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China Plans Manned Space Launch By 2005
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."
The AC Avenger strikes again!!!!
So will most consumer products soon start bearing the label: "Made in Space" ?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Reminds me of the Cold War that stimulated our space program. There's nothing that can stimulate a space program better than a military advantage. Perhaps this little bit of competition will encourage Congress to give NASA the funding they need to do more than just crash probes into distant planets.
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lets see...
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?
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
Live to be Moderated
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?
If you have the source, you have the whole world...
It seems to me that China really has no other reason to do this other than to say that they have done it, and they are spending giant amounts of money in the process. Think of what else that could be used for! Even if they succeed, that does not take care of their other problems such as hunger, poverty, etc. This whole plan is reminiscent of Orwell's 1984; It's all just to boost military morale.
How's "Been there, done that" as a foreign policy? We even have t-shirts, which unfortunately were mostly made in China. I say we dust off the plans for the Apollo capsule and Saturn V rocket, slap an Athlon in there, and go open a McDonalds on the moon so the Chinese have somewhere to eat when they get there.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
What exactly is there to do on the moon?
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!"?
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.
Weren't they concerned about human rights over there in China? Why would the cooperate with a communist state? You would think with all the money they have they would develope their own space project rather than funding the Chinese.
They just want to get their feet wet, for now.
New Scientist has a good story on this. And there is this page with links on the chinese space program from U.S. Embassy Beijing Environment, Science and Technology Section.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I wonder if this will embarass the US government into mounting another of its great space adventures... Wishful thinking i suppose, but my grandparents got to watch a moon landing with their kids and i want to watch a mars landing with mine. (when i find a geek-friendly woman that is)
"I should point out that some powers in the world are on the way to militarizing outer space, not peacefully exploring outer resources," Huang Huikang, an official from China's foreign ministry, told the China Daily.
"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.
"Get them before they get....
Chinese Manned Space Program: Behind Closed Doors is a very interesting read. It details not only a large chunk of the history of the Chinese space research, but also describes the secrecy that has shrouded most of it.
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Why did you feel the need to launch MS Word for such a small write up?
This is extremely cool, and a good thing for all of us.
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.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
China may be interested in things like this.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Only on Venus and Mars, which are the closest planets.
This is just a smoke screen for the development of delivery technology for nuclear warheads. If there was some economic reason for putting people on the moon, either the US or Russia would have them there.
I think this is a great idea. I think China should be strongly encouraged to expand its space program. In fact, I would be happy if they became the leader in space exploration. As soon as they announce plans to colonize Mars, it will scare our government into funding plans for the same, and then our space exploration work will be back on track.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
From the article: A monkey, a dog, a rabbit and snails were sent into orbit aboard the second Shenzou launch but scientists say that more unmanned tests will be necessary.
Translation: The monkey, dog and rabbit died together or one of the animals died. China isn't ready to go to space.
If Bush, Raygun, or Nixon had sold it then this poster would be saying how smart it was that we sold it as EVERYBODY else has that technology. India, Russia, Japan, and Europe all have similar technologies that could have been sold instead. This is the same as if we had sold them RSA encryption. But then again lets not allow any facts to get in the way of a conservative insanity.
China wants space-based military capabilities to compete with the US, including killer satellites to knock out US spy and GPS satellites.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Who wants to bet Fox is already working on creating a show stating how the China mission was all a big hoax?
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I thought I'd never say this, but Bush's missle defense plan is looking better and better every day...
Is your company running tools written by ma
Human Rights anybody???? We are one of the worst on utililizing the death sentence (Funny that the states that use it heavy still have the worst crime rates i.e.. texas, Ill).
The Northern Allianace has a record AS BAD AS the taliban and MUCH worst then the chinese. Yet we back them when it was conveient. I didn't see you objecting to Human Rights.
Putin is from KGB and has taken Russia backwards, yet when Bush says "We can do Business" do you object? Perhaps the fact that it is Bush and not say Gore that you keep quiet?
I think, Therefore I am. You posted the parent, Therefor you aren't.
It's about time someone kicked the US in the pants and got them going. In the past, we've complained about China's policies regarding "subversives", their willingness to exploit child labor, and their lack of hesitation to cane the crap out of American teenagers that
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.
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.
"They just want to get their feet wet, for now."
Maybe they should just plan a manned mission to the Pacific Ocean.
324006
If any post mentions the U.S. govt's plan to build a missle defense system, it gets modded down into oblivion, usually with associated comments dismissing the threat as being unlikely or impossible.
/. really needs is a 'Doesn't Buy Into Liberal Utopian Ideologies' or 'I Don't Like The Way You Think' negative mod option. It would be closer to the truth.
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
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Since there is this new continent in the way between Europe and India, the knowledge that the Earth is round is of little practical importance. To reach India from Europe one must navigate East, anyway. There is very little to be gained from building a base or something in this new "American" continent.
Point 1) Before you talk about human rights, think about the fact that the U.S. is the country with the most death sentences. And frankly, when it comes to U.S. companys investing in China... This human rights thing is a fig leaf if you ask me.
Point 2) Europe *has* a space program, called ESA (European Space Agency, d'uh). Together with the U.S., they have people up in the ISS (and a good part of ISS has been transported up there by ESA's Ariane). However, they have an eye on economics, and such a program is very expensive. I think the rationale is: "We want to be able to get people up in space, they want to be able to get people up in space, this is expensive, we are on good terms... Let's do it together." Oh, and about communism: It's not that much of red flag in Europe: Don't forget, Communism is a nice vision. The Soviet Union or China don't have anything to do with Communism (Read Marx' and Engels' book if you don't belive me). They are/were dictatorships.
