中国追赶太空探索公司（SpaceX） [美国媒体]

On Oct. 9, SpaceX completed its 14th satellite launch so far this year, putting 10 satellites into orbit for Iridium. Two days later, SpaceX completed launch No. 15 -- this time for SES -- en route to a record-breaking 20 launches anticipated by the close of 2017. Next year, SpaceX plans to increase that launch count by 50%, sending 30 rockets into orbit.

10月9日，太空探索公司（SpaceX）又一次完成了卫星发射，这是今年以来第14次发射，这次发射帮铱星公司把10颗卫星送入了轨道。两天后太空探索公司又完成了第15次发射——这次是帮SES发射——在2017年结束之前，预计将打破年发射量20次的记录。明年，太空探索公司准备计划增加50%的发射量，把30艘火箭送入轨道。

At that point, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said at the 2017 International Astronautical Congress in September, the company will account for "approximately half of all orbital launches that occurs [sic] next year on Earth." But who's doing the other launches? And how close are SpaceX's rivals to making the space race into a real "horse race"?

太空探索公司创始人埃隆.马斯克9月份在2017国际宇航大会上说，该公司明年将会占据“全球轨道发射总量的大约一半”。但是其余的发射将由谁完成？太空探索公司的对手们把太空竞赛转变成一场真正的“比赛”的可能性有多高？


  
With its Oct. 11 Falcon 9 launch, SpaceX secured its position as the world's biggest rocket-launch company of 2017. Image source: SpaceX.
图：猎鹰9号
图文：随着10月11号猎鹰9号的发射，太空探索公司成为2017年世界上最大的火箭发射公司已经没有悬念。图片来源：太空探索公司

Who's who in space launch
Here in the U.S., United Launch Alliance remains SpaceX's biggest rival. In terms of dollars paid, the ULA joint venture between Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin(NYSE: LMT) remains  NASA's favorite contractor. Over in Europe, Airbus' (NASDAQOTH: EADSY) Arianespace is another big player (albeit one not permitted to "play" here in the U.S., where NASA prefers to send its satellites up aboard U.S.-built rockets).

【火箭发射领域谁是谁】

在美国，太空探索公司最大的竞争对手是美国联合发射联盟。从合同额度来看，波音和洛克希德的合资公司联合发射联盟仍然是美国宇航局最喜欢的承包商。在欧洲，空中巴士的阿利安太空公司也是一个大玩家（虽然该公司没有被允许在美国“玩”，美国宇航局更喜欢用美国建造的火箭发射卫星）。

SpaceX, Boeing, Lockheed, and Ariane are hardly the only games in space-town. Around the globe, seven space-faring nations (or in Europe's case, multinational regions) launch rockets. In addition to the U.S. and Europe, China, India, Japan, Russia, and now New Zealand have all launched rockets this year. Collectively, they've attempted 69 launches so far this year, of which 64 eventually ended up in orbit.

在太空领域，我们很难说太空探索、波音、洛克希德和阿利安公司是仅有的玩家。环顾全球， 有7个发展太空技术的国家（欧洲的情况是跨国合作）都能发射火箭。除了美国和欧洲，中国、印度、日本、俄罗斯，现在还有新西兰，这些国家今年都发射了卫星。它们原计划总共有69次发射，最终进入轨道的有64次。

In fact, last week alone -- and indeed, on the very same day that SpaceX conducted its Iridium launch -- both China and Japan launched rockets of their own. Taking a look at those two launches might help to give us a more complete picture of what kind of competition SpaceX is up against, globally, and the chances of China -- or anybody else, really -- catching up with SpaceX.

事实上，光是上星期——其实刚好是太空探索公司帮铱星发射卫星的同一天——中国和日本两国都发射了它们自己的卫星。看一下这两个国家的发射可能会帮助我们更加全面的了解太空探索公司所面对的是什么样的全球竞争，以及明白中国——或任何其他国家——赶上太空探索公司的可能性。

China
Technically, "China's" launch of a Venezuelan remote sensing satellite last Monday was conducted by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), which, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, is a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) -- which is itself majority-owned by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council of China. That makes CGWIC an arm of the Chinese government.

【中国】

从技术上看，上周一“中国”发射的委内瑞拉遥感卫星是由中国长城工业集团主导的，根据标准普尔全球市场情报，这是中国航天科技集团的子公司，而中国航天科技公司主要是中国国务院国资委拥有的。所以长城工业集团等于是中国政府的一个部门

What does this mean for investors? It means that in competing against CGWIC, SpaceX is essentially competing against the entirety of the Chinese nation, an entity that can incur almost unlimited debt to develop and expand its space program -- or print its own money to fund it. This makes for a formidable competitor.

这对投资者来说意味着什么？这意味着太空探索公司在与长城工业集团竞争时，本质上就等于是在跟整个中国竞争，而这个国家几乎可以不受限制地举债来发展和扩展其太空计划——或者发行更多的货币以提供资金支持。这是一个强大的竞争者。

That said, the launch was still only China's 10th launch of the year, and only eight of those launches have been successful. China plans four more launches this year. Even if all four reach their orbits successfully, though -- and even if all of the previous ten had succeeded -- China would still end this year launching fewer rockets than SpaceX has launched already, and successfully.
Despite the long odds, SpaceX is beating China soundly.

