But the goal isn’t to stay in orbit. The goal is to push the plane to upper atmosphere where there is low air resistance, and then it mostly glides to where it needs to go. The article very clearly explains that the goal is to create an alternative to long range flights instead of doing space launches. I’m also familiar with SpinLaunch, and it’s a completely different purpose where they want to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit.
This tech can be used for both purposes, but most of the article discusses transportation. Once China puts this tech in production, I’m sure it will be used for orbital launches as well.
This is literally what people said about high speed rail. The argument was that this is simply not cost effective and that’s why it can’t be built. Yet, China covered the whole country with HSR in a decade. Short term cost effectiveness isn’t really an issue when you have a state directed economy. And costs for any new technology come down over time. Maybe China will start using it for ground based transportation first, and then start using it for other applications. We’ll just wait and see.
The original point was that arguments about cost efficiency have been made regarding HSR. Every new technology is expensive when it’s initially developed, and it requires significant investment. One way to look at that is to say that it’s not worth spending the effort on, another way to look at it is that spending the effort creates jobs, spurs innovation, and brings long term benefits to society. It’s pretty clear to me that China tends to take the long view on such things, and hence I think it’s very probable that they will try building such launch systems.
But the goal isn’t to stay in orbit. The goal is to push the plane to upper atmosphere where there is low air resistance, and then it mostly glides to where it needs to go. The article very clearly explains that the goal is to create an alternative to long range flights instead of doing space launches. I’m also familiar with SpinLaunch, and it’s a completely different purpose where they want to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit.
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This tech can be used for both purposes, but most of the article discusses transportation. Once China puts this tech in production, I’m sure it will be used for orbital launches as well.
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This is literally what people said about high speed rail. The argument was that this is simply not cost effective and that’s why it can’t be built. Yet, China covered the whole country with HSR in a decade. Short term cost effectiveness isn’t really an issue when you have a state directed economy. And costs for any new technology come down over time. Maybe China will start using it for ground based transportation first, and then start using it for other applications. We’ll just wait and see.
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This is a common narrative in US and Canada, meanwhile countries like France or Japan are dismissed as being small. Here’s an example for you https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-high-speed-bullet-trains-wont-work-in-the-u-s-right-now/
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The original point was that arguments about cost efficiency have been made regarding HSR. Every new technology is expensive when it’s initially developed, and it requires significant investment. One way to look at that is to say that it’s not worth spending the effort on, another way to look at it is that spending the effort creates jobs, spurs innovation, and brings long term benefits to society. It’s pretty clear to me that China tends to take the long view on such things, and hence I think it’s very probable that they will try building such launch systems.