Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Chinese Manned Space Flight Set For Autumn

Posted by simoniker on from the vatican-city-next-on-launchpad dept.

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?"

3 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Race may not be a good thing by addie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Although the manned space program has been ridiculously successful in terms of preventing accidents, there have been 3 instances where small decisions have led to fatal mishaps. The Apollo launchpad fire, the Challenger, and of course Columbia. The more times we attempt these types of activities, the more accidents we will have. That said...

    I'm a space junkie, I love reading about anything exploration related. But national pride is not a good excuse for spending billions to go into space. Should we be celebrating the Chinese, or asking them why they aren't instead working on a way to contribute to the ISS program? Europe is heading for Mars news story, and the US has already been there. How many different times do we need to accomplish the same goal under different flags?

    I applaud the Chinese for getting a man into space, this is by no means an easy task. But we have to look at priorities. I'd love to live in a world where competition wasn't the driving reason to succeed!

  2. Moon by FTL · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If you are trying to figure out where the Chinese are headed, all you have to do is look at this picture of a Shenzhou rollout, then compare with this picture of a certain NASA rollout. Creepy, huh?

    I wish them the best of luck.

    --
    Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
  3. Most modern thingy around, for now by Rxke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Consider: Space Shuttle: concieved around 70's, built 80's Soyuz: 60's, minor upgrades, still based on old model. Shendzou: 90's, 00's? Granted, it seems to be based on the soyuz, but Chinese say they built it themselves, and this seems to be the case: it's considerably bigger, more modern electronics et.c. Who would ever have thought that the Chinese would be flying the most up to date spacethingy, it seems absurd, but it's a fact. How the world has changed since the 80's...