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Old November 20th 17, 01:11 AM posted to sci.space.policy
William Mook[_2_]
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Default China wants to catch up to US rockets in 2020 and then getnuclear spaceships in 2045

On Monday, November 20, 2017 at 12:56:06 AM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:

There are two reasons China signals and then disappears from the radar screen;

(1) economic caution,
(2) geopolitical caution,


In other words, as I said, they talk big plans and then don't deliver
on them.


They tell the world they will build 40 aircraft carriers and build one - when they plan to build one - so the world does not fear them.



This does not mean they do not make progress. On the contrary, their progress is steady and inexorable thus far and they have outclassed the USA in many respects in ways that do not threaten the USA.


So they 'outclass' us in things we can't be bothered to shine at?


They outclass the United States in nearly every essential measure that they have identified as being important to them. The USA hasn't bothered to even think about what is important to its survival. This means China is well ahead in technical as well as non-technical factors. Beyond technology where China surpasses the USA in terms of trained people and quality of capital equipment.

We are in debt, they have a surplus, they have all the tools in their physical control, we do not, they have their population behind them, we do not, we have over-reached our military abilities, they have not.


The quality of Chinese graduate students is legendary in the USA. Nearly 20% of all graduate positions, and the top 20% of the graduate population, are uniformly Chinese. Many of these return to China bearing great knowledge, often after working in US industry, US Space and US military programmes.


Absolutely wrong.


Obviously you have never looked at the names of those top 20% of all graduate classes in engineering and science.

There are around 150,000 Chinese graduate students
enrolled at various schools in the US. The graduate school population
is around 1.75 million. Pretty sure 150,000 isn't 20% of 1.75
million.


http://www.nber.org/digest/jan05/w10554.html

In 1966 US born white males received 71% of science and engineering Phds. By the year 2000 it was just 35%.

By the year 2000 US born white males received just 35% of science and engineering PhDs, while 25% of those doctorates were awarded to females, 39% to foreign-born students.

Are you getting confused and switching back and forth
between counting 'ethnic Chinese' and 'Chinese by nationality'?

snip meaningless trade numbers


Funny that somone is so confused about the numbers he quotes projects that confusion on to others.



Yet, if you want to know where the Chinese are in their nuclear programmes, just look at the aircraft carrier programme and their nuclear submarine programme and their nuclear power programme.


They have no nuclear aircraft carriers and no plans for any that I'm
aware of.


They plan 6 and 2 of these will be nuclear.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/asiat..._11164324.html


Their next carrier will apparently be something the size of
the UK's QUEEN ELISABETH. Regardless, marine propulsion reactors and
power reactors have NOTHING to do with nuclear rocket engines.


Dead wrong. The skill sets required to compound engineer and handle weapons grade fissile materials to form nuclear rockets and nuclear navy reactors have much in common. That's why AEC and Los Alamos Labs took the lead in NERVA development in 1957. It is the road map China will follow for a successful programme in their country.

http://www.astronautix.com/n/nerva.html


China outclasses the USA in computing, while US investors own designs and hardware, virtually all the wafer fab capacity America owns resides in Asia.


But not in Mainland China. I think a number of companies will be
surprised to find that their major fabs are in Asia, whether you're
talking Mainland China or all of Asia.

snip usual self-congratulatory MookSpew


On Saturday, November 18, 2017 at 11:51:27 PM UTC+13, Fred J. McCall wrote:
wrote:

"China plans a fleet of nuclear carrier rockets and reusable hybrid-power carriers by the
mid-2040s. They will be ready for regular, large scale interplanetary flights, and carrying
out commercial exploration and exploitation of natural resources by the mid-2040s.

China plans to catch up with the United States on conventional rocket technology by
2020.

If Spacex and Elon Musk achieve fully reusable rockets with the Falcon 9 or the BFR in
the 2020-2022 timeframe then China would be 13-15 years behind if they hit their
target for reusable rockets in 2035.

By 2030, China will put astronauts on the moon and bring samples back from Mars."

See:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/1...s-in-2045.html


China frequently 'plans' things that it just can't execute. They
'planned' to build 20 aircraft carriers in 20 years, too. They built
one.

I don't understand why nuclear thermal rockets are 'necessary'.


Then read the analysis I provided which was elided here.

An all chemical Long March 9 rocket will put 130 tonnes into LEO.

Replace the chemical second stage with a Nerva style second stage, and that rises to over 300 tonnes on orbit, and over 100 tonnes on the moon and back.

* * *

Cheng Zheng 9 Estimated Performance

4 SRB - 1,200t thrust each, 590t TOW, 86t LDT, 2.4 km/sec Ve. 4,800 t total thrust

Replacing the segmented Solid Rockets with Liquid Rocket Boosters, and equipping all stages for downrange recovery similar to SpaceX, we have a very interesting low cost access to space.

First stage - 2,500 t thrust (5x 500 t engine) throttable to 1,000 t thrust.. 3 km/sec SL, 3.6 km/sec Vac.
2,171.8t weight, 1,436.4t propellant, 72.4t structure

Second stage - 500 t thrust 3.6 km/sec Vac.
662.5t weight, 438.3t propellant, 55.2t structure

Orbiter - 169.0t weight, 24.9t propellant, 14.1t structure

Payload - 130.0t weight

NERVA STYLE SECOND STAGE PUTS UP ~500 metric tons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs3zNwXhzSA

Replacing the second stage with a 500t thrust NERVA style engine, with 9.5 km/sec exhaust speed, that heats up 343.6t of liquid hydrogen, places 497.8t payload + structure into LEO!!

NUCLEAR PULSE ORION STYLE SECOND STAGE PUTS UP 580 metric tons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njM7xlQIjnQ

Replacing the second stage with a 500t thrust Nuclear Pulse Orion style engine, with 20.0 km/sec exhaust speed, that detonates 182.1t of pulse units, places 581.1t of payload+structure into LEO!

CAPABILITIES ON ORBIT:

NERVA ENGINE: 120.2t structure -377.6t remainder - 500t thrust
ORION ENGINE: 192.3t structure -388.8t remainder -500t thrust

These systems can land and take off from the Moon and from Mars directly.

The Delta Vee required to get to the moon and back once on LEO, is 7.6 km/sec.

NERVA ENGINE: 120.2t structure - 274.1t propellant - 103.4t payload on moon
ORION ENGINE: 192.3t structure -183.7t propellant - 205.1t payload on moon

That is, by adding a nuclear upper stage, to the first stage and zeroth stage booster, more payload can be taken to the moon and back to Earth than can be put into orbit using the all chemical stage.

The delta Vee for Mars is comparable and so are the weights.

NASA
says it's to get trip times to Mars down to 3 months or so. SpaceX
plans to do that with conventional rockets, where BFR Spacecraft will
have Mars transit times of around 3 months (because they depart fully
fueled from Earth orbit). Yes, nuclear thermal rockets get you a
higher Isp, but why wait for that? As for nuclear electric, you get a
really high Isp with a really low acceleration. Again, I don't see
the point.





--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw