Elon replying to tweet about China's manned moon landing rocket.
China's Space Program News Thread
- Thread starter crazyinsane105
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Yes, I can see Zhurong's tracks. The orbiting camera has very high resolution!Zhurong's progress.
Courtesy of NASA's MRO, taken on June 11th. Track is clearly visible (in blue).
A giant 140 tons payload rocket with monolithic first stage with no side boosters would seem much less versatile. It would be have at least 140 tons to put into LEO or else it stays on the ground. Side Boosters would seem to allow the rocket to be economically down sized or reconfigured to cover a range of payload weights.
It might seem to repeat the error of Saturn 5, which is it had no role without lunar flights or single monolithic space station modules to launch.
I would prefer a mission to Phobos, one of Mars' moons, rather than a landing on Mars itself. Phobos is expected to have a lot of water. If we can mine this water, the new lunar base (ILRS) would have a massive supply of the drinkable stuff, enough to support a truly huge base, and there would be plenty left over to use as propellant for future missions. Phobos is scheduled to crash into Mars; we may as well use it up.
You want to bring water from Phobos back to the moon? Are you kidding? Phobos is scheduled to crash into Mars in 50 million years. I don’t think you need to worry about using it or losing it.
YF-135 and 120t LH/LO engines are much more difficult than YF-130 and YF-90. If there is any trouble, it is the new engines.
YF-135 is single combustion chamber 360t while YF-130 is duel combustion chamber 480t, one chamber is only 240t.
YF-90 is 240t single chamber, while the new 120t is much less regardless if it is staged or open cycle or expansion.
The new CZ-9 is called version 21 (2021). Let's call it CZ-9(21). It is two stage for LEO, but three stage for deep space.
CZ-9(21)'s first stage has 16 engines with one engine in the middle. So it is very likely that recovery is in the mind.
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here is what routers said
Crewed launches to Mars are planned for 2033, 2035, 2037, 2041 and beyond, the head of China's main rocket maker, Wang Xiaojun, told a space exploration conference in Russia recently by video link.
I am not aware of the video. But I think that is not true. A manned mission to Mars has to be done by a heavy lift and multiple launches. Even the current CZ-9(11) may not be ready for that, let alone the version 21 whose engines are still on paper.
Well, a plan to land a crew on Mars every other year will certainly take the wind out of the sail of NASA’s plan to land a crew on the moon every year. But I expect it’s realization by 2033 would be overly ambitious.
It would be interesting to see if repetitive manned Mars missions envision the crew to stay on Mars for the 2 years between missions, or return after a short stay each time.
It would be interesting to see if repetitive manned Mars missions envision the crew to stay on Mars for the 2 years between missions, or return after a short stay each time.
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