Has China Already Flown a Space Plane? 176
garymortimer writes that according to a report published by China Aviation Journal, "China has successfully launched its own space plane prototype; the news came out shortly after the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane. This story has now been deleted. Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily on Tuesday said Shaanxi TV last Saturday quoted acting provincial governor Zhao Zhengyong as saying China has 'succeeded in the test flight of a prototype aircraft that can fly through the atmospheric layer.' Zhao was visiting a state-run aircraft corporation at Xi'an high-tech industrial development zone."
Credible (Score:4, Informative)
Probably about as credible as this:
http://online.wsj.com/video/cctv-tries-to-pass-off-top-gun-clip-as-real/43EC0FC2-A440-4522-8E81-437EC747D30A.html [wsj.com]
Google cache? (Score:4, Informative)
If the original news articles were spidered before deletion, the information may still exist. I don't speak Chinese so I can't do much to try and find it though.
this article [sinobeat.info] has more info incl 2 images.
Re:weird sentence in article (Score:4, Informative)
it can server as an orbital weapons platform, at which point a simple metal bar suddenly becomes an very dangerous high energy kinetic weapon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment [wikipedia.org]
Re:weird sentence in article (Score:4, Informative)
Somewhere between 1 meter and big enough that the moon can coalesce from the debris blasted out of the hole. Depending on the size of the bar and its speed.