Slashdot Mirror
Asia's Space Race: China vs. India
securitas writes "London-based military historian and commentator Gwynne Dyer writes about Asia's developing space race with plans from China and India to land people on the Moon, previously mentioned on Slashdot in China's case. In April India announced it will send an unmanned probe to the Moon by 2005 and a manned mission by 2015. Critics say it's a waste of time and money for India to pursue the goal. Meanwhile, Russian space experts are quietly helping China in what is seen as a growing alliance and a somewhat alarmist op-ed piece from the Washington Times worries about China's 21st century space dominance and monopolization of strategic resources like H3, used in nuclear fusion."
What Aliens really need is SARS?
Je t'aime Stéphanie
This is exactly whats needed to kick nasa into shape!
There is no god
Better up there than down here.
When you take your holiday to the moon in twenty years time you'll be spoilt for choice when it comes to takeout/takeaway food. Chow mein or curry? It's always a dilemma for me...
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I wonder if there is enough public interest for the government to enter this new space race. The American side of the race may involve private venture.
Indians aren't Asian...they don't have slanted eyes.
What was timothy thinking?
I'm glad to see China and Russia get over their differences in a productive, co-operative venture such as this. The world needs to work together as a whole. Remember, we're all the same species! :-)
I know it's offtopic, but I'm feeling philosophical this afternoon...
is why doen't all these countries put all the money they are investing individually on their space programs together. If we all pool resources, ideas, knowledge, and experience it'd only make space exploration easier and better. Then again, maybe not.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Finally some global interest in spacefaring. As long as only one nation has any interest in space stuff, there's never going to be any substantial new developments. That, and the US really doesn't have any right to be the sole ruler up there (although it's our (europe's) own fault, as we just let the US lead every mission and all research). I hope europe, asia, and the US will working together more than they are today, in the near future.
I really do hope that America and China start a new space race, especially if the prize is a useful resource rather than just patriotic pride. That way any technology that's developed as a result will be more immediately useful to the rest of us, rather than more interesting ideas waiting for applications.
I'm not a great fan of the idea of China and America carving up the moon between them, though.
is always the balance of power. from the napoleonic era to the realpolitik era, to inter-war period and post war period, then cold war, it's always balance of power that acts on the world to prevent world domination.
Powers comes and goes. Napoleon rises, and falls. Bismarck rises, and falls. The franks, then the prussians, the list goes on and on, now it comes to america, who knows if the next one is China?
Yet i don't think china could gasp the key to victory here by having space mission that denotes quite a bit of nothing in military terms (forget the whole lot on spy satellite, they are of no significant use on a direct confrontation of two nuclear-powered countries). To me, I would be more impressed and scared off by the change to democratic (NOT the democratic party but rather democratic society-type form, i.e. humanitarian, [n.b. vegetarian eats vegetable.. so humanitarian eats.. oh nevermind.]) or there is a significant change in the government structure and the way people do business (i.e. guanxi or so.)
enough offtopic, but here's what I want to say on space mission for china.
<div tone="sarcastic">
For india, I think that they better feed their crowd better before the birth mortality rate goes back to the 1930s standard. (THAT'S flamey.)
</div>
In terms of mining, minerals, resources we could acquire out there, if it takes China or whoever else to spank around the U.S. and make them realise that they'll gladly take the whole pie if we do nothing about it.. if that's what it takes to get NASA off of life support and back into space, then bring it on. The ultimate end will justify all the means.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
It is good that India and China are competing through science, and not through arms. Honestly, I don't see how this could be a bad thing for anyone. India and China will both make new scientific discoveries, and seeing them get into space may inspire the EU, the US and Russia to increase their space efforts.
I know lots of people are going to complain that India should be focusing their efforts on improving their living standards rather than going on wild adventures. But I don't think the one has to distract from the other. India actually has enough food to feed herself, its just a problem of social structure and education. And it is not as if the resources used for going into space make that great of a impact on the ability of India to educate its population. In economic terms, there isn't that great of a cost of space missions, because the resources that go into them can't really easily go anywhere else.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Please don't begin to kid yourselves that these countries have an interest in visiting the stars, their entire motive (while hidden well) is to develope their own rockets that will deliever their own nuclear weapons.
One day perhaps the race for space may be an actual race for space and not a politically correct ploy for world destruction. I don't see that time anywhere soon though.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
China is too risk adverse to become a major player. They'll probably get to the moon. Then the first major accident after that (loosing face) will have them scale back to the "Floating in endless circles" model the US uses.
And when China gives up, India will bow out soon after.
Space will be conqured by people, THEN the governments will follow.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
It looks like the US government will be forced to give NASA a new goal if China ever does any of what it claims. I just hope that they will aim to land man on Mars as soon as possible. A return to the Moon would also be interesting to see with todays technology. I'm sure they could do a lot more than was done in the '60s and '70s.
However I think that it will be when businesses aims for space, influenced by things like the X-Prize, that finally make space travel (at least suborbital and LOE) will become truly practical.
We win.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
.. that they can pull this off. In these days and age, they should be able to make a few decent shots of the moon landings. Though I am not so sure if they can beat Hollywood's movie magic.
...strategic resources like H3, used in nuclear fusion.
Actually, that should be He3. H3 would be Hydrogen 3, but what is used in fusion (or I guess what will be used in fusion) is Helium 3.
dire domestic matters first, eh?
Isn't that what they said about America?
Ever recall "Whitey on the moon"?
India has just as legitimate a reason to go into space as China. Aside from needing the room, they have just as much right to push into the ultra modern age as the rest of us.
