Walmart goes to Shanghai shopping for cheapest LEO Access

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

sftommy

Guest
Not a headline yet, but given China’s ability to mass produce the latest innovation, often without regard to anyone else’s property rights, how far off can it be?

Secondly, how much cheaper could space access be achieved with a Walmart to China mentality?
 
D

danhezee

Guest
Not to likely, china and walmart's products are manufactured with looser tolerances than the competition. e.g. walmart's 300 lb weight set with tolerances of +- 5 lbs per plate is cheaper than the competitions weights with tolerances less than a pound.

LEO is expensive because of the tight tolerances to manufacture and the low frequency of launches.
 
V

Valcan

Guest
sftommy":f9nbgact said:
Not a headline yet, but given China’s ability to mass produce the latest innovation, often without regard to anyone else’s property rights, how far off can it be?

Secondly, how much cheaper could space access be achieved with a Walmart to China mentality?

Rocket launching isnt a walmartable thing.

Having cheap systems doesnt matter if they explode ever 2 or 3 launches. Satelites are expensive.
Also the merlin line of engines and falcon series of launchers are supposed to be mass producable. Its the fact that they havent gotten alot of buisness yet.

And no offense ive had chinese made good LITTERALY BLOW UP in my face before - radio made it china only sound it make schhhshchshcshc BOOM!!!! - i have no enthusiasm for a chinese rocket ride.
The point is no ones launching alot of vehicles what we need arent trash rockets as a lot of launches on a mass producable launchers to improve and speed launches and to provide the needed flow of income.
 
V

vulture4

Guest
The Long March is quite reliable. Don't for a moment get the idea that the Chinese can't build systems that work, or the next thing you know they will be putting you out of business. Look at the label on your computer. China has more cell phones and more internet users than any other country, and although the US still has more cars China now is the largest market and is catching up. Hewlett Packard is now, for all intents and purposes, a Chinese company. The main barrier the Chinese face in commercial launch is that most commercial satellites still contain technology restricted by the US under ITAR. But that may be changing.

From the Space Review:
Another venture trying to reenter the commercial launch market is China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), which made inroads into the market in the 1990s with its Long March series of boosters. However, changes in US export control regulations prevented the export of satellites to China containing US-built components, effectively locking them out of the market. In recent years CGWIC has tried to get back into the market by launching so-called “ITAR-free” satellites, manufactured in Europe or China without any US components, but has won only a handful of launch contracts.
 
R

rockett

Guest
New Report Urges U.S. Space Launch Policy Overhaul
The U.S. government should permit China to launch U.S.-built commercial satellites and force an overhaul of the U.S. Air Force's relationship with its principal launch-services provider – United Launch Alliance – as part of a strategy to assure long-term access to commercial satellite bandwidth, a U.S. think tank has concluded.

In a report issued July 26, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says the U.S. policy of guaranteeing "assured access to space," which has been interpreted to mean access for government-owned spacecraft, should
be extended to commercial satellites.

http://www.space.com/news/report-urges-launch-policy-overhaul-100729.html
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

A
Replies
8
Views
2K
A

Latest posts