As last module docks, China completes its space station(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
As last module docks, China completes its space station
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/world/asia/china-launch-space-station.html
400 comments
https://archive.ph/2bXGR
Does anyone know to what extent China has advanced the state of the Soviet technology that they have (I assume) licensed? I have been to the Russian Star City training facility, Baikonur Cosmodrome and been in the full-size Mir training module and the Chinese station components look very similar. I am sure getting good information is difficult, but perhaps someone here has some more info.
Some of the features I know from the Chinese space station
- Solar panels smaller in area than ISS but produces similar amount of power, indicating much more efficient solar panels
- Ion thrusters to keep space in orbit
- Automated docking of cargo and crew capsule. Semi-automated docking of large station components like the 23ton labs
- A robotic arm similar to ISS that walk along the joint points on the station. It has expandable attachment system, allowing not only astronauts to attach, but also a smaller more precises robotic arm to attach that can manipulate external experiments.
- It has a crew airlock and a cargo airlock, the cargo one is larger than the one on ISS.
- It can also release small satellites through the cargo airlock.
- Dozens of external experiment attachment points, some (maybe all) has power and control
- What looks like pretty good communication links with the ground. Experiments can be controlled and monitored from the ground, saving astronaut time.
- What looks like some advanced experiment equipment, including three very accurate atomic clocks, near absolute zero cooling systems etc. But I am not well versed in physics to speak on these.
- It will operate a space telescope; telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades, and equipment uploaded by regular space station cargo ship.
I think it is a well-designed system, surprisingly capable in terms of research capabilities. As China's space industry is completely sanctioned by US and Wassenaar Arrangement, all technology here are from Chinese industries and local supply chains: materials, precision manufacturing, communication equipment, sensors used for guidance/automated docking, robotic arm, ion thrusters, solar panels, networking and control system within the station, even to the logistic system of building, launching and running the station. Then there is the whole rocket system themselves, 100% success rate thus far with CZ-5/B, CZ-7 cargo ship, and Shenzhou launch vehicle. And then the global positioning and communications satellite network. And then there is the whole research equipment part. There are millions+ ppl involved in all of the projects here.
- Solar panels smaller in area than ISS but produces similar amount of power, indicating much more efficient solar panels
- Ion thrusters to keep space in orbit
- Automated docking of cargo and crew capsule. Semi-automated docking of large station components like the 23ton labs
- A robotic arm similar to ISS that walk along the joint points on the station. It has expandable attachment system, allowing not only astronauts to attach, but also a smaller more precises robotic arm to attach that can manipulate external experiments.
- It has a crew airlock and a cargo airlock, the cargo one is larger than the one on ISS.
- It can also release small satellites through the cargo airlock.
- Dozens of external experiment attachment points, some (maybe all) has power and control
- What looks like pretty good communication links with the ground. Experiments can be controlled and monitored from the ground, saving astronaut time.
- What looks like some advanced experiment equipment, including three very accurate atomic clocks, near absolute zero cooling systems etc. But I am not well versed in physics to speak on these.
- It will operate a space telescope; telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades, and equipment uploaded by regular space station cargo ship.
I think it is a well-designed system, surprisingly capable in terms of research capabilities. As China's space industry is completely sanctioned by US and Wassenaar Arrangement, all technology here are from Chinese industries and local supply chains: materials, precision manufacturing, communication equipment, sensors used for guidance/automated docking, robotic arm, ion thrusters, solar panels, networking and control system within the station, even to the logistic system of building, launching and running the station. Then there is the whole rocket system themselves, 100% success rate thus far with CZ-5/B, CZ-7 cargo ship, and Shenzhou launch vehicle. And then the global positioning and communications satellite network. And then there is the whole research equipment part. There are millions+ ppl involved in all of the projects here.
> It will operate a space telescope; telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades, and equipment uploaded by regular space station cargo ship.
The co-orbit strategy is excellent, a short trip for repairs and easy to fit into existing schedules if something goes wrong. It's no James Webb but was never intended to be, about the same size as Hubble but with 400x the field of view. Guessing it will be cranking out the discoveries.
The co-orbit strategy is excellent, a short trip for repairs and easy to fit into existing schedules if something goes wrong. It's no James Webb but was never intended to be, about the same size as Hubble but with 400x the field of view. Guessing it will be cranking out the discoveries.
It's a great way to have much higher quality microgravity than is possible with a habitable station, in a serviceable module. Low vibration is important for telescopes and some experiments (crystallography in particular). A co-orbiting module was also in the plans for ISS, but like many other planned features it was never implemented.
IIRC there were such plans for Space Statio Alpha, ISS or even the European space station plans - it just never got funded in the end.
"sanction" is one of the dumbest words on earth. "to give official approval" vs "impose a penalty".
So for those wondering why no US collaboration, you can blame republican octogenarian Frank Wolf for introducting the Wolf amendment prohibiting any and all NASA collaboration with china that isnt expressly sanctioned by the rest of the geriatrics in congress. he even managed to fuck up the 2013 Kepler Science Conference which resulted in a mass boycott after two chinese scientists were banned.
We had every opportunity to collaborate with chinese scientists aboard the ISS before this crap. The man is a traitor to science.
We had every opportunity to collaborate with chinese scientists aboard the ISS before this crap. The man is a traitor to science.
It's a little more nuanced than being a traitor to science given China's strategy in regards to acquisition of scientific research and technology. China doesn't collaborate, it just takes until it reaches scientific and technological parity. Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China.
It would be interesting to see some concrete examples of what is claimed in "Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China."
Whenever I search recent research articles about any topic, I see a very large number that are published by China, and which are freely available.
The quality of the Chinese research is quite uneven, there are many papers that are just garbage, but there are also many which are surprisingly creative and original, exploring promising alternatives to those that had already been studied by Western research.
I frequently see statements from naive Americans that all that the Chinese do is based on copying, but unfortunately for USA, that was true only in the past and it is no longer true today.
Whenever I search recent research articles about any topic, I see a very large number that are published by China, and which are freely available.
The quality of the Chinese research is quite uneven, there are many papers that are just garbage, but there are also many which are surprisingly creative and original, exploring promising alternatives to those that had already been studied by Western research.
I frequently see statements from naive Americans that all that the Chinese do is based on copying, but unfortunately for USA, that was true only in the past and it is no longer true today.
Just one of many examples: The WIV BSL-4 lab in Wuhan was built as a French-Chinese cooperation (modeled after a similar lab in Lyon, France) with the explicit goal to do joint experiments. But once it was built, the French were kicked out.
And the French getting kicked out is only the second worst consequence of that project! Though for what it’s worth, I think there was Western collaboration with WIV as well.
The first-worst has thankfully not happened yet - China was lobbying that now they had a BSL-4 Lab, they should also have a sample of Smallpox. The consequences of that would have been disastrous.
At this point I would favor even the CDC destroying theirs.
> I frequently see statements from naive Americans that all that the Chinese do is based on copying, but unfortunately for USA, that was true only in the past and it is no longer true today.
Just because you don't follow them doesn't mean they don't exist. Plenty of ongoing IP theft cases show this is not true. This case closed a few years back that pretty much wiped out a Billion+ dollar US company: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-company-sinovel-wind-...
Just because you don't follow them doesn't mean they don't exist. Plenty of ongoing IP theft cases show this is not true. This case closed a few years back that pretty much wiped out a Billion+ dollar US company: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-company-sinovel-wind-...
Wind turbines!
This example is immensely funny to me, since in the 90s the NSA stole trade secrets related to wind turbines from the German company Enercon and passed it on to the US company Kenetech, who then managed to get a patent in the US.
English sources are a bit scarce, but here's an article that references it:
> Some months later, a former NSA agent admitted that the organisation had secretly intercepted Enercon's data communications and monitored conference calls. The NSA passed all the information it gleaned on to Kenetech.[1]
There's also a report on ECHELON for the European parliament that mentions this case among others[2]. Some more cases became known through documents leaked by Snowden.
To complete this circle German intelligence services would now have to steal trade secrets related to wind turbines from China, but sadly they're explicitly forbidden from conduction industrial espionage - to the chagrin of German companies who are feeling disadvantaged.
[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/electronic-spies-torture...
[2] https://irp.fas.org/program/process/rapport_echelon_en.pdf
This example is immensely funny to me, since in the 90s the NSA stole trade secrets related to wind turbines from the German company Enercon and passed it on to the US company Kenetech, who then managed to get a patent in the US.
English sources are a bit scarce, but here's an article that references it:
> Some months later, a former NSA agent admitted that the organisation had secretly intercepted Enercon's data communications and monitored conference calls. The NSA passed all the information it gleaned on to Kenetech.[1]
There's also a report on ECHELON for the European parliament that mentions this case among others[2]. Some more cases became known through documents leaked by Snowden.
To complete this circle German intelligence services would now have to steal trade secrets related to wind turbines from China, but sadly they're explicitly forbidden from conduction industrial espionage - to the chagrin of German companies who are feeling disadvantaged.
[1] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/electronic-spies-torture...
[2] https://irp.fas.org/program/process/rapport_echelon_en.pdf
So the Chinese even stole the method of stealing, from USA!
They are indeed IP theft in their genetics!
They are indeed IP theft in their genetics!
Honestly, copying is what you are supposed to do with technology when you are competing from behind.
See: early space programme when the the US realised it was behind where Germany had been.
> but there are also many which appear surprisingly creative and original
ftfy
I don’t claim there is no creativity in China. But to claim that everything that looks new to you is therefore original goes too far.
ftfy
I don’t claim there is no creativity in China. But to claim that everything that looks new to you is therefore original goes too far.
what is stopping those naive americans from going to china, buying those "stolen and improved but not shared with us legally" products and sell them on their own back home?
its not like chinese businesses would sue them or anything so whats the big deal as you say?
they copy you, you copy their advances back and you are back in parity.
they copy you, you copy their advances back and you are back in parity.
Not everyone wants to break the laws. Even of another country.
In China the repercussions for what you described may go way beyond the legal framework, you may be labeled a spy or something like that. This hasn’t applied to doing that in US / Western countries
In China the repercussions for what you described may go way beyond the legal framework, you may be labeled a spy or something like that. This hasn’t applied to doing that in US / Western countries
> go way beyond the legal framework, you may be labeled a spy or something like that
I mean, a few hundreds years ago, the US continent was populated by Savages. They got educated and civilized now.
So give China another 1 hundred years. They'll be as civilized as US today. They probably would routinely threaten nukes for countries not practicing the "wholistic democracy" [1]; they'll also cut supply of key components from global supply chain when India is approaching their supremacy; and sanction Vietnam because they dont act like dogies...
[1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272926.shtml
I mean, a few hundreds years ago, the US continent was populated by Savages. They got educated and civilized now.
So give China another 1 hundred years. They'll be as civilized as US today. They probably would routinely threaten nukes for countries not practicing the "wholistic democracy" [1]; they'll also cut supply of key components from global supply chain when India is approaching their supremacy; and sanction Vietnam because they dont act like dogies...
[1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272926.shtml
> Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China
I'd like to see sources backing up this claim. Huawei for example has 5G patents and research centers outside China. Hualong-1 nuclear plants are exported abroad.
Seeing that China is big on business and making money, it makes no sense to keep technology for yourself. There's so much money to be made by selling them!
I'd like to see sources backing up this claim. Huawei for example has 5G patents and research centers outside China. Hualong-1 nuclear plants are exported abroad.
Seeing that China is big on business and making money, it makes no sense to keep technology for yourself. There's so much money to be made by selling them!
Just one of many examples: The WIV BSL-4 lab in Wuhan was built as a French-Chinese cooperation (modeled after a similar lab in Lyon, France) with the explicit goal to do joint experiments. But once it was built, the French were kicked out.
Sources？
Many, e. g. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/310520/strange-sa...
