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China to attempt manned space mission next month
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!"
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"???
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
The Chinese astronauts are called taikonauts.
My hope of hopes is that this will incite a second 'space race', this time between the US and China:
:o( Oh well. It might get NASA some more funding.
"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
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
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.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
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.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
(if you're too dumb, just pray)
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.
Ignore Alien Orders
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.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
(if you're too dumb, just pray)
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.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Once China gets to the moon, do they plan to put some meaning behind the phrase "The Red Planet"?
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.
"Reality is less than television."-Brian Oblivion
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.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
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.
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
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
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?)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
(if you're too dumb, just pray)
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.
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)
--
The shareholder is always right.
What racism? Criticising China's government has nothing to do with race.
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?
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
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?
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?
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.
China will make some accomplishment, like building a small Moon base, and the US will suddenly wake up. America will put its money into Mars, and as a result, save the US from stagnation.
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
--
The shareholder is always right.
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
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".
-- Slashdot sucks.
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.
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
The temperature of space is debatable. Some would say that within the solar system, it's thousands of kelvins 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.
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
More to the point, it might whip your average slashdotter up into a suicidal frenzy, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
I had one, but the wheel fell off.
...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
---- Sig. gone.
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.
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.
/. as well.
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
"I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
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.
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
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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.
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: 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.
-
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.
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.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
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?"
Like you said, Mars!
These guys think long term - if they can beat the US to Mars, that's some decent propaganda. :^)
Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. -- Linus's Law
see subject
-- Slashdot sucks.
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
1) Read the subject line. I know that Mars is the red planet, not the Moon.
2) This is an attempt at humor; please don't accuse me of being an idiot, because I try to play off of the fact that China has a Communist government; and that the Communists are associated with the color red.
Actually, that quote is an old one, and goes back
to the days when the *Soviets* led the US in
space, not the other way around. In reality, it
said that the Russian Nazis were better than
the American ones.
This was before Apollo, when the Soviets were
much better at this sort of thing than the
Americans
- Bomber Gap
- Missle Gap
- Orbiter Gap
- Mars Probe Gap
- * Gap
They've always worked before.....Anybody can work under ideal circumstances. -- Jeff K. (January 4, 2001)
From the Washington Times: Pentagon study finds China preparing for war with U.S.
Pentagon study finds China preparing for war with U.S.
Cue giant catapult.
Er? It was a joke... get over it. Not to mention, space missions in China are most definitely an enterprise of the government.
the chinese sotole most of our secrects form "Los Alamos" they got propulsion info. as well as nuclear secrets is it any wonder that they are ahead of schedule? sorry first time bad post
I wonder, Amber, what do the Taiwan papers say about this? I imagine the People's Daily (mainland paper) has *their* spin, do you read Taiwan's news at all? What are their thoughts?
...mineshaft gap...
Still not dead.
You might want to read a bit before moderating... this was the only decent post in this thread. And it's _factual_. Get it?
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
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Confucius once said, "It is better to remain a fool and keep one's mouth shut than to speak and remove all doubt" Sorry if I misquoted. I suppose that would make me the fool. Beer does that, I think. Social problems aside I think it's at least a forward-looking, healthy-minded approach to solving maybe some of their problems.
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!
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
As to the whole China Is Evil, China Is The Enemy thing, I really don't think China has to be an enemy of the USA (and certainly not of Europe). After a century of World War people have gotten so used to having an enemy that it seems they can't handle living in peace anymore. Yes, China's government is pretty bad, but I think cooperation will be more efficent than conflict, and it will probably change things faster, even if it wont be as exciting (no big guns, no nifty BombCams on CNN).
Does this affect "the purity of our essence....."?
Don't try to KNOW everything, just know how to FIND it.
... and almost no mainstream politician in America has believed that it works better than the free market, since about 1960.
Look here to see the (more mainstream) theory proposed by Milton Friedman.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
If the buzz word of the '90s was Y2K, I'm predicting Taikonaut will be just as bandied about, and much more important. Really, how cool is that word? "astronaut" and "Cosmonaut" are so '70s Gemini era, but "taikonaut" that's a word for the new millenium.
I have no pants and I must scream
China is not the perfect country.
surprise.
But they've been dealt a hellof a shitty hand (huge population, 30 years of a failed economic model and disasterous personality cult, etc.)
