Chinese Manned Space Flight Set For Autumn

brandido writes "According to an article at Space.com, "Chinese space officials remain on schedule for the first piloted flight of that nation's Shenzhou spacecraft. Chief designers and mission directors say Shenzhou 5 will be launched in autumn, reported the People's Daily last week." Between this, the X-Prize, and multiple launches of Mars probes in the last few weeks, it looks like the space race may be heating back up?"

Comments

Been There, Done That

[Chris Y Taylor]

"putting a Chinese man somewhere above the trophosphere"

A hate to break it to the undisclosed Chinese official, but a Chinese man has already been above the troposphere. We sent him up in the Space Shuttle. He is my former boss, and all around great guy Taylor Wang. http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/wang-t.html

He is now a prof. at Vanderbilt University, where I worked for his dept. as a student worker for several years.

Re:Moon

[sohp]

Superficially they look similar, but compare the numbers:

CZ-2F: Diameter: 3.4 m, length 62.0 m. LEO Payload: 8,400 kg
Saturn V: Diameter: 10.1 m, length 102.0 m, LEO Payload: 118,000 kg(!)

If you removed the Apollo spacecraft and the 3rd stage (S-IVB) from the Saturn it still wouldn't fit through the CZ-2F's little door.

Re:Isn't this a Soyuz?

[mikerich]

Yes it is a heavily modified Soyuz. They got it because Soyuz is cheap, simple, tough as old boots and does the job. And the Russians needed the money - sounds like a perfect match.

Don't forget Soyuz was never just intended for one purpose (like Apollo), it is a family of spacecraft that can be configured to several purposes - including, had the Soviets been able to tame their N1 booster, fly around and orbit the Moon.

In many respects Soyuz was far superior to the Apollo capsule, so it makes a great start for a country with limited resources to get into the manned space program.

Best wishes,
Mike.