RE: While the US is fighting over the debt, China is planning to go to the moon
January 4, 2012 at 1:02 pm
(This post was last modified: January 4, 2012 at 1:09 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(January 4, 2012 at 12:16 pm)orogenicman Wrote: Break new ground? Much of China's technology to put men in space came from the Russians (their capsule is a Russian design). And their computer technology came from the United States.
That's not the point. Any late comer stupid enough to try to reinvent the wheel is probably too stupid to successfully reinvent anything. Their capsule is not quite a Russian design. It uses the highly effficient Soyuz layout, but is larger in every dimension, and betrays every internal difference that is possible to observe from the outside.
Incidentally, we would have done better to copy the efficient Soyuz layout than repeat the louzy apollo layout. thanks to the separation of orbital working module from the heat shielded crew return module in the Soyuz, the basic Soyuz design offer more working and living space and more instrument capacity at much less weight than Apollo.