Jeesh, what a bunch of racist banter.
At least the US isn't threatened with nuclear war with India over Taiwan.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
"The day we were visiting, the Chinese crew was utilizing the EVA (extra-vehicular activity) building. You do not train for EVAs if you are doing simple orbital missions. EVAs are typically related to space-based construction work."
That's just plain FUD. The US and Soviets EVA'ed for years and years before they ever did any space-based construction work.
From Skylab to Mir the majority of space stations were assembled by docking modules togeather with minimal EVA for bolting things on.
Ed White's Gemini EVA took place 20 years before Shuttle missions started EVAs for fixing equipment in orbit.
I think its great these countries are aiming for space but I cant help wonder if this is some sort of Asian rerun of the pissing contest between the US and the USSR back in the day. God knows both these countries could spent the money elsewhere and while a moonbase is a nice idea, how much use is it really?
Secondly, and this is not a troll if Iraq was invaded because they posed an 'imminent threat' how do people think the US will view asian nuclear powers developing more sophisticated ballistic technology capable of delivering nuclear playloads to the US.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
The Washington Post piece is flawed. Besides the fact that it exaggerates the importance of "space domination", if transporting H3 from the moon would be "economically feasible" I would think NASA had tried to do that already.
Fusion isn't even plausible yet, the energy that you get out of it is (much) less than what you put in. I think the entire piece is way too far fetched and simplified.
That's a fact, it was a fucking hoax in order to stop the competition between Russian and American.
That has been discredited over and over again, it's such a ridiculous claim that I don't even know where to start.
There is a convincing explanation for every single one of the anomolies with regard to footage and pictures of the moon walk.
The USA landed on the moon in the late 1930s using technology obtained from dealing with aliens, but they coverd it up so to avoid scaring the public. The 1970s moon landing was obviously faked, but TOO obviously. It was designed to end sp[eculation that it had already happened. NASA thought that by faking a moon landing with a whole bunch of inconsistencies that would get discredited they would be able to convince the world that nobody had ever landed on the moon. It 's clear that their ploy has fooled you completely.
Open your eyes and look around you. Try not to be so credulous.
I wonder if they will actually LAND on the moon. According to a LOT of people, Armstrong & Co. did not! Some of the pictures are pretty convincing! Though I am not entirely sure that I am conviced myself ;)
Also the matter of cosmic radiation etc... Interesting, interesting!
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
should shit everyone up, these two massive powers working together could do just about anything.
space can never be explored until there is a unified world, only once the wars and stopped will humans be able to work with eachother towards a common goal. but we'll all be dead by then haha!
WTF is a sig?
Been there, done that with a flag up there. What China should do is to beat US in the manned mission to Mars. Then they can claim that Mars is historically theirs 100 years later and demand re-unification to the "renegade planet".
Is it me, or does anyone think this sounds like a game of WarCraft???
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Can any one point to where this one came from?
The number of H-bomb warheads in circulation demonstrates that there is not exactly a world shortage of tritium or ability to produce it; certainly as the US wasn't afraid of polluting the Colorado River, and the UK of polluting the Irish Sea, I can't imagine that the Chinese would be too worried about the side effects of massive tritium production.
Conclusion: this is an attempt to frighten paranoid hawks into believing that the Space Race must be resumed to prevent the Chinese from laying claim to all those tritium mines on the Moon. Whereas, actually, we might be better off with some serious international negotiation on space, perhaps even some cooperation. While articles like this one reinforce Chinese paranoia about US intentions, (the author makes it clear that the US must not lose domination in space) we all surely have more to gain by trying to defuse the potential tensions in advance. Which might mean that Dubya has to rethink his approach to ripping up international agreements, but would that be a bad thing?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Bruce Sterling talked about the India/China space race in his May 2003 Wired column. Some extracts:
"Nobody in the Western press takes much notice of India's space aspirations, because by Yankee standards it doesn't make sense for India to have any. Yet India launched its first missile in 1963 and its first cosmonaut in 1984. Nobody in the West thought the country would ever go nuclear, either. That was a blunder in judgment. [...]
"Why is Gandhi's homeland trying to reach the moon when people sleep on the streets in Calcutta and AIDS gnaws the country's flesh? For the same reason the US sloughed off poverty programs to fund Apollo in the 1960s: global prestige.
"India doesn't need long-range missiles to nuke neighbor and archrival Pakistan. For a war that intimate, bullock carts would do. The Agni III is aimed straight at world public opinion. The India-Pakistan PR skirmish is already almost over, and India is clearly winning. Every great power sweats bullets over Pakistan's bomb, but India's somehow makes that country worthy of consideration for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. [...]
"Since India demonstrated its bomb in 1998, the Chinese have been increasingly uneasy. China reacted to the detonation with angry demands that the international community keep India contained. When that got nowhere, China helped Pakistan go nuclear. In retrospect, that was a scary, destabilizing misstep. But now India and China are poised to continue their rivalry on safer high ground - beyond Earth's atmosphere.
"Nuclear India versus nuclear China is Kennedy versus Kruschev, and Reagan versus Gorbachev, all over again. Now, as then, a space race is a sexy alternative to nuclear annihilation. [...]
"Who will become top dog in South Asia? That's an open question, and there aren't many good ways to answer short of a useless massacre. A space race offers a good solution. It's a symbolic tournament that tests competing political and economic systems to their limit.
"A decade after the end of the Cold War, good old-fashioned space programs still matter. Not for exploration's sake, but to settle new cold wars. If you doubt it, imagine this scenario: It's 2029, and a lunar mission lands at Tranquillity Base. A crew of heroic young Indians - or Chinese - quietly folds and puts away America's 60-year-old flag. If the world saw that on television, wouldn't the gesture be worth tens of billions of rupees or yuan? Of course it would."
