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Chinese astronauts make rocket fuel and oxygen in space

(www.livescience.com)
298 points Teever | 2 comments | 24 Aug 25 17:54 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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monster_truck ◴[26 Aug 25 21:17 UTC] No.45032447[source]▶
This is from January, have there been any updates in the past 7 months?

There is exceptionally little material info in this article and so very much speculation

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nashashmi ◴[26 Aug 25 22:17 UTC] No.45033045[source]▶
Apparently it has been in production since 2015. Why is this the first we are hearing about it?
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nosignono ◴[26 Aug 25 22:55 UTC] No.45033343[source]▶
Because English language news sources aren't particularly interested in developing the relationships necessary to report on Chinese scientific breakthroughs. It undermines the prevailing media narrative that China is behind and backwater.

Americans don't like the idea that maybe China is actually rocketing past them technologically and infrastructurally, so news doesn't really report on it much.

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aDyslecticCrow ◴[27 Aug 25 06:53 UTC] No.45036259[source]▶
China is also nutoriuous for paper mill publishing houses and overblown scientific claims.

Its also needlessly complicated to send the experiment to space. It would be equally valid science if made on earth. So there is a clear performance in the experiment not justifiable by any scientific reason.

Not to say china isn't ahead in space development right now. Artemis is going quite badly and china could certainly be faster to building usable moon outpost.

Its also very cool science, if its claims are true.

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1. somenameforme ◴[27 Aug 25 08:45 UTC] No.45036990[source]▶
What makes you think they didn't test it on Earth first? The Chinese report on this [1] makes this clear with more accurate verbiage: "China's space station has recently conducted experiments on extraterrestrial artificial photosynthesis technology, completing the in-orbit verification of efficient carbon dioxide conversion and oxygen regeneration processes." I think the reason you want to validate your findings in the domain that they'll be used are somewhat self evident.

> "Artemis is going..."

That's quite optimistic.

[1] - https://english.news.cn/20250120/375a0de3a7fc416096799714eaf...

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2. aDyslecticCrow ◴[27 Aug 25 10:46 UTC] No.45037845[source]▶
I only want to point out that showing scepticism to chineese scientific claims when so few details are given is well grounded.

Microgravity is not the target environment for the technology , and it verifying its operation in microgravity feels like a very minor breakthrough compared to the tech itself.

So sending it to space is performance to show off and make headlines.

Its very important tech. If their claims are true its amazing... but doing it in orbit is not the amazing part.

China is doing alot of great research, and the idea that china is behind is laughable in many sectors. But sorting through the real science is so much harder in the noise of empty papers and puffy articles.

> That's quite optimistic.

Urgh. One can dream i guess