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Old November 18th 17, 11:51 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default China wants to catch up to US rockets in 2020 and then get nuclear spaceships in 2045

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'. 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