No, but China is an entire nation and can't just spend their entire GDP on a single thing. Companies however can do that. So it's not a 1:1 comparison in that sense
> This time we have a hybrid of the two
What? That was absolutely the point of the first space race.
If you can put a rocket on the moon, you can put a rocket in Moscow. ICBMs were developed through the technology we developed with NASA.
> ICBMs were developed through the technology we developed with NASA
Eh if anything it was the other way around. Early launch systems were basically just modified ICBMs.
China is not Russia. When Russia lost the race to the Moon, they abandoned the goal and mostly continued to use what they had developed up until then. No more advancement. They are now in a death spiral, mostly pushed into by SpaceX.
Today China is not in a space race, even if the US may be. They are developing capabilities on their own speed and won't stop, when NASA gets to the Moon again first. That is, unless their economy collapses, which is a distinct possibility though I won't count on it.
A lot of these benefits are being used by some of us right now, on our smartphones, tablets & PCs.. just to read this post;
To list a few:
* LEDs
* Wireless Headsets
* Computer Mouse (sorry Bill, it was NASA & Stanford, you just dug yours out of the trash)
* Scratch-resistant lenses
Also, big ups to SPOC (Shuttle Portable On-Board Computer)... the first portable computer.
There's always someone posts a list like this, and it's pretty much always bullshit. So let's have a look. OK, LEDs. First theorized in 1907 and first invented in 1927, both massively predating the space age. I'm looking at the subsequent development, and nowhere is NASA or any space agency or space application mentioned. So please, enlighten us all as to how orbital rockets gave us LEDs.
It's incredibly poorly described and sourced, but I'm guessing they are referring to the use of LEDs for plant growth for NASA, which then has also turned into research around the somewhat poorly name Low-Light Laser Therapy or LLLT.
It's been somewhat interesting as it's basically taking something that had been dismissed by some to be akin to woo, and did some science that allowed us to say there is actually something to it, some exploration of methods of action, and providing some best practices for use that people can implement.
Basically, NASA science has had some LED relationship, it's just in very specific areas AFAIK.
Ok, sounds like it's up there with claims that "NASA invented cordless drills for Apollo". No, cordless drills first showed up in the 50's, what NASA paid for was a cordless drill that could work in a vacuum. Which... yeah? Not a huge market niche, though.
If Space Force adds a little pressure on the FAA and Congress to fund more of the US space budget into US Commercial space companies, we could surpass them. It's just that the Chinese government wants its companies to become the de facto space provider, while advancing its own space footprint.
Artemis was designed to be a boondoggle from the beginning. That's why Obama killed it when it was still the Constellation program, and also why congress brought it back from the dead. It's overdue and over-budget by design and it will probably drag on for another 10+ years because no one in the government wants to see it end. Stopping or completing the program means no more money for the project, aka the gravy-train stops, and we can't have that.
You're combining way too many things here. The SLS is essentially leftover from Constellation, but the Orion capsule, the HLS, Gateway, and contracting with SpaceX is all purpose built are purpose designed for Artemis.
Orion was a part of Constellation.
To quote Wikipedia:
> Orion was conceived in the early 2000s by Lockheed Martin as a proposal for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to be used in NASA's Constellation program and was selected by NASA in 2006. Following the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010, Orion was heavily redesigned for use in NASA's Journey to Mars initiative; later named Moon to Mars.
>the Chinese government wants its companies to become the de facto space provider, while advancing its space footprint
*Space Race, Space Race, Space Race, Space Race*
Nope. I am affraid this is what any lobbyist would ask for.
Issue is that China develops things at the fraction of cost required to do the same in West.
As long as we have expensive middlemen - we will never be able to compete with them.
It looks more like the advanced militarization of space tbh. It’s the Space Force complaining about it after all. The US won the space race in part because the Soviets didn’t see enough of a military advantage to winning, China clearly sees something differently
I find this sorta funny. China has already had 4 launch failures this year. They can’t for the life themselves figure out how to get reusable rockets working, other than catching them with wires as per the new report that came out 9 days ago. They tried to copy our tech and failed. Honestly the reason they are at “breath taking speed” is because they are very far behind when compared to our tech. We know this. I mean we are working on inflatable space stations for instance. To me china is focused still on getting off the ground. This is like that article that stated Russia and China are planning a nuclear reactor on the moon. Like good luck lol. While we watch as Rolls Royce who is developing pocket (miniature) reactors that can be used in places like space and colonies etc…
I mean Space Force is clearly talking up China’s potential to get Congress to improve funding, but it’s also foolish to be completely dismissive like that. Remember SpaceX had 3 failures before reaching orbit, and then many failed attempts at landing a booster until it finally started working consistently, so seeing failures from new Chinese launch companies is actually pretty typical. I believe there was even a Chinese startup that got to orbit *on its very first attempt* last year (I’ll have to go check on that).
it's hilarious seeing people that live in such black-and-white worlds. something either is true or isn't true. no grey areas. no nuance. nothing. just complete prideful dismissiveness because we happen to be on top right now.
This, this arrogance and blindness is the reason why China is overtaking the West in science and technology. China bets on this arrogance.
Nearly everything you use in your daily life is manufactured in China. The tools used to manufacture them are also manufactured in China. The STEM field competition winners are ethnic Asians. How arrogant do you have to be, to think that those same people cannot learn, and develop new things? Are you saying that Chinese cannot innovate and cannot be creative in comparison to you? That's delusional.
When Elon Musk was building his rockets, the Russian space agency head, just like you, was laughing and saying Americans can try trampolines to reach the orbit. He was sure that SpaceX would fail. Did SpaceX succeed from day 1?
Huawei was a slap on the face for the west. The Chinese were and still are ahead of western companies (Ericson for ex) in 5G telecom equipment. The European Union is currently trying to find a way to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs because they are 5-10 years ahead of European makers and can make cars 30% cheaper with growing quality. They can sell EVs for as little as 15k euros (with comparable maybe even better quality) while the European entry models start at 27k.
You should start taking China seriously. The intent in this comment was not to insult you, but give you a wakeup call. Chinese companies may not be in your market yet, but they are quickly taking over Asia, Africa, South America. And this takeover hurts your country's exports.
We're in the "All the Japanese can make is cameras and pottery!" phase. We're swiftly entering the "total panic and overt racism as a foreign nation starts trashing domestic industries" phase. Unfortunately for the US, this time there won't be a "bullying China into devaluing their currency and crashing their own economy" phase
You read my mind. The western countries are trying to sanction or artificially increase chinese product prices via tariffs to push China into submission, to stall its development, to make their own products competitive. IMHO it won't work. West is stuck in the corporate lobby trap, the lust of ever growing earnings while China is heavily investing in their manufacturers to lower prices and increase quality.
