- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmygrad.ml
https://archive.is/FgF0M
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This might be a lil civ/grand strategy brained but to me the whole point of civilization is to come together so we can build cool stuff. How much cool stuff a country builds should be a serious metric for success. China is the undisputed cool stuff building champion of the world and not enough people are talking about it. a market economy will never build as much cool stuff as a centrally planned one.
I think we'll see some wild stuff coming out of China in the coming decades. They've basically just caught up with the west technologically, and now we're just starting to see them push past the western cutting edge tech. I expect this process will only accelerate as technology tend to be self reinforcing. Meanwhile, it's going to be difficult for the west to keep up because of a smaller population, lack of focus on education, and lack of central planning mechanisms necessary for directing productive development.
Yea, as cool as this would be I have some serious doubts about this, especially since they said they want to put passengers on this thing? The SR-71 reached a max speed of mach 3.4, but it was flying at extremely high altitudes where the air is very thin and the pilot had to wear what's essentially a space suit. Not to mention the plane being made entirely of titanium because during flight the surface temperature of the plane's body was so hot, that any other metal would start to lose it's structural soundness. I have no doubts that technology has massively improved since the 60s, but I don't think it's improved to the point to where we're going to be flying at mach 4 from Beijing to New York like they say. If they end up showing it off later down the line and it can actually do that, well holy shit.
I don’t disagree per se, but the article says that the plane operates at 20,000 meters ceiling, Wikipedia says SR-71 had 26,000m operational ceiling, so this thing is high up, but not as high as the blackbird. Not sure how much of a difference that makes for the air and heat issues.
The company that makes this thing is making ballistic super sonic rockets for China, so I think the implication in the article is that this thing is basically a rocket with wings.
God I am so ready for a faster form of travel. I live in the asshole of the world it takes like minimum 8 hours to get anywhere (sorry new zealand you don’t count)
