

Chinese Spacewalk Astronauts return home to heroes' welcome - jwilliams
http://www.theage.com.au/world/china-astronauts-return-home-to-heros-welcome-20080928-4pmc.html

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mkn
I'd be very interested to see how their costs stack up, if commensurable
figures could even be found.

During my senior year in the aero/astro program at UW, the space cadet half of
the class (the other half were the wing nuts) got to work with a local
aerospace contractor. The engineer at that firm who worked with us gave us an
interesting tidbit of info about space-ready hardware. The factors of safety
are engineered so tightly (e.g., FS ~=1.05) that, for a part that you've got
~$500 of materials and labor, you've got a ~$20,000 paper trail that documents
every process and material source for that part. This gives new meaning to the
term "astronomical cost."

The big dumb booster school of rocket design seeks to reduce this cost by
using higher FS (e.g., automotive grade at FS >~ 2 or higher) and throwing
away fuel.

I wonder: 1) How close to the BDB school the Chinese rockets are? 2) How much
their vehicles cost? & 3) By how much do the differences in labor costs,
hidden costs, and distributed costs confound the analysis?

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bootload
_"... How much their vehicles cost? ..."_

The short answer, a lot.

Interesting reading about Chinas efforts with project 921 ~
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_program_of_China#Project_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_program_of_China#Project_921)
The main development appears to be at Shanghai Academy Of Spaceflight
Technology (SAST) which is the technological backbone of the Chinese Missile
programme ~ <http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/contractor/sast.htm> with
considerable resourcing ~
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_program_of_China#Universi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_program_of_China#Universities_.26_institutes)

The main booster is the Long March 2F ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_March_2F> which is upgraded 2E (with
reported advanced fault monitoring & diagnosis & a not so reliable design
after an astronaut on S5 mission ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Liwei>
reported being sick due to vibrations).

The main capsule is the Shenzhou ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_spacecraft> an "improved" Soyuz (a very
stable & reliable design) ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_spacecraft>

I'm not sure how the costing is being done. In the 90's the Chinese decided to
privatise their commercial satellite programme and the US placed a lot of
restrictions on it. But this program is different. There is no real military
advantage in a manned programme, so I guess the real cost is being funded by
the government. I do know one thing. They are looking to do this saving money.
The asking price for the Soyuz was knocked back and their own version
produced. So the aims seem to be quite ambitious. The cost reflected by the
Russian Soyuz is based countless hours of reliable missions ~
[http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/shenzhou_...](http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/shenzhou_tech_030924.html)

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bradgessler
I really hope this sparks a new space race!

~~~
kirse
Hopefully China will loan us the money to participate!