It's not from the Post (Washington's newspaper of record). It's from the Washington TIMES (the OTHER paper in Washington DC), which seems to be a neo-conservative alternative to what is seen as the left-leaning Post.
I am really electrified by these news.
:)
u t that's not the same thing ;)
It pratically means that more money will be spent on scientific research, which will inevitably have its fallout on the everyday life.
Technology will have major role, and it's my belief that even opensource software will be benefited by it.
Market Expansion has taken a road where big companies now dominate every aspect of the markets, all the earth surface is known and mapped, and with the Internet the distance are shrinking more and more and more (hello to Slashdot readers from New Zealand, Brasil or Alaska).
The Space Race is the only thing that can make our world to get bigger. I hope all the interested parties in the new race into space succeed
+ + + +
For the not so serious side of the post:
today I've seen "Die Another Day". I like giant
orbiting laser cannons like the Icarus, or Bloefield's satellite in Diamonds Are Forever, or even Akira SOL cannon or Dr. Evil "Alan Parsons Project".
I would like to start my backyard space project just to build one of those jewels. Oh, I know
that I could buy one at http://www.villainsupply.com/superweapons.html
b
"I am slashbot, hear me roar!"
He3 is a byproduct of natural fusion in stars, &c. However, many people have speculated that it might be a good fuel for controlled fusion. H3 isn't very good for controlled fusion.
You're a member of the Flat Earth Society aren't you?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Yet they want to join the superpowers of the world in the 21st century. India really has bigger problems too worry about then putting a man on the moon. Any intelligent person should not look respectfully at India as a country until the caste system is snuffed out in every form. Not just in the symbolic laws that were put in the books.
Where the Music Matters
You are in college right? Oh I can't wait until you say hello to the real world. Its not a nice place.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
In a land where the poor outnumber the rich and there is no middle class, what logical step is next but....A SPACE PROGRAM OFCOARSE. Why didnt I think of it?
you /. people are SOOOOOO 2d.
it isn't about countries and governments anymore.
it is about race and wealth.
first off, democracy/free market is best form of competition. it is like natural selection ^2
2nd it benefits minorities the most.
Think in history. what homogenous society did not discriminate immensly against the minority.
Thus we export democracy to other countries to protect minorities.
why?
go think.
i know certainly it doesn't benefit us white protestant americans.
so, if the US makes bad policies for white, then who really runs things?
its a C-0-N-S-P-I-R-A-C-Y.
or maybe I am just seeing things that cannot happen.
spot on..
This means that American tech jobs will soon be exported...to the moon!
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
I am an Indian (note this before you start flaming or modding down) and has been following the Indian space programme and a whole lot of other programmes for quite a while, (and yes, I can claim to understand the Indian psychology more).
In India everything of this nature are 90% for PR and public consumption and 10% realistic projects.
This is a not stupid move either [although, it does end up foul, read on], unlike many Sladhdotters who think that India is stupidly wasting money on space, ocean, Antarctica and a whole lot of crap that are playthings for rich countries, while the people starve.
It is a calculated risk, more money is spent on trying to keep the economy stable, trying to provide decent health etc. (The percentage of GDP spent on defence in India is much less than that of the US.) The problem is that the corruption in this area is a whole lot more than the corruption that takes place in the high-tech stuff.
Okey, to make it short the basic ideas are:
The bottomline is that it is more PR, these vision are not realistic from the financial point of view --India doesn't have the money to pull this off, nor will they be ready to take money from the food-health-economy dept. and put it here, even with domestic private investors, for the simple reason that corrupt dudes would lose the easy buck and money laundering private businessmen will lose a lot of opportunities.
...worries about China's 21st century space dominance and monopolization of strategic resources...
Funny, I don't recall reading any Washington Post articles about Chinese concerns about all the various strategic resources that the USA monopolizes. How come they can trust us and we can't trust them?
Trust is like freedom, you can only give it away, you can't fight for it.
i don't understand the mentality that once a place has been visited, there is no point in going back. so america has been out there, that means no one else should? it's obvious you didn't master space if you're not experts by now.
Troll! Everyone knows that the word "staffed" refers to the penis, i.e. the male. The correct word is "peopled missions."
The fools! You don't go into space because it's hard, you go because it's profitable. They're living in the 1960's, I tell you!
Meanwhile, back in the USA, we debate whether we'll even be able to make a decision on what to begin replacing the low earth orbitter fleet with before they all rust apart in 20 years. I'm betting we won't (make the decision, replace them, your choice).
As a further random thought, perhaps if we spent more looking beyond low earth orbit, we wouldn't have to spend quite as much on putting inward facing weapons systems up there.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
They're not referring to tritium; they're referring to He3, a helium isotope. The solar wind has been spraying it out for billions of years, but it's too light for the Earth's atmosphere to hold. The moon has even lower gravity, but apparantly Helium 3 gets stuck in the surface rock there.
"A crew of heroic young Indians - or Chinese - quietly folds and puts away America's 60-year-old flag. If the world saw that on television, wouldn't the gesture be worth tens of billions of rupees or yuan?"
:D
Woah.. that would be like the coolest thing ever
hehe
Follow-up to my post
I think my post would be misleading, so I have to make something clear (some of it is just restating or rephrasing what I said before, but I hope it would be clearer):
Thus there is no reason for anyone to be worried about India having a successful moon programme.
You are confusing a person's ability to pay for food with a nation's ability to provide it in the first place.
