Posted on 01/11/2011 6:28:00 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
China 'Developing Military Spacecraft'
China is making progress in building an "upper-atmosphere" jet fighter, an official said last week, adding to a flurry of speculation about China's growing air power.
Hong Kong's Ming Pao daily on Tuesday said Shaanxi TV last Saturday quoted acting provincial governor Zhao Zhengyong as saying China has "succeeded in the test flight of a prototype aircraft that can fly through the atmospheric layer." Zhao was visiting a state-run aircraft corporation at Xi'an high-tech industrial development zone.
The channel showed images of a prototype space fighter being assembled whose outward appearance was almost identical to a U.S. pilotless upper-atmosphere military spaceship, the X-37B, the daily said.
In April last year, the U.S. successfully tested the X-37B, which is about a quarter of the size of existing spacecraft.
The daily said China's development of the aircraft was leaked to the pres like recent stories about its new stealth fighter dubbed the J-20, but authorities were "deleting all Internet posts about the space fighter."
The Ming Pao and the Zhongguo Pinglun (China Review), a news website in Hong Kong, posted an article headlined "China succeeds in spacecraft test flight in tandem with U.S. X-37B" until early Tuesday, but no mainland Chinese media websites mentioned anything about it.
Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that in a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tuesday he expressed concerns about China's test flight of a prototype of the J-20 during his visit. But Hu assured him the timing is not related to his visit, he added.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported a J-20 took off around 12:50 p.m. and landed at 1:11 p.m. after a successful flight of about 18 minutes on Tuesday." It showed 23 stills of the fighter flying over an urban area or in maintenance.
Gates' visit achieved maximum exposure for the images. The U.S. defense secretary had earlier said the Chinese stealth fighter would not be ready until about 2020.
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Bump
Well it can’t be a military spacecraft. The outerspace treaty says they can’t. LOL
It could compliment the new “Slick Willie” stealth fighter. They could nickname it the “Thunder Thigh” in honor of Hillary. They got all the plans for donations.
did Clinton sell them the plans for that too?
And obongo said he won’t weaponize space. I guess the chi-coms didn’t get the memo.
The article also does not indicate how many Chinese researchers are in the upper echelon of weapons designers for the U.S. The Hell with your security clearances. Hu needs to know?
Doesn’t matter whether it is manned or unmanned: it means China is militarizing space, period.
Their behavior is rude and unacceptable in the extreme.
fools and their money will always part. Let the Chicoms pour billions into this only to discover it’s impracticable.
Thanks for yet another breach of national secrecy lil’ Billy Clinton. Clinton sold the Crown Jewels of the US military for 6.4 million dollars. I eagerly await the day when his treason is part of every American childrens history textbook. Hang him by piano wire!
Thanks for yet another breach of national secrecy lil’ Billy Clinton. Clinton sold the Crown Jewels of the US military for 6.4 million dollars. I eagerly await the day when his treason is part of every American childrens history textbook. Hang him by piano wire!
China wants to dominate space so they can colonize it alone. We want to explore space to look at the pretty stars. We need to realize that we should colonize space as soon as we can and look at the stars after we have the bases on mars, the moon and asteroids.
yeah right, lol, flying this aircraft during Gates visit tells the US that China does not give a damn what we think or what we want. Thanks alot free traders, keep shopping at wal-mart.
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