BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

I wonder how the people at NASA will feel about this?
Not so sure how "liquid oxygen and liquid oxygen propellant" are supposed to work but its probably just a typo'.

Chinese engineers are considering a new super-powerful engine for the next generation of space rockets, say officials.
According to Li Tongyu, general manager of the marketing department at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), engineers are currently studying a rocket engine with the thrust of 600 tonnes, burning highly potent liquid oxygen and liquid oxygen propellant.
If China succeeds in the development of such power, it would increase the nation's capabilities in space by orders of magnitude.
For comparison, China is currently well in the development of its most powerful rocket to date - Long March-5 - that would sport engines with the thrust of 120 tonnes.
"Rockets (with 600-tonne thrust engines) would only be justified for things like sending humans to the Moon, if such projects are approved," Li Tongyu told BBC News.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10762634

[nemisis39]

Found this

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT/RT2001/5 ... omsik.html

on liquid oxygen propellent but it was last up dated in 2002 so things may well have progressed since then

[M Paul Lloyd]

So basically good old hydrogen and oxygen, at one time they were refered to as propellant and oxidiser (such as LO2 and RP-1 or Kerosene as its better known) but in reality the propellant is actually what comes out of the back and in this case that's going to be mostly steam.

[jpYB3Gq]

I thought they will use "Chi"?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Not without the I Ching I think jpYB3Gq ?

[Shadowwolf]

I thought they will use "Chi"?

I don't think the mere fact that they are Chinese automatically means that they think everything runs on Chi or that such a thing exists.

Btw when is Singapore launching its rocket?

[jpYB3Gq]

Besides "Chi", the PRC Chinese also claim to have the "artificial sun"
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/20070 ... 59746.html

Singapore is not interested in launching rockets, but we have just launched two big casinos which our leaders think can earn a lot of money.

[Shadowwolf]

Uhhh jp that's describing a fusion reactor, calling it an artificial sun is not exactly in the same league as imaginary forces, which only some Chinese people imagines to exist and the rocket scientists don't think Chi runs the rockets.

Singapore is not interested in launching rockets nor currently able to launch rockets, it seems unfair to disparage the Chinese space program when they are clearly more adept in that field than you currently are.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well I'm pleased someone is still interested in developing space.

[jpYB3Gq]

1)The media is very good in exaggerating China's scientific progress. You have to be very skeptical, eg
a) Artificial sun: all the combined money of the European powers cannot even make the ITER work, the lone nation China claimed that they have created the artificial sun.
b) Space program: what China did is just sending a probe to the moon, while the USA has already sent 2 or 3 out of the entire solar system.
2) Contrary to what you think, the vast majority of the Chinese still believe in "Chi" just as they proudly believe in being "Chinese", or Chinese did not evolve from African Homo sapiens but from Chinese Homo erectus. It is the foundation of acupuncture, which is considered "established science" even in Singapore.

[Shadowwolf]

The media is very good in exaggerating China's scientific progress.

To be honest I don't think the media are particularly disposed to needlessly talking up China and successfully putting rockets and men in orbit actually happened, that's an achievement.

Artificial sun: all the combined money of the European powers cannot even make the ITER work, the lone nation China claimed that they have created the artificial sun.

Ummm the Euro powers are not exactly investing everything into ITER, I'd wager that many individual countries spend more on defence spending than they spend on ITER - which China also contributes to apparently. The lone nation of China has a clearly growing and rather substantial economic clout, they can probably afford it. However China has not claimed to have created an artificial sun and neither did that online paper, its the name for the experiment and its future intentions.

Space program: what China did is just sending a probe to the moon, while the USA has already sent 2 or 3 out of the entire solar system.

What's your point?

Contrary to what you think, the vast majority of the Chinese...

Granted a good deal likely do believe in Chi, I just doubt that many - particularly those who design and operate rockets - think that Chi powers rockets, that such was an unfair comment on the Chinese Space Program that has done what few others have managed.

[jpYB3Gq]

What's your point?

My point is very simple: If you make a cake that is edible, and cause a surprise to the world, it means that you have not been very good in cake-making after all. No body will be surprised if a bakery shop makes an edible cake, just as nobody is surprised it is the USA or even Europe, Russia and Japan that makes another breakthrough in science again. Get it? It is all the media's fault. The media does not report on the 99% of the people that live well, but the 1% who does not, and people put undue attention on the 1%.

[M Paul Lloyd]

China is fast becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations on the planet and when it comes to space exploration they are not so stupid as to go straight in at the deep end and try to impress us all with something new only to fail dismally. Ok so 99% of everything they try might fail and we only get the highlights but then every rocket development programme has been fraught with difficulties, setbacks and failures. They call it a learning curve.

Yes the Chinese are not doing anything that has not been done before but given the ailing economic state of our 'established' culture it seems highly unlikely that the US, Japan or Europe are going to be putting much new money into space exploration. So credit where it is due I say.

[nemisis39]

im with paul on this, at least somebody is interested in going ( or trying to ) forward with a space program. I still hold that as a world it would be better to pool resorces and have a UN style space program with all major countries contributing to it, i would assume we all want the same thing with this or is it the final frontier senario, were who ever gets there 1st gets the spoils.I would have thought that we as a world would have grown out of that particular state of mind by now maybe that is not the case

As far as the artifical sun goes is that opposed to the rising sun

[Shadowwolf]

If you make a cake that is edible...

You're kidding right?

You're not seriously trying to equate the small simple task of making a cake with the hugely expensive complex endeavour of surface to orbit rocketry? Baking muffins is not in the same league as lofting men to orbit or sending probes to the moon, not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. If baking an edible cake was a complex task only mastered by a half dozen nations it might be analogous, however until most of the world is regularly hoisting craft into orbit and beyond, the cake analogy is, well, wrong.

When lofting humans to orbit and sending probes to other places becomes a common day to day activity or most of the world is doing it, then and only then will doing so be an unremarkable event - if only this were so but alas humanity is dragging its backside on this frontier. Whilst we live in a world where hardly any nation is capable of launching or actually launching space missions, any such nation who develops and manages the task is note worthy and doing something most have not managed to do. No one is showering them with praise for breaking new ground, just giving them fair dues for a difficult enterprise. That enterprise is not a media fantasy, they did it and they did it regardless of what opinions you may hold or what is wrong about China in general.