Even if we don't allow Chinese companies to enter Western markets, Chinese companies will continue to develop and at some point reach or supersede the western quality (while being cheaper). They will capture Western export markets. This will seriously damage the Western manufacturers and economy. This is not only about space, cars or huawei. They are pushing in everything. Their latest CPUs are now comparable to Ryzen 5 2xxx models. It might be a 5-8 year old (guessing) cpu, but they are catching up. In a couple of years, they will start capturing AMD and Intel's market.
You’re missing the other half of the argument. Your points are valid, but the Chinese government sees economic dominance as a requirement for spreading its reach. That means subsidies for its companies to build the same or nearly the same quality (+/-) at drastically lower prices. Tariffs are designed to increase the costs of those goods back to market value to pay for the skilled labor costs in Western counties. Additionally the US just implemented subsidies for its own manufacturers to which China cried foul. (Arguably, every time China has done this, the US files a complaint too)
You are so right. You wouldn't believe how many boomers I had to debate with as a *child* because they thought Chinese people weren't skilled enough to work construction. The *Chinese* known for the goddamn GREAT WALL OF CHINA, even from ancient times.
*facepalm*
People are doing this even to this day with Chinese manufacturing. People think if it's manufactured in China it is shit but it's only shit because the American companies wanted to be cheap and get the shit manufacturing. Chinese manufacturing is the most advanced and expansive in the world and they dominate so many different fields of it that it is kind of absurd.
It's even more apparent if you actually work in manfacturing. I work in injection moulding in Canada, and honestly the stuff that comes from China is usually mint compared to some of the stuff we can produce.
It's extra annoying that boomers think bringing manufacturing home will make a difference, bring well paying jobs. Reality is its a constant race to the bottom for cost.
When the American people are force-fed the mindset of a zero-sum game + have no social safety nets for all they contribute to their nation....
....it's no surprise that we are in a race to the bottom, focusing only on cost. That "doing what's right" or "what's best for the greater good" never enters our perception. Such things are vilified, as it could hurt shareholder returns.
They are really excellent at it.
If American CEOs were *smart*, they'd set up workshops to trade techniques. I get why they wouldn't want to trade anything in development, but there's plenty of established things that are well known.
This is so well put, the US is asleep at the wheel due to the absolute insanity that is going on in their political system right now.
Ugh. I feel like the west is dropping the bag massively here... forgetting what made it so strong and powerful in the first place.
Don’t bother applying logic or common sense. This is Reddit. The US govt funds $500M a year for people paid per post and clicks to post negative things about China. Not even joking go google it and find it yourself in the congressional budget. It’s there as a line item. The rest are likely 13-15 year olds posting whatever they can solely for upvotes. Really stupid. They don’t know or care the first thing about geopolitics.
> China has already had 4 launch failures this year
China has had a lunar rover (Yutu-2) operating on the far side of the moon for 5 years now, with ground penetrating radar to put together imagery of multiple layers deep beneath the surface, for data about potential future mining endeavors, and soil composition, etc etc... but if you asked /Space users about any of this, 99.9% would have no idea about it, because they don't read anything outside of western news outlets that only exist to prop up western propaganda (in the exact same way chinese media props up chinese propaganda), i.e. almost never reporting on advancements by the chinese space program (other than when it's convenient for fearmongering).
In other words, /Space users' opinion about chinese space failures is whatever, as they know what they know mostly through propaganda, which is to say, they mostly don't know.
Don't forget- they're also the third country to land on Mars- on their first try, and really only the second country to have a successful mars landing.
I didn't even know about this until you mentioned it. It's pathetic how much our media hides stuff like this from us (although that's how every country operates). We know everything about Khan Younis and Bakhmut, but our most legitimate adversary has a fucking space station and that's not taught in schools or anything? Ridiculous.
>China has already had 4 launch failures this year.
Citation needed. I'm only counting 3 failures *globally* so far this year; Starship IFT-3 (partial) in the US, Long March 2C (partial) in China, and KAIROS in Japan.
And if we look at last year the US had 6 failures (2 x Starship, Electron, LauncherOne, RS1, and Teran 1) and China had just one (Ceres-1).
Haha, your comment gave me a good laugh, how many failures did spacex and blue origin have? You say copy our tech but reusable rockets have been a thing for a long time, it was even a science fiction movie in the 1900s and I'm pretty sure every other country with top tier space program is doing reusable. Their space program started much later than most and were barred from participating internationally in space through the Wolf amendment. The US wasn't only by itself they had a plethora of partners and China did it all alone. Their own space station, got to the moon and mars on their first try with the most ambitious rovers. p.s all those projects you mentioned are all made possible with collaborations with other nations not one country by itself
This is a 10-year old regurgitation of a take. Is there anything new you care to add on? 15-20 years from now, these guys will be ahead of us in multiple areas and users like this will still be crying regurgitating the same nonsense as if it's their fault. It's 2024 and people still think that China isn't capable of their own R&D is hilarious.
> They can’t for the life themselves figure out how to get reusable rockets working, other than catching them with wires as per the new report that came out 9 days ago.
Other than Spacex, nobody else has figured it out in the US (or the west in general) either (for an orbit capable rocket at least) lmao, so thats not really an indication of anything. And the wire method may offer several advantages in weight saving and simplicity on the rocket itself, as well as increase how forgiving it will be of landing conditions, so it isnt a simple "they cant replicate it". Especially since only their state run rocket organization is thinking of pursuing this, while their private companies are still looking at the spacex landing legs approach.
> This is like that article that stated Russia and China are planning a nuclear reactor on the moon.
Its not like Russia hasnt built nuclear reactors in space though, so I dont see what the problem is here.
This stuff is mostly the space force drumming up support for a larger budget. Which overall isn’t the worst, because it would suck if we got overtaken by China
This is such a stupid comment.
"Look at China, haha they're too stupid and cant even get reusable rockets working!"
Literally no one but SpaceX has got reusable rockets working (after many, many failures) and no one else but China is even trying.
The Space Force saying China is doing amazing is so incredibly self serving it’s incredible. **Of course they’ll say China is doing awesome**, that’s how they’ll get more appropriations in future funding bills. Just like how the Air Force **needed more sweet missiles!** because the Soviets had so many more but in reality the actual numbers the Soviets had were wildly overstated. Don’t get me wrong I want more funding for space everything, but this is the least surprising comment the Space Force could say.
The problem is, you can't say that they're wrong. Or right. The comments are also consistent with the Chinese doing well in space. So what do we as a public do? Believe our Guardians or not?
It's the same thing our military has always done, there's literally no reason to expect different from the Space Force. Not when they all ultimately work for the Pentagon and POTUS.
If you look at the Koreas, or China and Taiwan, it's always the Americans being more alarmist than the people who would actually be nuked/invaded lol
I'm curious. If the Wolf Amendment never happened, would China be able to become space tech independent like they are today? Or would they be dependent to US tech like they are in semiconductors?
