Group items tagged

On time for new year ... Ambitious China!

full text available at http://images.spaceref.com/china/ChinaSpaceActivitiesin2011.pdf

Interesting article on china us trade inequalities

big big booster coming ... !

even bigger booster also coming: China Aims To Build World's Largest Rocket "Back in March, China revealed it is studying the feasibility of designing the most powerful carrier rocket in history for making a manned moon landing and exploring deep space, according to Liang Xiaohong, vice head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. The rocket is envisaged to have a payload of 130 tonnes, five times larger than that of China's current largest rocket. This rocket, if built, will eclipse the 53 tonne capacity of the planned Falcon 9 Heavy from SpaceX. It will even surpass the largest rocket ever built, the 119-tonne Saturn V."

still only "is studying the feasibility of designing a powerful carrier rocket" - we could easily do the same at no cost almost ... but still ... they might be serious ...

ecological construction and environmental protection of a city cluster and more than CNY500 billion will be invested to build this eco-city cluster, which is to be centered on Wuhan.

interesting initiative - also with respect to "space and water" a theme we should explore a bit better in my view ...

200 MW solar power plant in China ... wow, an important step ahead

China broke ground on its fourth space center Monday, highlighting the country's soaring space ambitions six years after it sent its first man into orbit. - .6.000 people had to be relocated for the construction

> 6.000 people had to be relocated So what? It's less than 0.0005% of the population...

MEGA CONSTELLATION and AI ... China again :)

and we did not even propose it ...

Potentially highly interesting ...

" The ultimate goal of the Shanghai Institute: to build a molten-salt reactor that could replace the 1970s-era technology in today's nuclear power plants and help wean China off the coal that fouls the air of Shanghai and Beijing, ushering in an era of cheap, abundant, zero-carbon energy."

Interesting article

interesting reflections by MIT head on innovation in US

interesting, especially since in all COmmission papers US innovation is praised and changes expected are only related to China/India (for the better)... Article mixes a lot talk on innovation with numbers that I do not see necessarily connected (trade deficit, GDP growth etc.). Seems to me the real problematique behind the article is only the next planned distribution of federal funds and where they should cut...

well I understand her point. Spending cuts are only vicious short term solutions against economical downturn since growth (GDP is an interesting measure indeed) comes from innovation, research and production. Nonetheless, what she is describing is happening in EU too. So who will take the lead? I am not certain China is the one. In my view, it has not yet solved its domestic issues... and US still has more Nobel Prize than China. One thing for sure, the way it is EU is only a "wagon" of the train...

forced to play WOW ...

We can finally start building space elevators

Computer simulations by researchers in the US and China could lead to solar cells that work efficiently across a broad range of the solar spectrum.

doubt that this would work ...

"A Soviet supercavitation torpedo called Shkval was able to reach a speed of 370km/h or more - much faster than any other conventional torpedoes," he said. However, The SCMP highlighted two problems in supercavitation technology. First, the submerged vessel needed to be launched at high speeds, approaching 100km/h, to generate and maintain the air bubble. Secondly, it is difficult if not impossible to steer the vessel using conventional mechanisms, which are inside the bubble, without direct contact with water. As a result, its application has been limited to unmanned vessels, fired in a straight line.

can't you just selectively inject the gas so that you control in which direction the bubble forms?

I wonder how much energy you can extract from the ocean in a responsible way... Mixing up different thermal layers would probably a quite an influence on ecology.

The last available assessment report on the ecological impact seems to date from 1981 which would need to be brought up to current standards. On the other hand, this system could have a positive influence on fish population as deep cold water brings nutrients to the surface. The cold water could also be used to lower sea surface temperatures and affect hurricane genesis!

ESA is still at the forefront of space debris developments. But we do have a brilliant idea from the public: "Pay Communist China to shoot it down."

Just in case you don't realise, it's the one which model is next to the Space EXPO :-) Quite a piece of debris...