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."
Hermes? (Score:5, Insightful)
China’s “Hermes” Space Plane: A December 16 photo shows a model of the Shenlong and a new model of the Chinese “Hermes” space plane. China has made significant progress toward the development of an unmanned trans-atmospheric vehicle and a Space Plane. Beijing’s technological advancement has obvious commercial and scientific uses, however the military significance of the plane cannot be denied.
But Hermes [wikipedia.org] was a European vehicle. Sounds like somebody in China has been cutting and pasting, and has a bad case of the mee toos.
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Sweet crested myna of China! Someone find the Professor before they steal him too!
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But Hermes [wikipedia.org] was a European vehicle. Sounds like somebody in China has been cutting and pasting, and has a bad case of the mee toos.
Sounds Xi'antific.
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It was old footage from Capricorn One.
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I'm thinking Marooned (1969).
Top Gun (Score:5, Funny)
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Here's a pic of their spaceplane [wikipedia.org].
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Depends, have the Russians flown a space plane? (Score:2)
Re:Depends, have the Russians flown a space plane? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you assume they are incapable of developing anything themselves? Maybe the reason they copy other nation's technology is to catch up in the shorted time possible. That doesn't mean they don't have talented people who can build on those designs.
Just look at some of the high end audio gear they are producing over there. I have a pair of PK1 headphones which surpass all other in-ear buds IMHO. They do some damn good amps and DACs too. These are not copies of other countries designs, they are original Chinese products.
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Everybody steals from everybody else; China's just the worst at hiding it.
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Re:Depends, have the Russians flown a space plane? (Score:4, Insightful)
China's space technology is pretty much a verbatim copy of the Russian stuff(and ever since Russia realized what China was doing with technology it lent China to go to space, China hasn't been back there. Not a coincidence in my opinion). So if Russia has a space plane then maybe China has one, otherwise I doubt it.
Just because they've been copying Russia's space technology doesn't mean they're incapable of developing their own. Ever hear the phrase "don't re-invent the wheel"? We IT folks routinely re-use other people's code where we can, and then write our own where we can't?
Regardless, Russia did have some space plane-ish stuff. The Buran [wikipedia.org] comes to mind...
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The Buran was Russia's answer to the Space Shuttle ... except they saw it was pointless earlier than the USA and only did the test flight to prove it worked then scrapped it and went back to rockets ....
They now have more efficient rocket motors, a more reliable launch system, and a 10 year head start on long duration space habitation .... the USA has the Shuttle which it is now (finally) getting rid of ...
Space planes were the solution to a problem that no longer exists, much like the U2, SR52, and Concor
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that was the YF-2, a weaponized version of the SR-71. Really, it was a fighter/interceptor, not a bomber.
I used to have a conceptual art poster of it from Lockheed.
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Pretty sure you meant the YF-12A [wikipedia.org], not YF-2.
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Yes SR71, My Dyscalculia strikes again ....
It's was the SR-72 Blackbird, like the U3 Spyplane, F-23 Raptor, F-36 Lightning etc ...
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The original Soviet atomic bomb was also a direct copy of US one, because that was the fastest way to get started, and time was of utmost importance. That didn't preclude Soviets from developing their own self-sustainable nuclear weapons program from there.
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(the Soviet Union and China fell out in the early 1970s
Early 60s, actually.
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Russia had multiple space plane projects:
Buran - which the entire USSR space industry loved to hate as it was contrary to what they wanted to develop and done as a tit-a-tat with the shuttle
Multiple early Buran prototypes - much smaller, but closer to what is on the "Chinese" picture. Some flew unmanned for at least some test flights. http://www.russianspaceweb.com/images/maks_2.jpg [russianspaceweb.com] other media can be found around the web
Mig 105/Spiral - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-105 [wikipedia.org]
Uragan Space I
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One more actually.
LKS by Chelomey
So that makes at least 5 projects, some of which have been launched.
Top Gun (Score:2)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12321492
uhhh... (Score:1)
"the news came out shortly after the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane, which is widely regarded as a next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb"
right guys
this is definitely a story that needs to be taken seriously!
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"the news came out shortly after the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane, which is widely regarded as a next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb"
right guys this is definitely a story that needs to be taken seriously!
Which one, the "Chine space plane" one, or the "next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb" one?