FRANCE INVESTIGATION The strange saga of how France helped build Wuhan's top-security virus lab MAY 31, 2020 BY KARL LASKE AND JACQUES MASSEY The maximum-level biosafety laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the first of its kind to be built in China, and has been the centre of huge speculation since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic which originated in that city. The laboratory, which is equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4) including dangerous viruses such as Ebola, was built with the help of French experts and under the guidance of French billionaire businessman Alain Mérieux, despite strong objections by health and defence officials in Paris. Since the laboratory's inauguration by prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve in 2017, however, France has had no supervisory role in the running of the facility and planned cooperation between French researchers and the laboratory has come to a grinding halt.
FRANCE INVESTIGATION The strange saga of how France helped build Wuhan's top-security virus lab MAY 31, 2020 BY KARL LASKE AND JACQUES MASSEY The maximum-level biosafety laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the first of its kind to be built in China, and has been the centre of huge speculation since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic which originated in that city. The laboratory, which is equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4) including dangerous viruses such as Ebola, was built with the help of French experts and under the guidance of French billionaire businessman Alain Mérieux, despite strong objections by health and defence officials in Paris. Since the laboratory's inauguration by prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve in 2017, however, France has had no supervisory role in the running of the facility and planned cooperation between French researchers and the laboratory has come to a grinding halt.
> French experts and researchers have no say in the running of the top-level biosafety laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China despite the fact that France helped build the facility and that Paris and Beijing signed an agreement on future cooperation and collaboration, a Mediapart investigation can reveal.
> have no say in the running of the top-level biosafety laboratory > Beijing signed an agreement on future cooperation and collaboration
These are far from what was claimed by the OP
> have no say in the running of the top-level biosafety laboratory > Beijing signed an agreement on future cooperation and collaboration
These are far from what was claimed by the OP
It seems to me research centers outside of China are used to recruit willing experts from other companies whose knowledge of proprietary information can then be unethically harvested and absorbed by Huawei.
That sounds like... How other research centers also work? If you're not hiring someone for their knowledge and experience on a topic, then what are you hiring that person for?
And when these people leave, they take their experience at Huawei with them. Now some other company benefits from Huawei's experience.
People hire me for my 10 years of DevOps experience so that I can help them implement practices. They don't hire me to reinvent DevOps from first principles without using any of my previous experience.
Just what part of hiring people for their experience is "unethical harvesting"? If there's evidence of people being specifically hired to diverge trade secrets of a previous employer, in violation of NDAs, then you'd actually have a case.
And when these people leave, they take their experience at Huawei with them. Now some other company benefits from Huawei's experience.
People hire me for my 10 years of DevOps experience so that I can help them implement practices. They don't hire me to reinvent DevOps from first principles without using any of my previous experience.
Just what part of hiring people for their experience is "unethical harvesting"? If there's evidence of people being specifically hired to diverge trade secrets of a previous employer, in violation of NDAs, then you'd actually have a case.
1. backdoored surveillance
2. belt and road
2. belt and road
As odious as that technology is, as far as I know China is a major supplier of surveillance technology to the world's authoritarian governments.
Belt and Road is an international infrastructure investment (and direct construction) project, not sure how its related to technology. It's also no different from all other nations' international aid programs, in that it both helps the receiving nation and makes them indebted to the originator.
Belt and Road is an international infrastructure investment (and direct construction) project, not sure how its related to technology. It's also no different from all other nations' international aid programs, in that it both helps the receiving nation and makes them indebted to the originator.
And western equipment is totally not backdoored, and has open source hardware and firmware so that anyone can verify it?
> Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China
Any such actual event happening?
I have heard this stated repeatedly, but my Google search reveals no actual reporting, other than the ones where the foreign party voluntarily exited or being forced aware from their own political pressure (that is not from Chinese side).
Any such actual event happening?
I have heard this stated repeatedly, but my Google search reveals no actual reporting, other than the ones where the foreign party voluntarily exited or being forced aware from their own political pressure (that is not from Chinese side).
[deleted]
Unlikely. This is more economic rivalry then actual worry that China is going to suddenly flip.
I think describing China as one monolithic block in that way is problematic and denies the agency of Chinese people. It is tempting to look at the different political system and lump everything together. You have to distinguish between the government, researchers, and Chinese companies. I know many Chinese researchers who are collaborating fairly, and they have very similar interests and - mixed - incentives as western scientists do.
It is true that Chinese companies do what you described, I think at some point there was even an offical slogan for it. But this is just as much due to the "capitalist" side as to the "communist" side. I'm pretty sure if an American company was behind technologically they would do the same. I recall Tesla poaching battery and car manufacturing specialists for example. Not saying that is great, but it would be naive to assume they would do otherwise.
It is true that Chinese companies do what you described, I think at some point there was even an offical slogan for it. But this is just as much due to the "capitalist" side as to the "communist" side. I'm pretty sure if an American company was behind technologically they would do the same. I recall Tesla poaching battery and car manufacturing specialists for example. Not saying that is great, but it would be naive to assume they would do otherwise.
What agency do Chinese people have?
The people have independent ideas and wills - and not a hive mind - is what I'm saying.
> China doesn't collaborate, it just takes until it reaches scientific and technological parity. Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China.
Regardless of what strategy the government is pursuing, I know personally that many Chinese researchers do collaborate on an honest basis. They have to put a lot of effort into dispelling the prejudice that they just want to leech technology for their government.
> China doesn't collaborate, it just takes until it reaches scientific and technological parity. Once parity is reached, China cuts collaboration agreements and keeps further advancements within China.
Regardless of what strategy the government is pursuing, I know personally that many Chinese researchers do collaborate on an honest basis. They have to put a lot of effort into dispelling the prejudice that they just want to leech technology for their government.
Think for a moment how ridiculous it is to assume Chinese individuals have no free mind.
> that isnt expressly sanctioned by the rest of the geriatrics in congress
Interestingly, you inadvertently (?) demonstrated OPs comment by using the opposing definition from GP.
Interestingly, you inadvertently (?) demonstrated OPs comment by using the opposing definition from GP.
I bet it was on purpose and I love it.
Good for him. Collaborating with the CCP regime is not in the best interest of the US or other Western countries, and in fact, US policy would be better served in the long run by isolating and decoupling from China even more.
The phenomenon isn't all that rare. Both senses of "sanction" derive from its original sense of "decree" - you can decree that something is allowed, or that it's not allowed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym lists several similar pairs, in which two contradictory senses developed from one older sense. (Along with many more pairs that are the results of different patterns.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym lists several similar pairs, in which two contradictory senses developed from one older sense. (Along with many more pairs that are the results of different patterns.)
It's pretty rare for it to be ambiguous though. Probably only "table" from that list is also ambiguous. Dust could be from a grammatical point of view but it's always going to be obvious from context what is meant.
There’s a few other self antonyms just in English. “Cleave” immediately comes to mind
"table" is an antonym depending upon your location. For Americans, in the context of a discussion, the verb "table" means to set it aside and stop discussing it. For Brits, it means to bring up a topic and discuss it.
That only means "to split". I don't think it can mean "to join together" can it? Unless you mean "cleave to" which is rare and not really the same word.
Cleave can definitely mean to adhere to. Its not a word I hear everyday but I wouldnt necessarily call it rare
If I say "I cleaved a log" there is no chance of you thinking I meant "I cleaved to a log".
And if I say I cleaved the halves together, you’d have no chance of thinking that I meant I cut them apart. It’s English, you need context to tell what definition is being used for any word with multiple definitions
> I cleaved the halves together
I would say what are you talking about? That makes no grammatical sense.
I would say what are you talking about? That makes no grammatical sense.
It does? One definition of cleave is to join or adhere things together. It’s not a new slang definition, you can look it up in any dictionary.
I did look it up in a dictionary.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cleave#Etymology_2
> (intransitive, rare) Followed by' to or unto: to adhere, cling, or stick fast to something.
Something can cleave to another thing, but you can't cleave two things together. It's grammatically the same as the word "cling". You can cling to something but you can't cling two things together. It doesn't make sense.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cleave#Etymology_2
> (intransitive, rare) Followed by' to or unto: to adhere, cling, or stick fast to something.
Something can cleave to another thing, but you can't cleave two things together. It's grammatically the same as the word "cling". You can cling to something but you can't cling two things together. It doesn't make sense.
Inflammable?
Not an autoantonym; that word only has one meaning.
Its problem is that it appears to mean the opposite of what it means, not that it has two contradictory meanings.
Its problem is that it appears to mean the opposite of what it means, not that it has two contradictory meanings.
“The mighty sequoia, protected by thick bark and with its foliage typically high above the flames, was once considered nearly inflammable.”
— Brian Melley, Anchorage Daily News, 23 July 2022
That’s just misuse of the word.
Sure but by now every rational and reasonable reader must understand that whenever they come across the word "inflammable", the author might have misused it and they need to search for additional signals to identify whether it means "inflammable" or "uninflammable". This is not different than how the rational and reasonable reader treats the use of an autoantonym.
There's a difference between misusing a word, and a word that has two accepted meanings.
Brian Melley needs to be acquainted with the word nonflammable, which is the one he really wanted to use.
There's no need to use a single word; that sentence is trying to sound impressive, not concise.
Try "The mighty sequoia, protected by thick bark and with its foliage typically high above the flames, was once considered nearly impervious to fire."
Try "The mighty sequoia, protected by thick bark and with its foliage typically high above the flames, was once considered nearly impervious to fire."
Yep and I have no idea what the OP meant by this.
subject to sanctions or export controls, I think, so they can't use exported US products and have to develop their own
yes! It not only has a double meaning, but those meanings are actually opposite of each other
> Solar panels smaller in area than ISS but produces similar amount of power, indicating much more efficient solar panels
I should hope so after over a decade. AFAIK they haven't changed the solar panels since the last one was installed in 2009 and the design was probably fixed well before the first one was installed.
> A robotic arm similar to ISS that walk along the joint points on the station. It has expandable attachment system, allowing not only astronauts to attach, but also a smaller more precises robotic arm to attach that can manipulate external experiments
Canada Arm also walks along the ISS too using alternating ends that astronauts can be attached to.
I should hope so after over a decade. AFAIK they haven't changed the solar panels since the last one was installed in 2009 and the design was probably fixed well before the first one was installed.
> A robotic arm similar to ISS that walk along the joint points on the station. It has expandable attachment system, allowing not only astronauts to attach, but also a smaller more precises robotic arm to attach that can manipulate external experiments
Canada Arm also walks along the ISS too using alternating ends that astronauts can be attached to.
I think you missed the recent delivery of new roll-up solar panels to the ISS.
Also I don't think the CanadaArm can roam to the Russian segment, but there's a new European arm that does.
Also I don't think the CanadaArm can roam to the Russian segment, but there's a new European arm that does.
I've tried and can't find a list of the positions of the grapple fixtures CanadaArm uses on the ISS but I think it could reach pretty far over the Russian segments from the other half of the station.
I did forget about those but they did only cover one small part of the array iirc. Most of the original array is still active.
I did forget about those but they did only cover one small part of the array iirc. Most of the original array is still active.
Just imagine all that effort and resources being spent on the International Space Station instead. I wonder were we, the combined humanity, could have been in terms of space exploration, if we just could have been bothered to work together.
I still think there's room for competition, though. Two groups can want to cooperate but have reasonable and valid differences of opinions on how do do things that are large enough to warrant going their separate ways.
And perhaps some of the things China's station can do are just not feasible to tack onto the ISS, at least not without pushing timelines back past what China might consider acceptable.
Not saying that's what's happened here; certainly China's independent efforts here are largely fueled by isolationism and protectionism. And NASA is prohibited by US law from collaborating with China, unless they get prior approval from Congress and the FBI for each collaboration[0]. But I think, as a general sentiment, sometimes competition can be healthy and push the state of the art forward faster.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
And perhaps some of the things China's station can do are just not feasible to tack onto the ISS, at least not without pushing timelines back past what China might consider acceptable.
