In 2022, the American " New York Times " published relevant information about the Chinese Space Station , including a comparison of the construction costs of the Chinese Space Station and the International Space Station .
Structure of Tiangong Space Station
Data shows The cost of building China’s Tiangong Space Station is only
comparison are voices of doubt. Foreign media have expressed that such a cheap cost is really practical? Or is China’s Tiangong Space Station just a “face project”?
The expensive International Space Station
The International Space Station is a large-scale aerospace engineering project jointly built by 16 countries at the end of the last century.
Among them, the aerospace giants the United States and Russia took the lead, and other countries contributed, and jointly built a comprehensive and international "shared" space station.
The expected service life of the International Space Station is about 15 to 20 years. Its main responsibility is to provide a platform for relevant experiments, a "transfer station" for space rockets, a supply station for astronauts, etc.
International Space Station Structure
Compared with other aerospace projects, the practical value of space station is higher, and the construction of space stations is also the future development trend in the field of human aerospace.
What makes people curious is why the investment cost of the International Space Station project is so expensive?
First of all, the International Space Station was jointly built by developed countries and is the largest aerospace project of mankind to date.
The economic level of and in these countries is among the top in the world. If nothing else, there is certainly no shortage of funds.
They spent a lot of money. The budget for the first round of the plan reached hundreds of billions of dollars.
Although after evaluation, the cost can be controlled within 50 billion US dollars, in order to attract the attention of the world, they still chose a higher cost solution.
The International Space Station soars in the universe
With such a sufficient budget, the staff will naturally not be stingy when it comes to choosing materials and .
It is worth mentioning that the International Space Station is also a face-saving project in a sense.
Because every part of the space station is composed of spaceships or space shuttles from various countries, no one wants to be inferior to others in terms of budget and be laughed at.
Therefore, every country's finances are at full capacity, and if conditions permit, they will build as expensive a spaceship as possible to demonstrate the country's economic strength and level.
In addition, the International Space Station project itself is a huge project, and even without the impact of social factors, its cost is very expensive.
Space Station Comparison
Overall, although the cost of the International Space Station of US$100 billion is a bit exaggerated, it has certain merits.
In contrast, the cost of my country's independently developed Tiangong Space Station is only 8 billion U.S. dollars. Calculated according to the price growth level in the past ten years, if these 8 billion are placed in at that time, the cost will only be lower. Does
mean that our space station is far from the International Space Station?
Chinese Space Station
From the perspective of size, my country’s space station is definitely not as good as the International Space Station. After all, people invest a lot and have many participating countries, so they can naturally build a larger space station.
But this does not mean that the bigger the space station, the better. The key lies in its practicality .
Tiangong Space Station
China’s space station is almost comparable to the International Space Station in practicality, and in some aspects, even better than the International Space Station.
To put it simply, we can do everything the International Space Station can do, and we can still do what the International Space Station cannot do.
my country’s space station integrates a variety of cabins such as a space capsule, a cargo cabin, and an experimental cabin. It has certain advantages in terms of structural subdivision.
According to the properties of different cabins, scientists can carry out related space activities .
For example, our country’s space station can perfectly replicate the various space experiments that the International Space Station is proud of.
Tiangong Space Station
Not only that, our country’s experimental module has also made breakthroughs in key technologies such as long-term autonomous flight in orbit, which is incomparable to the old International Space Station.
In future planning, our country's space station will also add an optical cabin, which is equipped with a large astronomical telescope with the same resolution as the Hubble Telescope , which can observe more than 40% of the sky area.
So far, our country has conducted a variety of advanced and practical experiments such as plant growth experiments on the space station, providing valuable data for our country's scientific research field.
Space Station Plant Cultivation
The most important thing is that our country’s space station has not experienced any malfunctions so far, and it also has the double guarantee of alarm system and early warning system.
Even if an accident occurs, we can detect it as early as possible and carry out relevant repair work as soon as possible to reduce losses.
Looking back at the International Space Station, there was a serious leak.
In 2020, the space agencies of the United States and Russia jointly issued a statement stating that a leak occurred on the International Space Station. The accident occurred in the U.S. module, and the cause is currently being investigated.
In the same year, another leak occurred in the Russian cabin, and a lot of manpower, material and financial resources were spent to plug the leak.
This is really dangerous.
There are many other faults, such as power short circuit, toilet leaking urine , etc., making a series of ridiculous news.
In the final analysis, the development level of and in the aerospace field of various countries is uneven, and it is quite dangerous to forcibly combine their spacecrafts together.
However, my country's space station technology is of the same origin, and the compatibility of each cabin is intact. In terms of safety factor, my country's space station is slightly better.
The domestic space station
The lower cost is exchanged for a higher cost performance. Foreign media can't sit still, and they are "nitpicking" about our country's space station and making a big fuss about some unwarranted things.
This has also aroused everyone's doubts, why is the cost of our country's space station so low, but the price/performance ratio is so high?
Reasons for high cost performance
If conditions permit, our country would also like to use the high cost to build a more perfect space station.
Domestic space station structure diagram
The key is that objective conditions do not allow it. Our country is in the development period of , and a large amount of finance is needed in all aspects. Although the aerospace field is very important, the national finance cannot be biased, and the budget that can be given to the space station project is limited.
Under this premise, Chinese scientists adhered to the principle of saving money when they could, spent this money on the tip of the knife, and gradually improved the blueprint of our country's space station.
Not only that, my country's space station project started later than , and various low-cost and high-yield technologies have gradually matured.
For example, when the world was building the International Space Station, it used traditional fuel, which was not only expensive, but also very troublesome and required regular and quantitative replenishment.
International Space Station initial state
Today, plasma promotes the gradual maturity of technology, further reducing the fuel cost of rockets. There are many new technologies such as
, which play an irreplaceable role in the construction of our country’s space station.
The construction cost of our space station is indeed low, but we must also be wary of foreign media overly promoting our country's , because this is likely to be an important public opinion package for the "China threat theory."
Be wary of remarks
Foreign media’s so-called construction cost of US$100 billion also includes the operation and maintenance costs of and over the years.
International Space Station
Data show that if you want to maintain the normal operation of such a behemoth as the International Space Station, the annual investment cost is as high as
Therefore, the actual construction cost of the International Space Station is not as high as the media promotes.
my country also took advantage of the right time, place and people in the predicament to reduce the cost to US$8 billion. Coupled with the modules conceived later, the cost of my country's space station may exceed the US$10 billion mark.
can be seen. When browsing foreign media on the Internet, you should also pay attention to distinguish the authenticity of and , otherwise it will be easy to be induced by others.
International Space Station
At present, the International Space Station is affected by social factors and is no longer what it used to be. Riding on the space craze, our country's space station is gradually "taking off", and the space dream of 1.4 billion people will eventually come true.
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