Yes some Americans are too poor to buy food. But the food IS there. The US Government provides subsidies to farmers who's products go unbought because of a global food GLUT. The issue isn't food availability, its food affordability.
So yes the US is quite capable of feeding itself, and then some.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
What everybody needs is a world-wide co-operative approach to develop nanotech so we all can visit the moon (in comfort), or to stay there. Space cables, biotech enhancements probablly will allow people to live there (in underground mall and apartment complexes quite easily)..what we need is the first movie made on the moon, that would probablly attract people up there..not to mention all the medical spinoffs of a crash nanotech program (life extention, porgrammable good looks, enhanced brain power (who needs their PC now..it's built-it)
The point of ICBMs is not to actually deploy nuclear weapons, it's to have the ability to deploy them. Consider four classes of countries:
China and India want to upgrade to World Powers. To do that they need mutually-assured-wounding power. They also need the military infrastructure to send their armies all over the place. The space race fulfills both of these needs.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
...and ferrying of its resources back to Earth would it take before we humans start to alter the moon's orbital path? We've never really changed the mass of a planet or satellite significantly before (well, besides launching stuff into orbit, which, taken as a percentage of the Earth's mass, is a paltry sum).
Because there are other things to spend the money on does not make the space race pointless. Its not about how many starving people there are but about humans continuing to push the envelope and continue to innovate, create, dream and achieve.
Its hard to to do that when you only think about the problems that are around you.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Too many Chiefs spoil the broth. Or in this case, too many scientists spoil the program. Look at ISS, it is there and it works, but it is expensive and took a long time to get there. (Note that the goal of ISS was never science, but a way for the US to keep smart russian scientists from selling their abilities to "bad nations" after the Soviet breakup)
There are many ways to make a rocket. The principal is similear, but there are many possibal designs. Getting everyone togather tends to result in choosing one early, and then working hard to make it work instead of figguring out which is worth making. Generally the early one is choosen more because it has enough picese to divi up between all the parties.
Much better for China, India, Russia, Japan, and US to go it alone and develope all concepts seperately, and then step back and note what worked why and build something better on all of that.
Here is my view of what our leaders are thinking...
Rumsfeld: "Yes senator, I realize that the Chinese may acheive superiority in manned spaceflight. But that is irrelevant, because we still have the firepower to blow them up."
Ashcroft: "Instead of learning from their space program, we plan on taking ideas from their 1980s social agendas. The USA Patriot act 2015, plans on monitoring actual human thought with brain implants!"
Bush: "Space Program!? Nah, lets spend our money launching million dollar cruise missiles at people living in caves."
and make me a sandwich *slap*
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The moon landings were real, but some of the videos and images were doctored to make them look a bit dodgy. It is part of a secret program to identify citizens who are too curious and sceptical about the authorities so that they can be singled out for NSA surveillance, and eventual "dissapearing".
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
What is the current status, and how has signed it...the Lunar Treaty gives The Moon similar status to Antartica, saying that The Moon is a common property of all people of the Earth, and any country that makes use of it's resources must share them equally with the people of the Earth. Did China sign, or are they following the US lead and ignoring treaties?
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
However, sometimes you gotta consider whether cooperation or competetion is better. For example, the space race between the US and Russia probably led both sides to develop technologically, while had there been cooperation, much less would have ended up getting done.
Maybe India will get there first.... claim it a holy place... then SHIT AND PISS ALL OVER IT. Much like the Gandes.
Blame the United States for everything.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
"Manned Mission" simply says that living people are onboard.
Mankind does not meen MEN ONLY does it?
http://www.englishfirst.org
You must have missed the bit about a population 3 times the size. For China, that equates to significantly more educated brain power than the good old USA.
Kind of interesting reversal of roles between China and the West. A little over 500 years ago was , China was the most advanced seafaring nation. Due to internal politicals, that effort was abandonded and China became totally inner-looking and weak.
It wouldn't make much of a difference - it's already covered with craters
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Surely the "red planet" will have whole different ring
if the chinese are the first to colonize it..
Hey, China and India... Welcome to the 60s!
Riiight. In the same way, people in Ethiopia are far better fed than people in Luxembourg, because the total calorie consumption in Ethiopia is much greater.
just what india's money needs to go to, what with all the poverty in india.
>Powers comes and goes.
This has been true, but has any nuclear enabled nation been overtaken in combat? Nope.
You are absolutely correct that power comes and goes but the combo of ICBMs and Nuclear weapons means that there's a much greater certainty that the "nuclear club" will establish what Europe calls a multipolar world: many powers competiting for a greater good (like in this article) and hopefully not starting WWIII.
Once we're all happily armed with nukes it will only be internal unrest that changes power from now on. I think thats a good thing and a step in the right direction. Its a very arguable point, but the policies of MAD may very well continue into the next few centuries if not for the rest of the time humans populate the planet. At the very least, there will not be an incentive to begin true global disarmament until everyone is about equally armed.
Sounds scary, then again so is human nature.
You are confusing a person's ability to pay for food with a nation's ability to provide it in the first place.
Hmm... you mean like just before the French revolution ?
the difference means squat to the guy with an empty stomach.
From the story: "electrify the nation and show the world that India is capable of taking up complex projects at the cutting edge of space research" Cutting edge for 1959, the year the Soviets landed a lunar impactor.
Looking at those previous statistics, I would certainly disagree.
a .h tml
China are not a capitalist nation, so the poor literacy should not be affected by their respective financial classes. This means that they are not split into those who can afford good education, and those that get little, which would suggest its just a very poor schooling sysem. This means an "overall" poor level of education, im sure theres plenty who have good education, but not all that many I bet.
