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China Plans Manned Space Launch By 2005
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Nov 24, 2001 09:17 AM
from the after-that-maybe-the-moon dept.
from the after-that-maybe-the-moon dept.
cosyne writes: "CNN.COM has this article on China's space program planning to send a man to the moon. 'The mission is part of Beijing's plans to create a space industry and earn the prestige of joining the United States and Russia as the only nations to have sent humans into space.' I wonder if they'll make it before the recently mentioned amateurs."
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China Plans Manned Space Launch By 2005
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New product labels (Score:5, Funny)
Our Space Program (Score:5, Funny)
monkeys! (Score:1, Insightful)
China: billions of dollars, no need to get licenses to launch rockets (they own their own damn country), infinite supply of monkeys to test rockets on.
Amateurs: finite (comparatively tiny) supply of money, have to jump through dozens of hoops to launch anything at all, no monkeys.
What do you think?
Cagey (Score:1)
CNN.COM has this article on China's space program planning to send a man to the moon.
Actually, they're quite cagey about the Moon thing.
Sun Laiyan, vice director of the China National Space Administration, declined to give any details of the moon exploration plan other than that it was part of China's space industry plans.
Of course, they dead set against "militarizing outer space". Oh yeah, such peaceful people; naturally they're against that. For us, anyway.
1Alpha7
Exciting but... (Score:3, Insightful)
How much resource and money would be spent on sending people onto the moon? Should they be spending on something else to solve other problems in China?
Spending (Score:3, Interesting)
one question... (Score:1)
yeah, we could build a base or something, but if we are there for just a few hours or days, what can be said rather than "WHOOO!!! were on the moon!"?
Nice to see.. (Score:1, Troll)
that technology Bill Clinton allowed Loral to sell to the Chinese being put to good use.
After all, if you can put a man in space, you can put a nuke in Washington.
Why the European Union? (Score:1)
Moon Landing (Score:5, Informative)
They just want to get their feet wet, for now.
New Scientist [newscientist.com] has a good story on this. And there is this page with links [usembassy-china.org.cn] on the chinese space program from U.S. Embassy Beijing Environment, Science and Technology Section.
another great adventure? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Peoples' Rocket (Score:2)
"Another arms race in outer space has begun since 1998 and we should be watchful," Huang said.
I would like a few more facts and less fundumentalist tone to be interested in this. A satallite program for China makes perfect sense for communications and survey for the billion(s) of people. I sure the US will be paying attention to the launch activites of our future olympic hopefuls, but an arms race in outer space is not econmically nor politiclly fesiable to begin with. Talk is cheap and that is all this is, political grandstanding: US bad--China good.
"The Proples' rocket is going to lay the smack down on the evil american capitalist pigs!"
Please don't take this article as being newsworthy.
The Secrecy of China's Space Program (Score:2, Interesting)
Those were the days (Score:5, Interesting)
How well does this translate into Mandarin?:
"We choose to go to the moon, and to do these other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
Cynical old bastard that I am, those words actually choke me up every time I hear them. Space exploration (not arsing about in low earth orbit) exemplifies everything that is great about the human spirit. Our reach should exceed our grasp.
We in the west have forgotten that, and now it's all about the bottom line. Sounds like China still gets it. Good luck to them, I reckon.
Very Cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully it will kick start another space race, and get the americans off their butts. Bush has done nothing but slowly kill NASA with its budget cuts.
In 2005, Russia may become the only country with access to the ISS. (find the story on space.com somewhere -- With all the budget cuts the US no longer has a HAB module or Crew Return Vehicle. Russia's obligations supplying Soyuz Rockets ENDS in 2005 leaving the USA totally stranded.)
With China sending men and women into space on its own, and making plans to build its own Space Station and sending men to the moon, EVEN if it doesn't wake up the US govt. and inject more money into NASA, at least we are making progress and reaching for the stars.
Communist regimes are very good at certain things. The Soviet Union was a powerful military country, and built 9 space stations. (Salyut 1-7, Mir, and now the ISS).
Hopefully China can also achieve some amazing things.
I want to live on Mars someday. I don't care how it happens, or who gets me there, i just want to be there.
D.
ICBMs (Score:2)
China may be interested in things like this.
Yeah, go China! (Score:2)
They still have a long way to go (Score:3, Funny)
Translation: The monkey, dog and rabbit died together or one of the animals died. China isn't ready to go to space.
Oh please - we know the real reason (Score:2)
Fox? (Score:1)
A new world instability (Score:2, Flamebait)
I thought I'd never say this, but Bush's missle defense plan is looking better and better every day...
THANK YOU CHINA! (Score:1)
think that they can get away with being obnoxious in someone else's country. But unlike us Americans, they're actually interested enough in space to get back into orbit and possibly to the moon. They're going to get results. Can we, as Americans, stand to see space dominated by the threat from the East? Maybe we'll see something other than talk from American politicans now. Maybe we'll see a push into space.
This pleases me greatly. I was frightened that
we'd never seriously get back into space in my
lifetime. Come on, George. Respond to the yellow threat! Get us back into space where we belong.