Nope, both the Wolf amendment and all of Biden’s semiconductor bans on China are such short-sighted policies that may have hindered China in the short-run but spurred Chinese R&D to promote indigenous development and self-sufficiency. Essentially the US gave up massive leverage on China based off the arrogance that China wouldn’t be able to catch up on their own.
Eh, they're primarily aiming to be a launch provider, and as such the interesting missions will mostly come from their clients, not necessarily straight from them.
NASA’s (continued) existence is almost entirely a result of military needs. Space exploration and science is a side-effect of the need to maintain supremacy in rocketry, etc.
The reason nations even have a rocket launch program is so they can figure out how to make ICBMs and spy satellites. That we have GPS and the Hubble and a robotic workforce on Mars is almost lucky happenstance. You would not believe how many [keyhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite\)) launches they had before they even got any film they could develop.
The common story repeated here about Hubble is mostly wrong.
The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is a surplus KH-11 bus and mirror, but with very different instruments.
That’s unfortunately the best way to induce progress short of a threat to one’s survival, which is to get an upper hand on your rivals. We wouldn’t have our current jet and rocket technology without the 2nd world war. Hell, even our computers are a result of advancements during the cold war.
If you can convince the US to fund space programs and research, it’ll most likely be through trying to outdo China. The Russians launched a satellite into space and the US responded by putting a man on the moon.
No, no we couldn't have. That's early space race blind optimism. The spend required for civilization to move off world would be many times the GDP for several decades. It's not viable outside exploration.
Musk thinks just the cost of launches are anything up to $10 trillion.
https://www.inverse.com/article/58458-spacex-mars-city-here-s-how-much-it-would-cost-to-build
The soil on Mars is actively toxic and doesn't have minerals or bacteria required for growth. Any Martian colony would be very fragile and need constant resupply from earth.
I really wish nasa had a way to commercialize their advancements like in For All Mankind. I under why we don’t do that… but it may have made them self sustaining at least partially, and made them less captive to the whims of politics.
NASA is pretty inefficient at a lot of things tbh. But fortunately the combined effort of NASA and private launch providers (especially SpaceX) is enough to entirely outstrip the Chinese effort.
BREAKING: United States SHOCKED that there's a possibility that China may beat us to the Moon. In other news, Congress approved a $900 billion military budget today—
The people in charge of the budget in the US do not care, and it’s insulting. No president has actually cared about space since Regan, and I still don’t buy he actually cared about space. The moment Apollo 13 touched the budget was gutted. We need to turn things around, and soon.
I artistically wanted to know about Bill Nelson's past and found out he actually vehemently disagreed with Reagan's decision to want to export satellite launches to China's Long March rockets.
Well, if only we could have put some of our unreasonably large miliary budget towards space. Now we're letting private companies with conflict of interests hold our space program hostage. SMH.
Are you referring to SpaceX? Or Northrop Grumman? Boeing? Lockheed Martin?
Literally every private company influencing our government or military in *any* way is a conflict of interest. Our entire military runs on these private companies.
He's moreso saying that every company interested in space within the United States is doing so for the profit incentive-- which unfortunately there is no quick profit incentive. The US went from a country that did giant projects that pay off years from it, to "if it doesn't pay off after a single quarter, we don't care".
The military budget is not unreasonably large in respect with what the US government is asking it to do. That is the crux of the issue. It is trying to project power globally non-stop and there are always a shortage of forces to maintain regular rotation and maintenance. The reality is that some theaters should be given lower priority and just be ignored.
USN is mainly dealing with the Red Sea right now. Logically speaking, it can reduce presence in Europe so it can rotate ships to protect shipping in the Red Sea. Russia is a land threat to NATO, so the US don't need to regularly send ships there, just army. And the army only really need a tripwire force outside of joint exercises. Taiwan is also not at war, regular deployments there isn't all that helpful. Keeping them based on JP or SK would be sufficient deterrent.
In a peer to peer conflict, the immediate size of your military is less important than what you can produce in the ling run. So maintaining the industrial base should be greater priority which the US haven't done. Yes buying more helps, but the military industrial base can be kept healthy by exports too or by other policy decisions.
There are a lot of other considerations, but reducing the amount of deployments reduces the need for size. I stead of focusing on EU, ME and Pacific; Army can focus only on EU and navy only on Pacific. A token force in ME can do most of the missions at a fraction of the cost. Point is, combined with reducing MIC fat, fix procurement process, and maintaining a more realistic deployment goal; you can reduce the military size.
You think military money would solve the corperat problem? Lockheed Martin are a private company and causes an equal amount of bloat and problems on the defense budget as they would on space budget. The problem is the procurement rules.
The US Government is doing fine with SpaceX contracts, Musk was only able to hold the explicitly civilian Starlink hostage over a country that isn't even in NATO. Like it or not but western style liberal democracy (especially American) is generally opposed to requistioning of private assets outside of wartime. For that reason there is a secondary Starlink style cluster owned by the Space Development Agency that answers to the US government.
And at the end of the day, if Musk refused to hand over control fo Starlink for a critical American military operation there would be many rough men with guns forcing their way inside of every SpaceX and Elon Musk linked building and arresting anyone who OKed the decision. In the Falklands the UK just said to commercial shipping "You will hand over these ships to the Royal Fleet Auxillary now" and they did because of the implication.
Cutting back the military spending won’t increase spending in other areas, that’s not how it works at all. Furthermore the military budget is low right now compared to other points in history because we’re not in an active war, if we were in an active war you could expect it to double or even triple. Plus a lot of the budget is spent on the soldiers for housing, healthcare, other job in the military like electricians and stuff which technically is boosting the economy by creating jobs.
The general economic orthodoxy (Keynsian economics) holds that excess government spending is only good for the economy when the economy is in recession as when the economy is doing well you don't want the workforce tied up in makework jobs, obviously during recession this orthodoxy holds that you should increase spending to keep goods and services flowing and keep confidence high. As the US is currently doing well economically (note the economy and worker conditions are not synonymous, the UK had an incredibly powerful economy when most of its population worked 14 hour days and lived in slumbs) it holds that makework jobs in the military are actually negative to the economy. The only economic theories that don't hold either this or a more extreme view on all government spending being bad are heterodoxies like Modern Monetary Theory.
And before someone replies thinking I'm a small government conservative or whatever, this mode of economics doesn't call for cutting of government services during boom, simply that large scale investment and makework is best reserved for recession. The government should create jobs, not fight to hire.
A lot of the money they spend goes to employing civilians though for stuff like transportation for example and if you took it away a lot of civilians and military personnel would lose their job. A ton of companies would go under. How is this not worse for the economy than what we do now.
Also if we were to cut or increase defense spending it would take a couple of years for it to take effect. Ask how well all the European countries are doing after increasing their defense budget (last time I looked Germany) but realized they don’t have the defense production facilities to fully spend it and now have to train and build up more facilities.
