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Space

China to attempt manned space mission next month 319

Posted by michael from the wild-blue-yonder dept.
buxley writes "BBC News is reporting that China may celebrate the upcoming Year of the Dragon by launching a man into space next month. Western experts have been quoted in the past as saying they didn't expect a manned mission from China for a few years yet. Surprise!"
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China to attempt manned space mission next month More

China to attempt manned space mission next month

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  • Well at least some one besides Russia and the US are in the space club. I expect that all kinds of countries will start to get into space. Maybe this is the media booster we need to get nasa some more funding.

    Personally I see space travel available to everyone in the not so distant future ... technology is there and just thinkn of the money you could make for the one time experience of becoming a non-trained space explorer. It'd definantelly be better than anything that disney could come up with. Not to mention now maybe they'll have a good reason to start to take some of the low orbit space trash around the planet itself.

    Finally ... doesn't this make sense considering the new space station is the "international space station"???

  • The Chinese astronauts are called taikonauts.

  • Yay! (Score:1)

    by Fruan ( 105302 )
    My hope of hopes is that this will incite a second 'space race', this time between the US and China:

    "Oh, well you think you're so hot, getting a man in orbit and all... well *we* can go to Mars! Uh... right? Guys? We can go to Mars right?"

    But that probably won't happen :o( Oh well. It might get NASA some more funding.

  • It won't be anything special till it's a womanned space mission :-)


    If you can't figure out how to mail me, don't.
  • As cool as this would be, I have serious doubts about it's success. The US ends up carrying the majority of the financial burden, Russia and others claim unending delays, somebody gets pissed off and refuses to cooperate, etc. I'm all for space exploration, but this isn't really the best method.
    Perhaps individually/organizationally funded private projects would be more effective, as there's a bit more initiative to get the operation off the ground... so to speak.

    SaintAlex



    Observe, reason, and experiment.
  • Well, it sucks to be ESA. They were hoping to be able to be the 3rd nation (or space agency rather) to have astronauts fly in space, if this story about China is true they'll have to settle for 4th.

    Actually, ESA astronauts have flown in space on the Shuttle, but not with their own Arianne rocket.

    This just might scare the US out of space-complacency. The thought of China being more advanced than anticpated might just do it.

    If nothing else it will be interesting to see what kind of spin our government puts on it.

  • Is it just me, or does anybody else notice a rampant AC racism streak every time China is mentioned @ /.?
    *sighs* Further evidence of the evils of nationalism....

    *score = -1 (/. criticism)



    Observe, reason, and experiment.
  • Have seen a nice T-shirt in Berkeley, saying:

    If we could send one men to the Moon, why not to send them all.

    And a picture of a bunch of men marching on the Moon.

    Liked it.

  • Once China gets to the moon, do they plan to put some meaning behind the phrase "The Red Planet"?
  • >>Personally I see space travel available to everyone in the not so distant future ...

    >i don't. where the fuck would you go? the moon? why? i think we all know that it would just be a bunch of golf courses for rich old people like every other resort.

    Hmm. I don't know: a hotel in low earth orbit could be kinda cool, and even more so if it was at the top of a Star Ladder...

    And what would people do there? Well in answer to that, may I remind you of a Slashdot article from about a month ago :o)
  • I hope that they do it, and I hope that they succeed. More countries in space=more people doing r&d into space travel=that much sooner that we get all that cool space shit from the movies (moon bases, asteroid mining, etc).
    Maybe this is what it will take to get our (US) commie-phobic politicians to start investing in the space program again.
  • The fact that slashdot anonymous posters are biased against the corrupt, oppressive, and dishonest government of China, doesn't make them biased against the people of China.
  • Oh no! Once the commies in China get in space they'll control our spy satelites and they'll be able to see Area 51 at last! They must be stopped!

    Just kidding.

    At least now the US will lose its monopoly on space and may possibly do stuff better as a result.
  • I know I won't be the last to say this, but I've gotta come out of this shell...

    This news can be looked at in two ways. Either we (and like most Americans, I mean we as in we Americans) can be upset that our place in space is being challenged or we can be glad that our place in space is being challenged.

    Now of course, the first manned mission is not that big. After all we did it back in the 40s. However, how soon will it be before some congressman (running for re-election, I bet) gets blue in the face screaming that we need to get ahead of the "evil Yellow Menace" or be doomed to be placed under the flag of Communism? After all that is what really promoted us back in 69.

    Heck, this could be the start of a brand new cold war. It does seem that in Orwellian overtones that America can't do it's job without some Goldstein to grumble at... Once the USSR fell, it seems that we've been scrambling a bit to find one. We first looked at Hussein (sp?) then we looked at Terrorists like Bin-Ladin (sp?) and most recently, the Chinese.

    But is this really bad? Let's say that China didn't launch the mission. In 7 years, I may have trouble finding a job with my Aerospace Engineering degree, after all why does NASA need another punk kid. If they did launch, there is a good chance that I'll be drafted into America's attempt to beat China to Mars. On the other hand, a cold war would give the government the excuse to keep the exploration ball in their court, which in the past few years has seemed to hold us back, IMO.

    I don't know. I'll just have to see.

  • New space race? (Score:5)

    by WombatControl ( 74685 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:21PM (#1312958)
    One of the primary motivating factors of the beginning of the American and Soviet space programs was competition between the two programs and the boost to national pride each sucessful mission started. Now, with China potentially entering the ranks of countries with a manned space we could potentially enter a new space race.

    The Chinese government isn't exactly the greatest in the world, in fact, I rank it among the worst, but China could pull this off. From seeing firsthand the industrial prowess the Chinese have it is very possible they could pull this off. However, I'm not so sure that having a Chinese space presence is a good thing. Really, any Chinese space shot is just an extension of ballistic missle technology, just rather than lofting a nuke into suborbit you add some thrust and orbit a spacecraft. Personally, I think we have enough unstable countries with ICBM technology as it is thank you very much.