Not saying that's what's happened here; certainly China's independent efforts here are largely fueled by isolationism and protectionism. And NASA is prohibited by US law from collaborating with China, unless they get prior approval from Congress and the FBI for each collaboration[0]. But I think, as a general sentiment, sometimes competition can be healthy and push the state of the art forward faster.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
Timing wise, ISS is at end of life, and replacement plans are a decade off. So, in a way this produces needed overlap (from a humanity standpoint).
Then you imagine, if two groups in a company bothered to work together.
Thanks for the super informative reply. I am hoping as there is more activity on the space station, that more information will be coming out. It would be nice to be able to see something similar to the ESA, NASA and even Roscosmos launch feeds and Q&A sessions.
Plenty coverage exists in Chinese from children shows to academia, and you can also show up on Hainan island to watch a launch.
However it doesn’t get much coverage in western media beyond a Cold War / environmental risk angle.
However it doesn’t get much coverage in western media beyond a Cold War / environmental risk angle.
This is a clip together from the live tv coverage of the latest launch:
https://youtu.be/81Ova5fo0vM
Reminds me of the coverage of the US launches I watched as a kid.
https://youtu.be/81Ova5fo0vM
Reminds me of the coverage of the US launches I watched as a kid.
There's this clip showing some experiments for the benefit of schoolchildren: https://reddit.com/comments/y2kjmi
I'm guessing this is an ongoing thing, and since the clip popped up on Reddit it seems at least ‘social media’ pick up on such output.
I'm guessing this is an ongoing thing, and since the clip popped up on Reddit it seems at least ‘social media’ pick up on such output.
[deleted]
So then maybe a little late to sanction their tech to keep them from being peer competitors.
US did sanction all of China's space industry, defense dual use industries since the 1990s, and never let go ever since. That is pretty early. And this is what happens 30 years since the sanctions. But I have no idea what will happen in the future, plus the nature of industry and technology is also different.
As much as it's a waste of duplicate effort, it's likely good for humanity and geopolitics to have multiple nation-states each trying their own approaches.
Avoids path lock-in by exploring alternate solutions lines, and ensures that if one country decides to slow down (because politics) then the world doesn't lose its only leading-edge space program.
Healthy competition for the betterment of all!
Avoids path lock-in by exploring alternate solutions lines, and ensures that if one country decides to slow down (because politics) then the world doesn't lose its only leading-edge space program.
Healthy competition for the betterment of all!
One says "duplicate effort", someone else says "independent implementation".
Some cooperation would be great, of course. Like the US / USSR space cooperation in 1970s, despite bitter ideological and military rivalry.
Some cooperation would be great, of course. Like the US / USSR space cooperation in 1970s, despite bitter ideological and military rivalry.
agree with this - duplication of effort, but not duplication of approach or method, which means actually it becomes a giant A/B test, which hopefully means faster progress for humanity as a whole.
Sanctions do not matter to China. They will just have their nation state backed hackers hack into aerospace and defense contractors and steal their R&D instead. Thats the Chinese way and MO. Anything to further the Chinese economy.
They have hacked nearly every F100 they needed to and steal hundreds of billions in IP annually already.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/china-state-backed-hackers-c...
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/politics/china-hacking-espion...
They have hacked nearly every F100 they needed to and steal hundreds of billions in IP annually already.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...
- https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/china-state-backed-hackers-c...
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/politics/china-hacking-espion...
I was surprised at how long this list was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t...
It seems unlikely that any country could monopolise any particular weapons technology for long. I assume the US also has programs to extract any innovations from China or Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t...
It seems unlikely that any country could monopolise any particular weapons technology for long. I assume the US also has programs to extract any innovations from China or Russia.
> surprised at how long this list was
And those are only the ones who’ve been caught
And those are only the ones who’ve been caught
To be fair, it's not like the US didn't engage in heavy industrial espionage in Europe during the industrial revolution.
We tend to forget this since the US came into its own as an industrial power generations ago, long before China did. While China's form of government is quite different than most Western governments, in a way that gives them a reputation of being isolationist and secretive, that doesn't mean their path to technological advancement has been any more dishonest than that of other nations.
Put another way, we frown on China's technological espionage so much because we view them as an enemy from a government & "values" perspective, not because "we" have cleaner hands. I personally would prefer that China didn't have all the latest tech capabilities because I don't like the idea of increasing the global influence of authoritarian nations, but if China had a non-isolationist democracy, I might not be so upset about this.
We tend to forget this since the US came into its own as an industrial power generations ago, long before China did. While China's form of government is quite different than most Western governments, in a way that gives them a reputation of being isolationist and secretive, that doesn't mean their path to technological advancement has been any more dishonest than that of other nations.
Put another way, we frown on China's technological espionage so much because we view them as an enemy from a government & "values" perspective, not because "we" have cleaner hands. I personally would prefer that China didn't have all the latest tech capabilities because I don't like the idea of increasing the global influence of authoritarian nations, but if China had a non-isolationist democracy, I might not be so upset about this.
I find it very naive to think other countries do not have state-backed technological spying.
You make it sound like that was a distinct Chinese tactic and not every country on earth, foremost one that abbreviates itself to three letters, is engaged doing industrial espionage.
For example, reported here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32834502
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32834502
Ah, so the chaos and lack of documentation in my company is really protection against chinese spies! Clever!
On a more serious note, I find it quite unfair that Western conoany go into China to take advantage of loose labour laws and child labour, and then they complain when loose IP laws hit them. Like you knew what the deal was from the outset.
Lastly not every society believes in the concept of intellectual property, it is not even clearly defined - for instance EU does not issue software patents.
On a more serious note, I find it quite unfair that Western conoany go into China to take advantage of loose labour laws and child labour, and then they complain when loose IP laws hit them. Like you knew what the deal was from the outset.
Lastly not every society believes in the concept of intellectual property, it is not even clearly defined - for instance EU does not issue software patents.
You just took one angle. I find it unfair that Facebook is banned by China while China can deploy TikTok in the US market, for example, to demonstrate the opposite.
Looking at how Facebook was fucking with UK elections and brexit, maybe it should be banned everywhere
It's not the opposite, it's the same problem: globally dis-harmonised legal systems.
I mean that's the thing, that wasn't the deal. No company, at all, would sign that agreement. Usually there is an nda, some kind of business agreement that says they won't steal your idea etc. and then they do. It's not like a company goes to China or another lower cost to manufacture country and signs an agreement to give them their business.
Contracts and deals are subordinate to the laws of the country in which we'd like them to be enforced. It's not like a company goes to China and expects tight IP laws.
And hey, our (American) IP laws were a lot less strict when we were catching up to the British Empire.
Countries generally try to set their laws up to benefit their industries (to the extent possible).
And hey, our (American) IP laws were a lot less strict when we were catching up to the British Empire.
Countries generally try to set their laws up to benefit their industries (to the extent possible).
I agree with all this. Where does all the ip theft via hacking fall into this view? By this logic hat should be held accountable to the laws of this country, no?
Lots of links to Wikipedia lists of examples in other threads here.
Lots of links to Wikipedia lists of examples in other threads here.
I don't think it is possible to simplify it down beyond what has actually happened. Hackers for China in the US fall under US jurisdiction and so they'll be treated pretty harshly. Hackers for China in China -- it's complicated, if they are doing something their government wants them to do, they probably won't be.
Then the US will try to incur some diplomatic cost for China, which does have a pretty bad reputation on this front... it's all part of the big game.
Then the US will try to incur some diplomatic cost for China, which does have a pretty bad reputation on this front... it's all part of the big game.
[deleted]
You are telling me giant conpanies with 100 people in legal did not study previous Chinese court cases and did not know that IP laws there are poorly enforced? I knew about this for 20 years and they didn't?
All developing nations, whether China or Russia or Somalia, don't enforce some laws. Sometimes it's lack of strong state, sometimes it's lack of beurocratic capacity, or a concious decision. Anyone going into these countries is aware of this.
IP, Labour laws and bribes in case of China.
Clearly western companies take advantage of the two latter, and cry foul about the former. Massive hypocracy.
Meanwhile western government dont enforce their own laws for any kindof accoutability of major business leaders. Chinese will answer for IP theft on the same day CEO of Nestle will go to jail for taking advantage of child labour and slavery in their supply chains.
So probably we will have to wait for judgement day
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/01...
All developing nations, whether China or Russia or Somalia, don't enforce some laws. Sometimes it's lack of strong state, sometimes it's lack of beurocratic capacity, or a concious decision. Anyone going into these countries is aware of this.
IP, Labour laws and bribes in case of China.
Clearly western companies take advantage of the two latter, and cry foul about the former. Massive hypocracy.
Meanwhile western government dont enforce their own laws for any kindof accoutability of major business leaders. Chinese will answer for IP theft on the same day CEO of Nestle will go to jail for taking advantage of child labour and slavery in their supply chains.
So probably we will have to wait for judgement day
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/01...
I agree Nestlé should go to jail for child labor. The thing is they're a European company. We can't just lump everything into "western governments". That's like half the world.
The thing is,anybody these IP theft cases are also against Chinese law, they his choose to ignore it when it benefits them.
Corruption is everywhere, it's not an excuse to strive for anything less than right and truth. "Bevause they did it" is not a good reason.
The thing is,anybody these IP theft cases are also against Chinese law, they his choose to ignore it when it benefits them.
Corruption is everywhere, it's not an excuse to strive for anything less than right and truth. "Bevause they did it" is not a good reason.
Yup, precisely.
That's way too broad, because it depends what it is. Surprisingly, it seems to be easier to build a space station than to compete with Boeing and Airbus.
It is indeed much easier.
Because competing with Boeing and Airbus means building cost efficient aircraft in large volumes. Building cost efficient planes in large volume is way harder than building a singular space station with barely any cost concerns.
Because competing with Boeing and Airbus means building cost efficient aircraft in large volumes. Building cost efficient planes in large volume is way harder than building a singular space station with barely any cost concerns.
Rocket engines are simpler than jet turbines, actually. It take a lot of material engineering to get something with both performance and economy. As for the rest, it’s just avionics that china hasn’t developed yet, and that really “just” software.
By that logic, scramjets are the simplest of all!
But really, there’s an order of magnitude more engineering that goes into so many facets of rockets and rocket engines. On paper they’re similar, but the stresses and constraints are much, much higher.
But really, there’s an order of magnitude more engineering that goes into so many facets of rockets and rocket engines. On paper they’re similar, but the stresses and constraints are much, much higher.
Rocket engines point up and ignite the fuel. They don’t need air intakes, nor can they benefit from them. They don’t need to be reused (SpaceX’s strategy isn’t common). Rocket engines came a few decades before jet turbines for good reason. Heck, there is a good argument they were invented during the Tang or Song Dynasty in some kind of crude but representive form.
It depends. SRBs are pretty simple (yet still incredibly hard to make remotely safe).
Orbital rocket engines are not “point up and ignite fuel.” You’re right, they don’t need air intakes - they need cryogenic liquid oxygen and all the support equipment involved in using it! Jet engines have it easy being able to harvest the oxidizer as they fly.
There are many, many, points of failure in modern rockets . You could argue that jet engines were the precursor to modern turbo pump design.
edit It’s also worth noting that the turbopump environment is dramatically more hostile in rockets. LOX is really nasty stuff at those temperatures and pressures.
Orbital rocket engines are not “point up and ignite fuel.” You’re right, they don’t need air intakes - they need cryogenic liquid oxygen and all the support equipment involved in using it! Jet engines have it easy being able to harvest the oxidizer as they fly.
There are many, many, points of failure in modern rockets . You could argue that jet engines were the precursor to modern turbo pump design.
edit It’s also worth noting that the turbopump environment is dramatically more hostile in rockets. LOX is really nasty stuff at those temperatures and pressures.
Space stations do not need to comply to international aviation requirements. Also, they may have fewer economic constraints, because they are not operated by something like commercial airlines.
BTW competing with Lockheed-Martin and even Sukhoi seems to be harder, too.
BTW competing with Lockheed-Martin and even Sukhoi seems to be harder, too.
Sanctions didn’t stop China from carrying out one of the most successful research and technology exfiltration campaigns in history.
Kind of ironic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
Also the guy who memorized how to build a power loom during the industrial revolution
https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-eur...
https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-eur...
I don't see irony; the US government knew the importance of these efforts first hand which is why they attempted the sanction at all.
I assume I’m getting downvoted in the parent because there’s some implication that I’m judging them for it?
But I’m not. I was simply saying that the sanctions have nothing to do with their ability to obtain western tech.
But I’m not. I was simply saying that the sanctions have nothing to do with their ability to obtain western tech.
Eh, unclear. Nobody was trying to stop China from building space stations. The goal was to limit jet and ICBM tech.
The sanctions are pretty irrelevant when China has one of the best hacking groups in the world and every US corporation of relevance is strongly connected to the Internet.
Yeah, because they are only this advanced because they stole US technology. Chinese people can't be as intelligent as american.
I mean, american people is as intelligent as anyone else. By the sheer number, is not rare to think that they should have more people of high training on difficult areas to master.
What happens to the US is that they "borrow" a lot of intellectual capacity from abroad, and they have been doing that for a lot of time.
Also, stealing IP and resources has been the eternal strategy of empires to build themselves, US and Europe included.
What happens to the US is that they "borrow" a lot of intellectual capacity from abroad, and they have been doing that for a lot of time.
Also, stealing IP and resources has been the eternal strategy of empires to build themselves, US and Europe included.
Ah, it’s worse than that, we basically gave them their rocket and missile program via xenophobia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen
Intelligence is irrelevant. The US government would do exactly the same thing if they were way behind some other country in anything strategic.
The Chinese would be supremely unintelligent if they didn’t use that advantage.
The Chinese would be supremely unintelligent if they didn’t use that advantage.
Actually, yes. That's accurate.
Why would they waste time and their own money researching things when they can just steal it and then give that information to private and public Chinese industries? That is their entire MO. The Chinese are also responsible for $200-600 Billion worth of IP theft against the US every year.
They will do whatever it takes to make China #1 and see nothing wrong with doing this.
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/politics/china-hacking-espion...
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-...
- https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-prop...
Why would they waste time and their own money researching things when they can just steal it and then give that information to private and public Chinese industries? That is their entire MO. The Chinese are also responsible for $200-600 Billion worth of IP theft against the US every year.
They will do whatever it takes to make China #1 and see nothing wrong with doing this.
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/politics/china-hacking-espion...
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-...
- https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-prop...
> Why would they waste time and their own money researching things when they can just steal it and then give that information to private and public Chinese industries?
Because this way you'll always be behind.
Because this way you'll always be behind.
Or you do both. Start from the point of known technologies and reverse engineering and improve from there. China bootstrapped their high-tech industry with not just spying, but also licensing technology, join-ventures, training students/employees abroad and then bringing them back as experienced researchers/engineers. No need to start from first-principles. Plus even when you do have tech-specs on something, that doesn't mean you know how to manufacture it, or it may need modification to address broader system tradeoffs.
If you start from behind and are trying to execute from first principals you'll usually lag behind too just because you have to relearn all the things countries like the US did on your own.
Well or by capturing nazi scientists
I guess the modern equivalent of that would be espionage which afaik China has not been shy about executing. Operation Paperclip was somewhat of a fluke historically speaking for the explosion of nation-less (ish) scientists. The next one in rocketry would have been the fall of the USSR I guess.
You got this very wrong. Read up Art of War written before Jesus. Espionage is a very important chapter. Americans are rather weak academic these days. You go to any American university and see how many "Asians" there. You will find a lot of Chinese. It is common for Americans not able to speak English well or just English. It is very uncommon not to find Chinese that can read and write Chinese AND English. There are about 4x more Chinese than Americans population. You do the math, one society has more people and higher ratio of hardworking people and very educated vs Americans that twerks more on TikTok (which is an app by China....and possibly Chinese Military). Heck even westerner GoT series are written based on Chinese history. Look up war of seven princes and Cersei equivalent during Jin dynasty. Americans themselves stoled Nazi Germany tech too. USA days are very numbered (this is foretold in many Eastern prophecies even those in Russia). The great west superpower will get destroyed very similar to Atlantis (perhaps explosion of Yellowstone volcabic activities) mentioned in many of these prophecies.
I think that's unlikely, Yellowstone is monitored and I think it's more likely that US programs to prevent population decline/demographic collapse would work than Chinese programs of the same nature. I think it's reasonably probable that China will level out under a billion real population (not including migrant workers), even if you think the current official figures are real. Russia has massive HIV rates and is shipping a not insignificant portion of it's reproduction age males to Ukraine, and that's not good for it population in general, and may be catastrophic for it's more rural populations.
> I think it's reasonably probable that China will level out under a billion real population (not including migrant workers)
99.99% of china’s migrant workers are Chinese. I don’t understand what not including migrant workers gives you unless you assume china will import labor from other countries someday?
99.99% of china’s migrant workers are Chinese. I don’t understand what not including migrant workers gives you unless you assume china will import labor from other countries someday?
Careful with that copium, you might OD on it.
The problem is that Chinese mentality results in corruption, denialism and other attributes what makes working on R&D almost impossible. For that you need free minds, room for mistakes, no strong hiarchy. All things you won't find in China.
So how did they manage to complete this space station at all when R&D is 'almost impossible'? There is no doubt that China did not develop everything from the ground up, but to disregard the progress that they have made on top of existing technologies is rather shortsighted and disingenuous.
The CCP couldn’t have said it better themselves
> telescope can dock with the station for servicing and upgrades,
"Quick, wind it back in, I need to change the SD card!"
"Quick, wind it back in, I need to change the SD card!"
Sanctions on parts for particular purposes are trivial to bypass, you just buy the parts abroad or for a different purpose. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to go as indigenous as possible to reduce dependency on foreign components. They've definitely made impressive advances in the last decade or so.
I can't speak at all to the space station, but my understanding from discussions over beers with American spacecraft MechEs was that Shenzhou resembles Soyuz (and is derived form Soyuz in real ways), but is noticeably larger. This has a significant amount of effects to essentially every aspect of the design making it pretty damn close to a fully indigenous design. They would've had to truly own every piece of the design and manufacturing to make those changes and end up with the flight safety record they currently hold.
"Licensing" is a strong word when applied to China. I'm pretty sure they have advanced a lot and may have surpassed Russian technology in some areas. As far as I understand it, they have more diverse launch vehicles, for example. Hard to compare what constitutes "better", as long as it works. I don't think they are as cost-efficient as SpaceX or even Atlas and Ariane systems.
> I don't think they are as cost-efficient as SpaceX or even Atlas and Ariane systems.
It seems unlikely anyone is as cost-efficient as Falcon 9 with reuse.
It appears to me, as an outsider, that Atlas and Ariane are 4-5 times as expensive to operate. There is probably plenty of room for China to operate more efficiently than that. Especially with their launch volume, which is second only to SpaceX.
It seems unlikely anyone is as cost-efficient as Falcon 9 with reuse.
It appears to me, as an outsider, that Atlas and Ariane are 4-5 times as expensive to operate. There is probably plenty of room for China to operate more efficiently than that. Especially with their launch volume, which is second only to SpaceX.
China is not a high-tech nation. There is a thin patina of bling-bling but underneath they have big trouble between corruption and nobody else trusting them.
China has lots of money (for now...) so they can throw a lot of resources at the problem. In China, quick public successes always take precedence over doing it right.
China has lots of money (for now...) so they can throw a lot of resources at the problem. In China, quick public successes always take precedence over doing it right.
Your view of China is 10 years behind reality. Corruption was a huge problem, it is still somewhat of a problem, but corruption has reduced significantly and continues to reduce. As for "nobody else trusting them": based on what evidence? Foreign investment into China is at an all-time high. Recent research has shown that while sentiments about China has become much more negative in the west (and its allies such as South Korea and Japan), sentiment in the rest of the world — accounting for 80% of humanity — has become much more positive.
> In China, quick public successes always take precedence over doing it right.
I'd like to see some evidence for this huge, unnuanced claim. Of course they have an incentive to look good. So do companies all over the world. But to claim that that's all they do is to ignore the elephant in the room, namely 40 years of growth in prosperity that's unprecedented in human history.
> In China, quick public successes always take precedence over doing it right.
I'd like to see some evidence for this huge, unnuanced claim. Of course they have an incentive to look good. So do companies all over the world. But to claim that that's all they do is to ignore the elephant in the room, namely 40 years of growth in prosperity that's unprecedented in human history.
> sentiment in the rest of the world — accounting for 80% of humanity — has become much more positive.
India is 1/6 of the world's population and its media sentiment towards China has been trending sharply downwards over the past few years.
India is 1/6 of the world's population and its media sentiment towards China has been trending sharply downwards over the past few years.
You can read the Cambridge University research yourself: https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/publications/a-world-...
Check out figure 15 for South Asia's sentiment on China.
Check out figure 15 for South Asia's sentiment on China.
The ISS collaborators have banned Chinese astronauts. The system is a dictatorship, Xi Jinping has a bigger personality course than Mao. The real estate industry is a mess, mostly because of corruption. "Tofu" projects are rampant. The High Speed rail is too expensive and has the same "Tofu" construction problem (=corruption).
Corruption is still a major problem and there is no signs it has gotten better. African Swine Flu as an example can't be contained because that would need unbribeable enforcement. No-Covid only works (in the enforcement sense) because of draconian penalties. Cronyism is an epidemic disease in itself, you can't advance in China, no matter your qualifications, if you aren't highly connected, and most aren't.
Yes, I'm speaking in broad terms. But I did predict a glass ceiling years ago, because the lack of openness means terrible risk management and sophisticated risk management is crucial for sustained exponential. It has finally happened, growth in China shrank after Covid and the recovery is worse than in the rest of the world.
If you need a reason not to trust China look at what happened to Hong Kong with all the promises made by CCP leadership. Look at the CCP attempts to shape policy, including in western universities. Look at the genocide against the Uyghurs. Look at the issue of organ harvesting, which is partly propaganda and partly the CCP itself hinders any attempts to actually disprove the allegations with their lack of transparency. I am forced to consider the CCP as evil-doers in the same order of magnitude as Nazi Germany. And that is before they try and retake Taiwan, which will be an unbelievably bloody business.
Corruption is still a major problem and there is no signs it has gotten better. African Swine Flu as an example can't be contained because that would need unbribeable enforcement. No-Covid only works (in the enforcement sense) because of draconian penalties. Cronyism is an epidemic disease in itself, you can't advance in China, no matter your qualifications, if you aren't highly connected, and most aren't.
Yes, I'm speaking in broad terms. But I did predict a glass ceiling years ago, because the lack of openness means terrible risk management and sophisticated risk management is crucial for sustained exponential. It has finally happened, growth in China shrank after Covid and the recovery is worse than in the rest of the world.
If you need a reason not to trust China look at what happened to Hong Kong with all the promises made by CCP leadership. Look at the CCP attempts to shape policy, including in western universities. Look at the genocide against the Uyghurs. Look at the issue of organ harvesting, which is partly propaganda and partly the CCP itself hinders any attempts to actually disprove the allegations with their lack of transparency. I am forced to consider the CCP as evil-doers in the same order of magnitude as Nazi Germany. And that is before they try and retake Taiwan, which will be an unbelievably bloody business.
How do you define 'high-tech' here? Would a 'low-tech' nation be able to build a space station like this?
China has a lot of systemic issues stemming from corruption and nepotism, but they also have a large population and a culture of investing in the education of their children. It isn't a coincidence that there is a huge number of Asians at elite US colleges, which would be even higher if affirmative action wasn't so prevalent. Its only a matter of time before China will catch up to the US and reach technology parity.
China has a lot of systemic issues stemming from corruption and nepotism, but they also have a large population and a culture of investing in the education of their children. It isn't a coincidence that there is a huge number of Asians at elite US colleges, which would be even higher if affirmative action wasn't so prevalent. Its only a matter of time before China will catch up to the US and reach technology parity.
