China Readies its Own Space Station Module for Launch

So, these guys are right. I thought knew they were.

"... the global love-in that is the International Space Station," <sigh>

And the comment "... but is also said to be significantly cheaper." brings to mind a quote from John Glenn:

I guess the question I'm asked the most often is: "When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

US$ X billion x 60/419; no wonder it will be less costly, even at the same price per ton.

Yes, Cernan, Armstrong and co. are correct, I am sorry to say. Canceling the shuttle now, when all the upfront costs and teething problems are behind, ostensibly to save a few billion dollars, speaks loudly for the disinterest in space. As trillion dollars are thrown around, those "savings" amount to rounding errors. At the same time, it is (was) the only heavy lift capability with human support in the world. Remember the space telescope repair / upgrade missions. They even made economic sense. And that is a near miracle at NASA!

Mind it, I did not find any sense in the shuttle's all purpose swiss army knife approach. Sensibly, you lift cargo with cheap solid brutes. And reserve the more expensive and reliable low G force small ones for human cargo, IMHO. But, right now we have neither, nor have one in sight. Sure, companies try this and that. But, the list of failures is astonishingly long. Sucsesses are few and far inbetween. Rutan has the white knight and spaceship one recently. The US Delta family predates the Apollo program. The russian Proton is as old as that. The eropean Ariane is a nice updated version, so is the iapanese. We are using them , because they are reliable. And so was by now the shuttle.

And what is promised? Far,faraway vision of going to Mars. Poppycock.

The chinese do the sensible thing. First they bought russian hardware, space capsules. Now, they attempt to lift tens of tons into low orbit. The report said, cheaply. Yes, doing things not the gold plated Cadillac way takes a certain mindset. And, once the inventing and pathbreaking is done, the followup is much cheaper.

So would be a domestic heavy lifter solid brute. Like bundling shuttle boosters. Meaning, doing really on the cheap.

Hallo, anybody there?

I'm glad the shuttles are gone. Like the SST, they had their time and place but that time is gone. What these aging astronauts forget is that it the shuttles are at the end of their usable lifetime without refurbishment and re-qualification, and that would take billions. Meanwhile nothing else can get done at NASA because all the budget goes to fly the shuttles.

But you're right about the inefficiency - Space X and the other COTS companies will be able to carry cargo and crew to the ISS for a fraction of what the shuttle costs. And we already have a fleet of heavy lift vehicles for heavier items.

Not sure why we've decided to build another heavy lift vehicle (SLS), but I do know that we couldn't afford to do it if we were still flying the shuttles.

Kudos to the Chinese. It's a very exciting time for them.