    The only silver lining I can see is that if China starts a manned program, it invigorates others with more peaceful intentions to do the same. If China can expand their space technology to a point where the US feels threatened enough to start seriously looking at space again then that's a good thing. If it takes the Chinese to get us to seriously see what an asset manned space exploration can be for us, then that's what we need. As long as the Chinese are only lobbing men into space rather than nuclear/chemical/biological weapons, then let's see where they take the technology of spaceflight.
  • I've no idea we had so many racists in our geek community. I'm almost ashamed to call myself a geek.
  • I'd have actually been impressed if China used their own design, but since it just an old proven Russian design, tweaked by chinese scientists (maybe the computers don't use vacume tubes.. :-) Nasa's been screwing up and lying[1], Russia does less.. so maybe this is good news. But of course.. the only reason so far for politions to be behind these is for prestige (ie US catching up), or drooling over what war power it could bring. The latter is more plausable for the main reason behind China's aggressiveness.

    [1] Nasa scientists did not get th conversion wrong, but rather to save costs the navigation system was coded, but not tested. A small error brought it off course, which the scientists saw and asked for permission to fix. As the navigation system said things were ok, it was denied. Of course, by the time the truth came out, people weren't interested anymore
  • The US ends up carrying the majority of the financial burden, Russia and others claim unending delays, somebody gets pissed off and refuses to cooperate, etc.

    Uh? So? For goodness sakes, its already the year 2000 and we still don't have humanity settling and living in space. Forget issues of countries and such, in the end, more space exploration is beneficial to the entire human race.

    And besides, I don't see where it says that the US is funding the mission. And if this is what the Chinese govt. want to spend their money on, instead of more tanks. Good for them!
  • China, despite the economic growth over the past 20 or so years, is a really poor country with lots of problems - chief among them the state-owned enterprises that are reportedly going to go down the toilet in the not-too-distant future.

    The scientific payoff from sending up a copycat version of the Soyuz is minimal, and the propaganda benefits aren't all that great either (some research into undetectable sporting performance-enhancing drugs would achieve a similar propaganda result at a much lower cost), and the military benefits non-existent. So, what's the point - even from the view of the Chinese leadership?

    Unless this was the first step in some kind of long-term plan (Mars anyone?)

  • this will send china-phobia in the US into a national spotlight. I wonder if this issue will come up in presidential campaigns. Some of the canidates really like to trash China(G.Bush). This really could lead to campaign promises that could benefit NASA. It could also result in anti-China sentiment from the uneducated masses. Did anyone out there who went to school in the US learn a single thing about China? Americans are severely under-educated about the people's republic. This will chnge in the next ten years as the US goes searching for enemies (and probably finding a good one).
  • The chineese government is communist. the citizens are not necessarily so. You did a magnificent job of supporting my point by citing the democratic protestors. Obviously they weren't commy.
    friend.

    I must concede though... baptists are far more frightening than any communist regeme :)


    SaintAlex



    Observe, reason, and experiment.
  • I really hope the Chinese embarass US politicians into ramping up funding for the space program.
  • They're sending just one man? What if he starts thinking about how nice it would be to be free? Will they shoot him down upon re-entry?

    Esperandi
    Is the capsule running Linux? I mean, official OS of the Communist State of China and all....
  • I think it's great that other countries are getting involved in the advancement of the space race. However, one thing bothers me: western experts say the Shenzou missions tests were successful, but not up to western standards of safety for a manned mission. Is China willing to throw lives away just for prestige and pride? You bet. It seems necessary to ask just how many men China will kill for the sake of national pride or whatever "communal utopian" goal they have in mind.
  • The US has a monopoly on space? Since when?!?!
    I seem to recall hearing about a Mir thing some time ago.. you know, first space station or something. Oh, and Sputnik, I think that went up first didn't it? The US has never had a monopoly on space.

    Oh, and competition only works when some form of profit is involved. As far as I can see, there isn't much here, its mostly just something we do because we can.

    Esperandi
    But we'd better do it, because I want to live on Mars dammit

  • Russia (Score:3)

    by jesser ( 77961 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:38PM (#1312973) Homepage Journal
    Why the hell would the Chinese government do this?

    Why did the USSR channel so much energy into its space program instead of trying to stabalize the command economy?

    (Half rhetorical, half asking and knowing I sound stupid asking that question)

    --

  • what racism? (Score:3)

    by drivers ( 45076 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:41PM (#1312974)
    What racism? Criticising China's government has nothing to do with race.
  • Now how, exactly, is sending one man into orbit going to start a space race with countries that have space stations, people landed on the moon 30 years ago, probes going to Mars, etc?

    I mean, a new space race would be cool, but this is not even minutely close to a race... it will take the Chinese longer to catch up to us than it will take us to colonize Mars unless conditions improve and all of a sudden their ground sprouts forth all kinds of bounty and such... one of the primary reasons China is so poor (the Chinese people are poor because of communism, but this is about the country itself) is because they don't have much of anything in the way of natural resources. They've got lots of people if you consider that simply a natural resource (they do) but that won't help put people into space... the average joe can't do fluid dynamics equations.

    Esperandi
    Let's see if they can even get it off the ground before we start imagining the Chinese colonizing Jupiter.

  • Late last year, the Chinese launched [cnn.com] an unmanned capsule into orbit and recovered it intact. Pictures of Chinese astronauts (Taikonauts, apparently, is the word they're using) in space suits have surfaced from time to time since the early 1980s, indicating they've been considering this sort of move for a while now. They clearly have the capability to put a human in orbit right now; my guess is that they waited to make this announcment until analyzing the data from last year's launch to make sure the capsule is space-worthy. Now they just have to wait for the rocket to be fabricated.