It's shitty about human rights, but right now lots of folks still haven't been educated past 3rd grade. The government wants to get a reasonably established/healthy economy before giving up more slack. Uneven growth could result in another civil war, etc...
The government has been stressing stability for the last 20 years because the chinese people know from the past (the war with japan, civil war, great leap forward, cultural revolution) that radical change brings suffering.
I mean, sometimes they are bone stupid, sometimes they are stuck in their old ways, but really, they are doing what they think is best for their people most of the time.
(pre-emptive flame defense : torture isn't what's best for their people...
but stability is what they place the highest. Don't be fooled, another Chinese revolution would be a pain in the ass for all countries involved, and probably kill millions of Chinese and ruin the global economy.)
I'm rambling, but seriously, THINK people.
there is no thing
what else could you want?
IIRC, back some time ago in history, Communist *were* deemed as a separate race
By ignorants perhaps.
(I think they called them Bolsheviks or something). The Bolsheviks was merely a political group that seized power in the early soviet union. They only got 1/4 of the votes (yes, there was an attempt at democracy) and decided the peoples opinion wasn't that important after all.
Anyway, when the "Red scare" occured, many people (such as ethnic Slavs) were persecuted
Such shit happens with ignorant masses. Communism is still an ideology only, easily supported by the number of different races trying or having tried communism. There are Asian communists, African communists, European communists....
China wants to be taken seriously as a superpower, and one way of doing that is by challenging the United States. Despite Americans' faith in their own technological superiority, space is an area where the US is vulnerable and can be beaten in the prestige stakes. Sure, you can put people into orbit, and laugh at the Chinese in their outdated Soyuz knock-off, but what if in five years time they decide to go to the moon? Apollo was thirty years ago, and the capability just doesn't exist anymore.
The rest of the world will not care that you got there first, and they will not care that you could go back "if you really wanted to". If the US doesn't want to be humbled, then you'll have to open the chequebooks to NASA to fund an expanded program - which IMHO would be a good thing.
What's sad is that instead of going into space because it's there, for the sheer joy of exploring the universe, it will probably in the end come down once again to penis-size games between superpowers.
--
Idiot/Savant
Why the hell would the Chinese government do this?
The propaganda value may be dubious, but then there's the military value. Yes, I know they have ICBM's already. They may want their own GPS system (the US can turn theirs off in a war), their own anti-missile defense, a set of spy satellites, and so on. All that require some rocketry but will be kept secret. The experimental phase may be used for launching some people, hiding the intent for a while as a propaganda stunt.
Nothing better than making the world believe they are merely motivating their own people and/or impressing neighbours.
Good quality chinese food is orgasmic, but you won't get it from your local cheap take-away. Still, many very fine dishes can be made on the cheap.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
YAH you took the words right out of my mouth :)
Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this is the war room..
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
Would you care to elaborate on that opinion?
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.
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.
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
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
"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."
(though I expect a reasonable percentage are...very interesting to find out)
Some of us have perspectives based on living on a different part of the Earth.
Why does somebody else starting to do what you are doing mean there has to be a war?
Just for the record, IMHO Chinese attempts at developing new technology is a Good Thing, it wakes other people (and hey who knows maybe *the Chinese* may be the ones to break new ground, after all they did it on a lot of other things...) , Chinese authorities record on human rights (ie Agenda 21 issues) - downright appalling and the world should apply pressure to sort things out (though the US should also try harder on a few human rights issues as well).
This just in! Earth's rotation increased due to Lao Tzu spinning in his grave at such misuse of his name!
Don't try to KNOW everything, just know how to FIND it.
They want to be the first to reach Europa in 2010 so they can use the water in their nuclear engines. Once they start building their "space station" the situation will be clear.
Thank you, Arthur C. Clarke.
Constitutionally Correct
Contrary to what the poster would have you believe, this is not a surprise, and has been anticipated for quite some time.
Even ABC News has reported on this in the middle of last year... I've only looked up one reference . I've read about this for years.
The Chinese also test launched an unmanned spacecraft late last year.
They're ready to fly, and it's no surprise.