As for India, well, that literacy rate is just plain horrible, it may not be helped by their plethora of languages though.
http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~asha-sef/general/EdnIndi
Heres a report I found of the educational status in India, I found it using google. According to this, the average class size is 50, that is very very high. Heres a quote.
"The low priority given to education by this nation is apparent from the mean years of schooling, the average period spent in school by a citizen. Indians spend a little over two years in the classroom. The Chinese spend five, the Sri Lankans over seven and the South Koreans nine.".
ok.. assuming somehow you can relate literacy to being smart. Which in this case is somewhat reasonable considering a space program would require a lot of information, more then one could memmorize. Then assuming reading and writing english is equal to reading and riding chinese assuming both participants speak their respective languages fluently.. eh no, not in a million years. a bit dated, but compare reading and writing this: I have three books...pronunciation close enough to actual spelling taking into the variance of various dialects within the US. æ'æoeäæoeä¦ãassume beijing dialect:ãwÇ' yÇ'u sÄn bÄnshÅ take into account many in china have to learn their local dialect along with Mandarin(based on beijing dialect) which might as well be two different languages in many cases. so in summary, your statistics don't mean shit.
what India really needs to do is concentrate its funds on bringing the majority of its citizens out of their below-poverty status.
Surprises me that no-one has figured out the real reason. Its commercial.
India's already trying to take some of the Euro satellite launching business away and this only helps further technology in that direction. Groups of developing nations might want to share satellites which India or China would launch for them. O pay to have their own sent up.
Would be good too for developing spy tech, to spy across noth countries various borders. And there will be missile tech spinoffs too.
The Inscrutable Gargoyle
Wow, that was incoherent! I don't know how to say, "you're a whiny dildo" in Mandarin, or how to write it in Hindi, so chalk me up as
But I wish the goal were not space, but cancer, or nanofabrication, or such. It would mean more to the lives of their citizens and eventually the world if they spent the money on bioengineering, medicine, genetic modification of crops, training their people in science and engineering, IT, and such. Space is a less efficient expenditure of resources, despite how cool and prestigious it is. Certain other technical objectives as the goal for the race could have greater rewards than Space.
Shouldn't it really be blah blah rather than div? I mean is sarcasm really a block level element? I would think it is inline, just as bold is not block level...
Off topic, I know, but I couldn't resist.
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the difference means squat to the guy with an empty stomach.
I have experience living below the poverty line in the U.S., as a child, and as a young student on my own. I have read a fair amount of history and can tell you that poverty in the U.S. is a very different thing than poverty in 18th century France or modern India. We are (as all nations are) a nation driven by greed and self-interest, and have realized that letting our people starve to death is against our self-interest.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
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... in the last few weeks the US has anounced that it will be militarizing space "officially" and it won't be allowing other nations to take the high ground. There will be wars over it, cooperation is over for now. They will play act at it, that's about it.
And it goes back to planetary population and natural resources, namely oil and freshwater. Anyone may run the numbers for themselves, projected growth rates, current planetary useage,proven reserves, yada yada, then make some assumptions. There's enough oil for around 1.5 billion people tops to be middle class the way it is now, for around 20 more years. There isn't enough for 4 to 8 billion people.
Everyone wants to be at least middle class now, ie, have a car, heating and cooling, electric outlets that work in the wall, running water, etc.
This is the century of the great culling and the resource wars. We are in the good old days right now. I give humans way under 50% odds of making it to the next century. All the WMD jennis are out of the bottle, and by some accounts directed energy weapons are here at least in good prototype stages, and weather warfare is on the horizon. All of those techniques will be used,so my best guess is primarily the combo of nukes and biologicals will wipe out humans.
The Economist has recently published a series of articles about India vs China, not just in realtion to their space race, but on how they are similar and compete in other manners Link is to the opening article, futher links from there.
Well, as thoolie says, "not to flame", but I find it amazing that articles like this bring out the ignorant, backwater, white-trash tendencies of slashdot. If Indians are so ignorant and stupid and filled with social problems at home, then why are they taking all of YOUR computer programming, software dev, and IT jobs, eh whiteboy?
A load of crap, supported by some very low quality gif's. Let's start with A. Their shadows would be the same length if they were on a flat surface, but they are not. Armstrong's shadow is falling on a rising hill (obvious because it is illuminated better by the low angle sun). B, the moon's surface is the other source of illumination. C, any competent photographer would recognize this as a simple depth-of-field issue (they'd have to use a pinhole camera to get everything perfectly sharp). D, I need to look at a better version of the photo, but it could be the flag, the seismic instrument package,or something similar. E, it's not Earth and there is no atmosphere. 3,6,J, exposing for stars would overexpose the lunar surface. K, it looks to me like that's not the side of the lander, its the interior of the craft where they stored the lunar rover. The flag shows up because it is made of more reflective material. L, he couldn't just lean back to get the shot of the head? M, ha! Go outside near sunset and look for yourself. N, even the conspiracy theorist realized his argument was lame. 7, they almost photographed the sun R, I like the other poster's theory about a hair on the negative. S, a child driving a Tonka truck in a sandbox could leave nice tracks. P, that part of the rover is overexposed and so the crosshair was bled into.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
So is India
h ap 515.pdf
http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2001-02/chapt2002/c
But your momma could not suck any H1Bs off for the low rates she does in order to feed your stupid mouth.