据说，这次发射还只是中国本年度的第10次发射，10次发射中只有8次成功发射。中国计划今年内再发射4次。即使4次全部成功进入轨道，而且即使之前发射的全都成功进入了轨道，中国今年发射的火箭仍然没有太空探索公司已经成功发射的火箭多。

尽管可能性极小，但太空探索公司正在彻底击败中国。

Japan
The situation with Japan is more like what we see here in the U.S., where SpaceX competes with Boeing and Lockheed as the prime NASA contractors. Japan's launch last Monday was its sixth and final planned launch of 2017. It was the country's fifth success of the year, sending up the fourth and final "Quasi-Zenith Satellite System" satellite needed to assemble a homegrown GPS system for Japan.

【日本】

就像太空探索公司跟波音和洛克希德公司竞争美国宇航局的订单，日本的情况跟我们在美国看到的情况更相似。日本上周一的发射是其2017年计划的最后一次发射，是这个国家今年的第五次成功发射，发射的是第四颗也是最后一颗“准天顶卫星系统”卫星，用来组建日本本土的全球卫星导航系统。

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) -- Japan's version of NASA -- conducted the launch, but the H-IIA rocket that sent the satellite up was built by publicly traded private company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on JAXA's behalf.

日本宇宙航空研究开发机构（JAXA）——日本版的美国宇航局——负责了这次发射，但是把卫星送入太空的H-IIA火箭是由上市民营公司三菱重工以JAXA的名义开发的。

Mitsubishi Heavy is thus more constrained by the ordinary need of companies to operate profitably than are SpaceX's rivals in China. But Mitsubishi is no pushover in the capitalist marketplace. According to S&P Global data, the company boasts a $13.5 billion market capitalization, and impressive profitability -- $927 million earned over the past 12 months. (If you happen to be inclined toward international investment, that works out to a P/E of just 14.6 for Mitsubishi Heavy stock, which is considerably cheaper than the valuation of either Lockheed Martin (which costs 18.4 times earnings) or Boeing (22.7 times).

因此相比太空探索的中国竞争者，三菱重工更受限制，因为需要考虑盈利性，这是所有公司的普遍需求。但是三菱公司在资本主义市场中并不是容易对付的对手。根据标准普尔的全球数据，这家公司号称拥有135亿美元的总市值，并有着可观的利润——过去12个月赚了9.27亿美元。如果你恰巧喜欢国际投资，三菱重工的市盈率仅为14.5倍，跟洛克希德（股价是每股盈利的18.4倍）或波音（22.7倍）比起来是相当低的。（译注：如果某公司股票市盈率过高，说明该公司股票有泡沫）。

As for SpaceX itself, it's now the leading launch provider in the world, and its lead is only growing. Now valued at $21 billion (after its latest private funding round), it's the one space company ordinary investors want to own but cannot buy.

至于太空探索公司，目前该公司是世界上领先的火箭发射服务供应商，而且只看到其领导地位正在加强。现在该公司估值为210亿美元（在最近一轮私募基金后），这是一家普通投资者想要拥有但又不能收购的太空科技公司。



JRW 
"But how do you beat a company that launches half the world's satellites?" - -By being smarter -and- doing things different than what everybody else is doing. If China had invested just 10% of its value into actually inventing things on its own instead of stealing every design they have from non-Chinese persons and companies they would have figured out where they keep going wrong by now. And this is why they may lead the world in manufacturing - but will never lead the world with actual inventing.....

“但是你怎么能打败一个发射全世界一半卫星的公司？”——可以打败，只要学聪明点并且做一些跟其他人正在做的不一样的事情。如果中国投入了其总值的10%用来发明自己的东西，而不是从外国人和公司那里窃取每一项设计，他们现在就已经搞明白他们为什么老是出错了。这就是为什么他们可以领导世界的制造业，但是永远不会领导世界的发明.........

beiyang 
go check out which country files the most patent now. the thing is that in china, space related business is a monopoly of the state. you have to see the political will to guage how many launches china will do.

去查查目前注册专利最多的是哪个国家吧。中国的情况是，太空相关的事业是国家垄断的。中国要发射多少火箭得看政治意愿。

kh 
Even among patents by "Americans," quite a share of them is from Chinese-Americans. Just look at the number of scientists and professors working in the US.

即使是“美国人”的专利当中，也有相当一部分是美国华裔的。看看在美国工作的科学家和教授的华人数量就知道了。

Captain America 
Hahahahahaha in your face!!! China!

哈哈哈哈，被打脸了！！中国！

Darren 
A private American company outperforms the largest planned economy in the world. Yeah, sounds like capitalism wins again.

一个美国私人公司超越了世界上最大的计划经济体。耶，资本主义好像又赢了。

Mark Question 
SpaceX is cheaper than China. Why would U.S companies go to a foreign provider to pay more?