Much of the countryside is still doing subsistence agriculture, for one thing.
"Catching up" means China is growing faster than the west, both in economy and technological know-how. But at present China is only marginally out-growing the West, even using the CCP numbers.
"Catching up" means China is growing faster than the west, both in economy and technological know-how. But at present China is only marginally out-growing the West, even using the CCP numbers.
Ultimately it comes down to a numbers game which we can roughly estimate by looking at the number of STEM graduates generated by each country assuming the research output of each individual is roughly equivalent.
The US does have the advantage in that high performing individuals on the level of Einstein have a higher chance of emerging due to much more personal freedom and social mobility, but that is difficult to account for because someone like Einstein may or may not emerge in the next 100 years.
The US does have the advantage in that high performing individuals on the level of Einstein have a higher chance of emerging due to much more personal freedom and social mobility, but that is difficult to account for because someone like Einstein may or may not emerge in the next 100 years.
But STEM graduates from China really aren't the same. And they aren't working in the kind of system that would promote progress. Or even select for performance properly. Additionally it's not like every Chinese high school student has the same access to higher education. It does depend on location, wealth and the guanxi of his parents.
Overall the economic growth is clearly faltering. And with a GDP growth rate that is only one or two percentage points ahead of "the West" the catching up is going to take a lot longer. It's quite the same with education, which is just another industry among many. China is running into a glass ceiling because of its system.
Additionally there is an economic world war raging right now, mostly against Russia. But China is increasingly getting on the wrong side of this, with much of the world opposing China.
Overall the economic growth is clearly faltering. And with a GDP growth rate that is only one or two percentage points ahead of "the West" the catching up is going to take a lot longer. It's quite the same with education, which is just another industry among many. China is running into a glass ceiling because of its system.
Additionally there is an economic world war raging right now, mostly against Russia. But China is increasingly getting on the wrong side of this, with much of the world opposing China.
> Ultimately it comes down to a numbers game which we can roughly estimate by looking at the number of STEM graduates generated by each country assuming the research output of each individual is roughly equivalent.
Why do you think that's a reasonable assumption to make?
Why do you think that's a reasonable assumption to make?
Upon closer examination, it may not be. There is some force multiplier there that I am not accounting for and cannot because there isn't really a good unit of measurement for technological progress or research speed. What seems intuitively obvious is that a country with zero STEM graduates isn't making much headway in research unless they recruit immigrants, so there should be some correlation with the number of STEM graduates and speed of technological advancement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China <-Bling, Bling? O RLY?
Edit: Some more propaganda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o96yCGqCHFg <- Will be interesting in a few years, I guess.
Edit: Some more propaganda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o96yCGqCHFg <- Will be interesting in a few years, I guess.
Have you ever heard of the Transrapid? That was a technology that already worked decades ago, but hasn't been put into widespread use for various reasons.
China has already overbuilt its highspeed rail system. China really doesn't need another solution for a problem it doesn't have.
China has already overbuilt its highspeed rail system. China really doesn't need another solution for a problem it doesn't have.
Yes I have :-) I'm German and once lived near one proposed track, meant as an upgrade to an already existing, heavily used main track, planned with many stops over short distances.
Edit: Maybe they could use this to overbuild their already existing net with a dozen to two dozen strategically located stations, as an overlay of hyperhubs, and use the interconnections to conventional HSR as spokes which branch off of these.
To make it even more competitive to air travel, especially for longer distances.
Edit: Maybe they could use this to overbuild their already existing net with a dozen to two dozen strategically located stations, as an overlay of hyperhubs, and use the interconnections to conventional HSR as spokes which branch off of these.
To make it even more competitive to air travel, especially for longer distances.
You assume they'd built those connections where they are needed most. That's not how it works in China...
You assume that company is giving an accurate picture of what it has achieved. That's not how it works in China...
You assume that company is giving an accurate picture of what it has achieved. That's not how it works in China...
Yes, their high-speed rail is bling-bling. It's too expensive for most people. Much of the building materials have been substituted for substandard materials so somebody can steal the difference.
I doubt the Russians would share their deep-tech with China. There's quite a bit of enmity b/w the two after the Sino-Soviet split; China for much of recent history was US's weapon against Russia (and India). In fact, it was the US that indirectly help built up the US (much like the rest of East Asia).
[I'm generally surprised by how ill-informed western populace is about their own govts doing.]
[I'm generally surprised by how ill-informed western populace is about their own govts doing.]
That may be the case. OTOH, why did Russia build https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostochny_Cosmodrome almost right next to the border with China? Wouldn't something like that not be of utmost strategic importance?
[deleted]
Last week I stood outside my apartment and watched Tiangong fly across the sky[0]. What an incredible time to be alive.
[0] https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
[0] https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
Tiangoon flybys can reaches magnitude -2 now. Bright than most planets. Next bright evening flybys overUS in early December.
The ISS, which has five times more modules, reaches magnitude -4 sometimes. Third brightest thing in sky.
The ISS, which has five times more modules, reaches magnitude -4 sometimes. Third brightest thing in sky.
... looks like "magnitude" numbers farther below zero are brighter? Who came up with that?
> The scale used to indicate magnitude originates in the Hellenistic practice of dividing stars visible to the naked eye into six magnitudes. The brightest stars in the night sky were said to be of first magnitude (m = 1), whereas the faintest were of sixth magnitude (m = 6) [...]
> In 1856, Norman Robert Pogson formalized the system by defining a first magnitude star as a star that is 100 times as bright as a sixth-magnitude star, thereby establishing the logarithmic scale still in use today. This implies that a star of magnitude m is about 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude m + 1. This figure, the fifth root of 100, became known as Pogson's Ratio.
Hmmph. I'd prefer a system where higher numbers were brighter, and probably with a different logarithmic base. Oh well.
> The scale used to indicate magnitude originates in the Hellenistic practice of dividing stars visible to the naked eye into six magnitudes. The brightest stars in the night sky were said to be of first magnitude (m = 1), whereas the faintest were of sixth magnitude (m = 6) [...]
> In 1856, Norman Robert Pogson formalized the system by defining a first magnitude star as a star that is 100 times as bright as a sixth-magnitude star, thereby establishing the logarithmic scale still in use today. This implies that a star of magnitude m is about 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude m + 1. This figure, the fifth root of 100, became known as Pogson's Ratio.
Hmmph. I'd prefer a system where higher numbers were brighter, and probably with a different logarithmic base. Oh well.
The Pogson system was constrained by the compatibility with the legacy star classification.
The stars had already been described for millennia as being stars of the 1st magnitude, 2nd magnitude and so on, from the brightest to the less bright.
Pogson has chosen both the logarithmic base and the sign of the magnitude which makes higher number less bright, so that the magnitudes computed by his formula will match approximately the already existing classification of the stars.
It was fortunate that the simple rule that a difference of 5 in magnitudes corresponds to a brightness ratio of 100 gave a formula which produced magnitude values that, when rounded to integers, matched in many cases the traditional magnitudes of the stars.
The stars had already been described for millennia as being stars of the 1st magnitude, 2nd magnitude and so on, from the brightest to the less bright.
Pogson has chosen both the logarithmic base and the sign of the magnitude which makes higher number less bright, so that the magnitudes computed by his formula will match approximately the already existing classification of the stars.
It was fortunate that the simple rule that a difference of 5 in magnitudes corresponds to a brightness ratio of 100 gave a formula which produced magnitude values that, when rounded to integers, matched in many cases the traditional magnitudes of the stars.
For clarity, #1 is the Sun and #2 is the Moon. ISS is brighter than literally everything else in space, including all the other stars and planets.
ISS isn't always brighter than Venus, which can get almost to magnitude -5 when things line up right.
The ISS will still generally be the first, second, or third brightest thing in the night sky on a good, near-overhead pass.
The ISS will still generally be the first, second, or third brightest thing in the night sky on a good, near-overhead pass.
I have watched the ISS go overhead in the middle of a very sunny cloudless Los Angeles day. It can be very visible, when you know the timing & direction.
This is a fantastic website, thank you to whoever made it !!
I concur! The street view is brilliant.
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The page sits at "Loading" and the console shows "Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: navigator.geolocation is undefined".
Your browser needs to support sharing geolocation.
No, it does not.
An uncaught error where you don't catch and gracefully handle errors in your promises is not the users' fault. It's sloppy workmanship.
An uncaught error where you don't catch and gracefully handle errors in your promises is not the users' fault. It's sloppy workmanship.
If you get this error, you intentionally broke your browser, or are using a browser which doesn't support standard, essential functionality. This is not the same thing as declining or blocking geolocation permission, which is supported and does not cause errors.
This specific error means you deleted the standard functions that implement the geolocation API, which is a completely different thing. That's fine too, you're welcome to browse the web with a broken configuration, but you have to realize that it will break things. You're not automatically entitled to request that every site support your broken configuration. It should also be noted that browsing with a non-default configuration like this makes you an easy target for fingerprinting.
Note that the site absolutely requires some form of geolocation to work at all. Satellite viewing times are location specific and without a precise location the site can't show you anything useful.
This specific error means you deleted the standard functions that implement the geolocation API, which is a completely different thing. That's fine too, you're welcome to browse the web with a broken configuration, but you have to realize that it will break things. You're not automatically entitled to request that every site support your broken configuration. It should also be noted that browsing with a non-default configuration like this makes you an easy target for fingerprinting.
Note that the site absolutely requires some form of geolocation to work at all. Satellite viewing times are location specific and without a precise location the site can't show you anything useful.
> This specific error means you deleted the standard functions that implement the geolocation API
That's a rather flimsy straw man. I did no such thing.
> You're not automatically entitled to request that every site support your broken configuration.
Goodness, now I'm entitled.
I did no such thing; I just said that blaming your users for your sloppy coding is a terrible strategy.
That's a rather flimsy straw man. I did no such thing.
> You're not automatically entitled to request that every site support your broken configuration.
Goodness, now I'm entitled.
I did no such thing; I just said that blaming your users for your sloppy coding is a terrible strategy.
You say you're using iOS Safari. I'm interested to know how you were able to configure it to delete navigator.geolocation, apparently without realizing what you were doing. I don't plan to support a broken configuration like that, but if you can figure out the cause then I could file a WebKit bug on your behalf.
Why would it be on OP’s behalf? If it’s just a configuration that WebKit supports it’s either violating the standard or you’re not handling it correctly on your site. It has nothing to do with the OP at that point.
They are the one experiencing the bug. I can't file the bug because I don't know and can't investigate the cause. If they are experiencing an issue, and they find the cause, they should file the bug. But they probably won't bother, seeing as they'd rather blame me. I'm willing to file it for them, and that's probably better anyway as I have WebKit committer status. Bugs filed by me may have more weight as I have filed and fixed many before.
You really should be checking if the location object exists. Pushing the blame to another project is deflecting from a missing check that should happen on your end.
Regardless of whether you agree with what I'm doing, you should agree that WebKit should not delete navigator.geolocation in any configuration. It's a clear fingerprinting issue.
Get off your high horse, you are wrong here.
> If you get this error, you intentionally broke your browser,
What I did was that I went into browser's preferences and set "geo.enabled" to false.
> Note that the site absolutely requires some form of geolocation to work at all.
Oh, please, I am perfectly capable of finding my village on the globe by hand.
> If you get this error, you intentionally broke your browser,
What I did was that I went into browser's preferences and set "geo.enabled" to false.
> Note that the site absolutely requires some form of geolocation to work at all.
Oh, please, I am perfectly capable of finding my village on the globe by hand.
Maybe you should email the site and let them know instead of complaining on some random forum?
I'm sure they'd be happy to give you a refund. :)
The point is not that one makes available one's site for free. The point is that the quality of the work is sloppy, price of said service notwithstanding.
There are many other ways to approximate a client's geolocation so as to prevent displaying an embarrassing error where one did not first check whether the object's property was truthy or not.
Justifying terrible UX by saying, "it's free," is a terrible strategy, tbh. Free shit is still shit.
