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China Starts Developing Hybrid Hypersonic Spaceplane (popsci.com)
hackingbear quotes a report from Popular Science: While SpaceX is making news with its recoverable rockets, China announced that it is working on the next big thing in spaceflight: a hypersonic spaceplane. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is beginning advanced research on a high tech, more efficient successor to the retired Space Shuttle, with hybrid combined cycle engines combining turbofan, ramjet, scramjet and rocket engines, that can takeoff from an airport's landing strip and fly straight into orbit. CASTC's rapid research timeline also suggests that the reports in 2015 of a Mach 4 test flight for a recoverable drone testbed for a combined cycle ramjet/turbofan engine were accurate. And China also has the world's largest hypersonic wind tunnel, the Mach 9 JF-12, which could be used to easily test hypersonic scramjets without costly and potentially dangerous flight testing at altitude. Its nearest competitor, the British Skylon in contrast uses pre-cooled jet engines built by Reaction Engines Limited to achieve hypersonic atmospheric flight, as opposed to scramjets. Both spacecraft will probably first fly around the mid 2020s.
China hasn't stolen anything.
You commented on China obtaining secret ideas. I don't see a problem with that. After all, information wants to be free.
Also, the countries China has taken information from still have the information and ideas. By the typical definition of stealing used here, China didn't steal them. I keep reading that piracy isn't stealing because the content producer still has the content, but unauthorized comments have been made. China may have pirated ideas, but they sure didn't steal them.
I also keep reading that piracy is justified when the content owner doesn't distribute content in a particular region. If the secret information and ideas weren't shared with China, surely they were justified in pirating it. It really is no different than pirating a song or movie that the author or distributor doesn't make available in the country I live in. If that type of piracy is acceptable, so is what China did. It really isn't anything different.
China hasn't stolen any secrets. They pirated the secret information and ideas, and they were justified in committing the piracy. You're wrong to complain about China.
I'm not so sure you should dismiss the Chinese as mere copiers. That's a little facile. The Japanese used to be belittled as mere copiers, too, but that was always an unfair generalization. The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighter was not a copy of anything. It was far superior to anything that any other Navy had. They developed a vastly superior aluminum alloy, 7075, in the middle of World War II. They had the only submarine Aircraft Carriers (I-400 class) in the world, and they were also the largest submarines in the world. They had by far the best torpedoes in the world. The MXY7 Ohka was a devastating rocket-powered, human-guided anti-ship missile.
Yes, China and Japan have in history (up to very recent history in the case of China) copied, and stolen, plenty of stuff from the US. But they also have made great native achievements.
Who already has the world's only anti-ship ballistic[*] missile? Gee ... China - the DF-21D. It can't be copied from the US, because we don't have anything like that.
[*] The "ballistic" part is a misnomer, because the missile has terminal maneuvering. But that is always how it is referred to as.
We're been dreaming about this ever since the 70ies. I remember as a Kid - both my father and grandpa worked for and with Nasa - seeing the SÃnger concepts.
We'd leapfrog SpaceX if this would finally happen, but I'm not holding my breath. This is difficult. Really difficult. But cool if the chinks can make it happen. Two thumbs up for the attempt.
My 2 Eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Recall that, in the early years of our Great Country, Americans freely and openly copied British and French (mostly) industrial designs with impunity since there were not the international agreements that sort of prohibited this behavior.
The US figured that German rocketry tech was free for the taking as spoils of war.
This sort of thing has gone on since Og figured out cylinders are a neat idea when trying to move heavy objects. It is a constant game of cat and mouse, Spy vs. Spy and Sturm Und Drang. Since 'we' are arguably ahead of the Chinese in this theatre once expects the Chinese to be trying to copy us rather than the other way around. Rest assured if that ever changes, we will be glad to reverse roles.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!