11 thoughts on “China In Space”

  1. It firgures some old Congressman would only know the OldSpace viewpoint. “Look, China! Give us more money!” But Starship changes everything. The only question is whether the bureaucracy will be permitted to crush Musk. If so, then the next thing we’ll see is Musk and his employees being welcomed in China, along with megatons of hardware, while the American Bolshevik Party kowtows and intones “Yes, Massah!” (Jan, Chujen!)

    1. Anyone thinking of moving business to china needs to understand that “your” business there is yours only until the lawless regime decides otherwise.

      1. I’m pretty sure Musk understood he was selling them Tesla-Shanghai, as he’s repeatedly showed he understand CPR’s disregard for IP. My comment was meant to suggest Musk and SpaceX will be sold to the Chinese by the US government. See Qian Xuesen (or alternate spelling Hsue-Shen Tsien). There’s no perceptible limit to the stupidity and duplicity of politicians and bureaucrats.

  2. Without SpaceX, the US space program is extinct. The only US LV in serial production is Falcon 9. Delta and Atlas are out of production and using up stockpiles. And Atlas engines were made in Russia. Antares in made in Ukraine, with Russian engines. I do not count Rocket Lab yet (or Blue, hence Vulcan as well). The only US manned spacecraft is made by SpaceX.

    Meanwhile, Russia has Soyuz 2.1 in ongoing production, along with Soyuz MS. Angara production is ramping up. Soyuz 5 is approaching first flight. The RD-17X series engines are the best in the world, although may soon be eclipsed by Raptor. And that from a country with “hollowed-out industries.” If that’s hollowed-out, sans SpaceX, what are we? They also still have Proton in production, although that’s about to stop. And if they capture just the Russian-speaking Ukraine, then they capture Yuzhnoye (manufactures Antares and Cyclone 4M for export).

    China? Using up stockpiles of LM Mark 1, ramping up LM Mark 2. Engines inferior to Russia and SpaceX, but what to we have beyond that? Plus China has Shenzhou.

    India? Three launch vehicles in serial production, with Gaganyaan approaching flight. What do we have? SpaceX. But some boob of a former Congressman thinks Boeing and Lockheed Martin are in a space race. Right.

  3. It’s almost as if top down authoritarian countries are better at top down centrally planned programs. If only there were another organizational paradigm that relatively liberal societies could leverage to compete… like some kind of “invisible hand” that would lead to quickly improving capabilities without requiring congressional guidance.

    1. Some years ago, I had a troll dogging me about this stuff, apparently thinking that I was a leftist moron and he could make me look foolish. But it’s simple: Authoritarian regimes succeeed when one person makes the right decision and fail when that same person makes the wrong decision. With decentralized regimes, failure only comes when many people make the same wrong decision. Or so I thought. It turns out here we can have 535 idiots make 535 different wrong decisions. So whose invisible hand is it? Baby Jesus? Or Santa Claus?

  4. Yes! We definitely need to put our future space endeavors in the hands of a 535 member committee!! What could possibly go wrong with that?

  5. Please do write an editorial response. Rogers is not wrong to be concerned about China, but he’s looking in very much the wrong place for solutions to any Chinese challenge in space.

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