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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!"
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.
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?)
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 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?
Blame it on NASA and the shuttle pilots. They were complaining about lack of Chinese food delivery for the planned space station
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
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.
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
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
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
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
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.
... to NASA (who in btw handled some of the underwater research in the old days as well).
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
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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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.
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
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"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."