    The real question, of course, is the Chinese government's motives behind this. Presumably, national prestige is a major factor -- if they were doing this for economic reasons, they'd go the route of India, and echew manned operations for potentially profitable satellite launch services. In which case you have to wonder, will this spur the U.S. or other spacefaring governments to increase funding for manned spaceflight, or to just sit back and say, "good for them," unconcerned?

  • Wrong! (Score:4)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:41PM (#1312977) Homepage
    The primary motivating factor at the beginning of the space race was not competition! It was fear. Unless you lived through the time, you have no idea how terrifying it was to the national consciousness that Sputnik was going "beep, beep, beep". The American propaganda machine, if anything, was at least as effective as the Soviet one in getting America scared enough to support keeping space out of the hands of those damn Communists. The primary motivating factor was not any sort of competition pride, but rather it was making sure that Soviet Russia did not control space and use it as a weapon against us.

    We have no need to compete to China, and the only possible NASA benefit is if the US government can get the people scared enough of a Chinese Red threat to put more money in. I don't see that happening, since space has sort of become this peaceful no-man's land, kind of like Antarctica only colder. Right now, the Chinese are more scared of use than we are of them, and thus, we have no reason to 'compete' against them. If China does threaten us from space, you can bet that it's going to be more of a diplomatic war than a space race.

    But, it does sort of make Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 story about the Chinese landing on Europa a bit more realistic, eh?

  • 2010 (Score:4)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:45PM (#1312979) Homepage
    I alluded to this in another post, but it bears mentioning here. Arthur C. Clarke used a Chinese space program in 2010 and the race to the Discovery. They landed on Europa to get water from the surface (a risky move) and ended up getting destroyed by life beneath the crust.

    Who knows, ten years from now, maybe we'll see some sort of similar scenario involving the Chinese. Heck, they're surprising us now, aren't they?
  • By acheiving the in 2000s what the U.S. acheived in the 60s? Oooh, big deal.

    (Of course, the politician and most everyone else don't seem bothered by the fact that the U.S. can no longer do the things in space that were done in the 60s. Instead of pressing on, we collectively spent the last 30 years finding more and more expensive ways to get to earth orbit.)
  • The point is that this is a "status" achievement. China has a lot of national pride (and rightfully so), but it has a lot of problems, like you said. It feels like it should be one of the world's superpowers, but, at the moment, just doesn't have the economic power / political structure / whatever to do it.

    So, what's an impotent-feeling leadership to do? Status projects! This is why there are projects like sending people in to space and (eek) the Three Gorges Dam. Neither one's really going to improve the country or the lot of the people in it. In the case of the Three Gorges Dam, millions of people have had to be resettled (read: have their livelihoods destroyed) because of it.

    This point about performance-enhancing drugs is a good one, but it wouldn't qualify as a status project. Sure, China would win a lot of events at the Olympics, but could the leadership (and the people -- I'm not sure how much the people care) take pride in saying "we sent a man into space entirely on our own, something that only Russia (or USSR, or both, actually) and the US have succeeded in doing!", and then feel like a real superpower about it. One big project successfully completed is worth a lot to them, but lots of small projects? "Well, anybody could have done those." It's not propaganda or national benefit -- just pride.

    Once again, I'd love to have somebody who knows let me know how much this matters to the people -- I don't know whether the people I work with don't care very much or just don't talk about it.
  • Perhaps you ought to READ those AC posts. You see, the reason they pop up is not because they're nationalist bigots, its because the Chinese government parallels the Open Source community-is-all model behind Linux and such things that Slashdotters love very closely. Now, the important thing is that any suggestion of such a thing is harshly moderated in favor of preserving the good image of Open Source. Now, if the moderators thought there was nothing wrong with China and communism, they wouldn't moderate down... but they always do... like they'll do to this post 3 seconds after I hit submit...

    Esperandi
    You don't post under your account when you expect to be moderated down if you're a karma whore.

  • Re:Commies on the Moon! (Score:3)

    by Coniagas ( 99136 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:46PM (#1312983)
    Blame it on NASA and the shuttle pilots. They were complaining about lack of Chinese food delivery for the planned space station
  • Unless this was the first step in some kind of long-term plan (Mars anyone?)

    China will make some accomplishment, like building a small Moon [asi.org] base, and the US will suddenly wake up. America will put its money into Mars [marssociety.org], and as a result, save the US from stagnation [popularmechanics.com].

    Then the US will look back and remember that it was China that poked America on the shoulder just before it dozed off during the final exam, and suddenly decide to be helpful to China.

    Hey, I can hope :)

    --

  • I always thought Racism and Stupidity Kinda went hand in hand.

    And as far as the lego examine, well these guy probably couldnt deal with the multi coloured pieces. (bright objects confuse them)

    Although, now that you mention it, consider a techno coloured lego space station. Now that would be cool (and plastic so its recyclable).


  • China launching man into space (Score:3)

    by Zico ( 14255 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:49PM (#1312987)

    It'll probably be the leader of the Falun Gong, and instead of a space craft, they'll just launch his screaming body from a really, really big cannon.

    China: Advancing the Space Race by Crushing Religious Freedom!

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Communism is an idealogical choice, not something your born with. There is no communist "race." being against communism and its implications doesn't make one a rascist...

    But perhaps you were responding to some actual rascist posts that got moderated down before I saw them, if so, ignore this.

    Esperandi

  • The US better get in gear. (Score:3)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @08:51PM (#1312989) Homepage
    The US better get in gear. The fact that Chinese are trying to do this clearly indicates that they see the massive economic advantages awaiting above the stratosphere.

    For, as Robert Heinlein put it, "There may not be intelligent life on mars, but I can assure you that there is intelligent life in Beijing".

  • China, despite the economic growth over the past 20 or so years, is a really poor country with lots of problems - chief among them the state-owned enterprises that are reportedly going to go down the toilet in the not-too-distant future.

