South Korea's first fully indigenous rocket now on launch pad, ready for tests South Korea has revealed a test version of a locally developed rocket with satellite launch capabilities. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) hopes to launch the craft, known as "Nuri" or KSLV-II, in October 2021 with a mock payload. By May 2022 KARI wants to send up a 200kg satellite, a payload that should not tax …
Not really a fair comment. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes basically had to develop the technology required to get a man to the moon and safely back from scratch. They literally had to start with a blank sheet of paper and work it out from first principles, one step at a time, using a trial and error methodology. Nowadays, if you set out to build a launcher, you have 50+ years of previous experience, backed up by University courses and degrees, that will feed you the information you need. I'm not saying that its any easier from an engineering perspective, but all of the baseline science that underpins this sort of thing is now old hat.
Saying that, I would also like to wish them good luck and far (solar) sailing.
NASA imported the Army Ballistic Missile Agency team for Mercury. It was led by Wernher von Braun, who already had many years of rocket experience. The first Mercury-Redstone flights used modified Redstone rockets previously developed by von Braun. I think "blank sheet of paper" is over-stating things a bit.
"Blank sheet of paper" is not over stating it at all.
Rockets are rockets, but getting a living human into space and back, still living, was complete unknown territory. As was building mechanisms that worked in zero-g and vacuum. Astrodynamics was known, but actual techniques to track stuff far away in space, and methods of rendezvous and docking were non-existent.
Doctors argued over if it was even possible to swallow in space. Would they choke on their own saliva in zero-g? That's the sort of level of "unknown" it was.
Dealing with vacuum is it's own set of new challenges. Does your lube work, or does it boil uselessly away or harden into a lump? Does your paint outgas and leave a film all over your optics and instruments? That's just the start of it.
Edit: there was also a terror that the Moon was covered in a soft dust that would instantly swallow spacecraft, never to be seen again. The fact it was possible to softland a probe at all was a milestone.
Even his later rockets didn't really survive the trip, only a tiny crew module came back.
It's like a jet fighter where the pilot successfully ejects at the end of each flight rather than landing.
Took surprisingly long for a rocket to land properly - like Thunderbirds intended
They didn't start from a blank slate - they've been building shorter range rockets for years and have already launched a satellite with a Russian first stage and their own upper stages.
Comparing the development of a rocket to carry astronauts to a rocket to launch satellites and probes is an apples to oranges comparison.
I applaud them for what they've done. A pint of Hite maekju for the boffins.
The US 'ban' on Korea building missiles?
S. Korea was on the US side in the MASH war, so it isn't a defeated Germany can't have fighter planes deal.
It's not like the US didn't want to upset relations with N. Korea
Although S. Korea was a military dictatorship until recently (1980s?) it was a very pro-America military dictatorship and hardly like to be a geo-political threat to the USA
Jimmy Carter, who implemented the policy, officially stated it was to avoid an arms race on the Korean peninsula but realistically it was to constrain South Korea to weapons that can reach North Korea and not Japan should that "very pro-America military dictatorship" ever turn on its benefactors like all the other ones did.
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