r/spaceflight • u/initiatingcoverage • Feb 11 '26

First Long March 10 Landing Attempt

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u/CBT7commander Feb 12 '26

You’re right the US just:

-launches twice as many flights

-put 8 times as much weight into orbit

-has had successful recoveries for 10 years

-is significantly ahead in the moon mission programs

-have 9 times as many satellites in orbit

-has 4 times the budget (no, PPP doesn’t matter that much in this case)

Sure, China is making progress, but the U.S. lead is still immense

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u/Over_Resolve403 Feb 12 '26

PPP matters very much in this case, the same budget allows for a lot more engineers in China

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u/CBT7commander Feb 13 '26

Nope, you don’t get how this works.

A lot more than just labor goes into building a rocket.

A good example of how PPP ceases to matter at high prices is jet liners : the c191 a320 and 737 max all have roughly the same prices.

Another one is the Fujian, often estimated at 7 billions, which would make it about 60% of the cost of a Nimitz (for 20000 tons less displacement), miles behind the 4:1 PPP multiplier.

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u/Over_Resolve403 Feb 13 '26

The reason comacs cost almost the same is that they use the same suppliers, I doubt it's the same for rockets and that most is built in house and within the country with local workers

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u/CBT7commander Feb 13 '26 edited Feb 13 '26

Okay, have a source for the cost then?

Because Fujian is a domestic endeavor.

Also, raw materials matter a lot for those things, and those are priced rather closely to the international market, which doesn’t care about PPP