For comparison, Italy's GDP was 2 trillion in 2019. 20% more than Russia. Obviously Russia is going to be a junior partner. However, they got much more technical expertise than China.
In a rare occurrence I agree with the saying "money isn't everything". Even if China paid the whole bill Russia could still "do half". In projects like this knowledge is at least as important and Russia do have a lot, even though it isn't what it once were in space tech and knowledge.
Wouldn't the obvious constellation be that China provides the money, and Russia provides the know-how? Russia might desperately need the money to keep the remains of their space program alive, while any interesting technology they still might possess will be transferred to China.
Chinese prefer their own way. Not being content with others failed attempts, they now want to create their own modern autocracy story. Russian warnings about stalinism aren't heard in China.
This is The End of US any space program. Russia has rockets to lift up any cargo. China has factorys for building toys. Russia had best universities of science always. If you dont believe me watch on youtube "The Sputnik effect" movie. One of the best I ever seen about reality in space race.
Translation: China will build it, and Russia will claim "serious involvement".
With the current leadership Roscosmos can only claim big great things in the future. I mean, they'd already claimed they will have reached the Moon by 2014. 7 years later, and here we are.
And in the current political climate Russian leadership will claim "us and China" for anything. Even if the participation of either side ends with signing a meaningless piece of paper.
Edit: China may want access to technical info they are still lacking, and Russia will happily sell that info at a large discount just to claim cooperation with China.
I see some comments critical of China’s and Russia’s tech abilities, something that I disagree with.
When I worked as a contractor at Google, there was an ocean of Russian and Chinese speaking people around me. I used to get into work around 5:30am, or a little later, ever day (my usual habit, no matter where I am working). Anyway, there was a manager who also was an early starter and one day I asked him about the diversity of co-workers. I was told that except for people graduating from premier US universities, it was fairly rare to find new graduates with deep math and reasoning skills. He told me that Chinese and Russian graduates were simply better prepared. This is just one data point, but it makes sense to me.
I have been working in the field of AI since 1982, and back then almost all AI published papers were from the US. We still kick ass in basic research, but other countries have caught up, and to deny that is simply not seeing the world for the way it is.
A key ingredient is open decision making, not just technical chops. RnC decision making will be influenced by the politics of closed systems and that will cause the failure. Look at the Challenger disaster. Those failures happened within an "open system" or one striving to be open. Leadership matters.
Russia has a lot in common with China than any other country .. common theoretical basis of the past (communism) So they will perfectly find a common language. Russia and China have
strong American pressure, in the form of an embargo and so on. So they will try to minimize their dependence on the USA .. Considering the addition of the economic power and intelligence of the two countries .. Most likely, the USA is in a winning position now, and will start losing in the medium term.
28 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 69.5 ms ] threadTheir GDP, in my opinion, is way too small for financing halve of this mission.
It was 2,66 trillion in 1989 and it was 1,6 trillion in 2018.
At average, 6% of that is reserved for military research.
By reference: Europe is 20 trillion gdp.
This scenario has been played over and over.
Regarding Space exploration, the Chinese are not going to learn anything from the Russians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera
They didn't have much luck with their Mars missions unfortunately:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_program
Also, the Chinese manned space program was essentially bootstrapped by Russia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhou_program
Adjusted: $4Tr
I guess that whether or not it makes sense to adjust, in this case, depends on whether the expense will leave the country or not.
If you imagine that Russia's contribution to the project will be providing scientists and technology, maybe it makes sense to adjust.
Can't read?
With the current leadership Roscosmos can only claim big great things in the future. I mean, they'd already claimed they will have reached the Moon by 2014. 7 years later, and here we are.
And in the current political climate Russian leadership will claim "us and China" for anything. Even if the participation of either side ends with signing a meaningless piece of paper.
Edit: China may want access to technical info they are still lacking, and Russia will happily sell that info at a large discount just to claim cooperation with China.
When I worked as a contractor at Google, there was an ocean of Russian and Chinese speaking people around me. I used to get into work around 5:30am, or a little later, ever day (my usual habit, no matter where I am working). Anyway, there was a manager who also was an early starter and one day I asked him about the diversity of co-workers. I was told that except for people graduating from premier US universities, it was fairly rare to find new graduates with deep math and reasoning skills. He told me that Chinese and Russian graduates were simply better prepared. This is just one data point, but it makes sense to me.
I have been working in the field of AI since 1982, and back then almost all AI published papers were from the US. We still kick ass in basic research, but other countries have caught up, and to deny that is simply not seeing the world for the way it is.