China Starts Developing Hybrid Hypersonic Spaceplane (popsci.com) 90
hackingbear quotes a report from Popular Science: While SpaceX is making news with its recoverable rockets, China announced that it is working on the next big thing in spaceflight: a hypersonic spaceplane. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is beginning advanced research on a high tech, more efficient successor to the retired Space Shuttle, with hybrid combined cycle engines combining turbofan, ramjet, scramjet and rocket engines, that can takeoff from an airport's landing strip and fly straight into orbit. CASTC's rapid research timeline also suggests that the reports in 2015 of a Mach 4 test flight for a recoverable drone testbed for a combined cycle ramjet/turbofan engine were accurate. And China also has the world's largest hypersonic wind tunnel, the Mach 9 JF-12, which could be used to easily test hypersonic scramjets without costly and potentially dangerous flight testing at altitude. Its nearest competitor, the British Skylon in contrast uses pre-cooled jet engines built by Reaction Engines Limited to achieve hypersonic atmospheric flight, as opposed to scramjets. Both spacecraft will probably first fly around the mid 2020s.
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Re: Proof of China's Superiority... (Score:3, Interesting)
China hasn't stolen anything.
You commented on China obtaining secret ideas. I don't see a problem with that. After all, information wants to be free.
Also, the countries China has taken information from still have the information and ideas. By the typical definition of stealing used here, China didn't steal them. I keep reading that piracy isn't stealing because the content producer still has the content, but unauthorized comments have been made. China may have pirated ideas, but they sure didn't steal them.
The "little big" difference (Score:1)
Legally obtaining information or content is copying content that has been compensated for through money and a legal binding contract.
Pirating information or content is copying content that can also be obtained using money by many people and making it accessible without charge for a huge amount of people.
Stealing information or content is copying content with strict access restrictions that cannot also be obtained using money (or by many people doing so) and also containing that data within a very limited ac
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What about stealing and then publicly releasing academic research? The reason, say, pirating Netflix shows is bad is because if no one pays Netflix for their service, the company will cease to operate and no new shows will be created.
In the case of academic research, the research is being funded by mainly public funding - or private funding unrelated to the publishers of the journal. The journal is basically abusing it's monopoly position because professors have no choice but to give them their research f
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So except from legally obtained information, China is really stealing information.
According to what law?
I would suspect that Chinese law applies in China, but what do I know.
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Information in China may want to be free, but good luck staying out of jail.
There is no reason to be happy China stole ideas.
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Yeah the first CG is from the Reaction Engines Skylon and the second CG is a Blue Origin VTVL rocket.
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$0.02 Yuan have been deposited in your account.
Re:Proof of China's Superiority... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not so sure you should dismiss the Chinese as mere copiers. That's a little facile. The Japanese used to be belittled as mere copiers, too, but that was always an unfair generalization. The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighter was not a copy of anything. It was far superior to anything that any other Navy had. They developed a vastly superior aluminum alloy, 7075, in the middle of World War II. They had the only submarine Aircraft Carriers (I-400 class) in the world, and they were also the largest submarines in the world. They had by far the best torpedoes in the world. The MXY7 Ohka was a devastating rocket-powered, human-guided anti-ship missile.
Yes, China and Japan have in history (up to very recent history in the case of China) copied, and stolen, plenty of stuff from the US. But they also have made great native achievements.
Who already has the world's only anti-ship ballistic[*] missile? Gee ... China - the DF-21D. It can't be copied from the US, because we don't have anything like that.
[*] The "ballistic" part is a misnomer, because the missile has terminal maneuvering. But that is always how it is referred to as.
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And the west's space Program would still be non-existent if the Chinese hadn't created gunpowder, which then spread through the Middle East and finally into Europe.
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Yes, China and Japan have in history (up to very recent history in the case of China) copied, and stolen, plenty of stuff from the US.
Who, by the way, also "stole" quite a few things from Europe, back in the day. It's just what countries do, until they then take the lead and forget all that messy business. Annoying and probably wrong in some moral sense, but when has moral really been given a place in politics?
