Reply to thread

Message

I think there were several things behind that flight rate, but they can probably be best summarized into the following:

-engineering philosophy
-resources

The Chinese have demonstrated by now that their approach is to take fewer, bigger strides. They obviously have studied the American and Russian programs a lot, so they don't think that they need to do as many individual test flights.

It also appears that they don't have as much funding as the program managers would like. I think people in the West tend to look at a command-driven government like China and think that they simply make a decision and do it. But they have a lot of different levels in their government, and there have been indications that the people in the space program have wanted to do more, but the money has not come from the government to allow them to do all those things. So they've moved at a slower pace than many in the program would like.

But what I find so interesting (and indeed admirable) is that they seem to get as much out of each individual mission as possible to enable the next step. It looks like effective planning. Of course, that could also be because we're not seeing everything that is going on behind the scenes, including the false steps and mistakes.

<blockquote data-quote="blackstar" data-source="post: 330370" data-attributes="member: 2126">I think there were several things behind that flight rate, but they can probably be best summarized into the following:-engineering philosophy-resourcesThe Chinese have demonstrated by now that their approach is to take fewer, bigger strides. They obviously have studied the American and Russian programs a lot, so they don't think that they need to do as many individual test flights. It also appears that they don't have as much funding as the program managers would like. I think people in the West tend to look at a command-driven government like China and think that they simply make a decision and do it. But they have a lot of different levels in their government, and there have been indications that the people in the space program have wanted to do more, but the money has not come from the government to allow them to do all those things. So they've moved at a slower pace than many in the program would like.But what I find so interesting (and indeed admirable) is that they seem to get as much out of each individual mission as possible to enable the next step. It looks like effective planning. Of course, that could also be because we're not seeing everything that is going on behind the scenes, including the false steps and mistakes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="blackstar, post: 330370, member: 2126"] I think there were several things behind that flight rate, but they can probably be best summarized into the following: -engineering philosophy -resources The Chinese have demonstrated by now that their approach is to take fewer, bigger strides. They obviously have studied the American and Russian programs a lot, so they don't think that they need to do as many individual test flights. It also appears that they don't have as much funding as the program managers would like. I think people in the West tend to look at a command-driven government like China and think that they simply make a decision and do it. But they have a lot of different levels in their government, and there have been indications that the people in the space program have wanted to do more, but the money has not come from the government to allow them to do all those things. So they've moved at a slower pace than many in the program would like. But what I find so interesting (and indeed admirable) is that they seem to get as much out of each individual mission as possible to enable the next step. It looks like effective planning. Of course, that could also be because we're not seeing everything that is going on behind the scenes, including the false steps and mistakes. [/QUOTE]

Verification