There are many other ways to approximate a client's geolocation so as to prevent displaying an embarrassing error where one did not first check whether the object's property was truthy or not.
Justifying terrible UX by saying, "it's free," is a terrible strategy, tbh. Free shit is still shit.
It's not just that the key isn't populated; it's that it's undefined. FWIW, my browser (Chrome) works on the site even if I choose not to share geolocation; I assume because the API is populated even if it then refrains from sharing.
Your point isn't quite wrong but it also isn't quite right; geolocation is supported by every browser listed on Mozilla's documentation (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/g...) so if a browser isn't at least stubbing out that API these days, it's not w3c-compliant, and non-w3c-compliant browsers will sometimes just break on some pages.
It is, of course, still incumbent on the developer to go that extra mile if they want to catch that last 1% of users, but users of exotic browsers get an exotic experience also.
Your point isn't quite wrong but it also isn't quite right; geolocation is supported by every browser listed on Mozilla's documentation (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/g...) so if a browser isn't at least stubbing out that API these days, it's not w3c-compliant, and non-w3c-compliant browsers will sometimes just break on some pages.
It is, of course, still incumbent on the developer to go that extra mile if they want to catch that last 1% of users, but users of exotic browsers get an exotic experience also.
None of the browsers on my iPhone will render this site, W3C compliant or not.
In any event, I would never tell my users that it's their fault that my app didn't check the truthiness of the object's property. Seems particularly hostile to one's users and customers, free product or not.
In any event, I would never tell my users that it's their fault that my app didn't check the truthiness of the object's property. Seems particularly hostile to one's users and customers, free product or not.
FYI: renders on iPad with iPadOS 16.1 (iPad so no GPS). Either way, you are coming across to me as somewhat petulant - you could be right but politeness has its place too.
> (iPad so no GPS)
That's WiFi only iPads - the iPads with 3G/4G comms used to have GPS, at least the 2011 iPad2 did.
Probably still do, my current cheap Android tablet with 4G does.
That's WiFi only iPads - the iPads with 3G/4G comms used to have GPS, at least the 2011 iPad2 did.
Probably still do, my current cheap Android tablet with 4G does.
Ever written a website that checks whether `window` is defined?
Technically, we should be checking everything.
Practically, nobody does.
Technically, we should be checking everything.
Practically, nobody does.
If you aren't paying the bills you aren't a customer. You are a recipient of a gift who is lecturing the creator on workmanship.
You could of course offer the site's author some friendly advice on how to fix this rather than throwing a tantrum and making accusations about sloppy work and user hostility. Your comments aren't a great look.
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That's a monopoly problem, no? Apple doesn't actually let you use different browsers. You should try it on an android phone?
That link also says:
Secure context: This feature is available only in secure contexts (HTTPS), in some or all supporting browsers.
So perhaps the site isn't being loaded over HTTPS? If that's the case, it sounds like a site bug.
Secure context: This feature is available only in secure contexts (HTTPS), in some or all supporting browsers.
So perhaps the site isn't being loaded over HTTPS? If that's the case, it sounds like a site bug.
Here’s a blog post by the author of the app for more insight into the amount of work and details put into it.
https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
But, all moral posturing notwithstanding, is it not also true that if the OP just gets a browser or a browser version or a browser configuration that supports geolocation that they will be back in business?
Uh, then don't use it? Problem solved methinks.
On my time which is worth $/per hour? That will be the day.
It's there, but disabled. They had to check for that.
Very nice! If you don't mind, are you open to discussing your tech stack on that?
I am curious as to:
- What provides the 3D earth model
- What calculates the satellite trajectory and plots its arc
- What client side & server side frameworks you used for the web app itself
I am curious as to:
- What provides the 3D earth model
- What calculates the satellite trajectory and plots its arc
- What client side & server side frameworks you used for the web app itself
Not my project but here’s a blog post from the author.
https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
https://james.darpinian.com/blog/how-see-a-satellite-tonight...
It's a shame it's so far south! The ISS is in a far more inclined orbit. Tiangong isn't really much above the horizon for anywhere north of about 42°N.
Wait, in order to build this, they've launched half a dozen rockets up with no idea where the boosters would come back down and land? That seems up there amongst worst ideas I've heard for a while, "good luck everybody else."
Edit: didn't realize this would be a controversial comment; per the article, the "norm" is to have a burn again after releasing their payload, to "control" / direct the return. The Chinese aren't doing that, which has apparently lead so far to a village-damaging crash in the Ivory Coast. If the US has done a similar thing, if this was common practice in the past, I'm not familiar with it as I'm entirely naive on the topic.
Edit: didn't realize this would be a controversial comment; per the article, the "norm" is to have a burn again after releasing their payload, to "control" / direct the return. The Chinese aren't doing that, which has apparently lead so far to a village-damaging crash in the Ivory Coast. If the US has done a similar thing, if this was common practice in the past, I'm not familiar with it as I'm entirely naive on the topic.
Yes, they have been doing that. Yes, it's a dumb idea. Yes, the US had something similar happen in the past with Skylab coming down over Australia and killing a cow (we also learned that it's not a particularly good thing to do and are more careful these days).
The problem is that the rocket in question has the large 'main' tank go all the way to orbit. Thus they probably can't also include enough propulsion to put it in a controlled deorbit. Meanwhile most other rockets are designed so the core stage is dumped before reaching orbital velocity, so the remaining stages aren't likely to survive the trip back down in big pieces even if they do fail to deorbit and since they're smaller/lighter it takes less to deorbit them in the first place.
The risk to people is very low and it tends to be sensationalized, but it's still more responsible behavior to make that risk as small as possible. China has a good bit of work left to do on that front given that they were still dropping hypergolic stages on villages until just a few years ago.
The problem is that the rocket in question has the large 'main' tank go all the way to orbit. Thus they probably can't also include enough propulsion to put it in a controlled deorbit. Meanwhile most other rockets are designed so the core stage is dumped before reaching orbital velocity, so the remaining stages aren't likely to survive the trip back down in big pieces even if they do fail to deorbit and since they're smaller/lighter it takes less to deorbit them in the first place.
The risk to people is very low and it tends to be sensationalized, but it's still more responsible behavior to make that risk as small as possible. China has a good bit of work left to do on that front given that they were still dropping hypergolic stages on villages until just a few years ago.
There was no incident involving Skylab and a cow.
Are you mixing it up with a Cuban owned cow and a different launch almost 20 years before Skylab?
Are you mixing it up with a Cuban owned cow and a different launch almost 20 years before Skylab?
Huh, I didn't realize that hadn't been Skylab! Looks like it's a somewhat popular myth arising from some stories about Skylab's reentry mentioning the cow incident.
It did come down in Western Australia though, the remote local council sent the US government a ~$100 fine for littering. Pretty sure they paid it.
Edit: They never paid it, and it was $400
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/70708/nasas-unpaid-400-l...
Edit: They never paid it, and it was $400
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/70708/nasas-unpaid-400-l...
Each launch costs hundreds of millions of dollars. The cost of bringing the rocket down in a targeted way can be substantial, in terms of R&D, fuel, and mission constraints. And the risk is absolutely minuscule: Exactly one person has ever been hit by orbital rocket debris after tens of thousands of launches over more than half a century, and it was a tiny piece (which is usually all that survives re-entry) that didn't cause injury:
https://theconversation.com/space-debris-is-coming-down-more...
And of course, the launching nation is responsible for compensating anyone injured or who has property damaged by space debris, and paying for clean-up.
https://theconversation.com/space-debris-is-coming-down-more...
And of course, the launching nation is responsible for compensating anyone injured or who has property damaged by space debris, and paying for clean-up.
Can you tell me what country does not launch their rockets in this manner, other than in test flights?
These days the standard behavior of other nations is to keep enough reserve fuel and power to perform a controlled reentry of any spent stages or to design the vehicles such that the part that reaches orbit is small.
Per the article
> Typically, the core stages of similar rockets that reach orbit fire their engines again after releasing their payloads. That allows them to be aimed at unpopulated areas, like the middle of an ocean, when they fall from orbit.
If this is not accurate, my mistake. I took them at their word and don't really know anything more than that about the process.
> Typically, the core stages of similar rockets that reach orbit fire their engines again after releasing their payloads. That allows them to be aimed at unpopulated areas, like the middle of an ocean, when they fall from orbit.
If this is not accurate, my mistake. I took them at their word and don't really know anything more than that about the process.
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wmf(1)
The frustrating aspect for me about CNSA is how little PR they do, at least towards west although I don't think even inside China they are giving that much extra info on the missions and their progress. Just compare the media spectacle around e.g. Perseverance rover wrt Tianwen-1. Sure NASA has more material to work with but still we are getting frequent mission updates and almost daily new pics to ogle; meanwhile there are just couple of press photos from Zhurong and barely any news gets around.
Western media cherry picks negative stuff about China. Or they add their favorite caveat, "Experts say there could be military applications to China's ambitions." Ya, just like every fucking tech advancement in the US?
That is very cheap take. Just look at e.g. CNSAs own web page: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/index.html or the main producer for space systems: http://english.spacechina.com/
Compare and contrast any content on there to what NASA is providing on e.g. Perseverances mission page: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
I can't even find homepages for Tianwen-1 / Zhurong. That is hardly because "media is cherry-picking negative stuff".
Compare and contrast any content on there to what NASA is providing on e.g. Perseverances mission page: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
I can't even find homepages for Tianwen-1 / Zhurong. That is hardly because "media is cherry-picking negative stuff".
Western media cherry picks negative things about any country that isn't under the US's thumb. It's wild how much xenophobia US media causes that people aren't seeing, especially around Russia and Russians. Americans think of Russian leaders as awful people while also praising liberal US presidents that have continued death and destruction on foreign countries too.
Presumably there is a great deal more domestic PR in Mandarin and Cantonese in the state run media like the Peoples' Daily and Xinhua.
I’ve noticed that a lot of news about china’s progress is censored, probably so we dont see how fast they are progressing.
> probably so we dont see how fast they are progressing.
The problem is we don't know either way. They could be super advanced, or it could be that they are covering up shortcomings.
It feeds into the bigger question of: why do this stuff? If it is to advance human knowledge the results should be shared. It the results aren't being shared it's an exercise in nationalism with limited significance.
A similar situation arose in the history of computing. Colossus might have been the first programmable electronic computer, but it is a historical curiosity since it was kept secret until the 1970s. Humanity already had microprocessors by the time it was made public. Despite being a "first" it made little contribution to progress and is arguably of little import. Any secret research program runs the same risk.
The problem is we don't know either way. They could be super advanced, or it could be that they are covering up shortcomings.
It feeds into the bigger question of: why do this stuff? If it is to advance human knowledge the results should be shared. It the results aren't being shared it's an exercise in nationalism with limited significance.
A similar situation arose in the history of computing. Colossus might have been the first programmable electronic computer, but it is a historical curiosity since it was kept secret until the 1970s. Humanity already had microprocessors by the time it was made public. Despite being a "first" it made little contribution to progress and is arguably of little import. Any secret research program runs the same risk.
> If it is to advance human knowledge the results should be shared.
It’s easy for us to imagine that this day and age there are no competing civilisations and that every country will wholeheartedly share their progress. I suspect China, as Russia and perhaps India at some point, sees itself as such a competing civilisation. We assume that those times have ended but i think they haven't. In this context China does it for its own benefit. I somehow doubt they are not already either actively probing, or considering probing, mars, the moon and asteroids. Japan does it - we know this thanks to, albeit anaemic, coverage in the western media. If China has even a little bit of respect for its thousands of years of history it knows that the next meaningful territorial and resource expansion is space and it is only natural that it will try to outcompete us. Secret or not from us it makes no difference for china. Colossus may have been secret but the science that lead to its development wasn't and thats more important than the product itself. Just as the uk had fertile ground for developing it and later on for developing many computing advances, China is now creating fertile ground for space tech. We should keep an eye on it, and promote news about their progress, so the average joe will understand that unless we invest even more in space development then we are on track to becoming a secondary civilisation, ridden by debt and petty goals.
