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Perhaps we’ll get another Space Race with China. At a point, the United States was spending over 4% its budget on NASA: https://www.theguardian.com/news/databl
by melling 8y ago
Perhaps we’ll get another Space Race with China. At a point, the United States was spending over 4% its budget on NASA:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/feb/01/nasa-budgets-us-spending-space-travel https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/feb/01/nasa-b...
The money would probably be better spent on several projects (e.g. AI, hypersonic flight).
- ohitsdom 8y agoNASA does a lot of work on hypersonic flight. Lots of sources to link to, here's an article from a few years ago: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/meet-nasas-new-x-planes-quiet-sonic-booms-and-engines-at-the-back/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/meet-nasas-new-x-pla...
- melling 8y agoThat’s Nasa’s quiet supersonic project. Hypersonic is five or six times the speed of sound. It would of course be nice to have both.
- cauldron 8y agoThe tech gap is too big, despite media hype, don't think China can even catch up.
- melling 8y agoSo, you’re saying the world’s second largest economy, soon to be the first, can’t catch up in 10-20 years? The US only spends $20 billion a year on NASA.
- chillacy 8y agoYou can land on the moon with 60s technology, what basis is there for not being able to reach that?
- 2trill2spill 8y agoIn space flight some of the most advanced technology even to this day was developed in the 60's and 70's. Things like NERVA[1], the NK-33[2], and the Saturn V[3], were developed back then and are still more efficient or bigger then similar technology we have today. The 60's and 70's were the golden age of spaceflight. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NERVA [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NK-33 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V
- zozbot123 8y agoAgree. See how chinese trolls trying to spread propaganda are quick to reply to you with their blabbering and defensive talk. That's the only thing they're able to come closer to.
- sctb 8y agoIf you keep breaking the guidelines we'll ban the account. > Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- zozbot123 8y agoOk I'll refrain myself next time. I'm hoping you monitor suspicious activities and accounts on here, including where the trails ends up, because I assure you weird things are happening. There's an unnatural tendency to favor a view as of lately.
- nine_k 8y agoHis useful hypersonic flight may be? With air being so dense and power-dissipating, it might be more economical to do a sub-orbital jump than to push through the atmosphere at 7M. For short-range military applications, iirc, hypersonic rockets exist.
- nradov 8y agoAll current military hypersonic (Mach 5+) weapons are ballistic missiles. No one has demonstrated sustained hypersonic flight through the atmosphere but that's probably coming in a few years.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoReally useful. You've gotta consider how much things change as you get higher into the atmosphere. The obvious thing is that atmospheric oxygen begins to become insufficient to operate engines as you go higher up, so you need engines that use a different oxidizer than atmospheric oxygen which is extremely complex. And even the efficiency and characteristic of engine exhaust changes radically depending on atmospheric density and the characteristics of its exhaust. In other words an engine that works great at sea level might work awfully when you start to get to a fraction of the same pressure. There's an immense amount of flexibility in being able to travel hypersonic. The SR-71 Blackbird is an amazing example of the potential. First flown back in 1964 (!!) it was capable of hitting around mach 3, some 2200 miles per hour. That's 6 hours to get from one side of the Earth to the other. It's really quite remarkable how much our overall transportation technology seems to have stagnated since the 60s. I'd like to imagine everything is just classified but everything from the SLS to the F-35 to even things like the Zumwalt just seems to indicate that we've simply technology regressed. Kind of disconcerting to imagine the reasons for that.
- tzfld 8y agoThere is no way a space race like the one during the Cold War can appear again. Nonetheless the term space race is often used by the media just because it sounds more dramatic.
- melling 8y agoIt doesn’t have to be the same type. This time the military could be involved. Its budget is approaching NASA’s. https://spacenews.com/some-fresh-tidbits-on-the-u-s-military-space-budget/ https://spacenews.com/some-fresh-tidbits-on-the-u-s-military... The Trump Administration wants a Space Force, for example: https://www.space.com/40942-trump-space-force-reopens-military-debate.html https://www.space.com/40942-trump-space-force-reopens-milita...
- Tepix 8y agoI'd rather see them spending it on NASA than on the military.
- jniedrauer 8y agoIronically, these were mostly the same thing during the space race. I watched a USAF training video on re-entry mechanics[0] a while back that really drives this home in an almost dizzying context switch. It goes from the mechanics of delivering a thermonuclear payload in one sentence, to returning humans to earth in the next. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bkY7-9c8s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_bkY7-9c8s
- duxup 8y agoWould we fund it even then? I would expect some nationalistic fervor that would help fund a space race would come from US conservatives. But in the US the "conservative" side of politics seems more interested in short term tax cuts for corporations, dismantling government, and hating on immigrants, and other Americans... I have my doubts the US would step up.
- pc86 8y agoAccepting your blatant mischaracterization of conservative US politics as true for a moment, I think given the choice between "othering" folks in the US or a country on the other side of the world that most people know nothing about, politicians of any stripe would prefer the latter.
- duxup 8y ago"I think given the choice between "othering" folks in the US or a country on the other side of the world that most people know nothing about, politicians of any stripe would prefer the latter." I don't know what you're trying to say.
- arbitrary_name 8y agoShow me reigning US conservatives who aren't espousing those ideals cited. Go on, I'll wait. Even the libertarian puritans like rand paul have fallen in line with the socially and economically regressive republican platform of today. The only ones willing to stand up to the hypocrisy of Trump and actually represent conservatism have been sidelined consistently.
- chadAnon69 8y agowe used to invest $3 into infrastructure and science for every $1 in entitlements spending. Now we spend $5 in entitlements for every $1 in infrastructure/science And people wonder why the US is falling apart and technological advances have slowed down. We're living hand to mouth instead of investing in the future. The sad thing is that many of our problems could be solved permanently via technology rather than government. Instead of creating the automobile people are trying to make horses faster
- moron4hire 8y agoHave technology advances slowed down? Or are we just not advancing in the big, exciting really of "blowing shit up"?
- Taylor_OD 8y agoIt feels like we slowed down in the important areas. Software? Web Apps? We're doing great. Anything space related? Eh. In theory we get to claim SpaceX so I guess that counts but most people couldnt tell you what NASA's been up to recently...
- TeMPOraL 8y agoWe are now advancing mostly in the ability to manipulate, exploit and make miserable almost everyone, via adtech.
- 8y ago