John
Maybe I've been playing Civilization too much, but it seems like they're building an obsolete wonder and won't get any effect from the expense. On the other hand, maybe this is just a tech advance intended to allow them to build more formidable units. It would be easy to criticize them for investing their research efforts in this direction, but I can't say that I could make a better choice. I never know what to do once the other civilizations have blown past me either. What else could they work on? It would take them 900 work units just to get Alphabet at this point, wouldn't it?
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
We were severly undereducated about Russia too. Except for what our government told us, we had very little understanding of what life was like behind the iron curtain. We were led to believe that life in the USSR was horrible and oppressive. The truth be told, it wasn't all that great but, it didn't seem to be anywhere near as bad as our government led us to believe that it was. Not that the Soviet government wasn't misleading its own people about us too.
How do we know the same doesn't hold true, at least to a certain extend, with China? Granted tourism into China is a lot more free than it was with the USSR, so I'm sure a lot of our information is coming from first hand accounts. But how do we know that the information coming from the government about China is not just more propoganda to justify our aggresive attitude toward one of the last remaining Communist governments?
I don't necessarily have a problem with Communism or "Chinese socialism" thereof. I have a problem with their government's blatant disregard of human rights, even the right to exist. Don't you remember how the students were beaten down in Tianamen Square? How Tibet is still enslaved? How religion is still forbidden?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Anyone remember the Alan Parson's project?
They had two teams, Moon Unit Alpha and Moon Unit Zappa.
They also had a time machine, oh what grand times those were.
The Chinese government is a serious threat to our country and all other countries that don't want communism. China in the next 10 years will show the world that they too can launch weapons of destruction from land based, and space based stations. China will focus on the major super powers (USA). They will try to buy our politicians, they will flood our markets with inexpensive goods, so that they can fund their own super power fund. American will wake up too late to realize that China will be surrounding our borders, able to wipe us out without hesitation and remorse. The chinese people in china have a totaly different view on human rights. They have the largest population, so what a few million dead in another country? China is a very strong economic powerhouse, Many of their officials have learned in US schools. Now they are plannning to bring us down. there will be a conflict with China in the next 10 years. We have to look at Taiwan see if they truly want to democratic, or are they really working for the Chinese government. All the major chip manufacturing occurs in Taiwan. They have our technology. Wake up America. We need to wake up, China is a threat.
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
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Personally, I'm waiting for the "One Billion Astronauts" comments to start rolling in now.
-Vel
The reports that China will launch a human into space in the immediate future -- the February 5 date being quoted by some sources -- is almost certainly wrong. China has a fleet of 3-4 ships (Yuan Wang) that would serve as tracking and ground stations for such a flight. (China, unlike the US, lacks a worldwide network of permanent ground stations or communications satellites that would serve that purpose.) Those ships were deployed worldwide in advance of the November launch of Shenzhou, a prototype of a Chinese manned spacecraft. Those ships have since returned to port in China and have not been redeployed, according to various sources.
China will likely attempt a manned launch as soon as the second half of this year, but claims of a February 5 manned launch should be treated very skeptically.
Jeff Foust
jeff@spaceviews.com
Um, which 2010 did you see? In the real one they sent a probe down to the big monolith and nearly got whacked for their trouble, then made it HOME, thanks to HAL. They didn't get destroyed!
And yeah, I'm real impressed that the Chinese have the capability to do a manned mission to orbit the planet - 30 years after we landed on the moon! Maybe now they'll be confident enough to stop jailing random scholars, Falun Gong members and anybody who says boo! too loudly.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
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.
**>>BELCH
Reinforcements will arrive soon. Renew your subscription to SOF and await further contact.
**>>BELCH
Don't forget the Gap Gap: one billion Chinese, all wearing khakis and vests, lip-syncing songs from the '80s. *shiver*
Our only defense is to share the secret of Old Navy Performance Fleece with our old nemesis, Russia.
Everyone in Mao jackets.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Mort Sahl on Werner von Braun
I heard an engineer speak at an AIAA meeting that wrote a book about the US-Soviet space race after much research and personal interviews. He wrote a book about it. The reason we beat the Soviets to space was we spent more money.
The Soviets jumped ahead of us because their chief rocket scientist (Korolev (spelling?)) got the military interested earlier than our military thought about it. However, the manned missions were always a sideline to military applications. The Soviet military was paying for all the research and ICBM/other weapon development came first, with the leftover money available for manned missions.