Somehow seeing this article right above the DNS story I immediately thought about IPv4 & IPv6
I was just about to blabber on about the Great Firewall of China, and this and that. Anyways, go india! China = bad
Error 407 - No creative sig found
Thinking on it, ya, a few tons of old grade b steel ball bearings all spread out in the good orbit areas would certainly balls things up pretty quickly.
And thanks for not flaming me because of my post, I was serious and follow these sorts of things as way more of a hobby than IT minutiae, And because of that I write what I do, that's my best and simplest and shortest analysis of the entire subject. So here's an url for you on this subject of china and india and the us in space, fairly fresh:
http://www.sundayherald.com/34768
the first few paragraphs on this:
As part of a plan to ensure its total military supremacy, the US is preparing to complete the domination of space -- by any means necessary. Neil Mackay explains the terrifying new face of global warfare
IT SOUNDS like the stuff of the darkest sci-fi fantasies, but it's not. The Air Force Space Command Strategic Master Plan is a clear statement of the US's intention to dominate the world by turning space into the crucial battlefield of the 21st century.
The document details how the US Air Force Space Command is developing exotic new weapons, nuclear warheads and spacecraft to allow the US to hit any target on earth within seconds. It also unashamedly states that the US will not allow any other power to get a foothold in space. ---their words, not mine, but I believe them
The article is good and google will find you a lot more.
I suppose the intro to this only mentioned that he was "London Based" but I just thought I'd point out that Gwynne Dyer is Canadian. He's created many informative documentaries on war and politics via the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada. He's a very intelligent and well spoken man. Here is his biography.
Actually, India (I don't know about China) has not made any new scientific discoveries in the recent history. All their high tech gadgets are heavily dependent on imported off-the-shelf components for which the technology doesn't exist in the country. I don't see 'new scientific discoveries' coming from India any soon.
On the contrary, it would be a lot cheaper to send the CIA and NSA into overdrive to infiltrate and sabotage the lousy security of Indian technolgoy firms. [It is said that every blueprint arrives at the Pentagon before it reaches the top managers of Indian military firms.]
Essentially, Indians suck when it comes to winning.
Indians would be more than happy to sell their mother (country) and fatten their personal pockets than be patriot. e.g. see RSS.
I don't think we are anywhere near ready for such a form of cooperation. It's obvious that if humanity worked together efficiently we might be able to accomplish some awesome goals but aren't we as a race too immature to handle such a thing?
Just look at the UN... way too many conflicts of interest. I dont' think that such a group of countries/rivals will ever work together in such a way for a long time. But then and again rivalry can also be very good. What do you guys think?
Hmmm... Pie...
I think these are relevant to the topic:
Sweatshops of China
Manufacturing Industries in India
A bit off topic, but I think it depends on your interpretation of different words. Some people think that Mankind is not PC, so they use Humankind. Would that make Mankind a reference to Men? Hmmmm....
On topic:
India and China should really go for it.
The main difference between France then and the US now is that France had a MUCH larger percentage of their population starving while the US just has people who occasionalyl "go hungry" and their numbers are far far less.
Simply not enough people to cause a revolution.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Shame nobody ever told China that they needed a space program to build ICBMs.
This allows the two emerging superpowers of Asia to compete in ways other than an arms race or international satellite countries. I'd like to see this culminate in a Mars race between the US, China, India, Europe, Japan, and perhaps Russia (or at least as part of another team). Competition between space programs drove them to the cutting edge so much faster than would have been possible otherwise, or as Buzz Aldrin said "it was like transplanting a decade from the 21st century into the 20th". Technology will benefit, new technologies will develop, and we just might gain the knowledge needed to get off our little cradle in case of emergency. Lord knows that if someone other than the US gets beyond the moon first we will probably get stirred into action, especially if someone like Bush is in office. With the shuttle program out of whack, we could use a good kick in the pants for our own program anyway.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Everyone knows that Eva's only exist to help us rid evil angels trying to make contact with Adam.
Hmmm... Pie...
As far as the neocons are concerned, China is still the main game. Why do you *really* think the US is building its missile defence system? "Rogue states" my arse. It's all about being able to defend Taiwan without having to worry (quite so much) about nuclear blackmail from the Chinese if you do so.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Years ago, I saw a promo for the sequel of "History of the world", which had a bit called "Jews in space" (was it ever released??). Now we can have "Hindu's in space".
Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition....
You must be out of your job by now..... ever thought that you deserved it?... you are right.. u did. Silly cksuker!
hot spicy peppery curry is good for you, 'nuff said.
China are not a capitalist nation, so the poor literacy should not be affected by their respective financial classes. This means that they are not split into those who can afford good education, and those that get little, which would suggest its just a very poor schooling sysem.
Actually, not quite. China is basically a captitalist, free market system for the most part. There are wide gaps in wealth and such. The urban areas in China, for example, are much better off than the backward rural areas, which have been left behind for the most part as China has become wealthy and industrialized. The schooling in the rural areas is poor, as well.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Does anyone have any preference about which billion-plus nation gets their first? I tend to favor India, if for no better reason than their human rights record... Hmm.
Many Indians have O-1 (outstanding scientist) visas.
What about them?
Then I stand corrected, I suppose its pretty typical of "communist" nations to turn out the opposite that people intended, always seems that way, at least.
They go to and back the moon- one earth distance. India nations do same trick, they only go to moon and stay there, NO return to earth...
I suggest you read Slashdot
What the Chinese know that we dont.
The moon is an excellent source of Helium-3, which when reacted with Hydrogen-1 provides much cleaner, and more importantly, lower activation energy fusion than H3-H2 or H2-H2 fusion.
