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Two Chinese pseudo-companies pursuing suborbital tourist market

Link here. One company is apparently copying Blue Origin’s New Shepard, though its capsule’s exterior looks more like a copy of SpaceX Dragon capsule.

The other company however is doing something very unusual for a Chinese space operation. It appears to be designing something original, not a copy of some American achievement.

Space Transportation’s goal is to develop a suborbital spaceplane capable of carrying tourists on suborbital flights. The winged system is very different from Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, which is currently in flight test.

A larger Space Transportation vehicle would be a high-speed transport that would fly between distant locations on Earth in less than two hours.

…The company released very little information about the six launches it conducted this year. It’s not even clear where the flights took place, although Wikipedia indicates they might have been conducted from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

If successful, Space Transportation will have have done something almost unprecedented for China, building something from an entirely original design.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • Concerned

    “ If successful, Space Transportation will have have done something almost unprecedented for China, building something from an entirely original design.”

    As you’ve correctly and repeatedly reminded readers, there are no independent “commercial” aerospace firms in Red China. They all operate at the behest of the military. This hypersonic “transport” is nothing more than unclassified cover for research into boost glide body research for military application. The cartoon at the link shows intercontinental reach that could never happen without a very large boost stage that is not shown, unless of course they’re developing an advanced engine powered by unobtainium.

  • GaryMike

    Having spent significant time in China, it took little time to realize that they take great pride in their abilities to expropriate.

    “If you can’t keep it for yourself, we deserve all your stuff.”

    I welcome their new ‘original’ space plane. It might be worth copying.

  • Jeff Wright

    DLRs “Spaceliner” is similar

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