China mulls 'ultra-large spacecraft' proposal

[UM-Bot]

China's space agency is considering the construction of a huge spaceship several kilometers in length.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/350115/china-mulls-ultra-large-spacecraft-proposal

[Jon the frog]

Nice that the Chinese are working on this kind of project. Thinking long term is the way to go after all.

[L.A.T.1961]

Very ambitious and likely a non-starter. 

There would have to be a good reason to build something like this and I can't see one in the 21c. 

Build time 50/100 yrs? It could be obsolete before it was finished. 

Quicker to fit a nuclear bomb engine to an aircraft carrier and launch that.

Just mind the fallout. 

[ercbreeze]

Great--bigger Chinese junk falling into our atmosphere . . . 

 

[+Hammerclaw]

17 hours ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

Very ambitious and likely a non-starter. 

There would have to be a good reason to build something like this and I can't see one in the 21c. 

Build time 50/100 yrs? It could be obsolete before it was finished. 

Quicker to fit a nuclear bomb engine to an aircraft carrier and launch that.

Just mind the fallout. 

It would take that long to build the ground and orbital infrastructure to build a ship that big. 

[psyche101]

I find it inspiring and wonderful that someone is as much as thinking about such as incredible endeavour in a serious way. As unlikely as it is to go ahead, it's a fantastic dream.

[L.A.T.1961]

When thinking about this in the past I liked the idea of selecting an asteroid and using it as a shell.

It might contain some useful raw materials, would provide radiation protection and the propulsion could be a mass driver using mined material that's not needed. 

But it is still a huge project and take many decades to build. 

There are no real short cuts in space. 

[Gumball]

Why? What function would such a vehicle fulfill? How would you perform maintenance on it? Only small parts would be habitable as oxygen would be another hurdle. Moving around the vessel would surely also be a problem. I just can't see how this is even possible never mind practical.

[ExoPaul]

As incredibly time consuming and difficult as it is, China is well known for building entire suspension bridges in a week that usually takes UK or USA a couple of years to build. They also built a train station in less than 24 hours.

Time is not something China seems to worry about. It would be the costs and the safety aspects that would delay or cancel it.

But a massive spaceship, loaded with thousands of orbital missiles that can fly with minimal astronaut crew to any location around the world and you can start to see why China wants to build it. It is a new arms race similar to Russia and US did with Nukes.