Re:Proof of China's Superiority... (Score:4)
Recall that, in the early years of our Great Country, Americans freely and openly copied British and French (mostly) industrial designs with impunity since there were not the international agreements that sort of prohibited this behavior.
The US figured that German rocketry tech was free for the taking as spoils of war.
This sort of thing has gone on since Og figured out cylinders are a neat idea when trying to move heavy objects. It is a constant game of cat and mouse, Spy vs. Spy and Sturm Und Drang. Since 'we' are arguably ahead of the Chinese in this theatre once expects the Chinese to be trying to copy us rather than the other way around. Rest assured if that ever changes, we will be glad to reverse roles.
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Considering that the V-2 ripped of John Goddard's gyroscope design without paying a cent in royalties, you could call it a simple matter of debt collection.
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Have you ever looked at Goddard's rocket? He was a pioneer but the configuration used in modern rockets looks nothing like that.
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To be precise French has submarine aircraft carrier Surcouf [wikipedia.org], armed with two 8" cannons in 1934.
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But before that, the upstart USofA massively ripped-off Jolly-Old English IP without a second thought.
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I'm not so sure you should dismiss the Chinese as mere copiers. That's a little facile. The Japanese used to be belittled as mere copiers, too, but that was always an unfair generalization. The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighter was not a copy of anything. It was far superior to anything that any other Navy had. They developed a vastly superior aluminum alloy, 7075, in the middle of World War II. They had the only submarine Aircraft Carriers (I-400 class) in the world, and they were also the largest submarines in the world. They had by far the best torpedoes in the world. The MXY7 Ohka was a devastating rocket-powered, human-guided anti-ship missile.
Yes, China and Japan have in history (up to very recent history in the case of China) copied, and stolen, plenty of stuff from the US. But they also have made great native achievements.
Who already has the world's only anti-ship ballistic[*] missile? Gee ... China - the DF-21D. It can't be copied from the US, because we don't have anything like that.
[*] The "ballistic" part is a misnomer, because the missile has terminal maneuvering. But that is always how it is referred to as.
There is nothing new about this missile. It's a nuclear warhead on a missile with a guidance system.
Are you saying that is a new concept? If so, please explain how in detail.
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They also utterly failed to successfully move past the Zero, as the aircraft was not a remarkable innovation, but a steep gamble; trading durability for performance. The underdeveloped nature of domestic Japanese aero engines forced their hand on this - and it's also why they failed to produce anything better than the Zero in numbers that might have mattered. They produced several good airframes, and all of them came to naught for want of a decent powerplant. As the 1:1 kill ratio between the Zero and the W
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Cultures learn from each other all the time. The politically correct terms for this process are:
Colonialism - a poor society learns from a wealthy society.
Appropriation - a wealthy society learns from a poorer society.
Stealing - a wealthy society learns from another wealthy society that has not deigned to apply its own inventions.
I say, Go China! Mankind needs to see this craft fly.
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Stealing IP doesn't preclude having significant capability of your own.
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That was the result of a joint hostile takeover with the Russians and a subsequent division of assets.
Re: Rapid research timeline? (Score:2)
if a Belgian had invented the wheel, would we all be stealing from the Belgian people or we would thank them and move on?
We don't think of stealing from the Romans, even if our basic idea of how to organize an army is largely derived, through the century, from theirs. Oh, we also learned quite a bit from Napoleon. And where would be modern military aviation without the Germans? The British were the first to have a truly global Navy, my guess would be that they learned a thing or two in the process, technica
Well done Britain (Score:1)
You could have funded Skylon for more than the chicken feed you handed them, you could have led the world in SSTO systems and exported the technology globally like you did with nuclear power generation and passenger jets. Now the Chinese are going to knock something up in 4 years and you'll be left with a footnote in the history of human space exploration as an "also ran"
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Pretend you're American and tell those "suit wearing prats with aristocratic titles who insist on being called 'sir' something, or 'your lordship' by anybody they perceive as being their inferiors" to go fuck themselves.
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If Skylon has so much promise, it shouldnt have any issues getting commercial funding.
