MORE RELEVANT THAN STATE ELECTIONS, TWO MORE EARTH SHATTERING TECH ACHIEVEMENTS BY CHINA

 While the folks in our country are just wasting our time and our taxpayers money in useless pursuits, China has gone on to achieve even more astounding scientific and technology achievements that will change the world quite completely. 

This is almost like the 'invention of the wheel' moment by Stone Age Man.

1. The first one here is about China's advances in making the fusion reactor closer to reality. There is a short video below (couple of minutes) and do watch this video. I have mentioned these fusion reactors before. They produce practically no radioactivity, they run on hydrogen which can be sourced from water and they are super efficient in that they can produce more power than a regular fission type nuclear reactor. Fission is like the atomic bomb - it produces radioactivity. The fusion reactor produces plenty of energy (like the hydrogen bomb) but almost no radioactivity.

In the west research on fusion reactors has been going on for about 70 years since the 1950s.  Needless to say these are very expensive  big boys toys that cost US$ Billions to build and operate. But despite 70 years they have not been able to sustain the plasma inside the hotter-than-the-sun 'tokamak' or reactor core for longer than a few seconds. (Longest was FIVE seconds somewhere near Oxford in Britain last year).

Then the Chinese got into fusion research in a big way (since early 2000s) and early this year (January?) they were able to sustain the plasma in the reactor for 101 seconds. A world record and 20 times longer than the five seconds at Oxford. 

According to this YouTube video the Chinese have now achieved a plasma for seven minutes or 420 seconds. Again another world record. The target is to keep the plasma going non stop.

If they can make a commercially viable fusion reactor then practically we will not need oil, gas and coal anymore to generate electricity. This will have consequences around the world.

 

Science and technology breakthrough No 2 is something known as a wind tunnel. A wind tunnel is used in the aerospace industry to test smaller scale models of airplanes, rockets, missiles etc. A wind tunnel is a series of large diameter connected steel cylinders (they can be U shaped) inside which air can be accelerated to reach the speeds at which the airplane or rocket will be flying. 

Todate the fastest wind tunnels in the US do not go beyond Mach 5. Not coincidentally the US defines "hypersonic speed" as  also Mach 5.  Not coincidentally also the highest speed for missiles produced by the US (for example) is around Mach 5 or five times the speed of sound.

Well the Chinese have recently brought into operation a wind tunnel that can reach speeds of Mach 30 !! Thirty times the speed of sound. Instead of using blowers, compressors, vacuum chambers etc to accelerate the wind speed the Chinese scientist (its one man) perfected some serial 'chemical explosions' method to push the air molecules to Mach 30.

What this means is that the Chinese will soon be building even more new generation hypersonic missiles and rockets for their defense purposes. Military comes first. But what they are also aiming at is to design and make the hypersonic passenger aircraft that can take off from an airport, reach the higher atmosphere (almost zero air pressure and low wind resistance) and then glide back to earth at hypersonic speeds, around Mach 10. This will then make things like 2 hour flights between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur feasible.

So that Mach 30 wind tunnel is absolutely critical to design and test scale models of the airframe shape, the streamlining at insane speeds and the materials used to build the plane (heat resistance, wear and tear). 

Looking at how fast the Chinese have progressed and are still progressing all this sounds very feasible. They are doing things so systematically, step by step. The world will change. 

Here is a short video about that Mach 30 wind tunnel.

 The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.