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."
"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.
That's a typo. 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.
He3 is on the moon is great quantity because the surface of the moon soaks up all the particles in the solar wind, which includes a good bit of He3.
That might be true for india but would not quite apply to China.
First, China is already considered a "power".
And, they *ALREADY* have rockets that can deliver nuclear weapons with pinpoint accuracy to any spot in the world.
It pretty much leaves the advancement of science as the biggest reason of their space program.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I found a link about this: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_0006 30.html
Yeah... Just like the Chinese rocket disaster caused them to halt their space program.
e s/ 1996/032396b.htm
http://www.floridatoday.com/space/explore/stori
(The year is 1996)
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli television aired a videotape Saturday that for the first time shows the devastation caused when a Chinese rocket crashed into a village after a failed satellite launch.
An Israeli engineer shot the footage during a business trip to China, Channel Two television said.
The rocket veered off course two seconds after take-off on Feb. 15 at the Xichang space center in remote southwestern Sichuan province, and landed nose-first nearby.
The launch was being aired live, but Chinese authorities cut video transmission just after the rocket started to plummet. Two weeks later, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that six people had been killed and 57 injured.
But the engineer, who asked not to be identified because he continues to do business in China, said the casualty toll appeared to be much higher.
The footage aired by Channel Two shows the remains of long white buildings inside the village and a nearby military base, some of them reduced to rubble, others left partially standing with bare window and doorway frames and broken facades.
Furniture, clothing and other belongings -- including a white teddy bear in pink overalls -- are strewn haphazardly amidst the blocks of concrete.
"The impact simply erased the (military) base, erased the village. Something unbelievable," the engineer said in a telephone interview with a local Israeli radio station the day after the accident.
"The impact could be heard at a distance as far as 60 miles from the site of the explosion," he said.
On the tape, shot a day after the crash and later smuggled out of the country, according to Channel Two, the amateur cameraman describes the scene in the unidentified village.
"Here is the hotel, the second floor," he says as the camera focuses on fallen beams and broken walls.
Then, panning over a large pile of stone and rubble, he adds: "A gift shop, flower shop, post office, where I used to buy all my postcards, souvenirs."
He also filmed Chinese soldiers posted along every building, guarding against entry, he said.
Xinhua reported on March 2 that the explosion was caused by a defective guidance system. The agency said 80 homes were damaged.
The Long March 3B rocket was carrying a communications satellite for Washington-based Intelsat, an international satellite conglomerate.
The rocket was being launched for the first time after three years of testing, and was the second Chinese rocket to explode in a year.