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!"

Comments

New space race?

[WombatControl]

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.

Why the hell would the Chinese government do this?

[Goonie]

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?)