China is learning how to dream big. CAS Space, a Chinese commercial space company owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, already has a successful small, solid SLV (Kinetica-1) and is testing the engines for its medium-lift liquid propellant SLV. However, it is also working on a Space Tourism Vehicle. According to its website, it is building a space theme park with its space tourism business. I am sure it would be an adventure you would never forget, but the kids would still rather go to Disney. "The Space Tourism Vehicle will be built with a single-stage sub-orbital orbit and an observation pod. The observation pod seats 7 travelers and offers panoramic views. In the 10-minute journey, the travelers will breakthrough the Kármán line at 100 km high, and experience zero-gravity for as long as three minutes. The pod will be landed safely through parachute at the conclusion of the journey. CAS Space’s space tourism project will achieve a launch interval of 100 hours. A theme park will be built with ten vehicles in rotating service. The theme park, as the name suggests, is more than a launch and recovery ground for the vehicle. It is designed with a space experience center, a theme park, and an educational center where the travelers will be trained for their space journey. Product parameters： Height: 21 m Lift-off Mass: 79 t Apogee above sea-level: 100-120 km Time in space (> 100 km above sea-level) 300-550 s Payload Capacity: 1,000 kg Flight Duration: 300 – 550 s Reusability: >30 times"
Bryan Zetlen
4mo
Sure let’s all cheer for a rocket built entirely from stolen IP and a flagrant copy of rockets from EU, USA.
Blaine Curcio
4mo
Interestingly, CAS Space is also kind of going upstream/sidestream. They built the separation and unlocking devices that connected the G60/Qianfan satellites to the LM-6A last week (link below) I speculate, but with CAS Space garnering for constellation launches, one way that they can presumably differentiate from all the other launch providers is to have flight heritage on the technology of separating constellations' satellites from rockets. No word on whether their devices contributed to the debris though... https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/92v3BlpguvmPus2rp93mDw
Gregory Stanley
4mo
Well, from a space competition standpoint, I guess it's good that the Chinese are wasting efforts on suborbital flights that don't really contribute meaningfully to strategic goals.
Jason B. Mello
4mo
The biggest counterfeiters are at it again
Copying.
Bryan Zetlen
4mo
China does not ‘dream big’. They steal big, oppress big and manipulate big. They don’t invent anything, their government and culture are based on theft and oppression.
The top looks like the one from blue horizon 🤔
Wonder how many fake Amazon stores had to be set up in order to get this design?
Principal Space Scientist and thought leader in Space Domain Awareness, ISR, and National Intelligence. ModSimAnalysis expert, and model-based systems engineer. Content creator in the Metaverse.
4moIt's easy to emotionally respond with "copycat" and "ripoff" and frankly, a year ago those would have been my emotions, but I urge folks to learn about the Shanzhhai culture in China. While "shanzhai" is a Chinese neologism that actually means "fake", there is a great little monograph by Byung-Chul Han that articulates the concepts and helps westerners appreciate what the Chinese are doing and why.