Post by poszlem »

kbaker wrote: post #49
poszlem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That take is unbelievably shortsighted. A Far Side lunar base is not some cool sci fi brag. It is a massive strategic advantage, and brushing it off misses everything that actually matters. The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. The Moon itself becomes a giant wall of rock that blocks sensors…

> The Far Side is the only place in the Earth Moon system where you can hide military hardware and basically disappear. No optical tracking, no radar, no interception. What prevents someone from sending a Lunar-orbiting imaging satellite to image everything on the Far Side? The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has already been imaging the Far Side for over a decade. I agree with your general points about it being a diffi…

If a big power gets there first, they’re not going to treat lunar orbit like some kind of shared international space. They’d treat it as their turf. At that point you can’t just assume you can drop an imaging satellite into whatever orbit you want they’d have both the motive and the capability to deny access.
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