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Two Views On a China-US Space Race
An anonmous submitter writes "While there has been recent discussion about China and India engaging in a space race, most people are still focused on a potential race between China and the US in near future. The Space Review recently published a pair of essays on this topic: the first argues that China-US space race is both unlikely and undesirable, given the aftermath of the US-USSR space race thirty years ago. A followup article suggests that a China-US space race is vital, so long as it takes a more commercial, long-term approach than the US-USSR one. Food for thought..."
Anything to helps to get the human race off of this death trap of a planet is a Good Thing(tm). In the long run I don't really care if they're Chinese, Indian, American, or even French. If everything goes tits up here on Earth (and when you talk about long-term that becomes a statistical certainty) we damn well better not have all our eggs in this supremely fragile basket. Just MHO.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Competition spawns innovation, right? Maybe the Chinese can spur NASA on in a way similar to the Russians, you know, light a fire under their butts...
You need a license to have a dog, but any fool can have a child!
I don't want to be rude, but why does the US insist on racing everyone for everything?
Don't they have other things to worry about?
Either the submitter login *is* "An anonmous submitter", or michael is flawed. Click the link to find out.
The article talks about China using the spinoff tech of their space program to improve their ICBMs. Well, sure, of course...but what nobody's considering is the military effect of a permanent moonbase. With a mass driver. Read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Healthy competition is good.
It is only unfourtunate if China and the US try to do exactly the same thing, and don't share their experiences.
If they set different, ambitious goals it can extremely fruitful for mankind. And there seems to be no shortage of interesting projects.
Tor
A followup article suggests that a China-US space race is vital, [ed. note: no it isn't] , so long as it takes a more commercial, long-term approach than the US-USSR one.
> nothing to see or do really. move on to other things,
> and stop romanticising the big void.
Obviously you've never met Eccentrica Galumbits, the triple breasted whore of Eroticon Six.
I think it would be important for china to establish a space colony. After all, they have what, 1.2 billion people? Send some of those people to a new colony.
----
Squirrel
There is no real race... Just like back in the 50's and 60's it wasn't a race when the soviets were the first to put a satellite and man in orbit. It wasn't until we put a man on the moon that they said "we won the space race".
Contrary to popular beliefs, the space race was about developing the technology of ICBM's. The astronaut on the moon saluting the flag was just the dance in the inzone after we race was over.
The recently released Kennedy tapes prove this incontrivertably.
So with that said, there can be no race with the U.S. That race is over.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
...that the space elevator was the new way to go? Except for the massive production of the required carbon tethers it all seems feasible and why not give it a try? If it works out the race will be won.
The articles seem to have opposing points of view, but let me add a perspective that says they're both the same. I needlessly mention that we live in a highly interdependent world, yet still, we maintain a tribal mentality--it's always us versus them, in this case the US versus China. Both essays, regardless of their conclusions pits the US against China, but why need that be the case?
The United States purpose in the world is not to remain the sole superpower and go around and do whatever it wants. Today, our position in the world as the sole superpower is indeed unique. Instead of going around trying to squash the competition, why don't we try to improve the plight of other countries, and if other countries become both powerful and good, we should welcome them to the club with open arms.
Practically, with China, this means not letting greedy coorporations dictate foreign policy, and even more important, considering China a strategic _partner_ for the future, and not this bullshit strategic _competitor_. In an interdependent world, there are no enemies, only parts of yourself that you can improve.
U.S has placed robots on Mars, Venus and landed a satellite on Eros the asteroid but China has yet to place a man in space. This is hardly a race, yet.
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
China is about to do what the US/Russia did in the 1960's. Even then there are pretty much using a copied Russian design. They aren't developing any new technology. How is that impressive? I'll be much more impressed if someone manages to get a commerical fight into space by years end. They don't have the budget of a government like China's so they've had to do some real inovation. China hasn't had an original idea since gunpowder.
