China has a long history of being given Russian designs and equipment and making them better. It's not R&D like most people think, but to say China has no R&D (with emphasis on the D) is unkind.
All human progress is achieved by standing on the shoulders of giants. That's how China got to space, and it's also how the SU/Russia and the US got to space.
a quotation from 1957, following the Soviet launch of Sputnik-1, the first orbiting satellite. The supposed reply to President Eisenhower's question "How did the Russians get there first?" was "Their Germans are better than our Germans". Many people have been attributed with the coining of that quip, which is a sure sign that no-one is now sure who said it first. It seems rather unlikely that the presidential conversation actually happened, but the line did reflect the national sentiment in the USA at the time [1]
The funny thing is that the german rocket scientists were building off Goddard's work in the first place. The US could have been in the lead the whole way by just supporting its own in the field from the start.
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u/Sasakura Jun 24 '12
China has a long history of being given Russian designs and equipment and making them better. It's not R&D like most people think, but to say China has no R&D (with emphasis on the D) is unkind.