    The scientific payoff from sending up a copycat version of the Soyuz is minimal, and the propaganda benefits aren't all that great either (some research into undetectable sporting performance-enhancing drugs would achieve a similar propaganda result at a much lower cost), and the military benefits non-existent. So, what's the point - even from the view of the Chinese leadership?

    There are a couple of reasons to do this. No, the scientific payoff isn't going to justify the effort, but that wasn't the initial justification for sending humans into orbit the first time around, either. Somebody else said, it was largely fear of cold-war rivals. Now, rightly or wrongly, China does perceive itself in a kind of cold war with the Western powers, and the Chinese military has admitted to their inability to confront the West on a traditional battlefield, if it should come to that.

    The Soviets and Americans conducted the initial space launches to prove their ballistic missile capability, but since China has been orbiting payloads for years, they hardly have anything to prove in this realm, other than showing off their ability to launch an exceptionally heavy load. This, in fact, could have a much more benign effect than many Americans are willing to give the Chinese credit for: that they can launch such a large payload, and trust it enough to risk the major publicity problems associated with losing an astronaut, says good things about their ability to do commercial satellite launches. With many state-owned industries drying up, the Chinese gov. could use a cash-cow like that.

  • kind of like Antarctica only colder

    The temperature of space is debatable. Some would say that within the solar system, it's thousands of kelvins [faqs.org] because the few particles that are in space are moving very rapidly. Others only count the background radiation and put the temperature at three kelvins [sciencenet.org.uk].

    --

  • hmm... let's see then:
    "..why not to send them all?"
    -AC
    "FUCK THEM ALL! GAWD KNOWS I WANT TO!"
    -AC
    "godless slanteyes"
    -AC

    Do you really want me to post more evidence supporing my claim? It seems rather unnecessary. I am fully opposed to china's gvt, as I'm sure others are too. HOWEVER, many people take all of the negative aspects of their gvt and attach it to the people.

    Thanks for playing.



    Observe, reason, and experiment.
  • Mining the Sky [amazon.com] by John S. Lewis

    --

  • ...the first manned mission is not that big. After all we did it back in the 40s
    Get your facts right...
    From NASA: (http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ history/mercury/flight-summary.txt [nasa.gov])


    THE MANNED FLIGHTS


    Mercury-Redstone 3
    FREEDOM 7
    May 5, 1961
    Alan B. Shepard, Jr.

    15 minutes, 28 seconds
    Suborbital flight that successfully put
    the first American in space.

    That's the 60's not the 40's. Back in the 40's the little green men had all of space to them self.

    Ost99
  • More to the point, it might whip your average slashdotter up into a suicidal frenzy, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.
  • It seems reasonably straightforward to me why the Chinese would attempt such a feat.

    While European-based countries (this includes the USSR as well as America) place high value on human life, at least in their political rhetoric, the Chinese approach has long been more one of "glorious death in the service of China is, well, glorious!". And China does have one heck of a lot of people.

    It's their only option for getting into space at present. They have to start somewhere, and may as well go now if they have the hardware.

    What they don't want to have happen is for the International Space Station to be completed, heralding a new era of western-dominated space habitation, without any option to compete or defend themselves it.
  • Um, if I didn't read the AC posts I wouldn't post the topic (FYI, I browse @ -1).
    I'm afraid that I disagree. Many of the trolls posting this crap *are* indeed, nationalist bigots. The phrase "god fearing american", which appears in damn near every other AC post in this thread sort of evinces that. Perhaps you ought to read those AC posts....

    and nothing about hot grits or natalie portman... I promise....



    Observe, reason, and experiment.
  • ...we sent a man into space entirely on our own, something that only Russia (or USSR, or both, actually) and the US have succeeded in doing!", and then feel like a real superpower about it.

    The US didn't actually do this entirely on their own? As far as I can remember, most of the pre Gemini projects were run by (or with much aid from) German scientists.

    Ost99
  • Honestly, are there many benefits beyond propaganda to putting humans in space (for the US as well as China)? We spend millions and millions of dollars on the space shuttle, with few tangible benefits (especially benefits per dollar). The Mars probes and other 'cheap' missions are not such a bad deal and often produce interesting data. Many of the experiments done on the shuttle could similarly be done without human intervention. When people, in the US as well as China, are starving, can't get medical treatment, etc., aren't there better uses for our money than putting anthills and aging Senators into space?
  • Ok, point taken. I should have said "sent a man into space with our own rocket." Which, AFAIK, is true.

  • An Argument for competition (Score:3)

    by radar bunny ( 140304 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @09:09PM (#1313004)
    I see lots of post talking about how this could start a space race, and how that is good. And, an compitetion is good. It keeps everyone honest (ok not totally, not ever, but still). It also provides motivation to keep people invovled.

    It's been said that "we see the world in out own image and there are as many views of the waorld as there are people" This only proves the point. The more space exploration there is, and the more people invovled, then that only means that more viewpoints are brought to the discussion and in the end, it is a tremendous addition to the sum of human knowledge.

    And to those making all those cute little "red" jokes, consider one thing. We in the States have always had an "adventurous" (conquering) streak in us. And, since (as stated above) we see the world in our own image, then we in the States have always seen space in that light. Its a place to be conquered. Now the Chinese have, for a long time (since at least the mid 1800's), had a more guarded (protective) nature. Perhaps the will see their exploration of space in that light and better recognize some of the inherant dangers in space. Perhaps they will see something else. Or, perhaps they will see it exactly as we do.
    The point is, this is a win-win situation.

    This talk of competition also caries over to other debates/forums on /. as well.

  • The items you buy that say 'Made in China' are typically made in China to take advantage of the cheap labour force. Thus, these products aren't really interested in quality anyway.. they are designed and sold in the US.

    The quality of 'Made in China' products speak nothing of Chinese engineering or govornment. Sometimes the best products come from China (Tsingtao, for example!)

    I wish China the best of luck with their endeavours. It can only expand the human knowledge base.
  • We need separate units to measure the temperature, and what you actually measure with a thermometer.

