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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?"
it's like my dad always said, "a little competition never hurt anyone."
look at the last time the US had a space race, we achieved what many call the greatest achievement of mankind, we landed on the moon.
Mike
and to think ... they all have accomplished so much even without the support of N*SYNC. Amazing.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
...because the astronauts on the space station have been hungry for delivery for weeks.
and I really hope everything goes perfect for them.
Because it seems that China will be the only hope for real advances in space. The US program will never gear up to what it is supposed to be at.
All I know is the thing that may do it, is china placing a moon base just might get the attention of the tubs of idiocy that sit in the congress and house of represenatives....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
then I don't know what else could get NASA moving again.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Hopefully the Chinese pushing forward with developing their own space program might give NASA, ESA, and Multi-national Corporations the kick in the ass they need.
:-|
can't wait to be able to say "We live in a world where a Chinaman has walked on the Moon." can you?
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
Yes, it definitely is. Only this time, it's the Capitalists vs. the Communists. Oh wait . . .
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!
...capability of launching humans into anal orbit and returning...
Oh god no....... not that!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I wish them the best of luck.
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The Slashdot community should be ashamed. This story has only been up a short while, and already I'm seeing references to rockets made of bamboo, astronauts eating freeze-dried dog meat, and even the despicable phrase, "runar rander." This sort of bigotry and racism is unbefitting of one of the most respectworthy technical communities on the web today.
You are probably all just jealous because you lost your jobs to better trained immigrants, or because you always strike out with the cute Chinese ladies. Sad.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Sometimes I wish the Soviets would have gotten to the Moon first because then Americans wouldn't have had any other choice but to put a man on Mars to save face.
Either that or a nuclear strike against the USSR (I'm not kidding, there were people who seriously suggested that to the US administration if the Soviet Moon program got too far) because otherwise the political situation would have been intolerable. It's all political, science is a third-rate consideration, and noble goals like actual expansion to the space are not even mentioned. But still, I wish them luck, any step forward for whatever reasons is better than our current self-admiring stagnation (like how long can we hype the moon landing?? It is still the main exhibit in all space-related museums after 35 years!)
When men used to be men
Gutenberg was a wuss who would have frozen to death if it hadn't been for the inventions of Ogg, Bringer of Flame.
Start a rumour about WMD being stashed on Mars. I guarantee you, a manned Mars program gets major funding! But that would be handled through the Father-errr...Homeland Security Agency, not NASA. _Nothing_ is going to get NASA moving again.
:)
:)
What else would get the US gummint on the space train: Oil on Mars! I can't see environmentalists being able to make a big dent in a drilling-on-Mars project.
Why is China interested in space? No SARS there. No student protestors, either.
Still, it'll be good to be able to get good Chinese food while in space. They should open up some restaurants at the LaGrange points and the Moon & Mars. General Tso's Space Chicken!
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...
The reason why Americans suck at space is cause you are too busy being a racist worldwide, you just don't have time for science.
</quote>
Nice generalization. A few points:
"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.
Once manned heavier-than-air flight was demonstrated, going to the moon was pretty inevitable
Um, no.
Flight through the atmosphere with heavy craft and launching something into space are almost completely unrelated problems.
For the first, you need to figure out how airfoils work to produce lift (helicopter blades count in this category), and figure out how to move the air that surrounds your craft to produce thrust. Then there's materials engineering to get the performance to weight ratio nice enough.
For the second, you have to figure out celestial mechanics, and you have to figure out how to build reaction drives that _don't_ use the surrounding medium to move (as you won't have air around you for much of your trip, and it's more of a hindrance than a help at significant speed). Then you have the herculean task of materials engineering and clever craft design required to get an impulse-to-weight ratio large enough to escape the gravity well (or at least have enough delta-v for orbit). If the gravity well was even a little deeper, we wouldn't have been able to do it with chemical rockets at all (though aircraft would still be easy to build).
There's a world of difference between a jet engine and a rocket engine. There's a world of difference between something light and strong enough to glide and something light and strong enough to have a 40:1 wet:dry weight and make orbit. It's not a difference of scale - it's a difference of fundamental type of device.
In summary, please do more research about exactly what's involved in each task before proclaiming that one follows from the other. What actually precipitated _both_ was the industrial revolution, which gave a drastic increase in technology and in materials science.
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.
From pictures I've seen, the Soyuz spacecraft was definitely much roomier than the Apollo spacecraft, given there are two pressurized sections of the spacecraft. It was fortunate the the Russians were able to overcome the early chequered history of the spacecraft, given the Soyuz 1 crash and the unfortunate air leak that killed the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts. The newest Soyuz T-4 variant owes almost nothing to the original Soyuz design with its interior design.