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That's a very good point with only two downsides:
1. The works doesn't work like that
And
2. The works doesn't work like that.
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They are just throwing money at something which may eventually be used in a cruise missile or intercontinental bomber down the line.
How do the engines survive reentry? (Score:2)
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It's a special series of changes, constraints and a tight timeline that resulted in that with the space shuttle so I doubt that's ever going to be done that way again by anybody. NASA knew it was a bad idea but they had a new condition to get to polar orbits for spook/military flights and had an Apollo sized envelope for maximum height.
Wouldn't a feasible SÃnger 2 be awesome? (Score:4, Interesting)
We're been dreaming about this ever since the 70ies. I remember as a Kid - both my father and grandpa worked for and with Nasa - seeing the SÃnger concepts.
We'd leapfrog SpaceX if this would finally happen, but I'm not holding my breath. This is difficult. Really difficult. But cool if the chinks can make it happen. Two thumbs up for the attempt.
My 2 Eurocents.
Slashdot, what about Unicode? (Score:3)
How about switching to unicode, dear Slashdot Team. It's 2016, for chrissakes. Or is this just mobile? 'Sänger' is the Name. (Let's hope HTML Umlaut renders correctly .... It's like 10 years ago that I last had to use these)
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The problem with Unicode in 2016, is that it is no longer about diacritics and special characters, but instead has become all about apple emojis and whether or not they are politically correct. Do we really want that here?
À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø Ù Ú Û Ü Ý ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ ò ó ô õ ö ø ù ú û ü ý ÿ
£ ¥ ¦ © ® ± ¼ ½ ¾ × ÷
– — ‘ ’ “ ” €
What? Fights about political correctness? On a vaguely tech topics?
With browsers?
Man, this [blinky]is[/blinky] what Slashdot is all about.
looks like skylon to me (Score:2)
Amateurs (Score:2)
No surprise here (Score:2)
I guess China has finally stolen enough ideas, tech and infrastructure that they feel confident enough to try something like this.
Great, if it becomes real (Score:2)
I hope they are right, I really do. Its just that I'm old enough to have seen dozens of these ideas appear, get hyped, the disappear. Anyone remember NASP? So far though, the only things that works to get to orbit are conventional rockets. SpaceX is making a lot of progress there.
Pure Propaganda (Score:2)
The credulous piece by Popular Mechanics just relays the Chinese government's propaganda.
Nobody can get SCRAM-jot to work for than a few minutes. RAM-jets are hard enough. You need to be up to at least Mach 3 for a RAM-jet to even ignite.
TFA describes a multi-type jet + RAM-jet + SCRAM-jet engine that adjusts the intake cowling to "transition" from jet-powered supersonic flight to RAM-jet powered supersonic flight, and so on.
The biggest point that the article missed is that a SCRAM-jet relies on oxygen i
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Read TFA again. Nobody claimed it would go to LEO on scramjet
Chinese combined cycle engines like this blueprint would be paired with a scramjet (presumably via changing the ramjet) and a separate rocket motor to create a hypersonic space plane.
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It still makes zero sense for space launch. Instead of one rocket engine you need like three engines. A jet engine to get it to Mach 3, then a ramjet/scramjet to get to Mach 5 or Mach 8 (depends on the engine), and in addition to that a rocket engine. You could use two engines, in theory, by combining the jet engine with the ramjet/scramjet but then the engine needs to have variable geometry like a Transformer. Because you spend more time in the atmosphere the exterior skin of the whole vehicle needs active
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The parent claimed this is propaganda because it violates the principle that LEO altitude has no air for an air-breathing scramjet engine. But he's apparently trolling since the engine could be a serial combination of the different ones in a neat way; or it could have a separate rocket engine; or whatever, but nobody claimed its scramjet mode operate all the way to LEO.
Start to a new space race? (Score:2)
A new space race would be awesome.
I'll believe it... (Score:2)
...when they've built the "first" of anything that hasn't been researched, developed, and likely designed by someone else such that they simply stole the plans, connected a few lines, and built it domestically.
They can't really even build a decent jet engine themselves.