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Re:China's new Long March-8 rocket makes first flight by roenxi on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @06:52AM (#25516659)
I don't know where India's rocket program is up to, but I imagine that if it is behind China and America they will be catching up at a ahem rocketing pace.

We live in an age of wonders where something close to most of the world have governments that are comfortable with space flight. Well done team humans.

Re:China's new Long March-8 rocket makes first flight by someperson on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @07:01AM (#25516685)
As somebody who follows Starship development closely (side note, I recommend the YouTube channels "Marcus House" and "What about it!?"), I don't share your confidence that India (or China) will be able to catchup to SpaceX anytime soon.

I don't think that Blue Origin or Rocket Lab will be able to catchup either. Let alone United Launch Alliance. I think Rocket Lab will keep a very comfortable profitable niche for a long time though.

The Falcon 9 has really cornered the market for commercial payloads and it's not profitable to compete. And the Starship will cement that place further. Maybe Amazon's Project Kuiper and Jeff Bezos' investment in Blue Origin might make Blue Origin competitive in the long run, but given their current track record I doubt it will happen soon enough to make a difference.

I'm sure that they'll be enough military payloads to keep the Ariane/ULA/CASC/ISROs occupied for decades to come. But short of unprecedented industrial espionage, in the next 10 years they'll all going to struggle to develop re-usable rockets that can keep pace with SpaceX.

Re:China's new Long March-8 rocket makes first flight by baybal2 on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @07:30AM (#25516871)
> in the next 10 years they'll all going to struggle to develop re-usable rockets that can keep pace with SpaceX.

National space programmes don't even need to have re-usable hardware.

Building hardware to be mission specific for 2-3 launches per year may well be cheaper than to re-engineer, and then reuse.

Saturn 5 is sixties technology, parts, and materials.

The biggest thing that contenders in national space programmes lack is really a match of talent with sane leadership. This is the thing that was exposed times, and times again by successes of Indian space programme.

Re:China's new Long March-8 rocket makes first flight by kumarvvr on Wednesday December 23, 2020 @07:54AM (#25517065)
Indian space program has a very different set of goals.

- Develop indigenous technology, reduce dependency on technology transfers - Become a technology provider for defense, as in cheaply available satellites, as well as Research and Development for missiles, etc. - Get some market share in the international satellite launch market and make a bit of money.

If you observe, Indian missile technology and Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO have grown together.

In India, the Defense is not as advanced and gravitational as in the US, so the idea that the military will have 2 generations advanced tech is not true here (this is my guess)

That is the reason we have missions to moon, mars and all, to develop expertise in technology and build strong institutions that become the bedrock for future endeavors.