Virgin Galactic bans Chinese nationals from space flights over espionage fears

[Irfan Baloch]

Gimmick? Any Chinese NON-GOVERNMENTAL peer of Virgin?

And yet...

LauncherOne | Virgin Galactic

We do not see anything comparable from China in terms of reusable vehicles, do we?

The future of spaceflight lies with reusables, not expendables, and it looks like this 'attention whore' is ahead of the government of China.

by the way

if the Chinese can copy merey by boarding the flight then boy oh boy are they good or what?
lol thats some super natural ability to copy the technology (needs X ray vision and photographic memory but some telepathy to read minds of the designers / operators) to copy the thing


go china.. they would have their own Space Dragon soon enough with 98% similarity.. that will really cause heart burn hehe

 

[Audio]

by the way

if the Chinese can copy merey by boarding the flight then boy oh boy are they good or what?
lol thats some super natural ability to copy the technology (needs X ray vision and photographic memory but some telepathy to read minds of the designers / operators) to copy the thing


go china.. they would have their own Space Dragon soon enough with 98% similarity.. that will really cause heart burn hehe

Would you come without a camera on a sub orbital flight?

Plus Chinese "tourists" have been known to crawl under APC'c at defense shows to photograph the undercarriage.

Why make it easy?

 

[gambit]

by the way

if the Chinese can copy merey by boarding the flight then boy oh boy are they good or what?
lol thats some super natural ability to copy the technology (needs X ray vision and photographic memory but some telepathy to read minds of the designers / operators) to copy the thing


go china.. they would have their own Space Dragon soon enough with 98% similarity.. that will really cause heart burn hehe

The same way that Samsung would not allow competitors' engineers just taking a stroll along its manufacturing floor.

 

[bolo]

it's a good thing. Chinese with $$$ should spend their money on more important things like building homes for the poor and orphans in rural China.

IF this space tour does pan out, it won't be long before other competitors come in, so don't sweat it.

 

[senheiser]

thats political racism. Just disgusting from american business

 

[longlong]

it's a good thing. Chinese with $$$ should spend their money on more important things like building homes for the poor and orphans in rural China.

IF this space tour does pan out, it won't be long before other competitors come in, so don't sweat it.

Best comments in this post.

Why there have rich nation vs poor nation in the world? Why US cannot share their $$$ with Africas and Indians as well to make a-everyone-has-same-income world?

 

[Audio]

it's a good thing. Chinese with $$$ should spend their money on more important things like building homes for the poor and orphans in rural China.

IF this space tour does pan out, it won't be long before other competitors come in, so don't sweat it.

Chinese with $$$ are buying themselves citizenry in the west.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

The same way that Samsung would not allow competitors' engineers just taking a stroll along its manufacturing floor.

I get that but this is feeble attempt, any Industrial thief or competitor can get enough third hand information through the internet in the form of videos and high definition stills .. giving as much as (if not more) than the information gathered by merely looking or strolling near the stalls.

the paranoia against the Industrial espionage is very well founded but its a constant battle and very hard to win against the dedicated state level theft.

I must say, any such high tech thief must have a technical know how and a knowledge base to be able to replicate what he or she acquires through unfair means... otherwise we would have seen such copy cat across the globe.

 

[Götterdämmerung]

Chinese with $$$ are buying themselves citizenry in the west.

Do you think it's a good thing, because monied people have influence in economy and hence politics in the long term? If they think that they can buy citizenship, what hinders them to buy influence as well?

The same way that Samsung would not allow competitors' engineers just taking a stroll along its manufacturing floor.

OK, so boarding a plane is like strolling through the mfg. floor of Airbus. so we should ban Chinese flying Airbus airplanes as well, right. You couldn't get more moronic with your comparison.

 

[Audio]

Do you think it's a good thing, because monied people have influence in economy and hence politics in the long term? If they think that they can buy citizenship, what hinders them to buy influence as well?

I think the priority for most of these people would be to stay low and enjoy the fruits of their...umm...transfer of funds to offshore bank oasis'.

When the shit hits the fan in China (when government won't be able to pour money in bottomless pits (heavily indebted SOE's, provincial governments) anymore to maintain an illusion of growth) the CCP will come for these people. Not so much because of the amount of money they transfered, but more because of legitimacy and as a show of strength to keep the image of fighting corruption alive. A couple of show trials and a summary execution on CCTV is all that awaits them if they are found.

the paranoia against the Industrial espionage is very well founded but its a constant battle and very hard to win against the dedicated state level theft.

I think this is exactly why this decision was taken, ie state level espionage.

If you look from a purely business perspective, this isn't how it's supposed to be done. Cutting yourself from a huge (potentially) market and to top that off, publicly naming them.
I reckon Virgin has had the "pleasure" of meeting PLA unit 61398 sometime in their past and are trying to do their best to keep their know how to themselves.

As for how hard is it to get info in internet age argument, maybe they got smart and they have a disconnected network where their R&D efforts are stored.

 

[Götterdämmerung]

I think the priority for most of these people would be to stay low and enjoy the fruits of their...umm...transfer of funds to offshore bank oasis'.

