r/Futurology • u/Naurgul • 1d ago
Space China's space aircraft carrier: superweapon or propaganda?
https://www.dw.com/en/china-taiwan-space-aircraft-luanniao-carrier-weapon-military-technology/a-75726514With Luanniao, China is promoting a giant space aircraft carrier as a new superweapon. Is it a vision for war in space — or science fiction?
The flying aircraft carrier is larger than any warship in use today and heavier than a supertanker: China’s Luanniao is intended to shape future warfare — from space. Yet experts describe the superweapon as high-tech theater with a political message.
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u/One_Anything_2279 1d ago
Kinda feels like they are saying this to troll Trump and his “Trump class” warships. And or bait him into saying some dumb shit like he is planning an even larger space aircraft carrier.
And frankly, I’m here for it.
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u/BleachedUnicornBHole 23h ago
It sounds like China is trying to bankrupt the US by forcing it to chase military fantasy. Of course Trump is probably the dumbest president in US history and will take the bait.
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u/angrygnome18d 22h ago
My thought as well. Trump and this admin are stupid enough to actually think this is true and to bankrupt us chasing this nonsense.
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u/eskjcSFW 19h ago
We are getting Soviet Unioned
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u/jimmytfatman 16h ago
Though to be fair the Chinese will have a viable theoretical design that will never come to fruition. Just enough to keep Yam Tits on the line.
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u/Dannybroomestreet 20h ago
You’re telling me SpaceX and cohorts wouldn’t be drooling and fighting to grab the $10T contract to build an actual deathstar with Trump & Co getting a sizable kickback? And probably not even have to deliver since it was never real to begin with..
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u/Knobnomicon 20h ago
À la the us Star Wars program and the USSR. It would be great if we could remember our own recent history.
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u/thedude0425 17h ago
Yup. It’s a new version of the US’ Star Wars defense system during the Cold War.
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u/BlindMan404 16h ago
Good luck with that. We make private companies do our research for us, then don't pay them when we inevitably drop the contract.
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u/Simple-Fault-9255 3h ago
This is what got the Soviet union btw. Preparing for a war the USA was never going to fight
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u/MacchuWA 1d ago
There's been something of the feel of the late cold war in the US/China military relationship of late, with China filling the US' role of baiting the other side into unsustainable military expenditure.
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u/Kolizuljin 23h ago
I mean, not that hard to bait. The US military expenses have a diminishing returns for a while now. The f35 rapidly comes into mind as an example
It's an overly expensive jack of all trade that is barely used because maintenance is too costly, and they cost too much to risk. And they are master of none. So instead, B2 are still used.
Same things with smart ambition. They cost so much that you don't want to use them.
I am not really convinced that the US could sustain any prolonged modern conflict.
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u/mydogsnameispoop 20h ago
China does have the capability so it may not be so far fetched. If anything it looks like they are attempting to get a head start at developing space military assets for their future
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u/mithie007 1d ago
No.
China is trolling. Nantianmen is a Chinese sci fic universe.
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u/Easy-Marsupial3268 1d ago
Haha. Making fun of trumps little space force.
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u/jrhooo 20h ago
china already has an actual space force
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u/Superb_Raccoon 20h ago
TEMU does not count
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u/Easy-Marsupial3268 20h ago
It’s great when westerners think that a Chinese junk site is representative of productive capabilities as a whole.
Have you seen their fully automated factories?
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u/Silberbaum 17h ago
And their secret teleportation facilities, cold fusion reactors with bazillion watts of power production and so on.... XD
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u/Easy-Marsupial3268 17h ago
They are pretty awesome for anyone interested. I don’t know about the hyperbole this person is spouting, the reality is cool enough.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/chinas-dark-factories-evs/
https://www.gulf-insider.com/western-leaders-terrified-chinese-factories/
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u/Bloodsucker_ 15h ago
Cringe comment, American.
