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Yao Ming Quits As Head Of China's Basketball Association After Seven Years For Personal Reasons
BEIJING – National Basketball Association legend Yao Ming has quit as head of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) after seven years in the job, the organisation said on Oct 31, calling it a "personal decision".
The former Houston Rockets centre is China's most famous basketball star and retired from playing in 2011.
"On Oct 31 the executive committee... Held a meeting in Beijing to review and approve Yao Ming's application to resign as the chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association and elect (vice-chairman) Guo Zhenming as the new chairman," the association said in a statement.
The 44-year-old said he decided to quit "after careful consideration and based on considerations for the development of China's basketball and personal planning", the statement said.
It directly quoted him as saying that "basketball is a career I have always adored, whether in the past, present or future".
"I hope that everyone will continue to support Chinese basketball with me in the future," he said.
The association said the national sport administration "expressed sincere gratitude" to Yao for his work.
"It is believed that Yao Ming has done a lot of fruitful work in building the foundation of bringing basketball to the masses... (and) improving the level of the national team," the association said.
"The executive members... Respect and understand Yao Ming's personal decision," it added.
Yao was re-elected as CBA chief in December 2022.
Under his leadership, the women's national team achieved remarkable success, winning gold medals at two consecutive Asian Games in Jakarta and Hangzhou, and matching their best result at the Fiba Women's World Cup with a runner-up finish in 2022.
However, the men's national team faced challenges, failing to qualify for both the Tokyo and Paris Olympics and falling short of the top 16 at the Fiba World Cup in 2019 and 2023. AFP, XINHUA
China's New Heavy Lift Rocket Looks A Whole Lot Like SpaceX's Starship
When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country's first super heavy-lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides.
Since then, China has been revising the design of this rocket, named Long March 9, in response to the development of reusable rockets by SpaceX. As of two years ago, China had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage.
Now, based on information released at a major airshow in Zhuhai, the design has morphed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX's Starship rocket.
This Looks FamiliarBased on its latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket will have a fully reusable first stage
The new specifications also include a fully reusable configuration of the rocket, with an upper stage that looks eerily similar to Starship's second stage, complete with flaps in a similar location. According to a presentation at the airshow, China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, nearly a decade from now.
In related news, last week, a quasi-private Chinese space startup, Cosmoleap, announced plans to develop a fully reusable "Leap" rocket within the next few years. An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement indicated that the company seeks to emulate the tower catch-with-chopsticks methodology that SpaceX successfully employed during Starship's fifth flight test last month.
Let's be real for a minute. These are not the first times Chinese rocket programs have emulated SpaceX, such as when Space Pioneer planned to develop a Falcon 9 clone. Both the state-run rocket agency and the company's private industries are copying the best practices of SpaceX as they seek to catch up. At this point, China's launch industry is basically hanging out in the SpaceX waiting room to see which ideas it should swipe next.
The Real Race Begins to UnfoldIt is, of course, not new that the Chinese industry seeks to copy—and in some cases, steal—ideas from Western competitors. To its credit, the Chinese space industry recognizes that the future of spaceflight is fully reusable, and even its state enterprises are recalibrating toward such an outcome.
By contrast, US policymakers seem determined to force NASA to continue building the ultraexpensive and expendable Space Launch System rocket for decades. This consumes a NASA budget that could otherwise be directed toward the kind of technological advances that might keep the US civil space program ahead of China.
NASA and Chinese space agencies are presently locked into a second space race, with both countries building international coalitions to explore the south pole region of the moon and eventually establish settlements there. Because the real estate near the south pole (especially close to craters, where there is likely to be water ice) is relatively limited, winning this race really matters for long-term space ambitions.
China intends to use a more conventional rocket for its initial lunar missions, the Long March 10 vehicle. These initial forays will last for only a few days. The country is counting on the much more powerful, and reusable, Long March 9 to support more robust lunar operations.
If the ultimate aim is to develop lunar settlements, therefore, the real winner is not the country or space agency that puts astronauts on the surface first. It's the first country that develops a fully reusable super heavy-lift rocket and funds a program that takes advantage of this revolutionary capability. The United States presently has a lead in this race given that Starship is flying.
But the race is not yet won by any means, and the latest design of Long March 9 indicates that China knows where the finish line lies.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
China Reveals A New Heavy Lift Rocket That Is A Clone Of SpaceX's Starship
When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country's first super heavy lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides.
Since then, the Asian country has been revising the design of this rocket, named Long March 9, in response to the development of reusable rockets by SpaceX. As of two years ago, China had recalibrated the design to have a reusable first stage.
Now, based on information released at a major airshow in Zhuhai, China, the design has morphed again. And this time, the plan for the Long March 9 rocket looks almost exactly like a clone of SpaceX's Starship rocket.
Based on its latest specifications, the Long March 9 rocket will have a fully reusable first stage
The new specifications also include a fully reusable configuration of the rocket, with an upper stage that looks eerily similar to Starship's second stage, complete with flaps in a similar location. According to a presentation at the airshow, China intends to fly this vehicle for the first time in 2033, nearly a decade from now.
A translated slide from a presentation on China's latest plans for the Long March 9. Credit: WeiboIn related news, last week, a quasi-private Chinese space startup, Cosmoleap, announced plans to develop a fully reusable "Leap" rocket within the next few years. An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement indicated that the company seeks to emulate the tower catch-with-chopsticks methodology that SpaceX successfully employed during Starship's fifth flight test last month.
Let's be real for a minute. These are not the first times Chinese rocket programs have emulated SpaceX, such as when Space Pioneer planned to develop a Falcon 9 clone. Both the state-run rocket agency and the company's private industries are copying the best practices of SpaceX as they seek to catch up. At this point, China's launch industry is basically hanging out in the SpaceX waiting room to see which ideas it should swipe next.
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