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Chinese Privately Developed Rocket Fails To Reach Orbit (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the baby-steps dept.

schwit1 shares a report: A privately developed Chinese carrier rocket failed to reach orbit after lifting off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Saturday, in a blow to the country's nascent attempts by private companies to rival Elon Musk's SpaceX. The three-stage rocket, Zhuque-1, was developed by Beijing-based Landspace. The company said in a microblog post after nominal first and second stages that the spacecraft failed to reach orbit as a result of an issue with the third stage. "Before Zhuque carrier rocket was launched, its mission was already completed," the company said in the post on Saturday, without giving further details.

3 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Just to remember.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sucks their rocket didn't make it, but remember too, SpaceX's early rockets didn't make it to orbit either. The whole company almost went bust before they got one to work.

    Now they are shaking up the entire launch industry.

    Chinese companies will have plenty of government support and they will succeed. That is a matter of when not if.

    1. Re:Just to remember.... by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, I'm sorry for them, but many, many examples tells us that most first tries at building an orbital booster fail.

      The biggest part of success in rocket building is the ability to accept a failure, learn from it, and keep on.

      --
      http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  2. Re:If at first you don't succeed, by jpaine619 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Americans haven't really wrapped their brain around China. Many apparently believe that China is somehow incapable of being a serious rival to the US without cheating.

    One in five people on Earth lives in China; one in twenty in the US. The Chinese economy is currently about 2/3 the size of the US economy, ten years ago that figure was 1/3. And just this year, China surpassed the US in number of scientific papers published.

    China is fully capable of becoming a serious technological, military and economic rival to the US without cheating. And it is willing to cheat. Without foreign scientists immigrating to the US, there's no way we can keep up with them through mid-century.

    Yes and no. Your argument has many valid points, but let's not forget that they cheat a LOT. I suggest you do some reading on China's "Ghost Cities" which were built with the sole purpose of keeping the economy going. A city the size of Los Angeles constructed every couple of weeks.. Yet nobody lives in them.. China cannot do that forever, they'd run out of room. Having a booming economy is great.. But not so much when it's a false boom.