Interesting idea (Score:2)
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If they manage to militarize space, commerce might begin in full force. Sadly, you don't get the kind of focus you need on something unless it has military applications. If you can get a nation to make a outpost in space, we're free and clear as far as surviving a major disaster.
An outpost in space is worthless until it becomes self sustaining. If you destroy a country that has space outposts, you will suddenly have those space outposts begging the victorious country for supplies to survive or a ride home.
Your statement is mostly correct however. It should read:
If you can get a nation to make a self sustaining outpost in space, we're free and clear as far as surviving a major disaster.
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True. The logistics of "100km east" are rather less complex than those of "100km up", however. Also, if said disaster is indeed so major as to make space outposts a major asset, it is reasonable to assume that the home nation can no longer provide those logistics.
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I think you missed his point. In order to have a space outpost work in a survival of the species situation after a planet wide disaster, it has to be self sustaining. A regular old dozen cargo flights a day military base isn't going to be much use in that situation, even if it is in space.
The regular military logistics problem with space bases is that the supply line is necessarily very long and tenuous. It's not that hard to disrupt rocket flights and you wouldn't have to do so very long to put a space
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But using this as a platform to work your way to a base on the Moon is a viable plan. Oh, wait - China already says that it has plans for exactly this sort of thing.
We ran out of money and have nothing. We're *so* repeating the collapse of the British Empire that it's not funny any more. At this point, we simply should give up and maybe with the EU we can manage something together. Spending money on something that we can't possibly beat the Chinese in any more when we're about to go belly-up is simply
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A base on the moon is pretty useless militarily, is a far worse logistics problem, and would still need to be self sustaining, which is highly unlikely for a long time, if it were to be any use as a species lifeboat.
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A base on the Moon is out of range of conventional missiles and weapons, allows for effortless spying, can be easily hardened against an attack, and if you build most of it underground, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem isn't that unreasonable as there's tons of room. Also, we are finding out that aside from the radiation and micro-meteorite blasted "eggshell" exterior layer, the Moon is pretty much normal rock and dirt underneath. There's even water and it appears to also have a small internal heat so
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If you can get people to the moon you can certainly send a missile there. If someone built a military base on the moon it wouldn't take long before everyone else built missiles that could hit it. And nukes aren't such a big deal on the moon either.
But supposing you did build a base on the moon. If it's supposed to be a military base it's pretty much useless because, as you point out, it's a long way away. There's nothing like launching a nuclear strike and giving your enemy three days to notice and reta
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Yet, suppose that you dug out a several mile cavern (or found a large set of caverns)? You simply can't do that in space. If there's heat, water, and light that we add, it being self-sustaining becomes much easier. There are plenty of examples of self-sustaining ecosystems on Earth that can be found in caves. Our idiocy is trying to build it all in a small sealed dome. Of course if you could make it several miles across it would be easier to accomplish.
Yes, it could be hit by a missile, but it also wou
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You forgot food and fuel.
"Self-sustaining" means your submarine would have to be able to operate forever without being resupplied.
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But the fall of the British empire lead to America's rise.
America's rise got man on the moon so...
What is China's rise going to give us? Something equally awesome hopefully.
And let's face it the UK isn't doing too bad at the moment, it might not be a world leader anymore, but being an also-ran isn't too bad...
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Gosh, we seem to have military bases everywhere that require resupply and are not self sustaining. It's called logistics and it is something that has been part of the art of warfare since the first man picked up the first rock.
Don't you mean: "since the first man picked up a couple of rocks and then climbed onto a really big rock."
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An outpost in space is worthless until it becomes self sustaining. If you destroy a country that has space outposts, you will suddenly have those space outposts begging the victorious country for supplies to survive or a ride home.
You need to read about the concept of mutually-assured destruction.
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China can make a self sustaining moonbase.
They will just keep shipping dissidents up there until an atmosphere forms.
Verified? (Score:2)
Buzzing the ISS (Score:3)
They seem to have deleted any videos. Perhaps this is linked to the fact when you do a frame capture and zoom in, through the cockpit window you can see Tom Cruise giving the bird?
Phillip.
Shuttle Replacement (Score:2, Interesting)
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Which atmosphere (Score:1)
how can believe anything outta china? (Score:5, Interesting)
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What happened at CCTV can be something like this.. reporter got military footage on flying fighter planes, but no explosio
Re:how can believe anything outta Fox? (Score:2, Insightful)
By the same token, Fox News tried to show a packed rally for Glenn Beck, and it became obvious that the footage was from different events with different weather conditions.
So China is as guilty as any other news organization. I don't believe much coming out of Fox, MsNbc, Cnn, or any other news agency that believes that ratings are more important than truth.
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What was the point of your comment really? The worst of our media outlets do it therefor nothing needs to be said about this story? In a story about Chinese media's claims to their supposed leaps in space technology, someone brings up Chinese media's most recent fakes as a way of framing the conversation. As dubious as Fox and CNN are, they still have nothing to do with this story.
Slashdot: Off-topic comments rated off-topic except comments critical of anything from the US, then it doesn't matter how off-to
Not Surprised (Score:2)
weird sentence in article (Score:2)
the news came out shortly after the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane, which is widely regarded as a next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb
Whaaa? How so? If it was dropping a nuke I could see it being dangerous, but how is it more dangerous on its own? Covert information gathering?
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]
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Yea. I'm reading Footfall again and that's what the Snouts were using. Essentially a crowbar with a maneuverable tail fin and a mini-brain to id and make subtle changes in direction.
[John]
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What size of blast radius would you be looking at with something like that?
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.
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<anecdotal evidence>
I heard that that particular project was never really taken very seriously inside the military. I mean, we explore everything, and that was just another option to explore.
</anecdotal evidence>
The obvious logistical problem of putting a really freakin' heavy hunk of metal up in space aside (and it has to be big enough to have something left when it makes it through the atmosphere at high velocity (why not slow it down? well, that would defeat the purpose, now wouldn't it?))
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the wiki link suggests 25 foot accuracy, and the X37B already has demonstrated ability to change its orbit multiple times. The upside of orbital bombardment would be that if you have a platform over target, time to impact is just a few minutes.
Also, i think an X37B is hardly a slow moving, easy to hit target, you would need a kill-vehicle (missile, heavy metal rod etc..) capable of reaching orbit, and it would need to cope with active avoidance/countermeasures from the target.
I still agree that it is a bit
That is footage from 2001 (Score:1)
Their claims are belied by the fact that the footage is taken from 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Only if their... (Score:1)
The Art Of War (Score:2)
Re:The Art Of War (Score:4, Insightful)
And all armies can be beaten by much smaller forces of guerillas who prefer the low and dark places where the armies can't operate.
Think of the tunnel rats in Viet nam, etc.
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We may take it then that an army without its baggage train is lost; without provisions it is lost; without bases of supply it is lost. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
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Ha, sorry, I actually meant to reply to the guy you replied to.
Guerrillas do very well with supply lines even without tunnels, because they can usually depend on at least some of the populace to help out, and they're independent and sparse enough to make foraging practical. Space battle stations, not so much.
Even if you do occupy the "high ground" it's not worth much if the tunnel rats or a conventional military shoot down your supply rockets or bomb the launch facilities. Mountaintops are high ground too
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For some reason my brain ended your Sun Tzu quote with Ricardo Montalbán saying, "It is very sunny... in spaaaaaaaace...."
Why was it pulled? (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt they've flown it. They probably have a prototype they plan to fly, and a pre-written press release to print the moment it flies. They accidentally published it early, and had to pull it. Similar things have happened with other parts of various space programs.
has china allready flown a space plane? (Score:1)
yes, no, maybe
next question
dangerous? (Score:1)
even more dangerous than atomic bomb
How is a space plane more dangerous than the atomic bomb?
Hyperbole much? (Score:2)
"...the US Air Force announced the successful test of their advanced X37B space plane, which is widely regarded as a next-generation super weapon that is even more dangerous than atomic bomb."
Strictly speaking, the X-37B doesn't do much of anything in and of itself other than go round and round the Earth, so I'm not sure the above is exactly an apples to apples comparison.
Sure, why not? (Score:3)
Sure, why not? (Score:1, Redundant)
Depends on What Plans They Have (Score:4, Insightful)
The answer to this question depends on what US spaceplane plans the Chinese have been able to either,
a) Obtain via espionage
b) Obtain via bribery/coercion
c) Obtain as part of a trade deal
d) Outright purchase
from designers in the US.
Basically my point is, like everything else nowadays, this plane was most likely designed in California, but built in Shanghai.
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you missed e) they have actually built one themselves.
How can you underestimate 1.4e9 people like this? There are bound to be several brilliant engineers among them.
Even so, what if they start using it to
a) spy on you,
b) knock down your birds,
c) bomb you, or
d) all of the above,
what are you going to do, start crying out 'doesn't count', 'fake' and 'I'll sue you for copyright'? See how ridiculous this sounds?
Be more responsible, don't underestimate people.
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Because they think positively as a matter of a 2000+ year tradition. Read Confucius and Kuhn before making such a comment for crying out loud.
Positive thinking innovative engineering and revolutionary science does not make.
You must think negatively and strongly dislike something which is in use today to produce something better for tomorrow. If you think positively about what you have today, you have no reason to make your brain look for something better. In fact as long as you continue thinking positively
What are US Government Bonds for ? (Score:1)
Made In China (Score:1)
Weapon? (Score:1)
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]
Pictures from Chinese television (Score:2)
Following their recent pictures of their J-10 fighter aircraft here are the pictures of their prototype space craft:
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/given/rb/tyd-door.jpg [theforce.net]
Good time to wave goodbye to the space shuttle (Score:2)
Why not just hand China the keys to manned spaceflight on a plate and be done with it?
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Why not just hand China the keys to manned spaceflight on a plate and be done with it?
Or even better, trade it for absolving the US debt.
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Knowing how many of our military plans "leak..." (Score:1)
...I really have to wonder if this Chinese space plane has X37B on the fuselage but Krylon-ed over with primer.
Whose propaganda is this anyway? (Score:2)
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We'd know (Score:3)
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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.
Get a grip, folks (Score:2)
"Flying" a "space plane" is a meaningless accomplishment, even if it happened.
It takes a spitload of details, gotten exactly right, to make a safe, practical, reliable aerospace gadget.
The history of development of every thing that zooms has been fraught with a long if not also steep learning curve.
It took many tries for the USA to get the X-15 working smoothly.
Look up how many years the C-5A, C141, B-58, Atlas, B-1, and Patriot were in "development". Count up how many of those had to go back to the factor
Test flight might not mean what you think it does. (Score:2)
The US flew lots of space plane prototypes. Most of the X-plane series way back when. We'd strap them to a B-52 and drop them. Not hard to do compared to sending them to orbit.
As a matter of fact, Branson is doing the same thing privately.
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US X designation is just "experimental" rather than "space plane" so the X-35 became the F-35.
Test flights - mean just that. A flight to test various systems.
So the Chinese space planes successful test flight just means they've dropped it from a bomber and its flight characteristics have been tested and it landed. No space re-entry just yet.
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Actually a few of the X-Planes where "Space planes" in any real sense. The X-2 and the X-15 could possibly qualify and long the X-24. The X series explored everything from extreme high speeds, variable geometry wings, vertical take off, super maneuverability, to VSTOL. That being said the Shuttle is a "space plane" and it a product of late 60s to early 70's technology. So China I guess maybe could have started work on one... Welcome to 1969 China at least they will have better avionics than we did in the 70
Stealth fighter, Space Plane .... (Score:2)
.... believe it when you see it at an international airshow held in an credible country. Otherwise ...
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All they have to do is look at what has happened in the last 10 years to figure out that it doesn't pay at all the invade other countries. You lose friends and lots of money in the process and people hate you and get absolutely nothing in return.
Whether true or not, history would disagree. Nearly every time a country becomes an economic and military force to be reckoned with, they start getting visions of world domination. I would say the US is an exception. Granted, we use our military pretty freely, but not to take ownership of foreign lands. Well, at least not since we expanded to the Pacific coast anyway, but that was well before our post WWII rise to become a world power.
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As a note here, I think our western expansion was all land purchased from empires that didn't really want to have to manage it anymore, unless I'm mistaken. So, even then, we hardly did anything like conquest.
Of course, to be fair, those empires basically conquered the native folks already living there. But, still, we didn't conquer. We just subjugated.
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As a note here, I think our western expansion was all land purchased from empires that didn't really want to have to manage it anymore, unless I'm mistaken. So, even then, we hardly did anything like conquest.
Of course, to be fair, those empires basically conquered the native folks already living there. But, still, we didn't conquer. We just subjugated.
Texas, California, and all the land in-between was annexed as spoils of the Spanish-American War.
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