China successfully launches its biggest-ever space truck to fire up its space station ambitions China has successfully launched a prototype of its next-generation spacecraft. The unmanned craft launched yesterday afternoon from a testing site in Wengchang on the country's southernmost tip. A capsule prototype detached from the rocket eight minutes after take off and was sent into orbit. The craft used a modified version …
Am I missing something?
Nasa's Space Launcher System carrying capacity is set to be 130 tonnes (one U.S. ton = 2000 lbs) = 260,000 lbs (or about 117,934 kg) That is NOT actually a lot of cargo weight capacity! I just realized that fancy big black triangular aerospacecraft parked at YVR already carries four 40 foot containers where the cargo weight carrying capacity is 32,500 kg each (71,650 lbs) which is a total of 286,600 lbs or 143 tonnes ........ :-O :-O Whoooooooooaaaaaaahhhhh !!!!
Soooooo, TIL (Today I Learned) our low to high orbit space cargo capacity is a LOT LARGER than I thought!
V
Nope... they also snatched several dozen full V-2s, and quite a few railroadcarsfulls of engines, pumps, etc.
The US spent a while modifying V-2s and launching them to see what happened before we ran out and actually had to produce home-grown versions.
Besides when you steal the scientists that produced it, what are you stealing besides the actual technology?
Well I guess China will need to mine (steal) more intellectual property in order to make the space program a little safer.
To be fair, NASA got a lot of help from Russia who are the top-of-the-tree when it comes to rocket engines.
So Chinese space agency do not necessarily get their "secrets" from NASA (or the US for that matter). All they need is for Premier Xi to ask Putin and the "deed is done", Comrade.
In his book 'Ignition!' Dr John Clark provides an informal history of the development of liquid rocket propellants from the perspective of someone who was there (working within the post-war US navy research program). Although published in 1971 it is a very readable book with a foreward by some friend of his and fellow chemist called Isaac Asimov. In the book he describes how US research into propellants was informed by the extensive work undertaken by the Germans before and during WW2. After the war German reasearch and stockpiles of hyrogen peroxide were split between the Brits and the US for further study.
So scientists may have been sequestered but here is an account showing how the German chemical technology was acquired and further developed. Clark describes how in practice the German chemistry, focussed on peroxides, though great for relatively low-power thrusting was not sufficiently powerful for ICBMs and, anyway, it freezes at a relatively high temperature. Instead, being able to work with existing stocks allowed US chemists to discard peroxides quickly and focus on other fuels and oxidizers and ultimately the predominant use of various forms of hyrdazine and nitric acid based oxidizers.
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