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China Accelerates Mars Program
securitas writes "You read it correctly - Mars. China has announced it intends to accelerate its Mars program, using experience and expertise from its fledgling lunar program. Following China's proposed Moon missions, the first phase would send a Mars orbiter to examine and survey the Red Planet; the second phase will involve wheeled robotic probes like China's Mars Explorer roving vehicle prototype, used to collect and analyze rock samples; and the third phase will involve returning spacecraft from the planet and establishing a permanent automated base on Mars. This puts the China-India space race and the China-USA space race in a very different light and clearly indicates that China plans to play with the big boys of Mars exploration."
No, it was because the USSR had already beaten the US into space and already sent a probe to the moon. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to troll here or anything, but this was easily the single biggest driving force behind the US sending men to the moon.
Well did you read the article? The article quotes academicians, and they are pretty candid in admitting that they are not ready yet.
Even the headline says "Space Scientists Say China's Mars Probe 'Years Away'".
It definitely doesnt sound like propaganda.
GDP Per Capita in China: purchasing power parity - $4,600 (2002 est.)
Source is CIA World Factbook
Do the math.
Yep. Not just "negation", but also other countries have seen the advantage that GPS guided weapons gives to the US, and are no doubt paying keen attention to the US's recently announced global reach weapons plans:
US to Develop High-speed Drone with Global Reach
What with the European Space Agency now in collaboration with the Russian's and China's newfound interest, it looks like the next space (weapons) race may be on.
Well, after China invaded Tibet Mao told some guys "hey, climb mount everest" (in chinese obviously). And in two years time they had done it, even though there was no tradition of mountain climbing before.
Well, the version of the Long March launch rocket that lifted the unmanned Shenzhou prototypes into low Earth orbit have more lifting capability than the Delta II rockets we've used to launch probes to Mars, so if China is talking about sending robotic probes to Mars they already have the rocket to do so.
Whether the Chinese have the technological skills to build a spacecraft that can last several years on a Mars mission is still an iffy proposition, though.
As for the military - this is about research, right? And we people of the internet believe in freedom of information - especially when it comes to scientific information. The army should be thrown out, simply - they don't believe in openness and sharing information.
Umm, you do know that the Internet was actually invented by the military, right? Go look up DARPA on your favourite search engine.
Fusion is not likely to be within easy reach in the near future.
The breakeven point was reached recently, the point at which a fusion reaction outputs as much power as is needed to sustain it. The science is done; the rest is all engineering. But at present it is starved of resources.