You’ve certainly posted here on both what the Chinese say and what you speculate they mean. Again, I’ll just note that they are publicly on record about wanting to pursue heavy lift in the form of Long March 9 but don’t appear to have any SpaceX-ish resuability/low cost initiative going. Personally, I’d be delighted if they publicly declared such a thing, I’m just not expecting it.

You apparently understand that a couple of test flights are one thing, but an operational system is another.

Yes, I do. But I also understand that successful test flights are what get you to an operational system. Unlike your cited failures from the Brylcreem era of aerospace, SpaceX has had no failed test flights of its VTOL/VL technology except for the 1st-stage booster soft-landing tests accompanying operational F9 missions. Even these “failures” have materially advanced SpaceX’s game. I think SpaceX will have 1st-stage flyback at the operational level within a year. I think Dragonfly will give them comparable confidence in Dragon V2 on about the same time frame. 2nd-stage reentry/recovery/reuse will follow in another year or two.

Your desire to spend a weekend with Carmen Electra in a Las Veas penthouse is noted.
But how you think you’d convince her to pay for it all is beyond me.

Me too, dammit. I tossed this out there mainly to make the point that, however improbable such a scenario might be, Ms. Electra is undeniably in current possession of everything she’d need to accomplish such a mission.

This stands in stark contrast to the situation of ULA, which I do not believe has either the staff nor the institutional will to pursue a genuinely competitive, clean-sheet-of-paper new vehicle design/development program to cope with the simultaneous advent of Russian geopolitical truculence and a SpaceX on the verge of demonstrating operational reusability of 1st stages and more.

As far as paying for launch systems goes, that is something that I still do know a little about. In particular the motivations for making those expenditures.

Not sure what you mean by this. Please feel free to elaborate further.

I have repeatedly posted here on China’s civil space goals.

You apparently understand that a couple of test flights are one thing, but an operational system is another.

Your desire to spend a weekend with Carmen Electra in a Las Veas penthouse is noted.
But how you think you’d convince her to pay for it all is beyond me.

As far as paying for launch systems goes, that is something that I still do know a little about. In particular the motivations for making those expenditures.

Might I point out, however, that this mockup was displayed a full year before Elon Musk even started SpaceX in dinky quarters in El Segundo. In all this intervening time, I have no basis to believe the Russians have advanced this program beyond the mock-up stage. If you know of evidence for metal actually being bent for a prototype Baikal, I’m sure we’d all be intensely interested.

As to the “nuts” comment. Okay, a little strong, maybe, but I fail utterly to grasp your psychology here. I wasn’t pointing out an error of fact. I’ll freely stipulate that 50’s-era VTOL experiments – jet- and/or rocket-based – with which you are familiar failed to result in operational series-production vehicles. Your error is in giving these antique efforts a dispositive significance they don’t deserve in light of much more recent facts in the air and on the ground – namely the Grasshopper and F9R Dev1 flights – that you still don’t seem to want to acknowledge for some reason. Heck, I could have mentioned Masten and Armadillo’s work on the Lunar Lander Challenge too, but given that SpaceX is the one actually doing the Grasshopper/F9R Dev1 stuff, and also intends to do likewise with Dragon V2, it seemed like gilding the lily to drag in efforts by other firms. To repeat: SpaceX has repeatedly VTOLed two tall, skinny, unwieldy objects, each weighing many tons and each being at least 100 feet tall. If that doesn’t demonstrate the practicality of powered vertical landing for reusable spacecraft components, I have – literally – no idea what to say to you by way of further convincing. Behold – the thing speaks for itself.

I’m glad you agree with me that the other correspondent’s would-be point about Goddard and the German rocket clubs is nonsense. Nonsense on stilts, I’d say. I brought it up because his argument had the same structure as yours anent VL/VTOL under rocket power – namely, pointing to some decades-old history as supposed proof something can’t happen in the present. Even when it has already happened.

No, I do not intend to train you personally in the basics of China’s technology and technology policies here at space politics.

Well, of course, given that it would appear on this forum, it wouldn’t be just me you’d be “training,” but, leaving that aside, and in the absence of any further hints from your direction, all I can do is ask again what you imagine the Chinese to have up their sleeves that is so potentially devastating to SpaceX’s plan for World Conquest and Domination?

I’m aware the Chinese have a lot of experience with large, storable propellant (hypergolic) boosters. They have also built some pretty good-size solid boosters for their various ballistic missile programs and as strap-ons for the Long March series. They don’t – so far as I know – have much experience with large engines or systems based on full or partially cryogenic propellants that yield superior specific impulse numbers, though it is said the Long March 5 will be a Kero-LOX design. They’ve apparently got a high-energy LOX-LH2 upper stage already in service so that’s certainly a plus. Then there’s their space station program which is already well-established, but modest and hardly proceeding in a pell-mell fashion. Feel free to mention anything I’ve missed here.

It would be advisable for the Chinese – indeed for anyone who wants any kind of future in the launch services business where SpaceX now marauds – to concentrate on low-cost, i.e., resusability, in new vehicle development. I see no evidence that the Chinese program is pursuing such a goal, however. At least not in what I can straightforwardly suss up with search engines.

The Wikipedia article on the Long March family of rockets does contain a section on the proposed Long March 9, the 130-tonnes-to-LEO, 50-tonnes-to-TLI, SLS-BLock-2-with-epicanthic-folds heavy lifter the Chinese have publicly revealed they are working on. Given that North Asians are, on average, smarter than white people, it would be nice to think the Chinese will avoid following NASA into punching the heavy-lift tar baby, but perhaps not.

