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I don't think you can just copy SpaceX's falcon 9 reusibility and landing just by wanting to do it. Even once you've got the basic system it takes years and years of iteration to make it better step by step. Only one company in the west has really done any of that, and if spacex wasn't around no one would believe it could be done.

I'm sure it can be done eventually by China though, they are just as smart as anyone else. Can they organize their scientific and engineering forces as well? Knowing it can be done is a huge help.

They've got a multiple PRC commercial companies with successfuly reusable tests. We'll know more in next few years. TLDR is state level "direction" to pursue reusable lauch + mega constellations only started last few years (probably saw value in UKR war). I think SpaceX tech is probably easier to copy vs military, once idea proven to work as you said, PRC pretty good at iterating and replicating, and scaling, provided there's reason for it, i.e. no idea how much payload demand outside of megaconstellations. US uniquely advantaged because they work with a lot of developed countries with their own launch needs that US provides. Some initial estimates for PRC mega constellation(s) is IIRC putting up 1500 before 2030, and 13000-26000 by 2035 to show the projected launch curve. Which TBF is like 30-40 rocket tier of demand. Question is if they find something to justify spamming magnitude more launch capabilities, and pertinent to this article, if they did, it's probably going to be weaponinizing space.

Some context for US/Japan WW II:

In 1943, the US built more than half as many Fleet carriers as Japan fielded over the entire war (15 vs 28), while also producing an absurd number of escort carriers. In the last year of the war, the US built about as many F6F (Hellcat) fighters as Japan built A6M (Zeros) in the previous 5 years (the F6F is generally considered far superior to the A6M; the F4F is the older contemporary of the A6M).

> fleet. It the economics justified it, no reason PRC wouldn't have 400 falcon 9s.

The economics clearly justify mass production of widebody aircraft, yet China is unable to produce their own.

And you expect China to mass produce Falcon 9 rockets? How about they start with a simple airplane first.

Military Y20 reached 80+ now within a few years - they have indigenous tech to apply to domestic wide body, and can scale up production of large aircrafts if they want. But taking 929 slow because civilian aviation is _harder_ than space, more international requirements etc, why C919+929 needs to use foreign components for easier certification. The global economics justify it, the regulation/geopolitics makes it hard but they're diligently pursing it.

But economics also don't CLEARLY justify domestic wide body when they can focus on electrified HSR without fossil inputs, AND PRC pop density / geographic concentration limits future of civilian air due to air corridor congestion.

I expect PRC to mass produce domestic F9 if the economics clearly justify it. LM5 already estimated at F9 $3000 per kg, so hard to say how much mass producing PRC F9 tier reusable can drive down cost + add capability. If it's there's clear significant demand for more than sustaining mega contestallations past 2035s, I'd expect them to spam F9 for domestic use, before civil wide body that's going to take longer due politics of international aviation.

Yes, a missle gigafactory is impressive pre war. The USA will remove that single factory within the first weeks of any conflict. China better have large stockpiles if their strategy includes gigafactories.

Of course they'll have stockpiles, they didn't build all these factories to sit idle and have capex depreciate pointlessly, just like they'll have stockpiles for prompt global strike to hit US plants/energy infra on CONUS. Then what? This isn't the 50s-90s anymore, advanced rocketry ended Fortress America, PRC developing conventional strike to hit CONUS strategic targets precisely to deter mainland strikes. This is also ignoring US stockpiles, i.e. 4000 TLAMs... PRC installed ~300k industrial robots LAST YEAR. They have essentially accumulated near bottomless amount of industrial capex that can be redeployed/reconstituted to keep industrial base running, more than the US military was designed / currently designed to meaningfully degrade. There's a reason US military doctorine when from fighting 2 major wars when all potential US adversaries were medium powers, to one major war + hold another war in place, to PRC now a major pacing peer power and US might not even be able to fight major IndoPac war. PRC isn't a 4000 tomahawk conflict, it's a 400,000 one if not more. PRC recognizes regional war with US+CO is at least a 1000 missile per day problem.

Anything going on with Chinese missile forces staff and corruption lately? Just asking :)

Being efficiently punished, as they should be, unlike how fat leonard trials going ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. BTW corruption in PRC linked to getting more things built, the side effect is turbo procurement.

I don't agree that China's government corruption is actually a show of strength but interesting analysis.

Again I hope nothing happens. I am quite fond of China, the Chinese people, and historical Chinese culture. The USA made special carveouts to help China industrialize. The USA risked nuclear war with Russia in order to get them to back down against China in 1969. We don't want to be adversaries with China and have demonstrably shown so with fairly large policy choices.

This is mutual.Any attack on mainland China will invite immediate retaliation on American soil.

> The USA will remove that single factory within the first weeks of any conflict.

I don't think it's clear that a war would necessarily escalate to attacking industrial targets because there is a kind of MAD at play.