Neither one of those articles mentions the race among Jupiter's moons between the Chinese spacecraft Tsien and the U.S.-Russian spacecraft Leonov, and how the Tsien crash-lands on Europa and gets devoured by a huge green bloatbeast from the alien waters, and how the Leonov meets up with an old American spacecraft and oh god I need to get outside. Open the front door, Hal.
The coolest voice ever.
2. This fall, barring any last minute hitch, China will launch its Shenzhou spacecraft with people inside...
1. This flight will make China only the third nation, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, to send humans into space. ...thus joining the very exclusive club of nations that have sent humans into space.
2.
They're regurgitating the same information, just with a different slant.
Read one article, change the title and consider yourself as having read the other.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Nuts like Rumsfeld would rather have nasa working on ways to shoot each others' spacecraft down. I'd worry that given the current administration, a space race wouldn't have exploration as a goal (or even a wanted side-effect).
I will try to say this without being a flamebait. It is fine for USA to have space technologies with many military applications, or to have the ability to hit targets around the world accurately. But if another country does this, it threatens world peace.
Why ? Is it because we are the only country with "God" on our side ? :-)
I suppose worrying about maintaining at least the image of international dominance is a legitimate concern for the country lucky (or cursed) enough to hold such a status.
The coolest voice ever.
The sooner you all get off my planet the better. Its like when you throw a party and 50,000 years later people are still passed out in your living room. -God
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
go fuck yourself right in the dickhole you gay loser
Not to be trollish but... at the moment it is pretty much china who are trying to do anything itneresting.
Besides all the infomation gathering probes which make beareded scientists very happy the only major space aim that NASA has is a vague ambition to maybe, possibly, put a man on mars within a couple of decades.
China are actually aiming to create not just a permanent presence in space or even a space industry but more a soceitry in space.
The Chinese are exploiting off-the-shelf software to figure out how to develop an ideal lunar colony. The US must stop the commercialization of valuable scientific knowledge so it doesn't fall into the hands of rogue nations or terrorist groups.
Laws are for people with no friends.
It's far more likely to step on Taiwan first.
Incontrivertably? I'd never heard of that word until I came to Slashdot.
Public ignorance is no reason to stay away from space. Knowledge is there for those who seek it and realistic programs can be made. What are we going to gain from sitting on our hands, drawing up slow and cautious nothings like he accuses NASA of? Blah!
Oh yeah, knocking NASA for all our space woes is pathetic. It's not NASA's fault hydrogen peroxide and even model rocket engines are hard to get your hands on. There are plenty of other large slow, careful offices making sure we sit on our hands so no one gets hurt.
A space race is a good thing. VonBraun got to live half of his dreams because we were afraid of the USSR. He and many others showed us a cheap way to the stars on top of mild steel rockets. It's not his or NASA's fault we terminated those programs and now have to rely on USSR boosters for heavy lifting. Did NASA kill Nerva? I don't think so. The blame lies squarely on those who want to take things slow and careful.
China has a hard time keeping it's submarine fleet from sinking, but that won't keep them from putting rockets up. They don't care as much as we might over a few heroic, and needless, deaths. Fine, bring it on.
Why do we need to go to space? Because the Earth is limited. People need the resources space , which is limitless, has to offer. We can go get those resources or we can sit on our hands and fight over petty differences, like who owns Jeruselem suburbs, and wait for the next large scale extintion event to settle everything for us.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The nation benefiting most from the technologies that comes from successful space projects (of course I don't mean the Shuttle, that would have been a success if closed out 10 years ago) will be the nation that makes the projects.
If America wants to buy its new high tech from China and India and exit the superpower business shortly afterwards, they should ignore the space programs both countries are planning.
It's about time we got a new technology driver other than the consumer sector, the idea that space is back in that role could be a very good thing.