Stephen Baxter on Chinese and US in space (Score:1)
I just finished re-reading "Voyage" and "Titan" by Stephen Baxter. Spooky. Chinese space program (including the objective of landing on the moon) and the death of the US manned space program figure in Titan, while the goals of the US space program are a big part of Voyage. If you haven't read any of Stephen Baxter's fiction, try Voyage first.
Slashdot Hypocrisy (Score:3, Insightful)
But China is getting ready to put men in space, and it is widely cheered as a Good Thing.
How so many people miss the correlation is beyond me.
A rocket is far more complicated than a missle, and the technologies are remarkably parallel.
You see a country that doesn't like the U.S. developing technology that can easily be used to deliver a nuclear payload and you cheer, while simultaneously objecting to the very plan that can protect us from the developing threat.
If the idea of another cold war appeals to you, by all means, cheer on.
Now, go ahead and mod me into oblivion as 'Flamebait' or 'Offtopic'. What
Knunov
the article represents the nadir of journalism (Score:2, Informative)
This is an important development. The world's most fearsome tyranny is attempting to take the lead in the space race. We deserve better reporting on these plans than this amateurish effort.
China & the Press (Score:2)
With all that going against them, if there is a failure it will be all over the internet long before the state officially confirms or denies that there ever was a launch. That can't be good for their credibility...
missed the boat. (Score:1)
Now is the time to go to Mars! (Score:1)
Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
Send a bunch of equipment first,
then a large party of humans, one way.
Let them explore the planet,
and then figure out how to change the planet, plants, animals and humans to be able to live there, selvsufficiently...
Everone who would like to become the first martians, raise their hands...
They're going to beat us! (Score:2, Funny)
We must be the first country to send a Chinese man to the moon!
huh? (Score:2)
billions for first space tourist service (Score:2)
people who'd pay a hundred grand for a week in
orbit. Perhaps a clever competitor like China
will figure out how to do this cost effectively.
Ascriptive society - Expect more of this (Score:1)
It is good since it is furthering of science and technology in a different part of the world and this will create more momentum to advance science as all the world notices.
It is bad because of the veiled goals that are being met. China is set to meet more such goals with its portending currency devaluation.
We should only expect more of this!
A couple of thoughts... (Score:2)
But there's a reason for the opposition to private manned space missions expressed by the government: the government opposes an independent manned presence in space. The reason is that such an independent group would wield much more power than the U.S. government does, because it could (if it wished) threaten to drop small asteroids anywhere on earth with relatively high precision. It's only when the U.S. government has an adequate defense against such an attack that it will truly allow a manned presence in space.
Of course, that's probably wishful thinking: we'll probably wind up in another cold war and lose more freedom all at the same time, and in the name of that cold war to boot!
Sigh... The world seems like such a hopeless place right now, because there's no place left on earth that I know of where real liberty isn't on its deathbed.
I doubt this will happen (Score:1)
In the next bit, China is going to join WTO. Many people, including me, will see this as a stab into Lady China's chest as it will cause the country's economy to crumble further and then cause the current government to collapse out of Communism.
Then again, they're not really Communist when they have moved away from the Communist side of Economics.
Rescue? (Score:2)
How hard would it be to retrofit a Space Shuttle for a Lunar mission? Could the cargo bay hold an Apollo-style LEM and enough fuel for the mission? Perhaps the shuttle could rendezvous with some kind of booster, although I imagine you'd have to EVA to bolt them together. Really, I don't care how they do it, it would just be really cool to see the Shuttle in Lunar orbit, with a lander coming out of the cargo bay.
If the Chinese are serious about this, they should swallow their pride and establish rescue plans with the US and Russia. Even if we can't fit a lander in the cargo bay, we might still be able to rescue them from Lunar orbit.
It seems like this whole business might actually be done best by combining Russian and US technology. Use the US lander technology, and the Russian disposable rockets to launch fuel modules into low orbit. Link up with the fuel module and away you go! Come to think of it, why bother just using it to rescue the Chinese? Why not just go there ourselves? Oh wait... there's not much reason to go, and establishing a permanent presence would be EXPENSIVE.
So, unless the Chinese find something really valuable to mine up there, I don't see the rationale for a permanent presence at this time. Then again, maybe they know how to make rockets really cheaply, but based on my experience with cheap metal products made in China, I wouldn't want to ride one.
If there is stuff to mine up there, we should send robot mining units. Why risk people for such a prosaic activity?
err... (Score:1)
Re: China Plans Manned Space Launch By 2005 (Score:1)
Obligatory Geek Culture Reference (Score:1)
Re:Just a smoke screen (Score:2)
If the internet was so profitable, why did it take decades for anybody to even notice its existance?
If the steam engine would revolutionize the world as we know it, why were there several millenia between the first development of one and the real adoption of it?
Re:Eh (Score:1)
Has anyone worked out the mass of a lunar transfer and landing vehicle that would take off from the highest orbit the shuttle can reach? I'm assuming the shuttle would not tag along. Or even better, with a Soyuz tagging along as an Earth re-entry vehicle? The Soyuz was designed to go to the moon and it's still being built.
Re:Eh (Score:1)
David