    For example, we've got Mass (kilograms) and weight. In space, objects retain their mass, but they weigh nothing. (weight being what you measure on a scale)

    Likewise, in space, the temperature might be a description of how fast the molecules are moving but the new unit I just made up would correspond to the reading on a thermometer in space - very cold!

  • The US has become so introverted recently with the Monica thing, and various high profile trials, that they've ignored the rest of the world. Believe it or not, if I had to choose between China or USA making it to Mars first, my money would be on China.

    Of course, neither will be the first - that honour will go to Canada! :-P

  • The short list of politicians and lawyers to make the one way trip into space will be announced shortly.

  • China's just a Communist country, associated with the color red -- it has nothing to do with any traits of its people any more. Do you consider the Chinese themselves to be racists for occasionally referring to their own armed forces as "The Red Army"?

    If someone had made some crack about the Red Planet because American Indians were being sent there, you'd have a more legitimate gripe, but otherwise you're pulling the race card where it's definitely not called for. There are plenty of racist incidents going on in the world. When you cry racism when it's not actually there, it only hurts the efforts to point out when it actually occurs.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • As a geek, one of the driving motivators for me in working my ass off academically was to prove those jock jackasses wrong, that I *will* prevail in becoming successful. The fact that China is constantly mocked as being "incapable" of manned space missions (as well as many other things) will only encourage them to work even harder to accomplish this goal. And before we know it, they'll be *way* ahead of us (again) due to our own ignorance.

    Btw, my user name has nothing to do w/ Communism, but rather the condition my eyes are in currently.
  • ignorance is strength
  • Its been said before and I'll say it again. Why arent there any private companies in the space race? Getting out there is cheaper than makin a movie, and the business models you could think up would be on another scale compared to most around now.

    Take Buzz Aldrin's concept in Encounter with Tiber [usyd.edu.au]: promote a space flight among the elite jetset, and get investment money from them in return for reservations on the first flight. Once the first ship is built (just an upper atmosphere plane in Tiber) and supporting itself, move on to a bigger project. Repeat. Dont stop at Mars keep going.

    I know it sux that this is extreme capitalism, but in this world + dimension its the fastest way we can achieve colonization of other planets, which IMO is the ultimate goal of space exploration.


    -
  • (chinese) taikon == (english) space

  • Re:To infinity and beyound.... (Score:3)

    by jheinen ( 82399 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @09:19PM (#1313014) Homepage
    Space is definately within the reach of just about anyone nowadays. You don't even need big government backing to do it. Check out Reaction Research Society [http], a group of amateur rocket builders who put a 65 lb. payload into space in 1996 (it achieved an altitude of 50 miles - the videos of the flight are simply incredible). They did this as a *hobby*! This has to be one of the ultimate geek projects of the decade.

  • IIRC, back some time ago in history, Communist *were* deemed as a separate race (I think they called them Bolsheviks or something). Anyway, when the "Red scare" occured, many people (such as ethnic Slavs) were persecuted and Democracy was thrown out the window. So, yes, some people my associate anti-commy sentiment w/ racism.

  • Is China willing to throw lives away just for prestige and pride? You bet. It seems necessary to ask just how many men China will kill for the sake of national pride or whatever "communal utopian" goal they have in mind.

    Good point. But you must remember that the US also has a history of [unwittingly] throwing lives away for the sake of beating the Soviets to the moon. Just look at all the footage of US-made rockets exploding just before launch (I think they were the early Apollo/Mercury? rockets).

    Btw, my user name has nothing to do with Communism. My explanation is posted somewhere else..

  • The Soyuz craft has been the workhorse of the Russian space fleet for quite a while now. A Soyuz capsule served as the lifeboat on Mir, and was even able to stabilize Mir when they had their little accident.

    My fear is that they may simply have borrowed the design of the orbit capsule. China has NOT been known for their successful launch vehicles. I remember reading last year that 3 out of 9 launch attempts on their large launch vehicle, the one they use for large sattelites, which this would probably fit, failed. I don't mean they had to abort, I mean great balls of fire, and I think maybe one crashed into the sea, I can't remember. In fact, Lloyd's of London declared any payload of that launch vehicle to be uninsurable at any cost (assuming they wouldn't pay more than it's worth to insure it).

    If they make it into space, they should be fine, given the time-tested design they're using for an orbital capsule. I just hope they're not in too big of a rush to make it there.
  • A famous quote is that the reason the US lead the space race for so long, was that their Nazis were better than the Russian's Nazis.

    dave "Godwin's what?"
  • Stop right now and go read "Titan" by Stephen Baxter.

    dave
  • So, what's the point - even from the view of the Chinese leadership?

    Like you said, Mars! [bbc.co.uk]

    These guys think long term - if they can beat the US to Mars, that's some decent propaganda. :^)

  • And if this is what the Chinese govt. want to spend their money on, instead of more tanks. Good for them!

    [humor]
    We'll see if you don't change your tune when the commie bastards rain death upon the children of America from their orbiting laser death stations!
    [/humor]

    No, but seriously, China is going to be a major power in the next century. Possibly more major than the US. It's important that we maintain good relations, lest we end up in another cold war. Perhaps joint space exploration projects could be just the thing we need? It could also be just the thing we need to get space exploration back in high-gear -- it's been on the decline since Apollo.

    Well, perhaps things won't be quite that easy. But even given the differences the US and China have, I'm having trouble figuring out how anyone could think this was a bad thing.

    --
  • How on earth is this post flamebait? Overrated? Possibly. Redundant? Maybe, but not when I posted it. Flame Bait? Who was I flaming? C'mon -- I challenge you to name someone that I was flaming or encouraging to flame!

  • Symbolism (Score:3)

    by SEE ( 7681 ) on Tuesday February 01, 2000 @09:43PM (#1313029) Homepage
    China wants to be seen as a major world power. The only other choice to achieve that goal is to start a massive military buildup, which would be more expensive and provoke adverse reactions in neighbors.