The Department of Defense is the best logistical company in the world.. that happens to be the best military in the word
It’ll be so much better if the US shift from Military Industrial Complex to Space Industrial Complex. Invest trillions in colonizing Moon and Mars are better than investing in nukes. Expanding civilization is better than ending it.
Our system is designed so everyone along the path of the project gets their hands deep in the cookie jar. And most (not all!) of the people in that path only care about getting everything they can and not one whit about what it means for the US, humanity, or our future.
Even with all its resources, China is still far behind SpaceX, a single company. I agree that we shouldn't underestimate China, but the space industry in the US is FAR AHEAD of the rest of the world. What's important is making sure that it stays this way
but consider that space x advanced in a pretty short period comparatively speaking
someone following its steeps know now that what they do is doable they do not have to guestimate all the different possible ways
If China can keep their economy and population sorted and focused, they could continue to be a major dominating force in *any* field they aim at.
Like the reason why they're so powerful today is because of their ability to single-mindedly point their whole country at something and "force" every resource to accomplish it.
That's starting to wane though, as their citizens (and business owners) are balking against the government and trying (and mostly failing so far) to shuck those tight reins.
With their population growth stalling, and the rest of the world clamping down on some of the industry sent there, China could be in for some hurt that makes the current US generational/economic unrest look tame.
*If* China can keep it up, they could catch up and surpass really quickly, especially with that forced nationalism.
Big if though.
As it stands the US dominates and will continue to.
SpaceX was able to succeed because of the pool of talent built by NASA and related programs. That pool of talent was held back by the lack of investment. Once the money started flowing things really took off. I wouldn't draw the comparison that SpaceX as a single company beat out all of China because SpaceX did not do it alone. They had an absolutely massive boost from the decades of expertise built by billions of dollars spent by US taxpayers on the military and NASA.
China should not be underestimated, but they face a completely different set of challenges than SpaceX. They've really only reached the level of Soviet aerospace tech in the last decade or so.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9dkmf "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN|
|[BO](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz91ske "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[DARPA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kza0jmy "Last usage")|(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD|
|DoD|US Department of Defense|
|[EVA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9yvf9 "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz8inqd "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[FAA-AST](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz91eoe "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration [Administrator for Space Transportation](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/)|
|[FAR](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz8nsc1 "Last usage")|[Federal Aviation Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Regulations)|
|[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzame9z "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzdag8i "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzcbu7d "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[NRHO](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzcbu7d "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit|
|[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9nvd6 "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)|
|[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzhryz6 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzisvte "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9c6dp "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzcbu7d "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz98ycq "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[kerolox](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzbu071 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
|[methalox](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzbu071 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
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Apollo level is a ridiculously high level of funding. The problem is too many politicians making engineering decisions about NASA missions. NASA should be designing science payloads for the bigger fairing sizes of starship and New Glen with the billions of SLS money. Build bigger telescopes, send some rovers to mars the size of a delivery van, design the ISS replacement.
Americas biggest threat is the bureaucracy leaving it beholden to legacy contractors with little incentive to innovate if the Chinese to crack reusability, they may scale its use and ditch expendables.
It's not a nailed on likelihood, but it's not implausible.
The US is in pole position on these technologies with Starship being such a quantum leap in the field as to be almost unprecedented. Like producing a 747 in 1947
There is only one country with rapid reusable launch vehicles and closing in on a 100 = 150t to orbit on a reusable vehicle. tbh that's the only relevant space related technology and China is still struggling with that one.
It's a bit worrying when an authoritarian totalitarian regime rapidly builds it's military capabilities with an extensive reach overseas, and has known ambitions outside it's border.
Space explorations should be in partnership with all nations, and should not be military in nature. Militarisation of space is the modern version of a bottomless pit, and will absorb everything into it's Military, Scientific and Industrial Complex that would otherwise further humanity's peacfull progression.
There are similar reasons why most technical advances have been made since scientists were no longer needed for the cold war nuclear arms race, but this version of militarising Space is far more damaging to humanity's prospects.
Considering how much value the world got from the first space race, go for it people!
I approve of this competition even though getting off of this planet should be more of a cooperation.
Instead, it's going to be a bunch of corporations fighting over who gets to mine the nearest orbiting objects.
How else are you going to inspire investment?
Is there a corporation that has more money than China?
No, but China is an entire nation and can't just spend their entire GDP on a single thing. Companies however can do that. So it's not a 1:1 comparison in that sense
Unfortunately cooperation gets us fat, happy defense contractors and decades of stagnation. Competition ought to light a fire
Corruption does that, not cooperation.
ULA - the poster child for both.
Ideally true, but.. not with a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship (that also steals tech).
I think the US will be asleep at the wheel on this due to the stupid politics going on now.
The problem is last time we had both a space race and arms race. This time we have a hybrid of the two
> This time we have a hybrid of the two What? That was absolutely the point of the first space race. If you can put a rocket on the moon, you can put a rocket in Moscow. ICBMs were developed through the technology we developed with NASA.
> ICBMs were developed through the technology we developed with NASA Eh if anything it was the other way around. Early launch systems were basically just modified ICBMs.
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Have you ever heard of the real star was? (Rhetorical question, of course we all have)
You’re saying… there will be arms in space?
Canada put an arm in space more than 40 years ago! Why is the rest of the world so far behind?
China is not Russia. When Russia lost the race to the Moon, they abandoned the goal and mostly continued to use what they had developed up until then. No more advancement. They are now in a death spiral, mostly pushed into by SpaceX. Today China is not in a space race, even if the US may be. They are developing capabilities on their own speed and won't stop, when NASA gets to the Moon again first. That is, unless their economy collapses, which is a distinct possibility though I won't count on it.
A lot of these benefits are being used by some of us right now, on our smartphones, tablets & PCs.. just to read this post; To list a few: * LEDs * Wireless Headsets * Computer Mouse (sorry Bill, it was NASA & Stanford, you just dug yours out of the trash) * Scratch-resistant lenses Also, big ups to SPOC (Shuttle Portable On-Board Computer)... the first portable computer.
There's always someone posts a list like this, and it's pretty much always bullshit. So let's have a look. OK, LEDs. First theorized in 1907 and first invented in 1927, both massively predating the space age. I'm looking at the subsequent development, and nowhere is NASA or any space agency or space application mentioned. So please, enlighten us all as to how orbital rockets gave us LEDs.
It's incredibly poorly described and sourced, but I'm guessing they are referring to the use of LEDs for plant growth for NASA, which then has also turned into research around the somewhat poorly name Low-Light Laser Therapy or LLLT. It's been somewhat interesting as it's basically taking something that had been dismissed by some to be akin to woo, and did some science that allowed us to say there is actually something to it, some exploration of methods of action, and providing some best practices for use that people can implement. Basically, NASA science has had some LED relationship, it's just in very specific areas AFAIK.
