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Is China's Space Race An Opportunity For the US?
Hugh Pickens writes "Lieutenant General Frank Klotz (ret.), the former vice commander of Air Force Space Command, writes that it's worth considering whether aspects of the U.S.-Russian experience with space cooperation can be pursued with China to serve long-term American interests. 'China has in many respects already reached the top tier of spacefaring nations — with profound implications for America's own interests in space,' writes Klotz. While initially starting well behind the two original space powers, China has slowly but steadily added accomplishments to its space portfolio, conducting nineteen space launches in 2011 — twelve less than Russia but one more than the United States. It's worth recalling that even in the darkest days of the Cold War, the United States and its archrival at the time — the Soviet Union — embarked upon cooperative efforts in space, most famously with the joint Apollo-Soyuz docking mission in 1975 and today the first stage of one of the rockets that currently lofts U.S. national-security satellites into orbit — United Launch Alliance's Atlas V booster — uses the powerful RD-180 rocket engine, which is made in Russia. Washington has called for enhanced dialogue with Beijing on strategic issues and for military-to-military exchanges to help reduce uncertainty and potential misunderstandings, however, in May of last year, the House inserted a provision into the NASA appropriations bill prohibiting the US from spending any funds 'to participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company' and blocking the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or used by NASA. 'This legislative action reportedly reflected deeply held concerns about protecting American intellectual property and sensitive technologies in the face of aggressive Chinese attempts to glean scientific and technical information from abroad,' writes Klotz. 'However, in the process, it foreclosed one possible avenue for gaining greater insight into China's intentions with respect to space.'"
writes Klotz. "However, in the process, it foreclosed one possible avenue for gaining greater insight into China's intentions with respect to space."
Luckily that avenue is risky and useless. Isn't a very early step in the decision making process "exclude the really bad ideas"?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The European aerospace industry seems to see the recent US ban on cooperation with the Chinese space program as an opportunity, and is stepping up cooperation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You can either cooperate. It means you have no unique intellectual property (IP) position, but through the widespread use of your IP you might get some benefits back like cheaper space flight. Also, with some luck, new orders for your own local economy, where that IP originated and where the most knowledge is available.
Or you can protect the IP. No cooperation. Create an inflexible closed operation. Costs increase and without cooperation you'll have to invent everything yourself, or buy it under a license agreement. The best case scenario you succeed at being the first at everything. In a worse scenario, you pay for knowledge. In the worst cases, you either have no access, or you're violating someone else's IP.
Look at the money being squandered on patent battles in courts in the IT and also manufacturing industries. Don't get space flight locked into a similar situation, because there's no way out.
Cooperation through openness is the way forward. But it takes some balls to start doing that. (And please note that top managers and politicians, who think only short term, generally don't have those).
As people say, China will get old before they get rich. Please don't interpret me as saying America doesn't have several problems they have to work through, but at the very least they don't have a demographic problem (compared to most parts of the developed world).
China's one child policy is ultimately going to bite them. I know the general sentiment on Slashdot is Malthusian, but the number one resource of a nation is people. And if you have a demographic of population decline (eventually), a lot of single males, and too many old people relative to young people, that's not a long-term trend for success.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The sad part is, China has almost become more capitalist than a good chunk of Europe and the US.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Since its topical, and in "space articles" we often get real rocket scientists reading, how does the oxygen rich preburner in the RD-180 work? I don't mean the "duh" stuff like how do you adjust the mixture, but what in the world are these guys doing for metalurgy such that you can basically pipe a metal cutting torch's flame around the innards of an engine? Or is it something totally bonkers like they use nozzle style film cooling inside the pipes and stuff (which doesn't help with the turbopumps, but...)
I would assume if the russians ship working hardware to the DoD that whatever the answer is, its probably not classified.
Also I might be dense here but isn't it harder to maintain stable combustion when oxidizer rich rather than fuel rich? Or maybe its just "different" for an industry used to running fuel rich?
Do they use oxidizer rich preburner gas to cool the nozzle? I'm guessing they aren't that crazy and use the traditional nozzle coolant of fuel. Now a oxidizer regeneratively cooled nozzle would be bonkers, I don't recall anything that crazy. Maybe one of those weird solid fuel/liquid ox hybrids used liq O2 to cool the nozzle. I would imagine a pinhole leak in a oxy cooled nozzle would be a pretty spectacular failure whereas a pinhole in a fuel cooled nozzle is pretty much irrelevant until its a big enough leak to affect flow rates...
The background is that the 170/180 are the only engines I can think of off the top of my head that run oxidizer rich... every one else preburns fuel rich because a traditional welder's cutting torch is an oxidizer rich flame and putting what amounts to a cutting torch inside a engine seems a recipe for disaster. On the other hand oxidizer rich would seem to eliminate carbon/tar/gunk buildup issues. Maybe if you're stuck using heavy tarry parafiny filthy liquid fuels, like cruise ship heavy bunker oil as a fuel, the oxidizer problems are easier solved than creating a whole new fuel refining infrastructure... Would be interesting to know the design tradeoff, assuming its not just "too many bottles of vodka"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
China is getting a huge amount of capital which raises their standard of living, although, due to not having a free market it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
How is that different than the USA? Wages have been stagnent for all but those at the very top for decades. Real income is actually slipping.
On the one hand, it sounds reasonable to work with China now when they have a reason to work with us rather than wait until they've passed what NASA can do. On the other hand, given their history they would almost certainly learn whatever they can however they can, then cease cooperating once they've sucked away all the technology anyway. I don't see any benefit to the US in working with them.