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Another point which shows a lack of understanding (or intentional obfuscation) of the US space program is this,
Ummm, NASA only developes manned launch vehicles, specifically the space shuttle. All the unmanned launch vehicles (Titan, Atlas, Delta, Pegasus) are developed and maintained by private companies which compete for launches. With the EELV program, the government (mostly the Air Force) has taken a much more hands-off approach in the development of these launch vehicles (Delta IV and Atlas V). Further, shuttle is mostly maintained by private companies; for the Orbital Space Plane in development, the intention is to build the manned section of the vehicle to sit atop one of these Heavy Lift Vehicles.Finally, the government is still heavily involved with these unmanned vehicles, but it is the DOD, not NASA, that funds their development. NASA's budget is about $15 billion, have of which is for their manned and unmanned programs (the rest is for aviation stuff & general research). The DOD space budget is also $15 billion, $0 of which supports ISS or the shuttle. The DOD has funded the developments of just about every launch vehicle for the last 30 years, with the obvious exception of shuttle.
And the shuttle is a remarkable piece of technology, the likes of which we may not see again for 20+ years. A heavy-lift, man rated vehicle which launches as a rocket and lands like a plane. It's had some obvious problems, but NASA took a big bite (given the constraints imposed from the outside by non-engineers and DOD officials) and came up with a great system. Sadly, NASA has not had the chance to apply a lessons-learned to build a Shuttle II. Maintenance is too expensive, and our materials are much better now than 30 years ago,so Shuttle II would be 2-3X less expensive than Shuttle I. Reduce it's lift capability in half, and it'd be much more capable of fulfilling its core requirements.
injecting some market force into the space race sounds great, but the fact is, the field is wide open to anyone to develop a launch vehicle w/o government help. Many have tried and failed. A big reason the government has funded the development of every lauch vehicle in the US is simple-- it's not cost-effective to develope one without government help. When Teledisic wanted to luanch 243 satellites into low-earth orbit, do you think anything prevented them from going outside NASA? When Iridium and Globalstar launched their constellations, do you think NASA was involved in any way other than ensuring the safety of those on the ground?
There's so much more to space in this country than 99% of the population realizes. It is largely private, and guess what-- we've had more success with the pure NASA and DOD programs.
Back to the point. China obviously seeks to improve their use of space for commercial and military purposes. They see the US as dominant in space, and I'm sure they would like to have better communication and geo-location capabilities. Going to the moon seems to be more about prestige, and thinking 100 years ahead, not 10 years. Eventually, we will have outposts on Mars and the Moon, maybe even colonies.
As the Europens sailed off into the unkown 500 years ago, so to do the Chinese fly off into the unknown today. The fruits they bear will not be realized for decades, but the eventual impact is undeniable. I say good for China for pushing into a new frontier, and I hope the US also decides to push ahead into the unkown, despite its dangers.
We could've been on Mars right now, but the US Gummint in its infinite wisdom decided it'd be easier not to try, like a bunch of little girls hiding behind Mama's skirt.
God, don't get me started on how we just fscking *blew* the opportunities we've had. Maybe if China starts a space race it'll provide the kick in the pants we need to *do something*, like 9/11 was a wake-up call to do something about Muslim extremists.
Going to the Moon was a grand vision and a goal that inspired everyone. Going to Mars would be too. I'm old enough (41) to remember the way space exploration used to fire peoples' imaginations. What fires them now? Your guess is as good as mine. "Survivor" and "American Idol" maybe, or 50-Cent & Eminem.
And so we're stuck in low earth orbit running a goddamn space hotel, hitching rides back and forth in the Soyuz. Talk about Spam in a can... Meanwhile, PK Express can't get funding (never mind the launch window won't open again for a couple of centuries), the Shuttle itself is essentially composed of 1970s technology, the SSTO projects have all been cancelled, and the new 'environmentally sensitive' insulating foam for the tanks is what caused the Columbia tragedy.
Weep for the future Na'Toth. Weep for us all.
which is, to quoute Dr. Strangelove:
"In order to build such a device, you must first have the will to do so."
They do.
The leaders of a very shame/reputation-conscious society have committed to some very bold statements about technology and progress. Good for them!
For all our wealth and WMD's, it's more than the US has been willing to ventur in decades.
