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Echoing the sister comment to add more color, I think when it comes to this scale of money, it becomes too easy to conflate public and private capability. The

by snoshy 6y ago

Echoing the sister comment to add more color, I think when it comes to this scale of money, it becomes too easy to conflate public and private capability. The ISS cost $150 billion. That is a kind of cost that even the tech behemoths of the world today would not be able to stomach. Some efforts really require country-coffer levels of money to be realized. That means the US government directly controls which projects live and die, simply because they control the purse. Most space endeavors don't require this scale of money, and even a small token of innovation incentives can often result in outsized societal benefits. Even for SpaceX to just think about the Starship program, they literally had to corner the global orbital launch market for nearly a decade to come. While I do agree that Boeing is a money-pit due to their involvement with SLS, I still wouldn't put Virgin or Blue Origin in anywhere close to that bucket. While these two might not be as incredibly innovative and capital efficient as SpaceX, they're still orders of magnitude better than anything like the SLS, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and others that are considered "old space". China is pouring an absurd amount of its own money through thinly guised military development arms, and they're excelling at it. It's truly a shame that the US cut them off from the ISS, and its even more detrimental that the rest of the world has not paid close enough attention to their efforts. They're about the only player that's even close to competing with anything like SpaceX. I wouldn't put India in the same club as China either. India has done extremely well at making cheap reliable orbital class launch vehicles by cost cutting and incremental improvements. Once SpaceX comes to the scene, they will be obsolete. They do not have the public appetite to invest the scale of money required to build programs the likes of US & China can build. Russia meanwhile seems obsessed with trampolines.

onethought 6y ago
China is more crazy because SpaceX got access to Nasa research and development (through people and location)... China have kind of home grown there whole system in an insanely short time
blackrock 6y ago
China finally have their own heavy lift rockets, the Long March 5B. This gives them the ability to finally launch a Mir-like space station, which they will start assembling this year. The 5B also gives them more options. In 10 years, when they complete their own Super Heavy Lift rocket, the Long March 9, of Saturn V class, then things will get interesting. It seems like they will ace this one as well. This can help them send human missions to the moon. But the interesting developments, are their space plane research. Which they started back in 2006, and estimated it would take 15 years, and would require a heavy lift rocket, the 5B, which they now have. This would put it around the 2021 time frame, which is now. And last year, they successfully tested their secret space plane prototype. If they scale up their space plane, and enable it to transport humans too, then they’ll have an interesting mechanism to transport their astronauts to their space station, and return them gracefully back to the earth. Then, it seems they will succeed with their Long March 8R, for reusable vertical take off and vertical landing, similar to SpaceX. It seems they will be the 2nd organization, after SpaceX, to achieve an operational VTVL system. I figured, if they can robotically stick the moon landing in a vacuum, using retroactive propulsion, then they can probably land a reusable booster back on earth.

by snoshy 6y ago

onethought 6y ago

China is more crazy because SpaceX got access to Nasa research and development (through people and location)... China have kind of home grown there whole system in an insanely short time

blackrock 6y ago

China finally have their own heavy lift rockets, the Long March 5B. This gives them the ability to finally launch a Mir-like space station, which they will start assembling this year. The 5B also gives them more options. In 10 years, when they complete their own Super Heavy Lift rocket, the Long March 9, of Saturn V class, then things will get interesting. It seems like they will ace this one as well. This can help them send human missions to the moon. But the interesting developments, are their space plane research. Which they started back in 2006, and estimated it would take 15 years, and would require a heavy lift rocket, the 5B, which they now have. This would put it around the 2021 time frame, which is now. And last year, they successfully tested their secret space plane prototype. If they scale up their space plane, and enable it to transport humans too, then they’ll have an interesting mechanism to transport their astronauts to their space station, and return them gracefully back to the earth. Then, it seems they will succeed with their Long March 8R, for reusable vertical take off and vertical landing, similar to SpaceX. It seems they will be the 2nd organization, after SpaceX, to achieve an operational VTVL system. I figured, if they can robotically stick the moon landing in a vacuum, using retroactive propulsion, then they can probably land a reusable booster back on earth.