Actually class mobility in the USA is pretty much at an all time low.
I know that conflicts with your American Dream mythology, but that is all it ever was a myth.
Starting your own business in the US is easy, making it big pretty much requires political connections or connections with already established big business.
Seems like the Chinese are run by government bureaucrats and we are run by Corporate bureaucrats.
Isn't that our capitalist victory over the communist bastards? :)
It seems that it never occurred to anyone that by winning the cold war, the communist countries would start playing the game by our own (rather ruthless) rules.
When they were commies, we could block them out. Now we have to allow them to play the game. Not sure what was a bigger threat for our western economies.
Not forgetting the IP minefield. Google's $12.5bn purchase of Motorola Mobility wasn't for its love of phones.
A Space Race is usually a race to be the first at something, like going to the moon was. Unless they plan on racing to put a human on Mars, there is no Space Race worth devoting billions to.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
That was great and all, but 1975 hardly qualifies as the darkest days of the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis was certainly darker, and was right at the start of the space race. Kennedy had set the goal of reaching the moon just a month earlier, and no one would claim there was any collaboration in space for the next decade. Lobbing humans into orbit and lobbing nukes aren't all that different, after all. There were other dark times during the 1980s, and I doubt anyone would claim that was a great time for space collaboration, either.
Indeed, USA is nowadays characterized by the lowest social mobility among western countries. The only other country that comes close is the UK.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Citation needed.
The way social mobility is kept low is because poor people do *not* have time, have no money, have no opportunity to develop skills and cannot afford to take the risk. These problems are far from as trivial as you make it sound. Work a poorly paid 18 hour day, and be forced to decide between medical care, food, and education, and realise that financial failure means starvation, and you will see how easy it is to be trapped in poverty.
China has a one child policy? What are you stuck in the 1970s when it was implemented?
There are so many loop holes in that policy one can drive a truck through it.
There are exemptions if your first child was a girl, many regions of China now have locally implemented a two child policy across the board, Ethnic minorities (there are 55 in China) are allowed 2 Children in urban areas, or 4 in rural areas, with Tibet's Autonomous region declaring there is no limitations to the number of kids one has. These exceptions mean that as long as you follow a birth spacing of 3-4 years depending on the area, nearly 65% of all China are allowed more then one child.
Plus there are exemptions if you want to pay a fine (equal to the average disposable income in the area your living in the year the child was born, and doesn't need to be paid till the child is 5 years old and starts school, WITHOUT penalty/interest for being late), or if your a business owner the fine is larger and much stiffer, and you need to do math based on your income.
20,000×6+(INCOME-20,000)×2 = Fine in Chinese yuan.
I know we bai gui's in the west still act like China is still in the 1970's but Mao has been dead for 34 years, and most of his policies are either totally gone or have been swiss cheesed since then.
As an overall percentage, it's down. In the 1970s, 36% of US families stayed in the same income quintile. In the 1980s, 37%, and in the 1990s, 40%. That's reduced class mobility. How significant this is debatable, but it's not "unsubstantiated opinion and bordering on pure fiction".
http://www.economist.com/node/3518560?story_id=3518560
A lot of the demographic problem those policies created still exist though, and will until the "problem generations" die off. And even if the child restriction only really applies to the least-fortunate 1/2 or 1/4 of the population that's still an ongoing contributor to demographic imbalance
On the other hand the bulk of their population is still agrarian, and as they industrialize the surge in per-capita productivity will likely outstrip the demographic problems. It doesn't really matter much to the economics of the situation whether the new labor pool is coming of age or immigrating from near-subsistence rural areas.
In fact China may be in a better position than most developed nations in that it's industrialized population growth is phenomenal, whereas in most nations developed it's relatively stagnant if not slightly negative.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Tressury notes will become worthless overnight. If the US can do it to China, who says they cannot do it to others. Being a sore loser never helps.
Not mention that China might very well go to war, if this happens.
I 100% agree with your implicit argument that we should tax the shit out of capital gains.
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How does that jive with reality?
Where some of the nations with the highest levels of class mobility also have the highest levels of income tax?
Why can we not classify all income the same way, including investment income for the purposes of taxes?
the number one resource of a nation is people. And if you have a demographic of population decline (eventually), a lot of single males, and too many old people relative to young people, that's not a long-term trend for success.
Because having billions of starving young people fighting for resources is so much more fun!
it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
Fortunately we have The Free Market (tm) or this could be happening here too! Oh, the horror...
it really only raises the standard of living for those at the top.
The proportion of impoverished Chinese fell from 65% of the population in 1981 to 4% in 2007, during which time more than HALF A BILLION people were hoisted above the poverty line. (source)
No, we are not planning that. Do not be foolish. The issue is that we have 2 ppl out of 6 up there, and we are covering 2/3 of the costs. Likewise, we actually covered much of the initial build-out (again, something like 2/3 of it). That is just plain foolish. So, what is going on, is that we are trying to get the partners to start paying their fair share. That is only fair.
But there is little doubt that we will continue the ISS probably until 2025. Or we will turn it over to our allies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's more a Senate and Congress problem as shown with things like this really stupid law. Apollo didn't work as a project contained very strictly within the USA alone, and a pile of other things since have had international involvement. I had a small part of my education in Australia in the 1980s paid for by NASA simply because scramjet models were getting tested in the same building by people that were teaching me about engineering. Personally I think if NASA can get some advantage from something in China they should be allowed to instead of some idiot deciding they need to "send a message" by hobbling NASA.
The Chinese are useless
Wow, and I never ever thought I would read something like that on a respectable site such as Slashdot
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !