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> space stops being rare air — and becomes infrastructure
This reeks of AI slop. Plenty of “it’s not just X, its Y” in there too.
China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
21–30 of 76 posts
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#22Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#23That's awesome. Secretly (?) I'm hoping for another "space race"— this time between the U.S. and China. I'm hoping this for the U.S.'s sake. I'm hoping that good can come of it.
It feels like China hit an inflection point where they can rapidly progress, catch up, and perhaps surpass the US technologically. The road out of “developing country” took forever but now I see them producing great products in basically every industry.
I think this is still a negative for the US though. China’s competitiveness means the Dollar and the US economy aren’t going to be dominant for long, or at least they’ll need to share their position with China. And US influence on the world order has been destroyed in the last year. If all of this continues - China’s progress, the slow erosion of American dominance, etc - then I think America will have to confront serious problems, like how it will deal with debt.
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't help but wonder about why countries are doing this. Launch detection? Cameras? Other secret use? Making money for commercial sats? (Starlink, maybe GPS-equivalent, other?)
Satellite constellations (links in the final paragraph of the OP article).
I hope they become better at injecting payloads into low orbit. The higher orbits Chinese companies use for internet constellations right now have huge risks of space debris, since satellites will take hundreds of years to fall out of orbit.
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would the US even fight? We've lost the shipbuilding race, auto race, drone race, without anyone in DC actually noticing. Most Americans don't even realize China has a manned space station. If China had a presence on the moon, would that wake up congress, or would they just put out a few tweets and go back to cultural dramatics?
Honestly I doubt it. Current government doesn't really have the ability to get their shit together and compete with anyone in any capacity. As much as usgov would love another reason to clutch pearls and shriek about China, we simply don't have the industry or resources to compete without a federal investment so massive that we wouldn't have any tax money left to give to the already ludicrously wealthy. And we can't…
I actually think the US industry is perfectly capable of competing in the space race if given regulatory streamlining, long-term consistent goals, and relatively modest funding by congress.
But none of those are going to happen. I mean SpaceX was delayed to do an environmental impact statement to check whether their rockets would land on whales in the gulf of mexico. Nobody's serious.
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#26That's awesome. Secretly (?) I'm hoping for another "space race"— this time between the U.S. and China. I'm hoping this for the U.S.'s sake. I'm hoping that good can come of it.
Who pays for it? It would be pretty funny to try to borrow from China...
So even if its just a jobs program with a neat outcome, we'd have to deal with tax reform first, I'd imagine.
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#27That's awesome. Secretly (?) I'm hoping for another "space race"— this time between the U.S. and China. I'm hoping this for the U.S.'s sake. I'm hoping that good can come of it.
Would the US even fight? We've lost the shipbuilding race, auto race, drone race, without anyone in DC actually noticing. Most Americans don't even realize China has a manned space station. If China had a presence on the moon, would that wake up congress, or would they just put out a few tweets and go back to cultural dramatics?
Congress will notice when old politburo members start living on the moon base healthy for another 20 years
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn’t lost. But it’s decaying. I remember picking through an aerospace scrapyard in North Hollywood a decade ago with extremely-talented launch engineers (and entrepreneurs). The aim was to look at parts, measure them and figure out why they were built like they were. We looked, a little, at stuff like nozzles. But mostly we focussed on bolts, joiners, turbine blades and the like.
That sounds like living amongst the ruins of the Roman Empire
> sounds like living amongst the ruins of the Roman Empire
Down to the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire was going strong.
Even in 2014, when I was in North Hollywood, SpaceX was carrying the torch.
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#29That's awesome. Secretly (?) I'm hoping for another "space race"— this time between the U.S. and China. I'm hoping this for the U.S.'s sake. I'm hoping that good can come of it.
It feels like China hit an inflection point where they can rapidly progress, catch up, and perhaps surpass the US technologically. The road out of “developing country” took forever but now I see them producing great products in basically every industry. I think this is still a negative for the US though. China’s competitiveness means the Dollar and the US economy aren’t going to be dominant for long, or at least they…
> The road out of “developing country” took forever but now I see them producing great products in basically every industry.
Did it? We're talking 1949 up to a few years ago. 70 odd years from mass starvation to having their own space station. One could even say it's less than that, starting with the reforms in the 80s.
Re: China Has Three Reusable Rockets Ready for Their Debut Flights
#30In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46061943 danishSuri1994 said that if others like China and ESA did not also develop reusable rockets they would be priced out of orbit access entirely. I have a question about that, but their comment got killed faster than I could type and submit my question so I'll ask it a level up.
Why would not having reusable rockets price someone like China or ESA out of orbit access?
I can see how it could price them out of the business of selling orbit access to other parties, but I don't see how it would stop them from accessing orbit for their own purposes.