太空探索的费用比中国更低。为什么美国公司愿意花更多钱去找外国公司发射卫星？

Robert 
Space X is kicking everyone's A$z

太空探索把所有人都比下去了。

Jing
SpaceX with ~5 explosions last year is kicking everyone's A$z in explosions.

太空探索公司去年爆炸了5次，在爆炸方面，他们把所有人都比下去了。

Mark Question 
you neglect to mention is that of those 5 explosions all but 1 (an explosion on the launch pad) occurred after successful payload delivery. Those were mostly losses from SpaceX perfecting their landings, which is something no one else (other BO) even thought possible. That's dishonest, not to mention ridiculous. Btw, of the 15 launches they've had this year all have been perfect and every landing has been perfect.

你忽略的一点是那5次爆炸除了在发射台爆炸那一次之外，都是在成功完成裁荷任务之后爆炸的。这主要是因为太空探索想要完善他们的火箭回收技术，这甚至被其他人认为是不可能的。你这样说是不诚实的，更别说还很可笑。顺便，他们今年发射的15次都很完美，每次回收也很完美。

beiyang
space x is never going to beat the chinese state owned enterprise. china is building a space station just by self. does space x even have the capacity and capabilities do such things? it took many nations decades to build the international space station. chinese state owned companies are basically the extension of the communist party. it is like comparing apples to oranges. no way any corporate entity on Earth could beat the communist party of china's state owned enterprise including military industrial complex for the world largest standing army. XD

太空探索永远也无法打败中国国有企业。中国正在独自建造空间站。太空探索甚至有这样的规模和能力来进行这样的项目吗？为了建造国际空间站，众多国家花了几十年。中国国有公司基本上是政府的分支。这样的对比就好像拿苹果和橙子比。世界上没有哪个公司能击败中国政府拥有的企业，包括中国的军工复合体也是无敌的，这个复合体属于世界上最大的常备军。

Tavistock Guinea Pig
And virtually all technology China has today was bought or stolen from a different nation. All China does is mass produce.

而实际上，中国今天所有的技术都是从不同国家购买或窃取的。中国所做的就只是批量生产。

Jing
Americans actually stole quantum satellite and supercomputing technology from China, both china uses for space technology development. Don't make me laugh, American made junk train can't even run without derailing, exploding every single month.

实际上，美国窃取了中国的量子卫星和超级电脑技术，这两项技术都是中国用来发展太空技术的。别搞笑了，美国制造的垃圾火车没有哪个月不出轨和爆炸。

ANDY L
People talk about China stealing rocket technologies. One of the founding member of the US JPL is a Chinese. He is the father of China space program. The US rocket program all stolen from German secrets. Along the way there were germans, Chinese, Russian that help the US space program. Most of the spacex launches compose of US satellites so obviously China cant bid for those launches due to US laws.

有人说中国窃取火箭技术。美国喷气推进实验室的其中一个创始成员就是中国人。他是中国太空计划之父。美国的火箭计划都是从德国偷来的。一路上帮助美国太空计划的人有德国人、中国人、俄罗斯人。太空控索公司发射的大部分都是美国的卫星，所以根据美国法律，中国显然不能跟他们竞争。

t
If China can figure out how to land and re-use orbital class boosters, then good on them - SpaceX will welcome the competition and prices will go down. If they can't, then I don't see them ever competing with SpaceX. I just saw that the Minotaur-C (from Orbital ATK) is launching at the end of this month. It hasn't had a success since 2004, uses old ICBM and anti-ICBM missile stages, costs $50 million per launch and only delivers 2,950 lbs to low Earth orbit. It's not re-usable. By comparison, SpaceX's Falcon 9 is re-usable, liquid fueled, delivers 50,000 lbs to low Earth orbit and costs $60 million new or $40 million used. This is the comparison between SpaceX and most of its competitors. Who would you go with?

如果中国可以搞明白怎么回收并重新利用轨道级火箭，那很好——如果他们不能的话，那我不认为他们能竞争得过太空探索公司。我刚刚看到米诺陶商业火箭这个月底要进行发射。这火箭从2004年起就没有成功过，使用的是旧的洲际导弹和反洲际导弹的推进器，每次花费5000万美元，只能运送2950磅到近地轨道，而用新火箭是6000万美元，二手火箭是4000万。这就是太空探索跟大部分竞争对手的对比。你会用谁的火箭发射？

beiyang
the cost of reusing the booster is not much cheaper than building a new one. until spacex demonstrates that it is much cheaper i doubt this would be a priority for china. XD china is being smart here, like apple. let others test out the depth of the water but rip the benefits together. muahahah

重新利用火箭并不比建造新火箭便宜多少。除非太空探索公司能说明这种火箭更便宜，否则我怀疑它并不比中国火箭优越。在这一点上，中国很聪明，就像苹果一样。让其他人去试试水有多深，但是有利益就跟他们共享。哈哈哈哈

t 
That's why their next goal is to get it to work within 24 hours of launch. If it only takes a day to turn it around then the costs have to be low. I think such a demonstration will happen next year at the rate they're advancing.

那就是为什么他们的下一个目标是让回收的火箭在24小时内发射。如果只要花一天翻新，那么成本就会变低。以他们进步的速度，我认为这个目标明年就会实现。