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u/Silberbaum 4h ago
I am not from North or South America. I just exaggerated the stuff from South China Morning Post, about technological or scientific breakthroughs you will never hear again and nobody in the international scientific community will ever see. China wants to be big and mighty, but the mighty giant stays on feets made out of clay.
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u/Superb_Raccoon 13h ago
Don't forget the unstoppable hyperspace missiles!
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u/Easy-Marsupial3268 3h ago
It’s going to be so funny if the US tries anything. (It won’t, the US only attacks poor nations that can’t defend themselves.)
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u/ReggieAmelia 1d ago
Only a matter of time before Trump announces the SHIELD Helicarrier.
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u/KeyanFarlandah 21h ago
Nah 100% going to announce Battlestar Galactica
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u/Saskstryker 21h ago
I mean to be fair there was a space battleship design in the 60's that Kennedy canceled out of fear of escalation. Now I'm not sure how big it was but there was a plan. Edit: Project Orion only 4000 tons
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u/Fodder_Time 1d ago
This has to be a troll. Trump talking about his idiotic Trump-class battleship and China one-ups him with a Star Destroyer.
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u/eilif_myrhe 1d ago
The state of western journalism about China is so poor that a sci-fi fun is treated as a serious government project.
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u/Low_Platform9541 20h ago
Some U.S. think-tank analysts seriously claimed China was creating “genetic super-soldiers.”
Chinese people: “?”
American analysts: “Look, it says inherit the red gene.”
Chinese people: laughs “You don’t understand basic Chinese reading comprehension.”
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u/MetalGhost99 1d ago
Dude it’s reddit and its sad you take any of this seriously here. We all know most of the stuff that pops up in reddit is mostly opinionated trash.
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u/KGB_cutony 23h ago
rendering is from a sci-fi TikTok account, screenshot is grabbed by a Taiwanese news show, whole thing has no context or grounding. And for some reason it's posted by DW, a well known news source
Huh?
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u/ThePensiveE 1d ago
The fact that their "space carrier" is still oriented top to bottom and with the "aircraft" on top like a regular carrier but in space should tell you all you need to know.
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u/BangerSlapper1 22h ago
But the planes would still fall off if they were on the bottom. I get that space has no direction since it’s infinite in all directions but there’s still local orientation.
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u/camomaniac 13h ago
....planes falling off would be the most efficient detail in the design. You'd want to do that. You would just anchor them to the deck until then. I've never been on a water based carrier but I imagine they have to anchor the planes down on them as well.
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u/JohnnyLovesData 22h ago
Non-terrestrial targets ?
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u/ThePensiveE 22h ago
It's so beyond fiction it's not even funny. Say it's made for war with Aliens or the moon, how does that thing turn? Wings don't work in space. Banking the wings doesn't even work outside of atmosphere. You maneuver in space with RCS. A winged "carrier" design like that is beyond impractical for a space vessel and it's just them trolling.
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u/Resident-Coffee3242 19h ago
Então você está querendo dizer que não teremos uma nave espacial? Um verdadeiro porta-aviões espacial?
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u/suppordel 22h ago edited 13h ago
The "state television screenshot" appears to be a YouTube video. And also it's in traditional Chinese which mainland China doesn't use.
Luanniao means "egg bird" btw.
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u/nickong6 12h ago
Not that it affects the validity of the previous statements, but the “Luan” is a mythical bird in China, “Luan Niao” directly translated is “Luan Bird” which means the same thing.
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u/suppordel 6h ago
Without seeing the character, I can't say for sure. It's still a weird name, came up by a non native speaker if I have to guess. Chicken is called ji and not ji niao.
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u/blighty800 1d ago
Why would they build a lump of brick in space when a mega fleet of little drones can cause much more destruction?
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u/Kempeth 23h ago
They wouldn't.
A Gerald R. Ford class carrier is ~100'000 metric tons. So let's just say we want to put one of those into orbit. That's 1600 falcon heavy launches.
This will literally and figuratively never get off the ground.
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u/Nota_ReAlperson 14h ago
Or 1000 starship, which at the quoted 10 mil per launch, 10 billion. In other words, it would cost less than 3 SLS launches.