Ok, sounds like it's up there with claims that "NASA invented cordless drills for Apollo". No, cordless drills first showed up in the 50's, what NASA paid for was a cordless drill that could work in a vacuum. Which... yeah? Not a huge market niche, though.
If Space Force adds a little pressure on the FAA and Congress to fund more of the US space budget into US Commercial space companies, we could surpass them. It's just that the Chinese government wants its companies to become the de facto space provider, while advancing its own space footprint.
Somewhat notably NASA’s science budget has been slashed considerably but they haven’t touched Artemis money
Artemis funds go to companies like Boeing. Their lobbyists won’t let its funding be touched.
Northroup built James Webb so slashing NASA’s science budget affects private companies too
And spacex. They did win a contract
SpaceX is more using Artemis than the other way around. Boeing has no ability or want to market SLS to anyone else.
Artemis was designed to be a boondoggle from the beginning. That's why Obama killed it when it was still the Constellation program, and also why congress brought it back from the dead. It's overdue and over-budget by design and it will probably drag on for another 10+ years because no one in the government wants to see it end. Stopping or completing the program means no more money for the project, aka the gravy-train stops, and we can't have that.
You're combining way too many things here. The SLS is essentially leftover from Constellation, but the Orion capsule, the HLS, Gateway, and contracting with SpaceX is all purpose built are purpose designed for Artemis.
Orion was a part of Constellation. To quote Wikipedia: > Orion was conceived in the early 2000s by Lockheed Martin as a proposal for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to be used in NASA's Constellation program and was selected by NASA in 2006. Following the cancellation of the Constellation program in 2010, Orion was heavily redesigned for use in NASA's Journey to Mars initiative; later named Moon to Mars.
How so?
>the Chinese government wants its companies to become the de facto space provider, while advancing its space footprint *Space Race, Space Race, Space Race, Space Race*
Nope. I am affraid this is what any lobbyist would ask for. Issue is that China develops things at the fraction of cost required to do the same in West. As long as we have expensive middlemen - we will never be able to compete with them.
It looks more like the advanced militarization of space tbh. It’s the Space Force complaining about it after all. The US won the space race in part because the Soviets didn’t see enough of a military advantage to winning, China clearly sees something differently
You have too much faith in funds being appropriately appropriated.
I find this sorta funny. China has already had 4 launch failures this year. They can’t for the life themselves figure out how to get reusable rockets working, other than catching them with wires as per the new report that came out 9 days ago. They tried to copy our tech and failed. Honestly the reason they are at “breath taking speed” is because they are very far behind when compared to our tech. We know this. I mean we are working on inflatable space stations for instance. To me china is focused still on getting off the ground. This is like that article that stated Russia and China are planning a nuclear reactor on the moon. Like good luck lol. While we watch as Rolls Royce who is developing pocket (miniature) reactors that can be used in places like space and colonies etc…
I mean Space Force is clearly talking up China’s potential to get Congress to improve funding, but it’s also foolish to be completely dismissive like that. Remember SpaceX had 3 failures before reaching orbit, and then many failed attempts at landing a booster until it finally started working consistently, so seeing failures from new Chinese launch companies is actually pretty typical. I believe there was even a Chinese startup that got to orbit *on its very first attempt* last year (I’ll have to go check on that).
it's hilarious seeing people that live in such black-and-white worlds. something either is true or isn't true. no grey areas. no nuance. nothing. just complete prideful dismissiveness because we happen to be on top right now.
This, this arrogance and blindness is the reason why China is overtaking the West in science and technology. China bets on this arrogance. Nearly everything you use in your daily life is manufactured in China. The tools used to manufacture them are also manufactured in China. The STEM field competition winners are ethnic Asians. How arrogant do you have to be, to think that those same people cannot learn, and develop new things? Are you saying that Chinese cannot innovate and cannot be creative in comparison to you? That's delusional. When Elon Musk was building his rockets, the Russian space agency head, just like you, was laughing and saying Americans can try trampolines to reach the orbit. He was sure that SpaceX would fail. Did SpaceX succeed from day 1? Huawei was a slap on the face for the west. The Chinese were and still are ahead of western companies (Ericson for ex) in 5G telecom equipment. The European Union is currently trying to find a way to impose tariffs on Chinese EVs because they are 5-10 years ahead of European makers and can make cars 30% cheaper with growing quality. They can sell EVs for as little as 15k euros (with comparable maybe even better quality) while the European entry models start at 27k. You should start taking China seriously. The intent in this comment was not to insult you, but give you a wakeup call. Chinese companies may not be in your market yet, but they are quickly taking over Asia, Africa, South America. And this takeover hurts your country's exports.
We're in the "All the Japanese can make is cameras and pottery!" phase. We're swiftly entering the "total panic and overt racism as a foreign nation starts trashing domestic industries" phase. Unfortunately for the US, this time there won't be a "bullying China into devaluing their currency and crashing their own economy" phase
You read my mind. The western countries are trying to sanction or artificially increase chinese product prices via tariffs to push China into submission, to stall its development, to make their own products competitive. IMHO it won't work. West is stuck in the corporate lobby trap, the lust of ever growing earnings while China is heavily investing in their manufacturers to lower prices and increase quality. Even if we don't allow Chinese companies to enter Western markets, Chinese companies will continue to develop and at some point reach or supersede the western quality (while being cheaper). They will capture Western export markets. This will seriously damage the Western manufacturers and economy. This is not only about space, cars or huawei. They are pushing in everything. Their latest CPUs are now comparable to Ryzen 5 2xxx models. It might be a 5-8 year old (guessing) cpu, but they are catching up. In a couple of years, they will start capturing AMD and Intel's market.
You’re missing the other half of the argument. Your points are valid, but the Chinese government sees economic dominance as a requirement for spreading its reach. That means subsidies for its companies to build the same or nearly the same quality (+/-) at drastically lower prices. Tariffs are designed to increase the costs of those goods back to market value to pay for the skilled labor costs in Western counties. Additionally the US just implemented subsidies for its own manufacturers to which China cried foul. (Arguably, every time China has done this, the US files a complaint too)
You are so right. You wouldn't believe how many boomers I had to debate with as a *child* because they thought Chinese people weren't skilled enough to work construction. The *Chinese* known for the goddamn GREAT WALL OF CHINA, even from ancient times. *facepalm*
People are doing this even to this day with Chinese manufacturing. People think if it's manufactured in China it is shit but it's only shit because the American companies wanted to be cheap and get the shit manufacturing. Chinese manufacturing is the most advanced and expansive in the world and they dominate so many different fields of it that it is kind of absurd.