Side note: I'm not a communist, but I still think that labelling China as a communist state is unfair for commnuism.
Greets,
Anno.
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.
I am not a lawyer. Do not take my words as legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult an attorney.
I'd rather see them blow the money in space than fund more troops to rape Tibetans, invade Taiwan, or build new tanks.
ICBMs were developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, well before the space programs of the USA and USSR. It was the technology in the ICBMs that was used for going to the moon, not the other way round.
Is it just me, or is Slashdot consistently two days behind on every news story?
We have already send monkies into space :D
No, Bush has begun reigning in a beaurocracy that was out of control, even their own, and is reintroducing the concepts of fiscal responsibility and sensible management.
The current issues with ISS are due to their own mismanagement and setting of unrealistic goals. When someone blows their budget again and again and again, the last thing you should do is give them more money! Yes, it will be harder in the short term, but if you don't, the waste and corruption will kill you in the long term.
Bush is, typically, going in and actually fixing the problem, instead of boasting about "reinventing government" then covering things up.
The amazing thing about Clinton/Gore is that their ethical lapses, bad as they were, were completely overshadowed by their utter incompetance as leaders and managers.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Jetesson them to the moon under the guise of a space program :D
I don't think all scientist who were working and the first ICBM really wanted to create ICBMs instead of real "space rockets".
I think some of them tried to build "space rockets" and used them for military purposes.
Take von Braun for example. He always wanted real space flight (well known fact) but build military rockets for the Nazis and the US first. But when the US were searching for space flight rockets after the sputnik shock his project succeeded at once unlike to navy's whose blew up very impressively. The navy used ICBM based designs. I suspect that von Braun always kept space flight capable rockets in mind and created the rocket stuff this way. Therefore his success.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
It's a shame that China is taking the classic police state stance of "We'll tell the press about it once it's over successfully, or not at all if its a failure" with these launches. Because the People's Army Navy has to send specialized tracking ships to around the world in order to keep in contact with the capsule, both foriegn intelligence and foreign news agencies know of a pending launch long before the rocket is put on the pad. And I haven't even mentioned NORAD yet.
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...
Damn man, that's just so true, we just forget them evertime no? I saw these kids on Discovery the other day, they are white, and worse off than any kids in Somalia or Ethopia. Shame, real shame, good thing I'm not an yank.
Moderators! The bitch InnovativCX is just a buzzword compliant script that posts garbage on /. Read and unserstand before you mod anything sluts.
Dispite what most people want to believe, China is not a communist state.
There's a mix between capitalism and communism, thus taking advantage of the best of both worlds.
Everybody has the right to start his/her own company.
Insightful post! Please mod up!
Insightful post, please mod up.
So china plans on sending a human into space... Hmmm Oh my god! The Chinese are catching up on american technology, they're only 40 years behind our space program!!
Warp drives do not exist. Not many are willing to waste 6 travelling to and fro the nearest planet Mars.
Not to mention that these are essentialy multi billion dollar geology experiments. Travel to Mars and analyze their wonderful red rock.
Space Travel is nearly pointless.
Now is the time to go to Mars.
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...
Note he did not say ballistic missile defense was simmilar to space travel, he said ballistic missiles are simmilar, because they are.
The chinese could care a less about the swiss cheese on the moon. They want to be able to nuke New York and Washington DC. How hard is that for you to figure out?
http://www.ahan.org/pages/dogschina.html
They raise st bernards to feed the masses.
No one dies of Ringworm, its a minor fucking skin fungus! If her mother would put down the Crack Pipe and go get some food stamps from uncle sugar, no one would starve either!
Clinton cut it in real dollars most of his two terms. Look it up for yourself if you don't believe me. Bush is trying to fix another one of Clinton's many mismanagement messes.
Sounds like China is trying to get the jump on us! We all know what we must do...
We must be the first country to send a Chinese man to the moon!
I thought I remember hearing that they were planning on shooting someone into space sometime this year? Wasn't that on slashdot a few months back?
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The US seems to be ignoring this market-
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.
It says, "we are rich and powerful enough to *waste* money on manned missions when robots are cheaper and safer"
Humans should go into space, but first we need to find something beyond chemical fuels to make it economical. Researching that is where the money should go for now IMO, not more Chemnauts.
Table-ized A.I.
In this ascriptive world, this is more than expected! Of course it has its good and bad parts.
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!
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.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
when you can figure out how to help yourself. Maybe the whole reason behind the chinese space programme is because they realise that they're running out of land faster than anyone else. If they had the ability to ship people to another /planet/ then things might be a little easier on the long run.
Kinda like the british overpopulation problem in the late 1700s, leading to all that empire land grabbing.
Moron post, please mod down.
Before you start spoutin it, check your bloody facts, The majority of the ISS as currently in orbit has been launched by the Proton rocket from Baikonor in Kazakhstan. Non of it at this point has been launched by Ariane. The rest of it has been transported by the space shuttle.
Until the last couple of years, the Ariane 5 rocket could not be commited on as it was still technically in the testing phase of development when the launch plans were being made for these components. The Ariane 4 rocket was all booked up as well as cost far too much for ISS budget.
Reason?
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.
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?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
'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 errr... isn't ariane a european project, wasn't jean lou chretien sent in space...???? oh well
if the sites slashdot links to get slashdoted, how come slashdot itself never gets slashdoted??
Perfect timing. I just finished researching synthetic fibers. If I hurry production in three of my cities I can launch my spaceship by 2004.
We all know what they're really up to.
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.