    Nuclear weapons? Britain, France, India, Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan have all done it. Big public works? Even Egypt has the Aswan Dam. Winning lots of sports events? Even a splinter country under foreign occupation like East Germany did that.

    Manned spaceflight, however, is an exclusive, prestigious club. The only other nations to achieve it were superpowers. It's the ultimate prestige project.

    Steven E. Ehrbar
  • This just might scare the US out of space-complacency. The thought of China being more advanced than anticpated might just do it.

    Won't be a problem. Some how, china reaching the technology level of the US in the 1950's dosn't seem like somthing that will rise much ire in the US...

    Amber Yuan (--ell7)
  • True,

    I see no reason as to why your post should be moderated down as flamebait. I really enjoyed the Heinlein quote. Quite possibly the moderator was not aware who that was.

    Enjoy.
    --
  • celebrate the upcoming Year of the Dragon by launching a man into space next month.

    Cue giant catapult.

  • I hate to burst anyones bubble but if you really examine the issue of space travel or more problemmatic, the escaping from the gravitational pull of the earth, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that space travel at least from planet earth is a very expensive proposition.

    It is interesting to note that we basically take for granted the fact that we can hop on a jetliner and be almost anywhere in a matter of a few hours. Of course in this case we are not trying to completely break the bonds that gravity has on us, we are just merely changing the elevation temporarily.

    The immense amount of energy it takes for a spacecraft to blast off from earth and enter interplanetary space is overwhelming. With current technology it is almost unthinkable of sending up a spacecraft every 15 minutes. You probably think I'm nuts by now but hear me out...

    For space to be a truly viable enterprise for the world and for mankind as a whole it must become accessible to the masses, much like mass transit via powered aircraft has become in the 20th century. What I am trying to say is that without the technology to send mankind into orbit cheaply and reliably we are merely just playing with a scientific curiousity.

    I am hopeful that one day someone will discover this technology and make space travel truly viable but until that time I will that we are wasting a large amount of are precious resources and money on projects that really have no bearing on our existence here on earth.

    I mean what good does it do us to send a explorer to Mars, unless one day we have the means and the intentions to terra-form the Red Planet. Trust me I am interested in space travel as much as the next techie, but sometimes I have a hard time justifying the money that our government spends on such projects, especially when they seem to do it half heartedly. I mean if we're going to explore Mars lets hunker down and do it right... Send a couple of Astronauts to the Red Planet and really explore it for all its worth

    Sometimes this is what frustrates me with NASA the most... the lack of any real ambitious goals or intents. Its like they like to toy with a few ideas but never really put their back behind it. If we had continued on with the momentum we had back in the 60's we would be visiting Jupiter's moons by now. Think about it.

    Just some food for thought.


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • And continuing on this thread, why did the US embark on an expensive space program when it had a substantial part of its population living in poverty?

    Because enough politicians figured that a game of one-upmanship with Russians was worthwhile in getting them votes. I don't really see the propaganda value in doing something that the US and Russia achieved almost 40 years ago, particularly when you do it with Russian technology!

  • Whenever China is mentioned in /. , I would expect some ridiculously negative comments posted by some otherwise nice, polite and civilized /.'ers.

    If you are anti-China, that's fine. YOu have the freedom to get yourself an enemy anytime anywhere.

    If you are a racist, that's ok. You just believe in something that is not popular even in the US and that's nobody else's business.

    However, if you hate China because you hate communism, I have to tell you, my friend, you are wrong. Communism in China today is absolutely not the Communism in your mind.

    Five years ago, my professor(a political science professor) visited Beijing and I was his interpreter. He asked me several times, why does China call itself a communist country? In his eyes, it was not communist at all. He was right, he just could not understand the way Chinese use political terms.

    In China, we call the current system "socialism with chinese characteristics". It is a compromise between the hard-liners and the reformers. The hard-liners see the "socialism" and the reformers see the "chinese characteristics". The hard-liners are losing their power every day and still strong enough to defend the term. The reformers are in power since 1980's but are still afraid of being attacked by hard-liners on ideological issues.

    Just think about the Political Correctness in America. That is the case in China with ideology! So when you say you are not a racist publicly, you don't have to mean it--you just have to be politically correct, even in a free country like America!

  • The power of symbolism (Score:3)

    by LL ( 20038 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @12:52AM (#1313092)
    While putting a man in space may not be technically challenging (heck the west expects to have suborbital tourist flights in a decade or so), it does provide tangible symbols of a country's prowess. Sure it might bankrupt the rest of the country (Reagan came close with his Cold War buildup) but if it provides a focus (or more precisely a distraction if you don't have any Royal scandals handy) for a PR-challenged country, then it may revive confidence in the leadership (which I suspect is sorely needed). One can only look back in the past to see religious motifs, royal emblems, national monuments, etc to respect the power of imagery and associated national pride. Given that the all the grand poo-bahs have technological leadership as exemplified by gee-whiz space-craft and real-time CNN-friendly fire-and-forget missiles, how can China not participate in trying to be in the same tier? Given also the Year of the Dragon (remember the imperial symbol for China is the 5-clawed dragon) plus the start of the new millenium (the so-called Pacific century before the Asian crisis hit) and the rather negative recent political custard pies (Tibet lama escaping, etc) and you can probably see the incentives for the government to make a big splash (hopefully not with the returning capsule).

    This is not to say it is a smart move, history is full of stupidities, whether east or west. Establishing a casino town in the middle of nowhere has got to be either the smartest (not letting people escape) or dumbest (how are they to get there in the first place) moves of all times. As one of the few missile producing countries in the world, there are few commercial outlets for such technology outside satellite launching and they'd probably want to get a leg up on the Koreans and Japanese in getting a man up, if only for bragging rights. As a serious threat, I suspect 40 year old technology is more likely to explode in their faces than to make their competitors shake in their boots. However, if it is for a purely symbolic role of beating the drum and waving the flag, there are worse ways of burning a few million dollars (wonder how much was spent on fireworks displays for the new millenium). Hopefully other countries like India or Europe won't take it seriously and restart their own space race as there is a lot more poverty in the world to be fixed first.

    May you live in interesting times (old Chinese curse).

    LL

  • Re:To infinity and beyound.... (Score:3)

    by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @12:53AM (#1313093) Homepage
    What financial burden are you talking about? Compare the current space exploration budget with the "Agencies (let's not trigger Eshelon)" budget for christ's sake.

    I understand that the days of Kennedy and Chrushov are long gone. I understand that those space projects were riducolously overfunded in order to get ICBM technology and military applications a good polishing along with good PR.

    It happened not only to space but to ocean exploration as well. It was funded almost with a comparable amount of money. And now what? The ocean bottom is mapped, all magnetic anomalies are mapped as well. Sumbarines are no longer as invisible as they were. The psychological aspects of human behaviour in hostile environment (read space) have been researched. So nobody cares any longer. Anyone heard of Alvin missions lately? What happened to the US manned underwater stations? What happened to the French ones? Custo had a city under water in the Red Sea at one point?

    Overall, especially compared to budgets some "Agencies" the funds for space exploration and ocean exploration are simply riduculous. So do not talk about funding as above please. Better bug your congressman to transfer budget from ... to NASA (who in btw handled some of the underwater research in the old days as well).

  • IMHO, That must the most ridiculous explanation to why USA are literally burning up billions of dollars each year. It's like saying, the more money you throw up in the air, the more money lands on the feet of someone poor. Of course, those that have power still get their 99%. Not always as money in their bank accounts, but in their industries and so on.

    People should see money for what it is. In our society, it's a flow of energy that enables you to change your life. Everyone needs it to sustain life at a decent level, and to have fun. It should be used for the good of society, to build a good structure for us to live in. But for many reasons this doesn't happen, most likely because of those controlling the flodgates. Sometimes the moneyflow go into projects that doesn't serve much purpose other than empowering a few individuals, get someone elected and/or ease the general fears and paranoia.

    I'm not saying space exploration is one of these bad money-burning projects, because we have learned much from it and we will learn even more than we had ever dreamed of. This may justify such research, to a certain degree. However, it does NOT justify it if you use the benefits gained from space exploration only for a rich minority.

    Much money could indeed have been better spent making everybody's life easier. The crucial aspect here is the decisionmakers. You can only control them if you have complete openness in the process. Voters should demand this, and check on what is really happening behind the doors, on all levels from government to small organisations.

    - Steeltoe
  • Posted by patg:

    It's not the goverment's job to do anything about poverty except to stop taxing the middle class into poverty. What are they going to do? Throw money at the poor, so the poor can become more dependent on the government? That doesn't/hasn't helped anyone.
  • One of the reasons the US entered the Space Race was the (fairly legitimate) fear that the USSR would deploy muclear weapons in space making any place in the US a potential target.

    One need only look at the statements made by members of the Chinese government vis a vis the situation of Taiwan to immediate consider a parallel situation with the upcoming Chinese space launch. (For those who haven't been paying attention, on several occasions, officials have stated that if the US dares to intervene on behalf of Taiwan, that Honolulu or Los Angeles are reachable targets by Chinese missles. Our anti-missle technology development is at something of a standstill, since much of it was linked to Reagan's "Star Wars" program, and that has been enough for research to be dropped (ah, politics).)

    Whether or not the threats could be carried out today, other analyses have suggested that China will have copious technology to do it by about 2003 (no doubt thanks to our lax security at our national laboratories).

    Meanwhile, the US has floundered on its own programs for 20 years (basically since Apollo 17). Aside from some bright spots (IUE was insanely overproductive, the Voyager program's record speaks for itself), many large-scale project has either suffered incredible delays getting off the ground (the shuttle program was supposed to start in 1979, Galileo sat in storage for several years, and had been crippled from a non-working antenna since launch) or has had problems (Mars Observer, the secondary mirror of HST, etc.). Worse, several low-cost (i.e., good bang-for-the-buck) programs never got off of the ground (so to speak): one of the last things developed as part of SDI was a low-cost launch capsule that could carry a payload pretty much anywhere in the solar system and was re-usable. I think the cost was somethng like 0.1% of a shuttle launch. Oops.

    The saddest part is, if we wanted to go back to the Moon again tomorrow, we woud have to start over, and it would probably take longer to get there (from the announcement of the program) than it did before.

    Finally, the comments about a space program being wasted because people are starving. There is and has always been room for doing both. The cost of the Apollo program was something like 50 cents per American per year, and the R&D involved brought us useful things like Teflon, microwave ovens, many advances in solid state physics, and of course, Tang! :-) Increasing our understanding of what's around us, and meeting technical challenges is always beneficial to the general public. Somehow we lost that in the last 30 years, and now we're plunging into a very anti-science/anti-education society. I really don't see how that will help anyone.

  • A famous quote is that the reason the US lead the space race for so long, was that their Nazis were better than the Russian's Nazis.

    Yes, Wernher von Braun being the canonical example. The Russian moon programme was plagued with rocket trouble while the USA had its lovely new hydrogen-fuelled Saturn V.

    The reason that the USSR was ahead in the earlier stages of the space race was that they had a head start. Russia has a long history of interest in space travel and rocketry, going all the way back to Konstantin Tsiolovsky's science fiction in the 19th century. In the 20s and 30s the government supported rocket research (although the purges were something of a setback).

    The USA, OTOH, didn't take much of an interest in space or rockets until they perceived a threat from the USSR, and even then the funding was slow in coming. Although the USA had the pick of the German scientists at the end of WW2, the USSR had a lot more experience to start off with.

  • Monitoring the decision makers (Score:3)

    by Eric Green ( 627 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @04:33AM (#1313139) Homepage
    It's possible to monitor the decision makers only if you have spare time, energy, and money. The decision makers make sure that the majority of people have neither, that the majority of people work long hours or multiple jobs and are propogandized to believe that they need many luxury items (like these computers that we're typing on!) that require slaving like a dog and spending every bit of money they get and more (debt) so that they don't have time to check on who REALLY owns their elected "representative" (most of whom are in the pockets of big business).

    Bread and circuses, baby. Bread and circuses. The wonder of modern American life is that the corporacracy has figured out how to make the American public pay out of its own pocket for the bread and circuses that keep it tranquilized and sedate!

    -E

  • "Mr. President, sir..." (Score:3)

    by acb ( 2797 ) on Wednesday February 02, 2000 @04:41AM (#1313142) Homepage
    "Mr. President, sir! The Chinese have painted the moon red."

    "Well don't just stand there. Send someone up with some white paint and put up the Coca-Cola logo."
  • Russia spent so much money on it because they wanted to beat the Americans. It provided a great boost of morale for it's people when they succeeded.

    The U.S. spent so much money on the space program for a number of reasons, including not wanting to be beat by the Russians. Once Russia launched Sputnik, the U.S. was afraid that if they could send a 157 pound satelite up, they could send a war head up and over to Washington D.C., therefore it was imperative that the U.S. also had the ICBM capability. The US's first satelite was 31 pounds while at the same time Russia was sending up 1100+ pound payloads.

    Up until Sputnik, the U.S. space program really didn't exist. The army and the air force were fighting over who should be conducting space studies and where the money should come from. It wasn't until later that it was determined the need for a space program and the fact that it should be a civilian organization so as to seem less aggressive than if it were military.

    It's just like with Mir now, Russia does not want to "get rid of" Mir because it was the first country to go into space, first to have a space station. They think that it would bring great humility if they ditched Mir (with all of its problems) and put their resources into the American built ISS (international space program). Although there are alot of countries that are part of the ISS, it is primarily built by the U.S. The U.S. on the other hand wants Russia to get rid of Mir and dedicate the resources that they agreed upon earlier to the ISS.

    This is just an overview. We are learning more everyday as new papers are released about the 40's, 50's and 60's.

    Peter Gogas
  • Further evidence of the evils of nationalism....

    Racism, and bigotry have nothing to to do with nationalism (except in times of war).

    In the US especially, which is a country made from many other cultures, there is no tolerance for racism.

    In fact the ACLU has had to stand up for the "right" of racist groups to spout their propaganda because most of the rest of us don't want to have to hear it.

    I love my country, and I do believe that it's the best country on the planet. However so do many Canadians, and French, and Swedish, and ......

    We're all right.

    Back to the point that three or four ACs posting racist drivel don't represent the majority of /.ers.

    LK
  • Racism???

    You dumb ass he didn't say "Yellow Planet", he said RED PLANET.

    The color red is associated with communism, ridiculing someone's form of government is NOT racism.

    LK
  • Communism != Race

    Clinton claims to be a Baptist.

    Just so you know, John Kennedy was the only Catholic president that the US has had. Apparantly neither he nor Clinton are the most devout examples of followers of their religions.

    Perhaps not everyone in China is a communist, but enough of them are to keep the communists in control.

    LK
  • But like black ink in a glass of clear water, it only takes a few to turn the whole thing grey. Most of the 'racist' comments are just childish button-pushing on the part of the posters. Such is life.

  • Will they shoot him down upon re-entry?


    Yes, along with his family, pets and everyone on his Internet mailing list. Next question please.

  • History is made by folks willing to risk their balls. Sometimes people who risk their balls lose them. When they ask for volunteers, you don't need to raise your hand. Someone else always will, for their own reasons, which will always be senseless and inscrutable to you.

    Life does NOT come with a chin-strap.
  • Good. Maybe they'll make better use of it than we have.

  • Reinforcements will arrive soon. Renew your subscription to SOF and await further contact.

  • ;) Or as an AC put it so well:
    ----
    All the technological advances of mankind are simply steps on the road
    to completely replace women. This is because of the deep rage that has
    long existed in the male collective unconscious, over the fact that so
    many women won't put out.
    Soon will come the day when, when a woman pouts that "I have a
    headache", the male response will be "Who cares?". Because we won't
    need them anymore. Automated cleaning, realistic sex dolls/robots, and
    mindless female clones to produce eggs to reproduce the race along
    with artifical wombs... the female will no longer be needed. No, this
    isn't advocating rounding them up or anything -- they can do whatever
    they want. It's just soon -- perhaps within our lifetimes, my
    brothers! -- we'll be able to do what WE want as well, without
    pandering to some woman's whim.
    Ah, the days of glory will soon be upon us...
    ----
    Hehe. But I guess that isn't what you ment.
    (Don't take it too hard, ladies. It is a joke.)
  • He's referring to the actual story, not the movie. In the book, a US/Russian join expedition heads to the Discovery, and without warning, a Chinese expedition shows up with the same intentions. It ends up being a race to get there.
  • For a while, anyway. And unless it was in direct sunlight of course.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • And "Voyage" (also by Stephen Baxter) while you're at it.

    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • That's true, but you're tilting at windmills. The original point made was not that the Shuttle and Soyuz are the same, but that they are representative of similar 1970's technologies. In his own words:

    <blockquote>...the two craft were developed using similar technology. mid-70s technology. This technological level lets you do one of two things: build an advanced expendable spacecraft or build a crappy "reusable" one. </blockquote>



    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction
  • Because anyone who is smart enough to make a $1 billion profit from a $2 billion space project is smart enough to make a $10 billion profit from any one of a thousand other investments of $2 billion, and they didn't get the first $2 billion by choosing $1 billion over $10 billion.

    Next question?

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