China to launch their space plane by 2020..

via Futurism.com

Officials from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC) released a statement on Tuesday saying they’ll be ready to launch the next-generation spaceplane by 2020, according to a report by state news service Xinhua. If the statement is any indication, China seems to be have made significant headway on the development of a highly-secretive advance spacecraft.

At first glance, it may not seem to be a remarkable feat: reusable space rockets have been making headlines consistently since SpaceX successfully launched a used Falcon 9 earlier this year. The company has been flying missions aboard reusable Falcon 9 rockets to the International Space Station, as well as to ferry satellites from private corporations and even several nations.

China’s new space plane — note, not space rocket — is expected to be different. CASTC researcher Chen Hongbo said that unlike traditional spacecrafts, this new spacecraft “will fly into the sky like an aircraft,” Xinhua reports. This would, then, differentiate it from rockets, hence the name spaceplane. Supposedly, the spaceplane will take off from a runway, then fire its ramjet propulsion once high in the atmosphere. At that point, the plane will shift to rocket motors in order to reach orbital space, according to reports noted by Ars Technica.

Story here. 

The Chinese have no shame and we have no cyber security.  They constantly make these splashy announcements and then we see them  building a clone of a western vehicle.

I expect the same here (hence the picture above of the Chinese copy of our X-37).

They're a threat because they can match us militarily, but when it comes to influence they will fall flat.  Their culture is unique and in many ways admirable but few will want to duplicate it.  That and their lack of innovation/vision/creativity will doom them in the end.  They'll be tough, they'll be competitive but they'll always be beatable...if we harden the fuck up!