While We Were Not Noticing The Long March Has Taken Off

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This picture here is China's Wenchang Space Launch Center on Hainan Island - a sizeable tropical island situated on the same latitude as Vietnam. It is a few hundred kilometres away from Vietnam.
China has FOUR main rocket or satellite launch centers namely Wenchang, Taiyuan, Xichang and Jiuquan.

They chose Hainan Island because of its proximity to the Equator, which has the fastest earth's rotational speed.  
Rockets take advantage of the earth's faster spin closer to the Equator and hence need to carry less fuel to speed up to escape the earths gravity. A rocket needs a speed of about 25,000 mph to escape the earth's gravity and to enter space.  





This is the best picture that I could find on the Net though there are more impressive pictures that I have seen. What is to be noted is the scale of this space launch center on Hainan Island. It has multiple launch pads. 
In this picture there are at least 13 rocket launch pads.  This is only one part of Wenchang. There are more launch pads in the other parts of this space center. 
I have been to the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral in Florida which I believe had only a few (3 ??) launch pads at that time (1983).

Last year China made 39 space launches. The next closest country the USA made about 20+ rocket launches. The Chinese had only one rocket malfunction. This means China had a launch success of 98% in 2018.
The workhorse of the Chinese space launches is the Long March 5 and Long March 5B rocket. Which is this rocket here :


Here is the shocker. This Wenchang Space Launch Centre was completed THREE years ago in 2016. Construction began nine years earlier in 2007. The other three space centers were operational from the 70s and 80s. The Chinese can put up these things at miracle speed.

In my first book 'To Digress A Little' published in 2005 I had suggested that Malaysia build a space launch center - in collaboration with some space launching country of course. If only we had approached the Chinese then. I have even spotted a possible site - the Hutan Melintang / Teluk Intan area in southern Perak. Flat as a pancake and with access to the sea.
Recall the Chinese rocket that reached the far side of the moon recently? No one else has been to the far side of the moon before. Yet the Chinese did it with one shot. Meaning their rocket launches work very well. 
There is  more, much, much more to these Chinese achievements in space launches. It is a great comfort to me that they can do this. The world will be a better place. I can say more about this but it may bore you.
Tell your children to reach for the stars and beyond. They can hitch a ride with the Chinese.
Here are two short videos about Wenchang.  Simple guys wearing white shirts shooting massive rockets to the edges of space.





Posted by Syed Akbar Ali 

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