Kremvax
--- Little Atomo - The Amazing Thinking Robot from Atomocom! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIP9KisHi4k
It's a priori pretty unlikely that there could even be a second space race between the US and China. You only engage in a space race if you have something to prove; since the United States beat the Soviet Union to the Moon and won the Cold War, the only country with something to prove is China, and as it stands they're way behind in the game. One could perhaps start talking about a renewed space race after a large amount of concerted effort by China -- say, China sets up a space station, goes to the Moon, and has plans for a manned mission to Mars -- bu that could only happen after a decade or more of successes by the Chinese.
Shouldn't the Chinese attend to their starving masses before they worry about space?
Last time I checked, we landed on the moon in the 60's. They're only 40 years behind in the race.
Now if I hear word about going to Mars, then there's a race. Otherwise, hogwash!
Automobiles, aircraft, trains, and even horses were excessively expensive at some point. The only way to drive down a lot of costs is to let demand create competition. If everyone starts launching themselves into space, people will find a way to make the Yugos and Rolls Royces of space travel. Right now there really isn't that sort of competition except as relics of the US/USSR space race.
And who cares about the pollution if we're leaving? The long term benefits of getting even 1% of the population of the planet heading someplace else besides HERE are bound to offset any short term pollution effects. That's what, 50 million less people a year throwing their trash around? Long term storage options of waste once space travel becomes commonplace could involve anything from shooting it into the sun or just burying it on the moon (sure it's pretty, but I bet Manhattan was too at one time). Placing eligible production in orbit or on the moon could reduce all the nasty pollution down here on the ground.
Face it, spacecraft might produce pollution but PEOPLE make a lot more when they're stuck here. Worse, they have this nasty habit of making more humans. If you want to make the planet green again, send the humans to another planet.
This may be the REAL space race (just one landing on the moon, woo!), but it will not be won by anyone until the spaceworkers complain about too may Starbucks opening on each station.
How can you have a race when one hasn't even started yet?
Sad, though.
I say let China start throwing people into space and I hope they make it to the moon. NASA can sit on their hands and keep sending up probes.
Once the Chinese start mining the moon the thing will look like an apple core in a hundred years.
"I'm not high, just stupid" --JY
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.
I thought the space race had green skin, extra long fingers, big black eyes, and antennas on their heads.
Now you're telling me they're chinese?
It would be an unfair contest. China doesn't have the capability to invade America. They were beaten by JAPAN in WWII! Japan pissed America off and we dropped an atomic bomb on them...twice. I guess we could reduce world population. ;)
Maybe that's true, and maybe it's not. I guess it depends on your level of paranoia.
It is certainly something that has been discussed quite a bit though. A fast Google search for: Space Weapons turned up two interesting sites:
A paper from Rand.
And a lot of papers from the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation found here.
We're a stable democracy and China isn't. As an American I wouldn't lose any sleep at night if all of Western Europe had the power to blow me off the earth. Because they're stable democracies, which means the masses of people generally run the show.
I DO worry about countries where the people that live in the country don't have a say in how it operates though, because you're more likely to end up with a rogue nut in power that stupid enough to pull the trigger and there's no one to stop him.
A china man, indian, and american are a super team for space race, all of them together. Why have 3 seperate moon races when we can do it together on just one trip?
I suggest you read Slashdot
"given the aftermath of the US-USSR space race thirty years ago" What exactly was the bad aftermath of that? That the two biggest superpowers put much of their effort into scientific exploration? IMHO it's better to worry about the other guy getting to the moon first than about whether your botoxed forehead is taut enough to deflect bullets...
a 'space race'? True, the arms race did happen during the cold war (of which the space race was just a part; the part responsible for creating ICBM's). :) ) will now go into a competitive race is kind of silly. They have no reason to, all they want is not to have to depend on the US and the EU for satelite capabilities. Which is a very sane idea, considering the strange things happening in the international community at the moment.