When the shit hits the fan in China (when government won't be able to pour money in bottomless pits (heavily indebted SOE's, provincial governments) anymore to maintain an illusion of growth) the CCP will come for these people. Not so much because of the amount of money they transfered, but more because of legitimacy and as a show of strength to keep the image of fighting corruption alive. A couple of show trials and a summary execution on CCTV is all that awaits them if they are found.

Too many ifs in your argument. The crash of China has been predicted since the late 1980s and they have gone from strength to strength. China's debts are mostly internal debts and that coupled with a strictly regulated banking market (compared to ours) where external factors have little means to penetrate.

What makes you think the rich cannot enjoy their fruits in China if you have money? The only difference AFAIK is they have difficulties to travel around and unlike our monied elite have little influence in the higher politics within China.

Meanwhile within the EU we have plenty of trouble spots that are spreading and thanks to our well controlled free media, they are at best on page 26. The US is even worse.

Lets say China, indeed, is going to bust, what do you think how the chain reaction in the global economy will be? A large chunk of our car, chemistry and machine tool industry (the pillars of Germany's economy) is heavily invested and dependent on the Chinese market. What would happen within the EU if the largest economy gets into the swirl of China's economic collaps? Already our politicians are talking about "rich tax", aka de facto confiscation of asset, in case of banking collaps.

On top of this, it's not an unknown phenomenon that our fi*lthy rich are also transfering their illgotten money to offshore bank oasis. Does it mean that our rich elite is afraid of the same fate that you implied to the rich Chinse?

 

[gambit]

OK, so boarding a plane is like strolling through the mfg. floor of Airbus. so we should ban Chinese flying Airbus airplanes as well, right. You couldn't get more moronic with your comparison.

May be the airliners should. May be that would delay the development of China's own airliner. I guess in your world, industrial espionage does not exist.

 

[Audio]

Too many ifs in your argument. The crash of China has been predicted.......

I don't think it's gonna crash or disintegrate or anything like that, but a major reacessment of what has been achieved is bound to happen sometime in the future.
When this is going to happen, heads will have to roll, inevitably CCP will be seen as responsible for letting graft run wild, they will get afraid and will start a thorough pogrom against any low and mid level officials who have been known or suspected of corruption and also against not well connected high level officials.
Also, currently you have two factions, or better said, two currents in the CCP. Both will not hesitate to blame each other's underlings and both will try to profit from the accusations towards the other.

rest of your post is pretty much answered with this, since you presume i think China will crash and you then spin off questions as to what would happen etc etc.....

I would however like to disagree on this:

have little influence in the higher politics within China.

The super rich are well connected in China. Either they come from a PLA background* or a move used quite often to mask true connections of company to state-powerful individuals (most are registered CCP members) appoint their family members or their spouses as executives.

*PLA background goes back to the 90's i think, when defense budget was low,PLA would start companies to help boost their income. Many times soldiers would work in production factories or military transport planes would be utilized for civilian paid transport....Out of this, came the conglomerates of today.....

 

[Götterdämmerung]

May be the airliners should. May be that would delay the development of China's own airliner. I guess in your world, industrial espionage does not exist.

Yeah, ask Boeing and Airbus to stop selling airplanes to China, the biggest source of tourism in the world.

Yeah, talking about industrial espionage .... Snowden, NSA ...

 

[Götterdämmerung]

I don't think it's gonna crash or disintegrate or anything like that, but a major reacessment of what has been achieved is bound to happen sometime in the future.
When this is going to happen, heads will have to roll, inevitably CCP will be seen as responsible for letting graft run wild, they will get afraid and will start a thorough pogrom against any low and mid level officials who have been known or suspected of corruption and also against not well connected high level officials.
Also, currently you have two factions, or better said, two currents in the CCP. Both will not hesitate to blame each other's underlings and both will try to profit from the accusations towards the other.

See, you just change China with EU or US and you will have a very similar problem, although what will happen after the crash will very substantially in the EU, the US and China. The current system is just unsustainable here as well as there. Already we see riots in practically all southern states of the EU, in my city there is almost not one week where there are not some kind of riots and that in Germany's richest city. What will happen when the whole Euro system breaks apart due to unsopportable debts? We Germans are slow in changes, but once it gets steam, it's unstoppable.

rest of your post is pretty much answered with this, since you presume i think China will crash and you then spin off questions as to what would happen etc etc.....

OK

I would however like to disagree on this:

The super rich are well connected in China. Either they come from a PLA background* or a move used quite often to mask true connections of company to state-powerful individuals (most are registered CCP members) appoint their family members or their spouses as executives.

*PLA background goes back to the 90's i think, when defense budget was low,PLA would start companies to help boost their income. Many times soldiers would work in production factories or military transport planes would be utilized for civilian paid transport....Out of this, came the conglomerates of today.....

If you see it like this, there is little difference between China and Europe or the US. Just look how much of our tax money has been spend to rescue the bunch of arseholes that ruined our economy through pur greedy speculation. Mutti even Merkel threw a big birthday party for Ackermann in the chancellery when he was still CEO of Deutche Bank. What about the corruption scandal of Siemens? It was announced big time in the media and nothing happened. The media is all silent. Guess why?

We have little to criticise others when we also have the same skeletons in our closets and in our system. Rather we concentrate to solve our problems instead of pointing fingers as that won't make our problems smaller.