From America's point of view, the problem with escalating the war to industrial targets (which I am sure US military planners realize) is that the US has an Achilles' heel in it's reliance on petrol. Almost all US petrol comes from only 130 domestic plants. If those are disabled, most US supply chains will crumble, including food. No need to disable all the factories when there's no way to transport stuff and workers aren't fed. That weakness might be enough to deter the US from striking Chinese industry.

EVs might be one of the bigger bulwarks the US could pursue toward greater national security.

The Soviets had 40,000 nuclear warheads, which didn't enable them to achieve any kind of dominance over the US or Europe.

Nukes aren't meant to used in conventional war unless things go dire, cruise missiles are. Advanced munitions are bread and butter in peer war. USSR had doctorine for tactic nukes but it never got to that and it certainly effected US/EU esclation strategies even now.

The US must come to terms with ceding its monopoly on superpower status because other countries have caught up, but it also has correctable problems on multiple fronts due to:

- Lack of infrastructure investment

- Civic infighting

- Political divisions, distractions, and corruption

- Social regression

- Gender disparity in undergraduate education

- Declining standards of living

Power will be projected in the future through alliances with Australia, Japan, and Great Britain. The problems you listed are real, but they are solvable.

Yeah, it's important to remember that the US has friends. - and the list of friends is very long!

My favorite example of how good friends the US has is that the primary objective for Norway in Afghanistan was quote:

    "The first and most important objective throughout was the Alliance dimension:
     to support the US and safeguard NATO’s continued relevance."

source: https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/09faceca099c4b8bac8...

You have good friends if their primary war objective is to support you.

I think that these days, a lot of Europeans are being reminded that the US is a friend. So long as US politics can avoid undermining NATO the US won't be short on friends.

"America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests" -- Henry Kissinger.

The same applies to other countries. Those who subscribe to the democratic principles, rule of law, and individual freedoms will typically align themselves with US interests, at least where it is beneficial to them.

This is true, both cynically and literally. There have been many complete and partial defections recently as China swoops in with B&R foreign direct infrastructure and industrial investment.

The US needs to adjust with more competitive foreign economic policies because tariffs aren't it. All of those trillions wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq for diesel power plants to nowhere could've been sprinkled around the Global South to advance economic development resulting in greater wealth elsewhere able to afford American goods and services, source raw materials, and develop manufacturing relationship in various countries in, say, Africa... like China is doing.

The US and Western Europe have to adjust their eyesight if we are to have peace and prosperity worldwide. The war in Ukraine, for example, is the result of Germany and the rest of the old West pandering to Russia and making deals over Eastern European heads whilst lecturing Eastern Europe on European ideals and the need for them to catch up with progressive Germany and France. Going forward, large players on the international scale have to work with smaller players. We also need to take a look at the basket cases of Austria and Germany and ask them to explain how their actions square with what they preach. Germany was given gren light to unify and generally rule the EU and the results aren't that great.

Absolutely. I think the prime problem is large swaths of the American populace has lost hope, confidence, and resiliency. OTOH, people in China have a much more of a "can do" attitude buoyed by achievements and rapid progress. America needs younger politicians and leaders out there delivering projects and emanating positive vibes of hope and possibility.

> America needs younger politicians and leaders out there

Not just America, the world needs younger politicians who don't want to send the whole world to hell when they die. We really have a shitty geriatric crew right now--Putin, Xi, Modi, Biden, Trump.

And Orbán, Erdoğan, and more.

The people are hurting but the establishment isn't listening, and so conspiracy theorists, cranks, racist nationalists lite, and brash jerks are seen as ways to lash out against a system that doesn't appear to be helping them.

There are a holistic set of overlapping problems:

- Failure of the mainstream left to empathize properly with both working people and small business owners while pushing back against unreasonable demands of the very rich

- Failure to mentor young leaders in 4 domains: academia, industry, political parties, and community orgs

There are no quick or easy solutions, but require sustained, organized, and collaborative efforts to nudge the needle over years. This is quite difficult when a large fraction of the demographic voting for absurd leaders either don't have free time to volunteer, are unable to prioritize civic participation for whatever reason(s), or don't see the value in it.

I'd add at least two points to your list:

- Inability of the intellectual and political elites to define and enforce basic rules and norms for a coherent society. Diversity is great, but it ought to be paired with engagement with the country's history, culture. We have citizenry who are increasingly more detached from the society they live in and more connected to groups that transcend borders.

- Rise of religion. We should be done with that thing by now, but its back and growing in strength, undermining democratic institutions. We are making concessions to religion on the grounds of religious freedom.

Personnel of the mainstream news media (fourth estate) are richer than average and live in megacities, and so their interests align to their own bubbles, celebrities, and the political class they're unable or unwilling to hold accountable. It creates a situation where dissenting voices who don't condone beating the drums to war are excommunicated as pariahs like Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader.