Pat Flannery wrote:
What I can't understand is what this whole thing is about; unless
Tiangong has some sort of a military mission it is to perform, it's
so small as to be pretty much worthless for a manned space station,
or even building a multi-modular design using this small of
component modules - you would end up making a large number of
booster launches to build a little space station where the crew
would be constantly going through hatchways between the small
modules.
They really need something in the Proton payload capacity range to
make even a small station really practical.
Does it have to be practical to stoke national prestige?
rick jones
--
a wide gulf separates "what if" from "if only"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...

feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...