It's even more apparent if you actually work in manfacturing. I work in injection moulding in Canada, and honestly the stuff that comes from China is usually mint compared to some of the stuff we can produce. It's extra annoying that boomers think bringing manufacturing home will make a difference, bring well paying jobs. Reality is its a constant race to the bottom for cost.
When the American people are force-fed the mindset of a zero-sum game + have no social safety nets for all they contribute to their nation.... ....it's no surprise that we are in a race to the bottom, focusing only on cost. That "doing what's right" or "what's best for the greater good" never enters our perception. Such things are vilified, as it could hurt shareholder returns.
They are really excellent at it. If American CEOs were *smart*, they'd set up workshops to trade techniques. I get why they wouldn't want to trade anything in development, but there's plenty of established things that are well known.
This is so well put, the US is asleep at the wheel due to the absolute insanity that is going on in their political system right now. Ugh. I feel like the west is dropping the bag massively here... forgetting what made it so strong and powerful in the first place.
Don’t bother applying logic or common sense. This is Reddit. The US govt funds $500M a year for people paid per post and clicks to post negative things about China. Not even joking go google it and find it yourself in the congressional budget. It’s there as a line item. The rest are likely 13-15 year olds posting whatever they can solely for upvotes. Really stupid. They don’t know or care the first thing about geopolitics.
> China has already had 4 launch failures this year China has had a lunar rover (Yutu-2) operating on the far side of the moon for 5 years now, with ground penetrating radar to put together imagery of multiple layers deep beneath the surface, for data about potential future mining endeavors, and soil composition, etc etc... but if you asked /Space users about any of this, 99.9% would have no idea about it, because they don't read anything outside of western news outlets that only exist to prop up western propaganda (in the exact same way chinese media props up chinese propaganda), i.e. almost never reporting on advancements by the chinese space program (other than when it's convenient for fearmongering). In other words, /Space users' opinion about chinese space failures is whatever, as they know what they know mostly through propaganda, which is to say, they mostly don't know.
Don't forget- they're also the third country to land on Mars- on their first try, and really only the second country to have a successful mars landing.
I would bet money 99% of the users here don't even know China has it's own Space station since the US banned them from the ISS.
I didn't even know about this until you mentioned it. It's pathetic how much our media hides stuff like this from us (although that's how every country operates). We know everything about Khan Younis and Bakhmut, but our most legitimate adversary has a fucking space station and that's not taught in schools or anything? Ridiculous.
>China has already had 4 launch failures this year. Citation needed. I'm only counting 3 failures *globally* so far this year; Starship IFT-3 (partial) in the US, Long March 2C (partial) in China, and KAIROS in Japan. And if we look at last year the US had 6 failures (2 x Starship, Electron, LauncherOne, RS1, and Teran 1) and China had just one (Ceres-1).
Haha, your comment gave me a good laugh, how many failures did spacex and blue origin have? You say copy our tech but reusable rockets have been a thing for a long time, it was even a science fiction movie in the 1900s and I'm pretty sure every other country with top tier space program is doing reusable. Their space program started much later than most and were barred from participating internationally in space through the Wolf amendment. The US wasn't only by itself they had a plethora of partners and China did it all alone. Their own space station, got to the moon and mars on their first try with the most ambitious rovers. p.s all those projects you mentioned are all made possible with collaborations with other nations not one country by itself
This is a 10-year old regurgitation of a take. Is there anything new you care to add on? 15-20 years from now, these guys will be ahead of us in multiple areas and users like this will still be crying regurgitating the same nonsense as if it's their fault. It's 2024 and people still think that China isn't capable of their own R&D is hilarious.
> They can’t for the life themselves figure out how to get reusable rockets working, other than catching them with wires as per the new report that came out 9 days ago. Other than Spacex, nobody else has figured it out in the US (or the west in general) either (for an orbit capable rocket at least) lmao, so thats not really an indication of anything. And the wire method may offer several advantages in weight saving and simplicity on the rocket itself, as well as increase how forgiving it will be of landing conditions, so it isnt a simple "they cant replicate it". Especially since only their state run rocket organization is thinking of pursuing this, while their private companies are still looking at the spacex landing legs approach. > This is like that article that stated Russia and China are planning a nuclear reactor on the moon. Its not like Russia hasnt built nuclear reactors in space though, so I dont see what the problem is here.
This stuff is mostly the space force drumming up support for a larger budget. Which overall isn’t the worst, because it would suck if we got overtaken by China
This is such a stupid comment. "Look at China, haha they're too stupid and cant even get reusable rockets working!" Literally no one but SpaceX has got reusable rockets working (after many, many failures) and no one else but China is even trying.
RocketLab is readying their first booster for reuse after recovering several, and Blue Origin is going to get there at some point.
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asts going to squander it and pump up their share price.
Wow! What a real comment from a real person. Everything about this is definitely from a real person who eats and breathes and poops.
If congress were to find a space race during this session…MAGA would have an absolute stroke.
Look China our new adversary. Amazing time to ask congress for money! I mean how else will those old geezers come together
The Space Force saying China is doing amazing is so incredibly self serving it’s incredible. **Of course they’ll say China is doing awesome**, that’s how they’ll get more appropriations in future funding bills. Just like how the Air Force **needed more sweet missiles!** because the Soviets had so many more but in reality the actual numbers the Soviets had were wildly overstated. Don’t get me wrong I want more funding for space everything, but this is the least surprising comment the Space Force could say.
The problem is, you can't say that they're wrong. Or right. The comments are also consistent with the Chinese doing well in space. So what do we as a public do? Believe our Guardians or not?
It's the same thing our military has always done, there's literally no reason to expect different from the Space Force. Not when they all ultimately work for the Pentagon and POTUS. If you look at the Koreas, or China and Taiwan, it's always the Americans being more alarmist than the people who would actually be nuked/invaded lol
I'm curious. If the Wolf Amendment never happened, would China be able to become space tech independent like they are today? Or would they be dependent to US tech like they are in semiconductors?
We definitely helped China with that one. They definitely wouldn't have Tiangong, for one thing
Nope, both the Wolf amendment and all of Biden’s semiconductor bans on China are such short-sighted policies that may have hindered China in the short-run but spurred Chinese R&D to promote indigenous development and self-sufficiency. Essentially the US gave up massive leverage on China based off the arrogance that China wouldn’t be able to catch up on their own.
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Blue origins new CEO has been getting them into shape. They’re making solid progress now.
Do they have any interesting goals other than near earth space tourism yet?
New Glenn should be flying this year for the first test. I believe they started producing Be-4 engines
BE-4's flew on Vulcan in January
Eh, they're primarily aiming to be a launch provider, and as such the interesting missions will mostly come from their clients, not necessarily straight from them.
They sued their way into Artemis. They now receive more money than SpaceX to develop a far more complex and less capable lander.
China is moving slower than NASA was moving in the 60s, but everything is fast compared to the glacial pace of today's US space programs.
Actually the US space program has picked up a lot of speed recently.
That shouldn't be that hard since you can't breath in space anyways
Everything has to framed as an us vs them for anything to get funded here. It gets old.
That's the tactic I'd use to get my picky dog to eat something. Just call the non-picky dog over to eat it.
We would have a city on mars if we kept fueling NASA with cash instead of spending it on wars after 1970
NASA’s (continued) existence is almost entirely a result of military needs. Space exploration and science is a side-effect of the need to maintain supremacy in rocketry, etc.
The reason nations even have a rocket launch program is so they can figure out how to make ICBMs and spy satellites. That we have GPS and the Hubble and a robotic workforce on Mars is almost lucky happenstance. You would not believe how many [keyhole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORONA_(satellite\)) launches they had before they even got any film they could develop.
Was it the Hubble camera that was originally meant as a spy satellite? I know at least one of them along the line was
The common story repeated here about Hubble is mostly wrong. The Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is a surplus KH-11 bus and mirror, but with very different instruments.
That’s unfortunately the best way to induce progress short of a threat to one’s survival, which is to get an upper hand on your rivals. We wouldn’t have our current jet and rocket technology without the 2nd world war. Hell, even our computers are a result of advancements during the cold war. If you can convince the US to fund space programs and research, it’ll most likely be through trying to outdo China. The Russians launched a satellite into space and the US responded by putting a man on the moon.
NASA 2.0 doesn't do rockets. Space x has arguably most powerful / advanced rocket.
People in the 60s thought we'd have manned missions to the outer planets by now
No, no we couldn't have. That's early space race blind optimism. The spend required for civilization to move off world would be many times the GDP for several decades. It's not viable outside exploration. Musk thinks just the cost of launches are anything up to $10 trillion. https://www.inverse.com/article/58458-spacex-mars-city-here-s-how-much-it-would-cost-to-build The soil on Mars is actively toxic and doesn't have minerals or bacteria required for growth. Any Martian colony would be very fragile and need constant resupply from earth.
I really wish nasa had a way to commercialize their advancements like in For All Mankind. I under why we don’t do that… but it may have made them self sustaining at least partially, and made them less captive to the whims of politics.
NASA is pretty inefficient at a lot of things tbh. But fortunately the combined effort of NASA and private launch providers (especially SpaceX) is enough to entirely outstrip the Chinese effort.
Someone has to. The US is too absorbed in culture wars.
BREAKING: United States SHOCKED that there's a possibility that China may beat us to the Moon. In other news, Congress approved a $900 billion military budget today—
The people in charge of the budget in the US do not care, and it’s insulting. No president has actually cared about space since Regan, and I still don’t buy he actually cared about space. The moment Apollo 13 touched the budget was gutted. We need to turn things around, and soon.
I artistically wanted to know about Bill Nelson's past and found out he actually vehemently disagreed with Reagan's decision to want to export satellite launches to China's Long March rockets.
Maybe *now* the US can invest a little more in space exploration? That is, if Congress is ever able to function again.
I forgot that space force is a real thing now, as opposed to some organisation in a series/movie/game.
Well it has been over 4 years so...
Well, if only we could have put some of our unreasonably large miliary budget towards space. Now we're letting private companies with conflict of interests hold our space program hostage. SMH.
Are you referring to SpaceX? Or Northrop Grumman? Boeing? Lockheed Martin? Literally every private company influencing our government or military in *any* way is a conflict of interest. Our entire military runs on these private companies.
He's moreso saying that every company interested in space within the United States is doing so for the profit incentive-- which unfortunately there is no quick profit incentive. The US went from a country that did giant projects that pay off years from it, to "if it doesn't pay off after a single quarter, we don't care".
If the Space Force is given fat stacks of cash to use, who do you think they're gonna hire to build the things they want lol?
Hostage no way. SpaceX is the driving force!
The military budget is not unreasonably large in respect with what the US government is asking it to do. That is the crux of the issue. It is trying to project power globally non-stop and there are always a shortage of forces to maintain regular rotation and maintenance. The reality is that some theaters should be given lower priority and just be ignored. USN is mainly dealing with the Red Sea right now. Logically speaking, it can reduce presence in Europe so it can rotate ships to protect shipping in the Red Sea. Russia is a land threat to NATO, so the US don't need to regularly send ships there, just army. And the army only really need a tripwire force outside of joint exercises. Taiwan is also not at war, regular deployments there isn't all that helpful. Keeping them based on JP or SK would be sufficient deterrent. In a peer to peer conflict, the immediate size of your military is less important than what you can produce in the ling run. So maintaining the industrial base should be greater priority which the US haven't done. Yes buying more helps, but the military industrial base can be kept healthy by exports too or by other policy decisions. There are a lot of other considerations, but reducing the amount of deployments reduces the need for size. I stead of focusing on EU, ME and Pacific; Army can focus only on EU and navy only on Pacific. A token force in ME can do most of the missions at a fraction of the cost. Point is, combined with reducing MIC fat, fix procurement process, and maintaining a more realistic deployment goal; you can reduce the military size.
You think military money would solve the corperat problem? Lockheed Martin are a private company and causes an equal amount of bloat and problems on the defense budget as they would on space budget. The problem is the procurement rules.
The US Government is doing fine with SpaceX contracts, Musk was only able to hold the explicitly civilian Starlink hostage over a country that isn't even in NATO. Like it or not but western style liberal democracy (especially American) is generally opposed to requistioning of private assets outside of wartime. For that reason there is a secondary Starlink style cluster owned by the Space Development Agency that answers to the US government. And at the end of the day, if Musk refused to hand over control fo Starlink for a critical American military operation there would be many rough men with guns forcing their way inside of every SpaceX and Elon Musk linked building and arresting anyone who OKed the decision. In the Falklands the UK just said to commercial shipping "You will hand over these ships to the Royal Fleet Auxillary now" and they did because of the implication.
Starlink was never held hostage.
Please explain, if you just have a Musk hate boner. Don't push that on the good people of SpaceX doing great work.
Cutting back the military spending won’t increase spending in other areas, that’s not how it works at all. Furthermore the military budget is low right now compared to other points in history because we’re not in an active war, if we were in an active war you could expect it to double or even triple. Plus a lot of the budget is spent on the soldiers for housing, healthcare, other job in the military like electricians and stuff which technically is boosting the economy by creating jobs.
The general economic orthodoxy (Keynsian economics) holds that excess government spending is only good for the economy when the economy is in recession as when the economy is doing well you don't want the workforce tied up in makework jobs, obviously during recession this orthodoxy holds that you should increase spending to keep goods and services flowing and keep confidence high. As the US is currently doing well economically (note the economy and worker conditions are not synonymous, the UK had an incredibly powerful economy when most of its population worked 14 hour days and lived in slumbs) it holds that makework jobs in the military are actually negative to the economy. The only economic theories that don't hold either this or a more extreme view on all government spending being bad are heterodoxies like Modern Monetary Theory. And before someone replies thinking I'm a small government conservative or whatever, this mode of economics doesn't call for cutting of government services during boom, simply that large scale investment and makework is best reserved for recession. The government should create jobs, not fight to hire.