But to now say that China et al (not to mention Japan, which has some big money and even more creative dreaming (ie pretty CG
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Why do we need a space race? To get the US to put up or shut up. After Johnson, every Republican administration has cut every penny they can from civilian NASA - or don't y'all remember how Newt and his Grinches tried to kill the Station in '95? Billions for SDI, and nothing for civilian uses of space.
With a race, maybe we can clean up NASA's management - the current structure, according to folks on the inside at KSC, has more managers than techs...and some of those managers don't even have engineering degrees. And, yes, I *do* have the evidence to back this up.
mark
If on the other hand the "death trap" refers to interactions between people, then maybe it would make more sense as was done in Hitchhiker's Guide to send the trouble makers on ahead.
Or what happened in the 16th and 17th Centuries. All the crazy psychos from Europe wanted to escape because they were being 'persecuted' so they went and pushed the American frontiers. This is why European countries have had no major problems with each other from the 1600s onwards to now.
Your post reminded me of something that I have always wanted to say regarding the space programmes --one that involves Arthur C. Clarke's work.
According to '2001: A Space Odyssey', we should have moon-bases, space-lifts, major manned orbital stations by now.
But, also according to '2001: A Space Odyssey', the Soviet Union should still be in their former 'suer-power' position now.
One wrong assumption and the whole timeline goes out the window. LoL.
Thank you.
GrimReality
2003-06-28 22:03:38 UTC (2003-06-28 18:03:38 EDT)
*sigh* its this "us vs. them" mentality which depresses and scares me. i live in England, but do i want what's best for England? nope. do i want whats best for Britain, or Europe, or even "The West"? nope. i want whats best for HUMANITY... why is there so much competition about this sorta thing? to gain a military and economic advantage? why are people so damn selfish? why does anyone want their country to succeed at the expense of others? as far as i can see, any form of nationalism is just a tribalistic throwback from our evolution, and is more of a hindrance to progress now than anything else... why can't countries SHARE their tech? and everything else, for that matter? it would sure make it a lot easier for us to do stuff like establish permanent bases on the moon, because we wouldn't all have to research the same stuff... ahh well, call me a naive hippy dreamer if you like, but i think a completely nation-less utopia would a nice base to build scientific research on...
Hey. Face it. If either of them is better it will get the jobs.
It's a good opportunity to privatise the heavily funded NASA.
Welcome to the world of economy and the market model. A bit of competition should work well.
Now only hope nobody changes to the M$-model (build first, debug later) to save money.
Privacy is terrorism.
Why does it have to be a race? Why can't we start some joint programs to pool our resources and perhaps even win some political brownie points along the way?
Personally, I think competition with China is scary. We'll probably clash with them eventually like we did with the USSR if the world doesn't change some more.
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
With respect to the US government taking responsibility for its actions towards foriegn nationals, the Bush Administration isn't especially good at taking responsibility for its actions directed at its citizens.
However, there are some forms of stupidity a major nation can survive. Falling behind in technology isn't one of them.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Look buddy, I pay too much in taxes as it is, I'm not interested in your mars project. If you want it, great, but put your own money forward to do it. Get investors if you want, but don't ask for my money. Don't try to claim space spin off will benifit me, most of the technology we need to get to Mars is there already, and it is questionable if there will even be new things developed that will affect my life.
Remember, the two vote blocks that matter are the elderyly cause they all vote, and they are the worst me generation out there, they know they don't have long to live, so they are only concerned about getting everyone else to pay for their drugs, and retirment. (cause they sent their socal security money to the moon, and didn't make alternate savings plans) The boomers (many of whom couldn't vote when their parents sent their socal security to the moon) are looking to retierment, and many of the are smart enough to figgure out that they have to do it on their own or it won't happen. They expect to live long enough to see some benifit from a space race, and enjoy any wins, but they don't see it as worth it.
And my generation is young enough to dream, but we are not only out numbered, but we are expected to pay for the retirement of our parents and grand parents. there is only so much time to dream, I'd rather dream something achievable for me. Sure someone could go to mars, but I'll bet they don't pick me, I may never realize my dream of being a pro baseball player, but at least there are sand lot games in town that I can play on and have fun.
