News on China's scientific and technological development.
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That's like saying expendable airplanes would be fine if they are cheap enough. Sure, there's nothing wrong with that statement in theory, but in practice you would be hard-pressed to beat the potential cost savings of a reusable plane.
For what it's worth, the way that state-owned satellite group is organized means it is not constrained to a single launch provider, like if it had just been a division of CASC. This means it could take advantage of private small-sat launch providers in addition to the existing state rockets, while simultaneously supporting their businesses with lucrative contracts. Cost will go down through competition, potentially speeding along reusability if the cost-savings are substantial.
For what it's worth, the way that state-owned satellite group is organized means it is not constrained to a single launch provider, like if it had just been a division of CASC. This means it could take advantage of private small-sat launch providers in addition to the existing state rockets, while simultaneously supporting their businesses with lucrative contracts. Cost will go down through competition, potentially speeding along reusability if the cost-savings are substantial.
Without a cost-breakdown that is publicly available, we can only speculate on how much refurbishing a rocket truly costs for SpaceX. Either the cost-savings are only marginal and they are holding out for Starship, or reusability is already netting huge savings and they don't want to inspire more competition by blurting out the profit margin.
Still, if the potential exists, why not hedge on it, especially for those private small-sat launchers? All those startup companies need both funding and experience, and >10k satellites would be a perfect way to provide sustained funds, while still giving them something productive to do.
Still, if the potential exists, why not hedge on it, especially for those private small-sat launchers? All those startup companies need both funding and experience, and >10k satellites would be a perfect way to provide sustained funds, while still giving them something productive to do.
Elon is just a pundit. His claims are just bogus.
Yep.
Sorry for all the people here, but you wont convince me that building something new is cheaper than just reusing.
Here is Elon Musk himself on the cost (not selling price) of Falcon 9
Elon Musk is making crazy bank by the sky-high profit margins. That he is charging the Gov 80-120 mln dollars for each flight...LOL
Falcon 9 reusable blows everything out of the water, including the "building new cheap solid fuel rockets" Chinese strategy...
That's how modern venture capital works, though. Promise big to investors, and hope you can deliver with their money. All entrepreneurs are pundits initially, until they succeed. Then those 'bogus' claims become indisputable fact. Most of the time that never happens, and that's expected.
Theoretical price of launch for reusable liquid fuel rocket is lower than an expendable rocket of comparable launch capability. Practical reusability is difficult to achieve but once achieved can lead to a magnitude change in cost of launch. Falcon 9 costs $50 million to produce (charges $62 million to customer), current cost of reuse is $15 million ($10 million for new upper stage, $5 million for firings, $250,000 for refurbrishing booster). Fuel is relatively cheap at around $200,000. There are plans for recovery of faring, helping to reach near magnitude decrease in cost of launch. There's also the slight possibility of upper stage recovery which would bring down the cost by another magnitude.
Achieving practical reusability in a marketplace of expendable rockets yields massive profit margins while providing savings for consumers. Once a few players with reusability enters, the expendable rockets in the same segment will be priced out without government intervention or special agreements.
On the other hand I agree with China's approach of developing small solid fuel rockets. There's a market need for a versatile fast response small payload rocket and possibly a great stop gap solution to develop relevant technologies/industries. With this platform small satellites can be quickly placed in orbit in the event of malfunction or act of war. Solid fuel is more stable than liquid fuel and can be stored similar to ICBMs ready for time of action. These rockets can be carried by wheeled platforms and launched like an ICBM or easily launched at sea which China had already accomplished. It's a good example of civil/military integration.
If China has the resources, it is a good idea to explore all possible methods of reaching orbit (which is what China is attempting),eventually the market will sort it out.
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
This is just amazing soon china will be playing God as in Genesys 1
Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 4And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.…
China is already bordering on the creation of matter
BY
The Station of Extreme Light, which China has been developing in Shanghai since 2018, has made significant progress in its goal of manufacturing lasers so powerful by 2023 that they could break through empty space and create matter.
The Extreme Light Station (SEL) is a laser installation designed to produce a laser with 100 petawatts (PW) of maximum power (one petawatt equals one thousand trillion watts), a goal that is expected to be achieved within two years.
Once completed, the laser will be the most powerful on Earth, with a power 10,000 times greater than that of all the electrical networks in the world combined and with an intensity 10 trillion times greater than that of sunlight.
The laser will be powerful enough to produce matter and antimatter directly from the vacuum of space: it will allow us to observe in a terrestrial laboratory the same process that supposedly gave rise to the universe.
EMPTY BUT LESS
Empty but lessAlthough in theory it is possible to obtain particles by applying an electric field in a vacuum, until now we do not have the technology to achieve this. That is the barrier that SEL is trying to overcome.
This technology is based on the fact that a vacuum is never really empty: it is like a pond filled with pairs of electrons and positrons (particles of matter and antimatter) that occasionally emerge to the surface (existence), although they annihilate each other. as soon as they are formed.