It’s easy for us to imagine that this day and age there are no competing civilisations and that every country will wholeheartedly share their progress. I suspect China, as Russia and perhaps India at some point, sees itself as such a competing civilisation. We assume that those times have ended but i think they haven't. In this context China does it for its own benefit. I somehow doubt they are not already either actively probing, or considering probing, mars, the moon and asteroids. Japan does it - we know this thanks to, albeit anaemic, coverage in the western media. If China has even a little bit of respect for its thousands of years of history it knows that the next meaningful territorial and resource expansion is space and it is only natural that it will try to outcompete us. Secret or not from us it makes no difference for china. Colossus may have been secret but the science that lead to its development wasn't and thats more important than the product itself. Just as the uk had fertile ground for developing it and later on for developing many computing advances, China is now creating fertile ground for space tech. We should keep an eye on it, and promote news about their progress, so the average joe will understand that unless we invest even more in space development then we are on track to becoming a secondary civilisation, ridden by debt and petty goals.
What do you mean "we don't know either way"? People can visit China and look around. China also sells technology so you could buy stuff and see how it works.
They might be "covering up their shortcomings" but why would would they do that if that makes them lose customers? You can't sell technology based on hot air. It doesn't make any sense.
What use is technology if you don't widely deploy it and commercialize it? It's not like China isn't one of the biggest trading nations in the world.
They might be "covering up their shortcomings" but why would would they do that if that makes them lose customers? You can't sell technology based on hot air. It doesn't make any sense.
What use is technology if you don't widely deploy it and commercialize it? It's not like China isn't one of the biggest trading nations in the world.
> It feeds into the bigger question of: why do this stuff? If it is to advance human knowledge the results should be shared. It the results aren't being shared it's an exercise in nationalism with limited significance.
The point is to advance _their_ knowledge, not to share it with all of humanity. To establish a regular presence in space that they can build out from. If space is the next colonizable frontier, China would surely want to be getting in on the action as soon as they can. It's an exercise in nationalism in the sense that it's meant to advance their national interests, but whether it's of limited significance is for the future to know.
The point is to advance _their_ knowledge, not to share it with all of humanity. To establish a regular presence in space that they can build out from. If space is the next colonizable frontier, China would surely want to be getting in on the action as soon as they can. It's an exercise in nationalism in the sense that it's meant to advance their national interests, but whether it's of limited significance is for the future to know.
What does it mean to 'share knowledge'?
Can I get a schematic for an US-based rocket turbopump?
Or the schematics of a spacecraft telemetry module?
Even if most of the stuff didn't wasn't sensitive in the national security sense, it would still constitute the IP of the companies who developed it.
Can I get a schematic for an US-based rocket turbopump?
Or the schematics of a spacecraft telemetry module?
Even if most of the stuff didn't wasn't sensitive in the national security sense, it would still constitute the IP of the companies who developed it.
I mean this:
"F-1 ENGINE FAMILIARIZATION TRAINING MANUAL" by Rocketdyne
https://www.pdf-archive.com/2016/10/21/rocketdyne-f1-engine-...
NASA Technical Reports Server - Telemetry (23103 documents)
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search?q=telemetry
NASA Technical Reports Server - Turbo Pump (2800 documents)
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search?q=turbo%20pump
"F-1 ENGINE FAMILIARIZATION TRAINING MANUAL" by Rocketdyne
https://www.pdf-archive.com/2016/10/21/rocketdyne-f1-engine-...
NASA Technical Reports Server - Telemetry (23103 documents)
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search?q=telemetry
NASA Technical Reports Server - Turbo Pump (2800 documents)
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search?q=turbo%20pump
As an aside, the F-1 manual includes the asbestos [1]! See the image on page 1-44.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33320294
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33320294
It's not so much that this is censored but merely that the reporting on this is very selective/biased. Most news is simply interest driven. Also, the Chinese don't really seem to particularly care how the rest of the world feels about what they do in space.
People like Scott Manly and a few others report on rocket launches around the world regularly on Youtube. The last few years China has really stepped up the number of launches. They are at this point not dependent on other countries to get stuff into orbit; or anywhere else in our solar system.
I'd not be surprised if the next person on the Moon would be launched there from China. They have multiple unmanned lunar missions coming up in the next few years and several successful missions in the past few years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog...
People like Scott Manly and a few others report on rocket launches around the world regularly on Youtube. The last few years China has really stepped up the number of launches. They are at this point not dependent on other countries to get stuff into orbit; or anywhere else in our solar system.
I'd not be surprised if the next person on the Moon would be launched there from China. They have multiple unmanned lunar missions coming up in the next few years and several successful missions in the past few years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Prog...
I follow the EV scene closely and the quality and variety of EVs available in China is incredible. Yet most people don’t even know about it.
I've wondered about this as well. I remembered there were tons of news last year or so when their re-entry was "uncontrolled" and could potentially fall on populated areas. The news outlets made an absolute story out of that one, but barely any news about the station itself. I wonder if this is because there isn't enough info provided from the Chinese side in the first place, or if the (Western) news outlets just don't care.
The latter. Try following western China reporters for a while. You'll notice that a lot of them are only interested in pushing non-stories that portray China negatively, rather than reporting facts.
For example a couple weeks ago they made a huge amiunt of noise about Xi being couped. After Xi showed up they simply dropped that narrative and moved on to the next hysteric story.
I've been following various journalists for years and journalistic quality seems to decline rather than increase.
For example a couple weeks ago they made a huge amiunt of noise about Xi being couped. After Xi showed up they simply dropped that narrative and moved on to the next hysteric story.
I've been following various journalists for years and journalistic quality seems to decline rather than increase.
you could visit zhihu when it was the top topic for a few days
For some pictures check
https://english.news.cn/20221101/9c24720a1d7e4a71ac112a69572...
https://english.news.cn/20221101/9c24720a1d7e4a71ac112a69572...
I hope mankind can move beyond building space stations as a handful of modular small cylinders, and start building space stations the way they appear in science fiction: dozens of rooms, cubical exteriors, hallways, human height doors that open and close, stairs, elevators, hangars, a nuclear reactor instead of solar panels, and modules that rotate around an axis to create artificial gravity. And a more diversified color scheme than all white, which is sterile.
I would like to see this:
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/futuristic-architecture...
https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/04/77/75/80/360_F_477758033_1n2FBtz...
I would like to see this:
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/futuristic-architecture...
https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/04/77/75/80/360_F_477758033_1n2FBtz...
That requires a truly astounding amount of material. Unless the cost to place it in orbit gets within an order of magnitude of our current terrestrial freight, it's not happening.
Best bet is to construct these things in orbit, with materials sourced in orbit. But now you have a chicken and egg problem - need to send an incredible amount of material (and people) in order to (potentially!) save in the future.
Best bet is to construct these things in orbit, with materials sourced in orbit. But now you have a chicken and egg problem - need to send an incredible amount of material (and people) in order to (potentially!) save in the future.
That will probably require finding an efficient way to extract building materials in space (possibly from the moon), moving those materials to where you want your station (probably a Lagrange point), and building with those materials. These are non-trivial problems.
Also solar is far more efficient in space, without any annoying atmosphere in the way, it makes perfect sense to use it there.
Also solar is far more efficient in space, without any annoying atmosphere in the way, it makes perfect sense to use it there.
To stay within the protection of Earth's magnetosphere, habitable stations are put in low earth orbit. Low earth orbit entails atmospheric drag, and bigger stations have more drag as well as larger propellent requirements to boost.
Even if the cost to launch would be way cheaper, that weigth allowance would be used for useful stuff like laundry machines, more "sterile" modules as you call them for more research, and potentially for industrial applications like factories to build low-gravity-only components and low gravity biomedical applications.
Your vision is useful for tourism and little else.
Your vision is useful for tourism and little else.
While I too look forward to that day, at least for awhile longer due to physics, we are going to continue to have “rounded cylinders”. The main reason for this is very simple: Pressurized vessels. If you look at any type of air tank, and there is a reason they are a certain shape. The moment you do any type of “point” or “edge” it becomes a weak point in the design.
That said… you can always make a really large pressure vessel and put things inside…
That said… you can always make a really large pressure vessel and put things inside…
A torus shape has no sharp edges and can be pretty useful in space if it rotates.
Absolutely, but now you are talking pretty large structures… which will take time for us to get there.
We need a reason to do it first.
More habitable space, more luxurious accommodations, more energy generating capacity, more space for laboratory equipment and experiments.
More habitable space than the ground? Maybe some day but that would be a grim future indeed.
It sounds like you're saying that a bigger space station would enable more experimentation quantity and quality. I would still say that the benefits need to justify the costs. We've gotten better at being frugal/scrappy with how we use space resources, whether that's small experiments on the ISS or cubesats.
Here in SF, we have cars with bumper stickers that say "Leave space alone".
So it starts, the birth of space environmentalists.
So it starts, the birth of space environmentalists.
You should check out videos from inside Skylab if you haven't[1]. You can see people jogging around the perimeter like in 2001. It was so big that they worried that people who ended up in the middle would get stuck and have a hard time getting back to the walls.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZNKVnDvQY4&t=250s
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZNKVnDvQY4&t=250s
Zero g tends to expand living spaces in general due to them becoming truly 3-dimensional. The volume of a tiny room on Earth can easily accomodate several people in orbit. Large spaces don't make much sense in these conditions, not just because of inefficiency, but because of the inconvenience of being stranded in the middle. You need some kind of handles or separators within the immediate reach - why not have actual walls then.
Some more recent launch providers are focusing on greatly lowering $/kg to orbit, which is an absolutely necessary step for such visions.
I think this company is highly optimistic, but this might fit the bill:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/space-hotel-orbital-assem...
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/space-hotel-orbital-assem...
It’s a scam ran by an ex airline pilot with no engineering experience whatsoever. https://youtu.be/lue35X4DFeQ
Unfortunately it’s about $2,720 per 2.2 lbs in even the best case scenario.
SpaceX aims to reduce that by two orders of magnitude with Starship. It will be a big deal if they can achieve it.
Translation: 2.2 lbs is around 1kg
How have you come up with this number?
>For a SpaceX Falcon 9, the rocket used to access the ISS, the cost is just $2,720 per kilogram.
https://theconversation.com/how-spacex-lowered-costs-and-red...
https://theconversation.com/how-spacex-lowered-costs-and-red...
Floors and ceilings are concepts that only make sense in the context of gravity. The reason that science fiction movie space stations look like that is because they were filmed on earth.
If only we could put down our differences and use the Flat UI color scheme.
Hopefully they solve more important problems first though.
Isn't this a logical fallacy? Rocket scientists and engineers are going to best suited to getting stuff into orbit, they aren't simply going to be able to go a solve a "more important problem". Other people are already working on those things and are likely specialists.
It's hard to make items that achieve their function and can be transported into space. There are still improvements to be made with functionality and launch-ability. It's more important to focus on those - if you can make something fit a subjective standard of beauty at the same great. Except that's only 1 person's ideal so who cares.
It's true in a way but just pushes things back a level of causality: if we train more people as aerospace engineers, then we will have fewer trained people in other specialties. We have a finite supply of enthusiastic, smart young people to drive change. The best answer of course is "do both" and make sure more of our young people are happy, enthusiastic, and able to access necessary training and education.
There are also skills that overlap: every welder that SpaceX or Lockheed employs is one less welder able to help install a water treatment plant somewhere. Here again, the solution is to train more welders.
There are also skills that overlap: every welder that SpaceX or Lockheed employs is one less welder able to help install a water treatment plant somewhere. Here again, the solution is to train more welders.
> We have a finite supply of enthusiastic, smart young people to drive change
And currently most of them go into trading, which is a zero-sum game, or into building another social network that causes depression.
Look at top-ten list of high paying jobs, and ask youself how much crucial work for society they do
And currently most of them go into trading, which is a zero-sum game, or into building another social network that causes depression.