Okay, I'm a little cynical tonight. doesn't change the fact that there isn't much on mars, and it could wait.
Make friends with google.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Does anyone remember the waves of economic fear that ripped through American culture when faced with the Japanese Juggernaut of the 80's? If the fears of the day had come to pass we'd all be working for Shogun overlords, eating rice, and speaking a patois of several asian languages. Fortunately, the Japanese imported american work ethics and their economy went to pot.
China is a little different though. First of all, they have about 7 times the population that Japan did. Most of them have yet to join the world economy to any significant extent just yet. China has vast natural resources of its own instead of being forced to import everything. Finally, their government is not exactly friendly to the U.S..
Yes, it's time for a new wave of xenophobic fear! Time for diplomacy. Diplomacy being the fine art of saying "Nice doggy." until you can find a big enough stick.
although it's a bit offtopic.
There's no equivalence. We Americans should try to continue "winning" the space race against the Chinese.
Unfortunately, there are apologists for China. They are really slick. Please read "Us (US) versus Them". The apologists talk about a nation as though it is a person. They present China and the USA as two people. Then, the apologists try to evoke the use of social etiquette between two people. "We should welcome them to the [space technology] club with open arms." is equivalent to "Billy is getting better at baseball. Let's invite Billy to join our game."
Yet, China is not a person. It is a brutal dictatorship, and we should never be lulled into using person-to-person social etiquette to deal with a brutal dictatorship. We should do everything that we can to defeat China both in outer space and inner space.
Note that most of the apologists for China are culturally Chinese. Many of them proceed to becoming spies for China. Please read " Two Men Arrested for Planning to Smuggle High-Tech Encryption Devices to China". The majority of people who steal American military/space technology to give to Beijing are Chinese from Taiwan (source: Wall Street Journal). There is no parallel for this kind of bizarre behavior.
By contrast, when the Soviet Union was a brutal empires, Russian immigrants who fled to the USA were grateful to us Americans. The vast majority of the Russian immigrants wanted us Americans to defeat the Soviet Union. The Russians viewed the USA as the superior nation with values that should be spread to the rest of the world.
The ethnic Chinese view the USA as being equivalent to China. According to the ethnic Chinese, the USA and China should have the same military/space technology -- "just to be fair".
my PC rulez!
Japans economy is similar to ours, and we will always have similar problems. It's a phony, counterfeit not based on anything fiat money/fractional reserve (2% maybe in reserves) system that tries to borrow it's way to wealth with a huge amount of non productive "workers" occupying busywork "jobs" that actually contributre about nothing to the economy except acting as efficient skimmers.. It can't be done for any long period of time, it can only be run as a con game until it collapses. The banking/money/government bureaucracy system is just a huge check kiting scam, and that's it. You are seeing the slow speed collapse of those systems right now. Only one of the major bubbles has popped, and it was the smaller bubble, over valued stocks representing-almost nothing. Yet to fully pop but have been pinpricked and are leaking are the real estate bubbles, private and public pensions, insurance funding, banks hedging and derivatives, government busywork, and government promises to pay paper, based on all the other bubbles never popping, else government can not pay except by creating artificial book keeping entries and adding magical zeroes to their bottom line, which is in itself, worthless. Both the USA and Japan have those, by the cubic mile. Once all those pop, well, good luck. The temporary bonanza of getting to rape all of iraqs oil and breaking OPEC will slow it down, but still not eliminate all those bubbles popping.
Now china. China has *some* natural resources but needs import oil, same as any other industrial nation now. Their projected demands make what the US uses today look like a drop in the bucket, and these demands have to be met within ten years or so. They are also a severe command and control authoritarian dictatorship, which skews their notions of the world tremendoulsy, but doesn't slow down their actions, which will have to be aggressively expansionist, and soon. they are new at this but learning rapidly, one thing they have done is to export technician/soldiers all over the planet. These are dual use personnel, a sort of not well hidden secret. This is also why they are throwing everything they have to modernizing their military,and gaining some high ground in space, they KNOW that they will be forced to fight the US over ownership of the oil soon. The caspian turned out to be 3/4ths vaporware, it was grossly over valued and hyped, most of the exploratory wells indicate not near as much there as previously touted. Siberian fields still have massive problems to bring to market. That leaves the middle east and a few other places like venezuela and mexico to a much lesser extent.