A laser could intervene in that process and separate the matter and antimatter particles before they collide. You can then get both of them to emit gamma rays and generate more electrons and positrons. That barrage of new particles and radiation could be detected when it acquires sufficient density.
The laser would have thus succeeded in creating particles and antiparticles as if they had arisen out of nowhere: it would demonstrate that light can pull particles of matter and antimatter out of empty space, a phenomenon known as “breaking the vacuum.”
NEW ACCELERATION
New accelerationAchieving it is not trivial, since the issue of the vacuum has puzzled scientists for more than 80 years.
The first observation occurred in 2016, when a group of scientists managed to observe the quantum properties of the vacuum around a neutron star located 400 light years from Earth.
This is a very difficult operation to repeat that the new laser will facilitate, because it will directly create and measure the quantum properties of the vacuum, here on Earth.
Science explains in this regard that the new laser could launch a new way of accelerating particles, both for high-energy physics and for medical uses.
Although there is still some time to reach that goal, the progress made to date is quite encouraging.
MATTER AND ENERGY
Matter and energyNuclear weapons have already shown that it is possible to convert matter into large amounts of heat and light, but doing it the other way around, converting heat and light into matter, is much more difficult: it will be what the amazing laser that is brewing in a laboratory will achieve. China special.
Achieving this will show that matter and energy are interchangeable in any direction, as Einstein had put forward in his famous equation.
The technological miracle will be the work of light amplified by stimulated emission of radiation, better known as laser: it works by stimulating electrons that emit photons in a stream of light with a specific wavelength.
COURSE CHANGE
Course changeLaser pulses can be enhanced by increasing their energy or also by shortening their duration. Technological efforts in the past have focused on increasing the energy of lasers.
Scientists in China have chosen to shorten the pulse time and in this line they have made progress that, probably, will allow them to achieve their intended objective: to open to the world a new branch of physics, called nuclear photonics, full of technological potentialities still unimaginable. .
Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 4And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.…
China is already bordering on the creation of matter
BY
The Station of Extreme Light, which China has been developing in Shanghai since 2018, has made significant progress in its goal of manufacturing lasers so powerful by 2023 that they could break through empty space and create matter.
The Extreme Light Station (SEL) is a laser installation designed to produce a laser with 100 petawatts (PW) of maximum power (one petawatt equals one thousand trillion watts), a goal that is expected to be achieved within two years.
Once completed, the laser will be the most powerful on Earth, with a power 10,000 times greater than that of all the electrical networks in the world combined and with an intensity 10 trillion times greater than that of sunlight.
The laser will be powerful enough to produce matter and antimatter directly from the vacuum of space: it will allow us to observe in a terrestrial laboratory the same process that supposedly gave rise to the universe.
EMPTY BUT LESS
Empty but lessAlthough in theory it is possible to obtain particles by applying an electric field in a vacuum, until now we do not have the technology to achieve this. That is the barrier that SEL is trying to overcome.
This technology is based on the fact that a vacuum is never really empty: it is like a pond filled with pairs of electrons and positrons (particles of matter and antimatter) that occasionally emerge to the surface (existence), although they annihilate each other. as soon as they are formed.
A laser could intervene in that process and separate the matter and antimatter particles before they collide. You can then get both of them to emit gamma rays and generate more electrons and positrons. That barrage of new particles and radiation could be detected when it acquires sufficient density.
The laser would have thus succeeded in creating particles and antiparticles as if they had arisen out of nowhere: it would demonstrate that light can pull particles of matter and antimatter out of empty space, a phenomenon known as “breaking the vacuum.”
NEW ACCELERATION
New accelerationAchieving it is not trivial, since the issue of the vacuum has puzzled scientists for more than 80 years.
The first observation occurred in 2016, when a group of scientists managed to observe the quantum properties of the vacuum around a neutron star located 400 light years from Earth.
This is a very difficult operation to repeat that the new laser will facilitate, because it will directly create and measure the quantum properties of the vacuum, here on Earth.
Science explains in this regard that the new laser could launch a new way of accelerating particles, both for high-energy physics and for medical uses.
Although there is still some time to reach that goal, the progress made to date is quite encouraging.
MATTER AND ENERGY
Matter and energyNuclear weapons have already shown that it is possible to convert matter into large amounts of heat and light, but doing it the other way around, converting heat and light into matter, is much more difficult: it will be what the amazing laser that is brewing in a laboratory will achieve. China special.
Achieving this will show that matter and energy are interchangeable in any direction, as Einstein had put forward in his famous equation.
The technological miracle will be the work of light amplified by stimulated emission of radiation, better known as laser: it works by stimulating electrons that emit photons in a stream of light with a specific wavelength.
COURSE CHANGE
Course changeLaser pulses can be enhanced by increasing their energy or also by shortening their duration. Technological efforts in the past have focused on increasing the energy of lasers.
Scientists in China have chosen to shorten the pulse time and in this line they have made progress that, probably, will allow them to achieve their intended objective: to open to the world a new branch of physics, called nuclear photonics, full of technological potentialities still unimaginable. .