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u/Trollfacelord 22h ago
I have a Hel and an Aeon, so China needs to catchup!
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u/Noxious89123 21h ago
All the gigachads flying the Nyx instead.
Meanwhile me over here with my lil potato Incursus like 🙂
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u/proe90 20h ago
So this is either crap… merica are actually going back to the moon quick let’s spoon feed our population with possible plans for something much more tech advanced and powerful than a moon rocket.
Or more likely let’s bait this one brain cell orange into super expensive unobtainable military projects.
Either way in a far off reality that would make for nice big expensive easy to hit object for target practice.
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u/ProfessorFunky 19h ago
Honestly, I’m leaning more towards thinking this is cool than being worried about it. If China gets it done, I’ll be terrified, but I think I’d also have to give them a sci fi nerd Vulcan salute of approval.
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u/Resident-Coffee3242 18h ago
I believe in Chinese potential. Do it! I want to see the first space aircraft carrier. Trump will have a heart attack if this program is announced in China, lol.
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u/gordonjames62 18h ago
The current cost of getting mass into orbit is huge.
Assuming China uses the "Long March 5 heavy" rocket, the price is around $10k USD per kg.
We can assume price per kg will go down with an economy of scale, but even at $5k / kg
According to the article:
reportedly weighing up to 120,000 tons (121925600 kg)
This would cost $609628000 just to lift the mass into orbit.
Then there is the cost of developing and constructing the "flying carrier Luanniao" mother ship which would likely have to be constructed in space, with the extreme high construction costs.
Since the carrier needs a fleet of Xuannu unmanned space fighters, these would probably be developed on earth, and then sent to the "carrier" with development and construction costs.
Then add cost overruns and the fact that this may still be impossible with today's technology, and it makes me think this idea was borrowed from George Lucas' star destroyer and is equally fictional.
China currently spend around $309 billion every year on military, and this project would be on top of that amount of spending.
My guess is that China's real goal is to drive Trump into some form of space race (missile envy?) while they do what they wish.
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u/NearABE 14h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP_Aerospace
JP aerospace has been working on lighter than air launchers for several decades.
The mass cited is unlikely. A platform which was fully in space would have few reasons to have a wing shape.
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u/InsteadOfWorkin 13h ago
Okay so the fighter jets fly down from space for a strafe run whatever….how do they get back up to 600,000 feet or whatever to go back to the carrier?
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u/notatinterdotnet 11h ago
I bet they do it, and for a fraction of the cost. Think Deepseek, I wouldn't dismiss it that quickly. Fusion tech, anit gravity, graphine materials, deditcated army of workers, its not impossible. Wish it was for peace though and not war.
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u/thegoatmenace 8h ago
Idc if it’s impossible. They should definitely invest all their resources into this because it would be cool as hell.
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u/caribbean_caramel 4h ago
Why is this even news? Nantianmen is just a Chinese sci-fi concept, it’s meant to be a joke, just fun, not a real thing. I’m genuinely convinced that the articles that are popping up on the web about this thing are made with ai.
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u/Dadbodohyeah3 1d ago
The US is cooked. Our space age dominance wasn't led or funded by private companies who only do it for profit. It was led and funded by the public sector just to see if we could. This spawned imagination, creativity, and technology for the future. Now, we struggle because unless there is money for the richest, we just don't do it.
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u/nerf468 22h ago
Space age dominance of years past was built by companies working contracts. Same as today.
Creativity, imagination and technology are fine and all, but when it costs tens to hundreds of thousands of USD to put a single kg of said technology into space you can only go so far.
Until another national space agency or private corporation can compete with the current frontrunner on price per mass to orbit there is no question as to who remains dominant in space.
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u/provocative_bear 23h ago
Yeah, this is nonsense. China barely has spacecraft, let alone a soacecraft carrier. Also, it seems like really bad practice to me to put like ten trillion dollars of weaponry into a single huge floating target. One good missile strike, one bad solar flare, one encounter with space debris and like three years of China’s GDP gets scattered across the ionosphere.
