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To be fair the US also has private companies looking at space so I don't know whether we are ahead or behind.
by tdb7893 10y ago
To be fair the US also has private companies looking at space so I don't know whether we are ahead or behind.
- baq 10y agodon't expect those companies to launch people into space in the next year, though. china will be ahead for a while.
- johnzim 10y agoI know Hacker news likes "Technically Correct - the Best kind of Correct" but in what sense is China 'ahead' here? It may be obvious but there are plenty more Americans who are back and walking around on planet earth than there are Chinese astronauts who have been put into orbit.
- baq 10y agoplease do not confuse current capability with the sum of achievements. USA has put multiple men on the surface of the Moon. what of it if it doesn't have a man-rated launcher now? SLS is a jobs program that's years from launching. Atlas V? not rated. Delta IV? being phased out and also not rated. Falcon 9? not rated. Antares? not rated. New Glenn? announced last month, hardware doesn't exist. ITS? you know the drill. tell me in what way the current US capacity of launching men into space is ahead of China's?
- jacquesm 10y agoWhat does being 'rated' mean in this context, do the Chinese and American entities building spacecraft use uniform criteria for these ratings? Or is it simply what gets built and stamped that way by local varieties?
- baq 10y agotechnically it's the stamps. practically, no stamps means nobody goes to space.
- crypto5 10y agoUSA is strongly profit oriented. There is very little profit in launching man to the space, but it you will look at the number of satellites in the space: China: 218 US: 1341 http://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=&t=country http://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=&t=country
- searine 10y agoThey use soviet technology on a 1960s era rocket to launch to a single room space station, all using massive government subsidies. If the US wanted/needed to, they could put a man up tomorrow (seriously just strap a capsule to Antares 203). The only difference is that we are taking time to safely transition to a commercial market for spaceflight. I'm not trying to knock China, more power to them, but they are definitely not "ahead".
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoShh, you're upsetting the HN anti-US circlejerk. Its incredible how we're living in a time of private space companies, the soon to be flying SLS, and potential manned Mars landings sooner than later and people still think a quick and ugly flight to a LEO space station is the height of human civilization. Let the whiners have their moment, soon the progressive thinkers and visionaries will break from LEO and not having LEO lifting capabilities for a few years won't matter, not that it does now anyway. The same way no one bemoans the time between Apollo and the STS.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- flexie 10y agoI am looking into space every night. Let's wait giving them credit for manned space flights until they launch someone into space.