Actually, D+T is still far easier. He3+_D_ is about on par with D+D, and more importantly produces an energetic _proton_ as the decay product. He3 will not fuse with p, as that would give you something like Li4 (no dice).
D+T is easy but produces a boatload of neutrons, which carry away most of the reaction energy. As these aren't confined by the reactor's magnetic field, you're stuck letting the shielding material heat up and drawing power off of it with a heat engine. The reactor vessel itself rapidly degrades due to intense neutron radiation.
You also need to produce a steady supply of T, but you can breed that from a lithium blanket, or just surround the reactor vessel with heavy water and let it breed from D.
D+D fusion is a bit cleaner than D+T, but much harder to achieve. It produces He3+n half the time and T+p the other half. The T will react very quickly to produce He4+n, which carries away most of the energy in the neutron. If you don't have a long confinement time, you're stuck with this. If you do have a long confinement time, the He3 will burn with D to produce He4+p, which carries away a lot of the energy in the p, which stays confined, heats the plasma, and is otherwise nice.
Summary for D+D: Only decent if you can keep it confined for a while, still releases half its energy as neutrons, much harder than D+T.
He3+D is slightly easier than D+D, but still in the same ballpark (much harder than D+T). Most importantly, He3+D gives He4+p, so almost all of your energy ends up in charged particles. The problem is that you get D+D happening as long as there's D in the plasma, so you have to run a reactor with much more He3 than D, and still get neutrons coming out - just much less than with D+D. This means your reactor vessel lasts at least 10 times longer, your plasma heats itself, and you can use higher-efficiency methods of tapping power if you want to.
The problem is that He3 is rare, and trying to breed it via D+D just gives you a D+D reactor, with its neutron problem.
If there's a lot of He3 on the moon and it's relatively easily harvested, it may be a viable source of fuel. I have my doubts about this being practical (I think we'd be better off filtering it out of natural helium, though that's not a picnic either, as it's much rarer than deuterium).
I go for a 14, a 7, a 9 and lychees .
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
"If Indians are so ignorant and stupid and filled with social problems at home, then why are they taking all of YOUR computer programming, software dev, and IT jobs, eh whiteboy?"
1) Just to start off and be clear about something: You are a moron.
2) Nobody said anything about "ignorant" "stupid". They were talking about literacy
3) Apparently you don't know what literacty is
4) Most important, the reason some short-sighted companies move programming to india is because indians will program for less money than the check-out women at the local Giant super market. I don't mean that as hyperbole, either.
5) India's educational system is not on a par with western schools. A master's degree in India is equal to an associate degree in the US
6) But the indians are nice people.
7) That doesn't mean they're great thinkers.
8) The west has its share of idiots.
9) You're taking up more than your fair share.
10) Yea? Well, you're fucking welcome, too.
1. America will make some grumbling noises about the money not going to the poor people - all the while ignoring the fat pigs in corporations and government giving middle and low incoming families the shaft.
2. China and/or India will experience some loss of life in their space program - comparable to the loss of life of the US program. America will grumble more about the inhumanity of those programs while further cutting NASA's budget and earmarking billions for useless defense contracts and malfunctioning social programs.
3. Asia/Russia will successfully put new humans on the moon and secure the first successful commercial space ventures. America will grumble about how space is a global resource and should not be in the hands of any single country or group of countries. Talks of economic sanctions will reverberate around washington.
4. Asia puts people on Mars and builds a gigantic space telescope. America starts blasting Asia over human rights human rights atrocities. Also begins to accuse Asia over having WMD's - space program rockets become evidence of evil doing. NASA crumbles and America's space program disintegrates into a handful of space tourism companies that never deliver anything except a nice upper atmosphere trip for millionaires.
5. Asia builds a moon base. America declares war on Asia, citing that there are poor Asians starving while their governments are squandering the money on useless space programs. Meanwhile, millions more americans will be on welfare and also starving to death.
"all before it was OK for blacks to sit in the same row seats as whites in a bus."
The US sent men to the moon in 69, long after segregation was illegal everywhere in the US.
Besides, the european descendents were and continue to be the people leading the way in the sciences, so segregation was not the handicap it is in India.
Their superiority complex towards other Asians would only sky-rocket.
Most of our (US) Big Honkin' Computers (BHCs) are being used for nuclear weapon simulation.
The Japanese BHCs are used to simulate Typhoons and Tidal Waves. More joules involved than our puny nukes, wouldn't you say?
A coincidence? You be the judge.
OK, this is supposed to be humorous. I hope.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
And I am an Indian! :) :)
Good to know that we are humans first (sense of humour)!
And you will have enough gas to get home
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Remember, we're all the same species! :-)
Man shares 98% of his DNA with the chimp Man shares 97% of his DNA with Woman. are we the same species?
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I am Indian and I dont think the Indian government's really serious about this mission. Its primarily PR. The Indian Prime Minister is visiting China right now and I think its juss the usual diplomatic games being played. India does have a good space programme.The Indian Space Research Organization (http://www.isro.org) definitely has performed beautifully considering that their budget is a fraction of NASA or the ESA. But the government I'm sure knows its going to be a pointless mission, with the only positive thing coming out of it being "supposed" inflation of India's reputation in international eyes. But I also think the Indian govt. knows exactly what many slashdotters are saying right now, "Welcome to the 60s India" and therefore has doubts of funding such a mission. P.S: India first tested its nuclear bomb in 1974, not in 1998 as the Wired article http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html ?pg=4 suggests.
And Windows 95 was released before it was legal for black and white people to get married in South Carolina. "Land of the free" indeed... (I only just found that out, since it was mentioned in a documentary about Dubya, and I was shocked).