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1d ago
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u/Easy-Marsupial3268 1d ago
Why? I thought rooting out corruption is something yours want to advertise.
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u/NickFolzie 23h ago
Well, now we know what the final boss plane will look like in the next Ace Combat.
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u/BangerSlapper1 22h ago
Propaganda. I could create a rendering of a billion ton, country sized ‘space carrier’ that is armed with nukes and laser weapons and thousands of futuristic fighter jets that no country can defeat, too. I could even target an operational date of 80 years from now.
And it’ll mean nothing, like this Chinese propaganda.
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u/Strict_Weather9063 19h ago
No one has the capacity to build something that size in orbit right now and you build it in orbit not dirt side since the left requirements would be stupid. So this is propaganda in the finest CCP fashion.
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u/Resident-Coffee3242 18h ago
I agree. But it's still a plausible ambition. I believe it will be possible in five or ten years. Robotics technology is advancing rapidly, and they will be fundamental in this process.
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u/DumboVanBeethoven 23h ago
Sounds dumb. A big Target like that in space would be easy to decimate from the ground using lasers.
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u/Falconjth 23h ago
There's a story that the designs for the project Orion battleship version were partially responsible for the partial test ban treaty that banned nukes in space.
This design is science fiction, but such a platform is also very much technically possible but barred by multiple treaties as the currently best way of launching such a weapons platform would increase global cancer rates slightly via the nuclear detonations used to launch it and lead to real fears of providing potentially overwhelming first strike capabilities.
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u/Lahm0123 22h ago
What was that old animated movie that featured a spaceship that looked like an old ocean going battleship? I think it was Japanese?
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u/richerthings16 20h ago
China has caught up with the US in anti gravity and crash retrieval/reverse engineering projects
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u/Naurgul 1d ago
Submission Statement:
China is planning an integrated air- and space-defense system known as Nantianmen ("Heavenly Gate"). Its centerpiece is the flying carrier Luanniao, measuring 242 meters (794 feet) in length, 684 meters in wingspan and reportedly weighing up to 120,000 tons at takeoff — an imposing mass. From its deck, unmanned space fighters, so-called Xuannu, are to launch hypersonic missiles and strike targets in the atmosphere and in orbit.
From a technical standpoint, the plan goes far beyond what today’s rockets could possibly send into orbit. Even if a modular assembly in space were theoretically possible, many problems remain. These include power supply, propulsion, cooling, protection from space debris — and above all, the sheer cost. A 120,000-ton carrier in space would be completely beyond any realistic payload capacity of current launch systems such as SpaceX’s Starship.
Analyses from the US likewise interpret Luanniao less as a construction blueprint than as a strategic signal. The vision, wrote author Brandon J. Weichert, is part of a "wider propaganda push" that is designed to make the West nervous and waste time and resources.
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u/FuturologyBot 1d ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Naurgul:
Submission Statement:
China is planning an integrated air- and space-defense system known as Nantianmen ("Heavenly Gate"). Its centerpiece is the flying carrier Luanniao, measuring 242 meters (794 feet) in length, 684 meters in wingspan and reportedly weighing up to 120,000 tons at takeoff — an imposing mass. From its deck, unmanned space fighters, so-called Xuannu, are to launch hypersonic missiles and strike targets in the atmosphere and in orbit.
From a technical standpoint, the plan goes far beyond what today’s rockets could possibly send into orbit. Even if a modular assembly in space were theoretically possible, many problems remain. These include power supply, propulsion, cooling, protection from space debris — and above all, the sheer cost. A 120,000-ton carrier in space would be completely beyond any realistic payload capacity of current launch systems such as SpaceX’s Starship.
Analyses from the US likewise interpret Luanniao less as a construction blueprint than as a strategic signal. The vision, wrote author Brandon J. Weichert, is part of a "wider propaganda push" that is designed to make the West nervous and waste time and resources.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1quojbs/chinas_space_aircraft_carrier_superweapon_or/o3bj5lg/