@kline I would argue the PRC and china manned space program had nothing of real value to learn from US accidents other than the culture of budget cuts at NASA directly contributed to both Columbia and challenger.

Remember, the soviet union during the space race basically wrote the book on stellar travel. They had the first satellite and first man in space, as well as the first rovers and probes decades before the US.

When the PRC learned, it was likely from Russia, but their present achievements like longmarch and tianhe are miles from where the soviets left off. Most of the modules in the Chinese space station are wireless, for example. The robot arms can also detatch and crawl the length and diameter of the station autonomously. The solar panels are a level of sophistication that cannot be achieved in the west.

Regardless, when youre scrambling for propaganda to cover up stranding astronauts for months, youre not really maintaining a space program. Compared to china You're outsourcing a catastrophe to the highest bidder. Even the Russian ms22 mission to rescue their stranded cosmonauts concluded with the same class of vehicle.