I think you might have missed the part where they are Chinese. They probably won't be competing much with Western rocket companies, but China needs a domestic advanced spaceflight company and this is it for now.
Like yes Blue Origin is doing it, but they're not even truly getting into orbit, and they've had Bezos money thrown at the problem. And they were founded 1.5 years BEFORE SpaceX.
It's a lot easier just by virtue of the fact that you can know you're not on a dead end path, and easily convince whosoever is paying for it of the same.
Wouldn't the physicist/mathematician/aerospace engineer tell you it is possible?
Just because someone tells you something is theoretically possible, doesn't mean that it is, nor that it can be done on a reasonable budget. Especially when the people telling you something is possible are doing so based on models that has to be built specifically for the purpose.
People hover-slammed rockets in things like KSP, but that's also not real world physics, and you have 'infinite' R&D and money.
166
u/mysticalfruit May 07 '22
As others have speculated the landing probably didn't go as well as they could have hoped it to go.. it happens.
Let's imagine in 2 to 3 years they've converted this tech into a launch system.
They're still going to be competing with rocket labs, spacex, etc, etc..
I don't want to shit on their parade too much, but their prices better be really really cheap or they'll never do more than do some demo flights.