There's going to be fighting over this stuff, and that won't help the economy either, but it will happen anyway.
In the 15th century both Europe and China developed deep sea fleets. The Chinese fleet was government run for the glory of the Emperor. The European fleet had scattered government financing, but was basically run by greedy mercantilists. The Emperor lost interest. The Chinese fleet was burned. The greedy Euroean merchants continued to expand their fleets leading to Europe's domination over the entire world.
Do we really need another "space race"?
Or is time to allow space development to proceed without the sponsorship of modern emperors?
If I remember correctly, I first read this argument in an essay by Poul Anderson. Unfortunately I couldn't find a reference to it.
My take is that the space race wasn't about the development of ICBMs because the ICBM programs had separate funding and organizations. The space race was about the Cold War demonstration of ICBM technology: multi-stage rockets, gyro guidance, computer controls.
In discussions of Hiroshima, it was argued that the US shouldn't have bombed civilians but should have bombed a remote island to which we invited the Japanese generals -- a "demonstration" of the Bomb would have forced surrender. Now one can argue whether a demonstration would have had the same effect as the actual bombing or perhaps the opposite effect in warning Japan to evacuate cities and fight on or whatever. But a demonstration was very much part of the tactics of the Cold War. Russian military representatives were invited to observe Crossroads Able (the Bikini Atol bomb test of a Hiroshima-yield bomb -- it didn't awe Stalin as much as would have hoped while it motivated Stalin to get his own Bomb. It also gave a certain French bathing suit style its name: Bikini -- the story I read in the old Saturday Evening Post was that in the 50's with people living under the threat of the Bomb and Soviet Union Cold War adversary, those bathing suits were popular at pool-side party where such daring wear was motivated by, "What the heck, the world is going to end anyway." Also, Crossroads Able is THE atom bomb shot you see in all those film clips of Bomb tests -- the way it sent a shock wave racing across the water looks really cool.)
I agree that the space race was the demonstration, not of the Bomb but of the Bomb delivery system. Once the US got to the Moon, there was not much more to demonstrate and hence the space program lost its impetus.
Competition is good. Look at all the technology that came out of competition between the free world and the communist block... You can't follow up to this post without using several hundred innovations that resulted from nationalistic competition.
Now if we could figure out how to compete without having wars and stuff...
-- $G
wasn't the space race years ago? Russia beat into space, but we kicked thier @$$ on the moon relay. Now we have another country with to many diyng people wanting to go to space? let me tell ya, China, theres not much up there for you!
Don't know if you intended this or not, but you are exactly correct. When space industrialization is taken for granted, when booking a flight to Mars can be done at your local travel agency, when I can walk down a space station corridor and get some xeroxes run up at Kinko's, and stop for coffee afterwards at Starbucks, when I can stop off and get a space suit at Best Buy or Circuit City either here or on the moon along with a few sticks of DRAM for the office PCs,then the space race will be won.
For all of humanity.
Especially for the first trillionaires, who will make their fortunes off space-based resources.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Do you have any idea what defect-free semiconductor crystals the size of basketballs would do for the price of semiconductors? How easy it would be to build Class 1 IC fabs?
How about alternatives to fossil fuel and nuclear plants? The conditions in space make it a great place to grow semiconductors for solar cells, and an easy place to assemble them into solar power satellites.
Earlier generations of space technology made possible the infrastructure that enables people like you to whine about spending on space via the Internet. You might consider reliable weather forecasting a little thing, but you obviously also aren't old enough to remember what it was like before weather satellites. Knowing the weather in advance in hurricane territory can mean the difference between life and death. Or of harvesting a crop before weather conditions disastrous for your crop happen.