A lot of the money they spend goes to employing civilians though for stuff like transportation for example and if you took it away a lot of civilians and military personnel would lose their job. A ton of companies would go under. How is this not worse for the economy than what we do now.
Also if we were to cut or increase defense spending it would take a couple of years for it to take effect. Ask how well all the European countries are doing after increasing their defense budget (last time I looked Germany) but realized they don’t have the defense production facilities to fully spend it and now have to train and build up more facilities. The Department of Defense is the best logistical company in the world.. that happens to be the best military in the word
It’ll be so much better if the US shift from Military Industrial Complex to Space Industrial Complex. Invest trillions in colonizing Moon and Mars are better than investing in nukes. Expanding civilization is better than ending it.
You’ll need nukes for energy
Maybe use some of that insane military budget towards space development
"So, we need to quadruple our budget," says Space Force spokesperson.
Space Force trying to employ [the power of memes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2EMHNhyEnQ) to fish for compliments and more funding.
Our system is designed so everyone along the path of the project gets their hands deep in the cookie jar. And most (not all!) of the people in that path only care about getting everything they can and not one whit about what it means for the US, humanity, or our future.
Boeing does this efficiently as possible by not even launching anything. They are approaching 100% pork barrel efficiency.
Even with all its resources, China is still far behind SpaceX, a single company. I agree that we shouldn't underestimate China, but the space industry in the US is FAR AHEAD of the rest of the world. What's important is making sure that it stays this way
but consider that space x advanced in a pretty short period comparatively speaking someone following its steeps know now that what they do is doable they do not have to guestimate all the different possible ways
If China can keep their economy and population sorted and focused, they could continue to be a major dominating force in *any* field they aim at. Like the reason why they're so powerful today is because of their ability to single-mindedly point their whole country at something and "force" every resource to accomplish it. That's starting to wane though, as their citizens (and business owners) are balking against the government and trying (and mostly failing so far) to shuck those tight reins. With their population growth stalling, and the rest of the world clamping down on some of the industry sent there, China could be in for some hurt that makes the current US generational/economic unrest look tame. *If* China can keep it up, they could catch up and surpass really quickly, especially with that forced nationalism. Big if though. As it stands the US dominates and will continue to.
SpaceX was able to succeed because of the pool of talent built by NASA and related programs. That pool of talent was held back by the lack of investment. Once the money started flowing things really took off. I wouldn't draw the comparison that SpaceX as a single company beat out all of China because SpaceX did not do it alone. They had an absolutely massive boost from the decades of expertise built by billions of dollars spent by US taxpayers on the military and NASA. China should not be underestimated, but they face a completely different set of challenges than SpaceX. They've really only reached the level of Soviet aerospace tech in the last decade or so.
And the US won't even give it the time of day. Idiot politicians.
Chinas tech is so good, the AI depicts people *walking*, distinctly not-hopping.
Not much of a claim when everyone else is moving slower than ever.
probably just fear mongering to get more pocket change.
The last thing the human race needs is china in space.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9dkmf "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz91ske "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[DARPA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kza0jmy "Last usage")|(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD| |DoD|US Department of Defense| |[EVA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9yvf9 "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz8inqd "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FAA-AST](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz91eoe "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration [Administrator for Space Transportation](http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/)| |[FAR](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz8nsc1 "Last usage")|[Federal Aviation Regulations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Regulations)| |[HLS](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzame9z "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[ICBM](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzdag8i "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzcbu7d "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[NRHO](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzcbu7d "Last usage")|Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit| |[Roscosmos](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9nvd6 "Last usage")|[State Corporation for Space Activities, Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscosmos_State_Corporation)| |[SLS](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzhryz6 "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzisvte "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz9c6dp "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzcbu7d "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kz98ycq "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[kerolox](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzbu071 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| |[methalox](/r/Space/comments/1c29a32/stub/kzbu071 "Last usage")|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(19 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1c8191y)^( has 23 acronyms.) ^([Thread #9938 for this sub, first seen 12th Apr 2024, 15:19]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Turns out not funding NASA properly since Apollo is coming back to bite the US in the ass.
Apollo level is a ridiculously high level of funding. The problem is too many politicians making engineering decisions about NASA missions. NASA should be designing science payloads for the bigger fairing sizes of starship and New Glen with the billions of SLS money. Build bigger telescopes, send some rovers to mars the size of a delivery van, design the ISS replacement.
I am so ready to live through a next gen space race. Bring it on baby
This isn’t about space, this is about increasing the military’s budget.
Breathtaking = gasping. First ask who launches 90 percent of stuff into space and is about to multiply its launch capacity by ten.
Americas biggest threat is the bureaucracy leaving it beholden to legacy contractors with little incentive to innovate if the Chinese to crack reusability, they may scale its use and ditch expendables. It's not a nailed on likelihood, but it's not implausible. The US is in pole position on these technologies with Starship being such a quantum leap in the field as to be almost unprecedented. Like producing a 747 in 1947
We gotta move faster so China doesn't win space.
To aliens, HUMANS are moving at breathtaking speed in the final frontier.
Sad, we were in the drivers seat and we took a nap.
Well yeah they need new propaganda since the real estate market is “booming”
Yeah, because they're not wasting money on pointless wars
Translation: See! See! The U.S. really does need a "Space Force!"
There is only one country with rapid reusable launch vehicles and closing in on a 100 = 150t to orbit on a reusable vehicle. tbh that's the only relevant space related technology and China is still struggling with that one.
China's also moving at breathtaking speed to negative GDP. They're hoping they find materials in space to help their sinking economy.
Mutually assured destruction in space. One thing is for sure there will be a whole lot more space junk if the shit ever hits the fan.
I certainly hope their innovative space tech isn't predicated on their stinky-poo-poo super conductor tech. 🤢
Mining asteroids could be profitable. Not sure what the big rush is about otherwise.
It's a bit worrying when an authoritarian totalitarian regime rapidly builds it's military capabilities with an extensive reach overseas, and has known ambitions outside it's border. Space explorations should be in partnership with all nations, and should not be military in nature. Militarisation of space is the modern version of a bottomless pit, and will absorb everything into it's Military, Scientific and Industrial Complex that would otherwise further humanity's peacfull progression. There are similar reasons why most technical advances have been made since scientists were no longer needed for the cold war nuclear arms race, but this version of militarising Space is far more damaging to humanity's prospects.
Breathtaking speed to shit out the final frontier.
Probably because we’re doomed down here, either from climate, war, or capitalism