Look at top-ten list of high paying jobs, and ask youself how much crucial work for society they do
Trading is not exactly zero sum. Trading is price discovery + arbitrage, both of which are useful even if imperfect.
> if we train
People choose those paths on their own, not because some human industrial policy plucked them out of middle school and put them on that path.
People choose those paths on their own, not because some human industrial policy plucked them out of middle school and put them on that path.
Nonetheless, if they choose to be an aerospace engineer, they've chosen not to be, for example, a surgeon, or whatever else.
Yes, that is how choice and specialization work, we don't live in a feudal or autocratic system where heredity or fiat determine your life path.
I didn't say any of that?
You don't have a finite supply of people. Because people get to choose what they do. Even the dictatorships can't order people to become a good X if they don't have the interest.
It's the height of entitlement to think you're able to demand more of some profession come into existence. The worst regimes on earth can't manage it. The most you get to do is incentivize and make available the training and access and process to maybe get more of that. That's it.
It's the height of entitlement to think you're able to demand more of some profession come into existence. The worst regimes on earth can't manage it. The most you get to do is incentivize and make available the training and access and process to maybe get more of that. That's it.
We absolutely can do it, and have. Post-sputnik, government funding poured into STEM, and we convinced huge amounts of young people that they wanted to be scientists and engineers, and nobody was coerced into anything. We trained enough engineers in that short time to staff a literal moonshot program plus every half-baked weapons system idea that crossed a desk anywhere in the Pentagon plus tons of other more speculative stuff like packet switching networks (aka ethernet, the internet, etc.).
It's not necessary to dictate any individual person's career in order to shift the numbers in aggregate.
It's not necessary to dictate any individual person's career in order to shift the numbers in aggregate.
form follows function though.
It will happen after AGI singularity.
It's extremely hard to join large structures airtight, with joints being stronger than the material itself.
Soviet, and Russian spacecraft, and modules were traditionally made with extremely uneconomical method of machining the vessel from a single giant piece of aluminium to not to worry about joints, and their strength under space conditions.
Soviet, and Russian spacecraft, and modules were traditionally made with extremely uneconomical method of machining the vessel from a single giant piece of aluminium to not to worry about joints, and their strength under space conditions.
The difficulty is not about joining large structures airtight. otherwise we would have trouble with building commercial aircraft.
the problem is when you want to make something out from the absolute minimim weight possible due to economy of putting things into space, then you can't do with any connections whatsoever.
The pressure of -1 bar isn't particularly challenging engineering wise.
the problem is when you want to make something out from the absolute minimim weight possible due to economy of putting things into space, then you can't do with any connections whatsoever.
The pressure of -1 bar isn't particularly challenging engineering wise.
Jet airliners are not airtight, nor they deal with 1 bar of pressure difference.
In space, you have to make it airtight with most rubbers drying our, and constant intense thermal cycling.
In space, you have to make it airtight with most rubbers drying our, and constant intense thermal cycling.
I am somewhat curious what the (MRE-like???) pre packaged/factory-sealed Chinese astronaut food looks like, in its containers and when prepared for eating. And what the variety of the menu is.
Have we actually had the announcement that Russia is going to switch from sending cosmonauts to the ISS to sending them to China's instead? Or is that just kind of assumed, without announcement?
The claims about Russia cooperating on a space station refer to some hypothetical second station as Tiangong is not at an inclination where Soyuz would be able to reach from where it normally launches.
IIRC there was some speculation that they might work with ESA to launch crewed Soyuz from other locations, but that's obviously going to be completely off the table for a while now. So the only other option they'd have is launching from China, which doesn't really make much sense.
Besides that, recently (mainly after the last guy who ran Roscosmos was 'promoted' to some position related to the Ukraine war) Russia has pulled back on its "we don't need the ISS" rhetoric. Now they claim to be interested in sticking with the station beyond 2024 until their own station is ready, similar to NASA's plan of trying to have the ISS hold out until the 2-3 private space stations in various stages of development/construction are operational.
The issue of course being that it's highly unlikely that Russia will ever finish a replacement space station as their space industry has spent decades in decay struggling to get any non-military projects to make significant progress. Thus it's pretty likely that they won't have a station ready and will effectively lose their crewed spaceflight capability from not having any place to go to with it.
IIRC there was some speculation that they might work with ESA to launch crewed Soyuz from other locations, but that's obviously going to be completely off the table for a while now. So the only other option they'd have is launching from China, which doesn't really make much sense.
Besides that, recently (mainly after the last guy who ran Roscosmos was 'promoted' to some position related to the Ukraine war) Russia has pulled back on its "we don't need the ISS" rhetoric. Now they claim to be interested in sticking with the station beyond 2024 until their own station is ready, similar to NASA's plan of trying to have the ISS hold out until the 2-3 private space stations in various stages of development/construction are operational.
The issue of course being that it's highly unlikely that Russia will ever finish a replacement space station as their space industry has spent decades in decay struggling to get any non-military projects to make significant progress. Thus it's pretty likely that they won't have a station ready and will effectively lose their crewed spaceflight capability from not having any place to go to with it.
assumed? Where did you even get this idea? China's station has never been discussed in this context, and the current plan is to continue flying to ISS as is until '27 inclusive, then launch a new one.
Now let's hope it will inspire more countries, or even companies, to launch their own!
I'd prefer countries to cooperate more. There's no need to have dozens of national space stations or even launch systems. Some diversity is Ok, but it's just too damn expensive.
> I'd prefer countries to cooperate more. There's no need to have dozens of national space stations or even launch systems. Some diversity is Ok, but it's just too damn expensive.
The reason the Ariane (rocket) program exists is because the US put restrictions on European satellites if they wanted to launch on US rockets.
I'm all for cooperation, but often times you need a strong alternative in order to negotiate effectively.
The reason the Ariane (rocket) program exists is because the US put restrictions on European satellites if they wanted to launch on US rockets.
I'm all for cooperation, but often times you need a strong alternative in order to negotiate effectively.
Perfidious Albion 2.0
I think that was the hope for ISS in general with the rationale being that the cost would be just too expensive for any one country to bear. And ISS, not completely unlike the globalization and connections between countries would force some modicum of cooperation.
I think we were way too optimistic about ourselves as a species. Our cooperation does not last long.
I think we were way too optimistic about ourselves as a species. Our cooperation does not last long.
The ISS still makes Russians cooperate with other nations. That's quite remarkable given the underfunded state of Roskosmos and the insane dictatorship that is the Russian Federation.
It'll remain expensive if only countries are launching things. If commercial space launches continue to pick up steam it will get cheaper.
Nation states are the biggest customers in any case. And there is blurry line between what is a "commercial" offering.
If launches have nation state level prices then of course the only entities that could afford them would be nation states for the most part.
Right now I'm pretty sure Starlink is the biggest customer of a private space launch company. Yes I know it's pretty much the same company but look at the other satellite internet providers that are also using SpaceX: Viasat, Echostar (Hughesnet), Iridium, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Globalstar. That's most of the providers that are out there. This goes hand in hand with commercial space launch, as launches become cheaper and more available the share paid for by private business will increase. This is a good thing! Don't you want a college or even a high school to be able to afford to put a small satellite in orbit to do simple experiments? The only way people are going to get interested in space exploration again is if they themselves can actually do things in space, in person or remotely.
Right now I'm pretty sure Starlink is the biggest customer of a private space launch company. Yes I know it's pretty much the same company but look at the other satellite internet providers that are also using SpaceX: Viasat, Echostar (Hughesnet), Iridium, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Globalstar. That's most of the providers that are out there. This goes hand in hand with commercial space launch, as launches become cheaper and more available the share paid for by private business will increase. This is a good thing! Don't you want a college or even a high school to be able to afford to put a small satellite in orbit to do simple experiments? The only way people are going to get interested in space exploration again is if they themselves can actually do things in space, in person or remotely.
Yeah I agree. But competition breeds advancement. It has roots from capitalism all the way down to natural selection and survival of the fittest. It works.
There's no doubt in my mind that part of what's driving China in not just the space race is the fact that they want to beat the US.
There's no doubt in my mind that part of what's driving China in not just the space race is the fact that they want to beat the US.
In space exploration competition is just wasted effort. There may be some benefit, but only when the majority is dropping the ball. Cost effectiveness is already a major driver in innovation, and even inside a national space program there always is a high degree of competition between ideas and concepts.
All competition is wasted effort. Perfect collaboration always wins. But competition is what motivates humans, and unfortunately this inefficient way of working is what drives humanity forward.
China would not even bother with half the stuff they accomplished for space if it were not the existence of a competitive goal. The irony is what the US tried to do to contain them in actuality enabled them.
China would not even bother with half the stuff they accomplished for space if it were not the existence of a competitive goal. The irony is what the US tried to do to contain them in actuality enabled them.
Like parts of the ISS will be privatized after 2030. Could form parts of new space stations.
Now that could be the only space station, if the ISS gets decommissioned by 2031. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-missions/internatio...
The current economic implosion in China also brings the future of this station into question. One of Xi's biggest dreams for the future was his vision of the Xiong'An new city which has recently been abandoned after being only partially constructed. Big projects get shelved in hard times.
how much time do you expected to build a entire new city?
Very cool, so are there any particularly interesting science experiments that they plan on doing with it?
Only rated for 10 years operation. Given how expensive those space stations are, it seems very short.
This is a good thing. Space stations should be retired after 10 years. The ISS is so old that 85% of the time is spent on maintenance.
Aren’t there valuable things to learn from maintaining equipment in space over a long period of time?
Once yes, 10 times the same thing no?
Very impressive! I didn't even know they were working on this.
Same. Funny how US media completely blocks out positive stuff around China
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we'll wave from earth as they build their moon space station
our earth shapers, builders of history, failed miserably
congrats China, that's how you recognize a great civilization
our earth shapers, builders of history, failed miserably
congrats China, that's how you recognize a great civilization
Americans plan to have humans on the moon again before China does.
Artemis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program vs Chang’e: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Pr...
Artemis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program vs Chang’e: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Pr...
Artemis, the one that failed to launch recently?
EU about to give up Ariane to focus on SpaceX [1]
Isn't that a confession of failure, lack of confidence?
I suspect the US asked them to help them fund their missions
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-european-space-agency-missions...
EU about to give up Ariane to focus on SpaceX [1]
Isn't that a confession of failure, lack of confidence?
I suspect the US asked them to help them fund their missions
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-european-space-agency-missions...
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holoduke(7)
50 years late to the space race..
They might be late to join, but when the rest of competition have started racing towards start line... Does it matter.
It matters when people think China is a High-Tech powerhouse. Until 2017 they weren't even able to produce ball-pens domestically. They had to institute a five year long program to figure out how to make the small balls that go into the tip of it.
Also China is unapolegitically militarizing it's space presence, and that should bother you a lot more than any US ambitions in that regard.
Also China is unapolegitically militarizing it's space presence, and that should bother you a lot more than any US ambitions in that regard.
The US literally has a space force and probably the most military satellites in orbit
Yes. And they are a basically a democratic country, usually honor their treaties and are allied with my country. Generally countries who are "friends" with the US fare a lot better than "friends" of Russia or China. I do trust the US way more than China.
Also there is a big difference between recon satellites and hunter-killer satellites.
Russia is threatening to destroy Starlink satellites over support for Ukraine. In my opinion that has voided any treaties or intentions of not weaponizing space in a more direct way. The US (and its allies) now need to figure out how to clean up orbits wrecked by Russia and how to disable Russian satellites without wrecking useful orbits.
Also there is a big difference between recon satellites and hunter-killer satellites.
Russia is threatening to destroy Starlink satellites over support for Ukraine. In my opinion that has voided any treaties or intentions of not weaponizing space in a more direct way. The US (and its allies) now need to figure out how to clean up orbits wrecked by Russia and how to disable Russian satellites without wrecking useful orbits.
If Starlink is used by military it becomes legitimate military target including locations it is launched, controlled and manufactured from.
IMO the moon and Mars mean little, the real finish line is asteroid mining and orbital manufacturing.
Mining the moon is way easier.