I do note a certain seeming bandwagon effect going on here. NASA (well, Congress, actually) announces SLS. Then the Chinese announce Long March 9. Now the Russians have chimed in with vague claims about some beyond-Angara heavy-lifter. “If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?” my mom used to ask. Not sure about friends, but enemies seem so-inclined lately. Maybe we’ll get lucky, the next administration will do a Lucy-with-the-football number on SLS and the Russians and Chinese can go over that particular cliff without our company.

I noticed the Chinese statements about SpaceX’s launch costs at the time because it was newsworthy to we space freaks. There was a pervasive meme that nobody can underprice the Chinese – at anything! It was nice to see some evidence that the Chinese put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.

Until SpaceX’s VTOL launcher technology is proven operationally in regular use, I would like to see a Plan C engineering group working at ULA.

Hey, I’d really like to spend a debauched weekend of carnal abandon in a Vegas penthouse with Carmen Electra. Right now, I think I’m ever so slightly more likely to get my wish than you are to get yours. Just saying.

I hope this link works for you:

http://books.google.com/books?id=aI9QhDA4AVwC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=flyback+Energia+booster&source=bl&ots=Nl2IkaRgf9&sig=FVZd1ceOu0X0rpGzNhjQmlylbw8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=28eMU9yyMsyZyATz0YH4Cg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=flyback%20Energia%20booster&f=false

I pretty much meant what I said.

If you find it “nuts”, from my point of view that is your problem and not mine. If RGO or pathfinder were to notice a factual error in any of my statements, I doubt if they would use that kind of language to point it out to me.

As I did not say what other people said, I refuse to comment on their nonsense.

No, I do not intend to train you personally in the basics of China’s technology and technology policies here at space politics.

That said, I am pretty certain that China will focus on a lower launch cost in the round after CZ5, and not on Heavy Lift.
It is interesting that you noticed earlier Chinese statements about launch costs.

Until SpaceX’s VTOL launcher technology is proven operationally in regular use, I would like to see a Plan C engineering group working at ULA.

Regaling us with allusions to things other aerospace companies did or didn’t succeed at doing decades ago while ignoring current evidence to the contrary is just nuts, frankly. But it seems to be a common affliction in these threads. Elsewhere, I’ve been solemnly informed that none of the current private NewSpace companies is significant because Robert Goddard and the German amateur rocket clubs of the 20’s and 30’s failed to birth private spaceships before WW2. Right. How silly of me not to have realized.

You’d be correct that I know nothing about a flyback Zenit. I could find no information about this whatsoever. Anatoly Zaks’s web site says nothing about any flyback Zenit. Feel free to enlighten me. At least one link would be nice. The only reference I could find to flyback boosters and Zenit was a patent issued to Buzz Aldrin, et al, quite some time ago for a notion called Starbooster that could potentially incorporate a Zenit booster stage. I’m pretty sure this is not what you had in mind.

The Angara, one version of which is supposed to replace the Zenit for Russian launch ops, is said by Wikipedia to have a flyback booster version called Baikal in the works. Perhaps this is a current version of a notion that was Zenit-centric back in the day? The Angara family of vehicles has, itself, been “in the works” for close to two decades. Who knows, maybe the Russkies will eventually build and fly a reusable first stage. I’m dubious they’ll do it any time soon.

Perhaps you would also be willing to cough up some specifics as to Chinese “technical capabilities” with which I should be acquainted? Hey, why not toss in a few “policies” while you’re at it. I can’t comment meaningfully on vague generalities. The Chinese, especially the PLA, are often given to big talk in both their internal and external publications. Perhaps, for some inexplicable reason, you elect to believe Chicom braggadocio. I’m an honorary Missourian when it comes to that kind of thing. Meantime, Aviation Week reported three years ago that the Chinese conceded they can’t match SpaceX pricing with current vehicles.

Really? Using what tools? Please send link if possible. Unless of course the “real aerospace engineers” use some proprietary tools including accurate chemically reacting flow physics code that no one knows about.

I like the “accurately” as well. Cool. Must be so advanced in the Rockies. How’s Orion going?

I am aware that Musk and his engineers have already suceeded in bringing launch costs down.

The question now is about the next reduction.

Do you remember McD’s VTOL effort in the late 1980’s?

While VTOL was successfully used by the Apollo LEM, that was in 1/6 G, with a very different mass than a first stage.

IF Musk’s VTOL works over time, well and good.

But given the size of that IF, I would like to see a Plan C team at ULA in the meantime.

You do not understand my concerns over the current key button placement in D2.

I also expect the D2 to have emergency egress ability.

My guess is that you know nothing of the Russian work on the fly-back version of the Zenit first stage.

My guess is also that your knowledge of Chinese technical capabilities and policies is non-existent – at least you have not demonstrated it here.

My last guess is that Musk is likely very well aware that China will be offering sat/launch packages on a very competitive basis.

If that is “folly” in your view, well then so be it.

Do you rememeber the VTOL effort from McD in the 1980’s? VTOL was used successfully for the Apollo LEM.

IF SpaceX’s VTOL works, tell me about it then.
In the meantime, I’d like to see a Plan C engineering group working at ULA on reusable first stages.

You do not appear familiar with the Russian work on the fly-back Zenit.

China intends to compete internationally in the sat market. China will attempt to match SpaceX’s launch prices, and will certainly offer competitive sat/launch packages.

I stand by my earlier comments on D2’s currnet placement of key buttons.

Wow. A many billion dollar hab at EM L2 for “mostly psychological reasons”. That rationale sure requires some serious psychoanalysis. Get help.

I think putting a hab at a Lagrange point is a great idea, vastly better than plucking at random rocks, but for what it could actually DO there, rather than whose psyche gets massaged. Telerobotic control of lunar surface assets, depoting of lunar surface material, base station to build Mars ships, garage shop for ES Lagrange point hardware. The list goes on and on.