How much more can we learn about the moon? Well, how many scientists did the US land on the moon? One, Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot Harrison "Jack" Schmitt.
Well, unless you count the small amount of Eugene Shoemaker's remains that were on NASA's Lunar Prospector.
It certainly won't be American.
Outside of Beijing anyway. Have you seen the standard of living? The Soviet Union was in a even better state when they got into the space race. The United States was in far better shape. But considering China is having problems controlling disease in their own country, India has it's own bevy of problems (which I'm not even going to address)... It's bad enough they are spending money that could be spent other places building nuclear arms (well, Clinton helped out with his donation of the ICBM plans to China, so I guess that's more cost effective now).
They're trying to prove a point of technological prowess, probably largely from the defense anglge, just as the Soviet Union did. I don't want to tell people how to run their countries (well, perhaps I do) but I simply don't see this as the best idea. Leave it to the US, EU and new former Soviet Union.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
According to Zubrin, the Delta-V needed to get to Mars is less then getting to the moon. China should go to Mars, skip the moon, nothing to see there, move on...
--ee
Antiquated competence won't be a job skill forever.
science is a religion
By a real war I mean one in which the two opposing sides are much more equal in size and capability. Iraq doesn't qualify. and I completely disagree with you on conventionals, china is catching up and fast, in fact their new tanks are considered top shelf, top of the line, rough parity almost with abrahms, unlike saddams t-55s.
And I'm glad YOU aren't in charge of the military, if you were in charge of fighting china conventionally you would be over arrogant and lose a lot of guys. I have personal friends who fought the chinese when all they had was boots and rifgles and they said it was damn dicey for awhile, and that was 50 years ago, times change, they gots that technology idea down and they pump out engineers and techs and scientists, not rap stars and football players. The US hasn't had to face ANY top shelf technology from any quarter for a long time, the last time was world war two. Serbia came the closest and even there we didn't go in on the ground, and it's a tiny nation. the past buncha wars we've used best of class against stuff two generations old or older, and in unequal numbers, and with "the homeland" not being a theatre. Any modern war with a large nation or coalition of other large nations, chances are that won't be the case, and that means it won't be a cakewalk.
And yes, this is getting into thread drift, I was merely reporting the DODs own statements and plans, I read their reports to the senate every year after they are redacted and declassified, they do not take china as some sort of pipsqueak pushover any longer, although they used to think that, but that was many moons ago.
And to get back to china in practical terms, do you really think all those hundreds of thousands of uninspected containers that have been shipped in over the last 15 years only had legally declared trade goods? You don't think they've managed to import a little *equalization in advance* and have it stashed away for "just in case" times? Or that they don't have combat engineers and special forces over here inside the "civvie" population, sleepers? How about the cubans, think they've been just hanging out for 40 years, having nothing inside CONUS? Or the north koreans? Or still the russians for that matter.
Nope, we've had an overly easy time of it so far, with no guarantee it will always be that way. That's my opinion anyway. I think the most rational point of view is to neither over nor underestimate any potential opponent, and if you err, to err on the side of caution and to over estimate their abilities and resources. That's why even in smaller wars like iraq they put so many resources into it, they probably could have won with 1/3 what they used, but really, there's no logic to that, why take the chance. China is turning into the worlds manufacturing giant, and with tech advances, they are getting bigger/faster/more efficient, I wouldn't underestimate them or their abilities, especially projected one decade time frame from today. Military hardware must be built, they get a better ROI with their economy, else no one would manufacture there. They stay organized and focused. Look at africa, with the exception of SA, not much of squat comes from there despite millions of people who would qualify as cheap labor, same as china, but china actually accomplishes things. And they've also proven they can get their hands on any tech out there, by hook or crook, saves them a ton in R&D and lets them skip entire years of time involved with it. It's a bad combo to see in a potential adversary, and especially with one who's energy needs will be greater than ours shortly, it's not like they might sorta want energy, they will NEED energy, else collapse, and all their pronouncements and efforts reflect that.
English: twenty-six alphabetical characters combined to create words
Chinese: Three hundred and twenty-seven characters with variable meanings combined to create sentences.
I think if students in the US had to learn a 300+ character alphabet, their literacy rate would probably drop too.
And let's not even go into the fact that there are different languages and dialects in China, and that the southern parts of China use the traditional characters, not simplified. That's another 300+ characters to learn.
We need another space race to re-ignite technological advancement?
/hopeful optimism
I think we need another arms race...on the moon!
See, in order to destroy ourselves effectively, we cannot rule out other worlds. I can't wait till we take these stakes a la luna.
/bitter realism
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
There's some treaty we're ignoring that prohibits developing new nukes with a yield of less than 5 megatonnes or something like that. But we're developing low yeild bunker buster nukes that go against this treaty and our own prior policy of nukes as a deterrant and not as first strike or general weapons.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
USSR is gone, Russia languishing.
The enormous US deficit, mostly in the murderous "defence" budget, sooner or later will caught with the US as it did with Russia.
It is not inconcevable that the US mismanages its economy and politicial system to a degree that the situation is so volatile that it disintegrates in many statelets that would not have the same power. Many people already feel too uncomfortable with the religious zealots of the bible belt, thes people can't stomach the free thinkers and liberals in the north-east and south west, the south of the US is becoming distinctively latin. There are many tensions theres that could make the US unvaibale as we currently know it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It's also harder to start a revolution when the people you'd be revolting against have highly specialized training, tanks, advanced small arms, high tech gear, planes, bombs, etc, and no lack of willingness to use them.