People thought government funded exploration of the American West a waste of money. Until the railroads were built. Cheap transportation to orbit and beyod will cause people to see space as a place to make money and create useful goods and services for the people on Earth and the growing off-planet population.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Just an off-topic note, we didn't mess up in Somalia until we did two things:
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
Oh my, I guess we need a story about satire.
That some nation or corporation or group of nations and corporations will go to the moon and mars is not really in question.
Sooner or later, someone will go there.
Be it due to reasons of national pride or corporate greed, someone will go there. The dream of reaching out to the stars, exploring and living on strange worlds for fun and/or profit is huge in mankind.
From a rational, cost conscious point of view, there is no real reason for humans to go to space. If the exploration of space is purely for scientific and commercial reasons we could quite merrily abandon the thought of humans having much to do in space in the future. The Voyager/Viking/Cassini etc probes couldn't have done what they did if they'ld had humans on board. The satelites that make speech across the globe possible would not be there now if the launchers that put them there needed humans to unpack and jumpstart them in orbit. And even equating exploration and discovery of the new world in the 15th and 16th centuries is not really valid here, as mostly they were commercial ventures exploring routes to get to India, nationalistic competition with other empires at the time, and scientif exploration then required humans as robots of that time didn't have very fast CPU's.
But from a human emotional point of view, the wish to set foot on, personally explore and perhaps even live on other worlds is great and will eventually happen.
But it's going to take time.
And by the way, the latter of the two quotations finishes by blaming Chinese aspirations toward world leadership, via whatever means possible, and the suppression of individual rights by the ruling class. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
and return to posting when you understand things like 'marginal value' and 'efficiency'. I trust then I won't have to listen to your informed lectures on the 'pharmacudical' industry.
but I cannot do that
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
They're bloated, sloppy, and aimless. Some competition whould do them good. Albeit, much of NASA's woes are due to a Congress that cant make up its mind.
in a country that elected Buckeroo Bush as president.
My irony metre just exploded.
Or what happened in the 16th and 17th Centuries. All the crazy psychos from Europe wanted to escape because they were being 'persecuted' so they went and pushed the American frontiers. This is why European countries have had no major problems with each other from the 1600s onwards to now.
Modolo that little hiccup we fondly call World War II. Or how about that little bump in the Eternal Peace of Europe commonly referred to as world war one?
Or Napoleon's march across Europe? Stalins depridations that killed 20,000,000 Russians (in addition to the 20,000,000 killed by the Germans in the aforementioned hiccup immediately preceeding). Or perhaps you have already forgottene the more recent attempt by the Serbians to exterminate the muslim neighbors while Europe wrung its hands and stood by watching?
America has plenty of problems, and more than a few of them stem from the remnants of the religious hysteria of those puritans who first colonized the continent, but to suggest Europe has been a font of light for the last 3-4 centuries is patently absurd. Indeed, as humiliating as it is to have the likes of Baby Bush running the country, and quite possibly the world, into the ground, even if our worst fears are true and his leadership does come to resemble that of Napolean or other European despots of the last 3 centuries, this will be a first for America, in contrast to Europe's repetative habits in that regard.
So, while I fear our current administration as much as the next person, and will quite possibly try to emigrate to Canada if Baby Bush wins a second term (assuming, of course, the Canadians will let me), your ethnocentric and historically illiterate representation of geopolitical events makes even Baby Bush look well informed and balanced.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
calling President Bush 'Baby Bush' does nothing to make your post more insightful or interesting. on the contrary, it makes you look like an idiotic brat who still can't get over the election. it's similiar to the slashbot morons saying 'M$'.
Haw haw me matey, ye have been successfully trolled!
After reading the following, I know the second article is wasting our time:
"China is ruled by a fascist government that, despite certain economic reforms, still regularly violates the human rights of its own citizens and threatens other countries with invasion or destruction."
I doubt this guy even has any common sense.