I wrote a few days ago about AI warplanes being used in the American arsenal. The Air Force secretary strapped himself into an F-16 AI-piloted and mocked dogfighting for an hour with a human-piloted F-16.
Experts have told us that China is far behind the West when it comes to AI technology. It may be true but the current administration isn’t very trustworthy. It hasn’t been entirely upfront and honest in what it knows about the Chinese. It often does not know what China is doing. The spy balloon fiasco was yet another example of incompetence on the part of the administration.
Then there’s space, and the Chinese use rocket technology to launch war-capable vehicles into orbit. US officials were stunned when the Chinese launched their “Hypersonic glider” three years ago. They asked, “What is a hypersonic glider?”
The Financial Times reported this news first. It was a test for a new hypersonic glider that could be powered by nuclear energy. China insists that the test was a routine one to check the technology of reusability of spacecraft. The demonstration was reported to have stunned American officials. One of them told a newspaper, “We don’t know how they did it.” Why are hypersonic gliders important?
The Chinese are not concerned about “the environment” when it comes to the technology of space vehicles and launchers. They only care about catching up with the United States. I assume America is watching what China launches into space or tries to launch. China is not like North Korea in that it is not a hermit kingdom. So, if a payload launch goes wrong, and the payload falls into a village, someone will likely videotape the “mistake”.
Annnnd China dropped another booster stage full of hypergolics on a local village pic.twitter.com/kxpk37rWhP
— Chris Combs (iterative design enjoyer) (@DrChrisCombs) June 22, 2024
This clip shows a Chinese booster that fell to the ground and landed in the Chinese countryside, very close to a Chinese town. You can see the hypergolic propellant, or whatever was left of it, pouring out from a mostly intact booster. Anyone close enough to the booster to breathe it would not have survived. This could be a sign that the Chinese are not very competent. We won’t likely know, because the Chinese have shown that they will cover up anything wrong (like COVID), and those who are “in the loop” will disappear.
SpaceX is a good example.
NASA, the American space agency, used to be the only “launcher” for space payloads. But because it is a huge money-waster, the federal government has contracted SpaceX to launch rockets into orbit. Musk’s firm is still burdened by government bureaucracy, such as making sure seals don’t get stressed out by rocket launches or rockets that go hypersonic. SpaceX was required to capture a seal and then play sonic blasts through headphones. Then, it would ask the seal to point out on a doll the area where it had been injured by the rocket. The feds were interested in knowing if the sounds of rocket launches caused seals to suffer PTSD, or if they suffered immediate damage. Why only seals? Whales and pufferfish also have feelings.
Musk claims that the population of seals has increased in the area around the launch site. So maybe the sonic blasts are good for seal sex.
Annnnd China dropped another booster stage full of hypergolics on a local village pic.twitter.com/kxpk37rWhP
— Chris Combs (iterative design enjoyer) (@DrChrisCombs) June 22, 2024
The Chinese, while the US government orders SpaceX to place headphones on seals out of concern for the seals’ feelings, are dumping rocket fuel and rockets on their people.