The military was the main driver of the space race on both sides.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
;) 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.)
This sig is false.
I wonder if anyone is going to ask China where they got the Missile Technology to send people to space?
Didn't they steal it from the United States?
We should forgive China for that though - after all they are using Linux, so nothing else matters, right?!
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.
Hmmm... I kinda doubt this will be enough to really start another space race. This is the first time they're sending someone up, and the US does this pretty often. It will be quite some time before the Chinese can do something that's really new and cool.
And what could be cooler than going to another planet or the moon? Think about this- China is pretty big, and has few people there, and they know that they are getting too big for their own good. What better place to expand a population than up? That's one fairly common argument for continuing NASA's exploration- one of these days, we're going to have to expand into space. Well, China may actually take that seriously.
Now THAT would start a space race. And not one that is (outwardly) motivated by fear, but a real race, as in who gets there first. It was pretty exciting doing that while north america was being explored and populated by whitey, now imagine racing to another planet!
Could be kinda cool.
Jason
it's not really up to the general will of the people in china.
The government has more and better guns than the people, therefore, what the government says goes. A revoultion against anti-revolutionary special forces in a facist controlled country is quite difficult.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
(if you're too dumb, just pray)
Hey, maybe we should check our facts. Anybody read any real space news recently? http://www.spaceviews.com/2000/02/02a.html check out spacenews.com too. don't believe every piece of propaganda you believe. carcass
Looks like a lot of penguins checking out the site these days as well.
Now a penguin space programme, that would be something.....
Ok, I guess I'll retract that claim :-) Economists have been decided on the issue for decades; Tricky Dicky was apparently not so sure.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Yes, the United States does have its human rights problems. All countries do. The difference is degree. A comparison can be made similar to the one John F. Kennedy made in his speach in Berlin.
"Democracy is not perfect. We have our problems. But we have never had to build a wall to keep our people in; to keep them from leaving us."
I'm probably messing up the words there, but that's about what he said.
Yes, we have our problems, but we don't try to stop people from believing what they want, or pursuing the dreams that they have. Heck, we even stand up for the rights of biggots and racists, to preserve their freedom to spout their crap. We do, however, go after those who would dare to undermine the freedoms this country protects.
The Native Americans have been persecuted in the past, true. Now they are free to do as they will. They have chosen to stay on their reservations, as is their right, and run their own businesses (and many are doing very well). If they choose to drink excessive amounts of alcohol, that is their right and choice. Nobody can force them to do so. Same goes for crack on inner-city streets. Nobody forced the people there to use it, and nobody forces them to use it now. It's a choice, albeit a bad one.
The people of this country are quite free to do as they will, provided it doesn't infringe upon the rights of another to do the same, and that they have the ability to pay for whatever goods and services they seek; a country of freeloaders is the alternative.
That's my patriotic speech for the evening. G'nite. :)
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward
Next question?
I wasnt talking about people with pissy amounts of money, in fact I wasnt talking about that at all, but we shall deal with that first.
Anyone with 10 billion or more should keep going with the solid business investments. But with the spare 1 billion they have kicking around, it would be a viable long-term investment. Technology advancements in this area, as described in the link to the first and more visionary reply, will eventually grow to a mammoth, extremely profitable industry.
What, do you think that the human race is going to stop with the majority of us flying. We all want to go into space, feel weightlessness and see the earth as a whole, then explore further.
I apologise that I did not have time to explain while this article was front page, but I re-iterate that this needs a dedicated discussion.
-
Wouldn't it be funny if the International Space Station is abandoned because the Russians are cheap stingy (and noisy) bastards, while the USA and China build a cooperative Moon base and start mining?
:) Or what about when the University of Mars becomes a *real* IP address, and we have to re-write a bunch of RFCs?
China supplies the cheap labour, and derives hard Western currency (as well as huge Kudos). The USA gets a well maintained waystation for cooperative attempts to colonise Mars and explore the asteroid belt.
Can't wait until the first electrodynamic tether is used to sling an Earth-orbiting payload into lunar space
No, the BBC is government funded, not Government Run. There are a whole host of agencies that are supposed to keep them totaly impartial. Thus the KLA are described as Guerilla's while other news stations called them freedom fighters. Long live PSB.
If God created us in his own immage, how do you explain Vanessa Feltz?