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Chinese Taikonauts Arrive at Launch Facility
CylonSlave writes "It seems the recent rumors about China's first manned flight occuring in the next couple of weeks may be for real. Spacedaily.com reports (courtesy of AFP) 14 Chinese trained taikonauts have arrived at the launch facility in Gansu province in Northwest China. Earlier space.com and one of the Chinese state's news organs, the People's Daily, reported on the possibility of a manned flight next month. Note that this Wednesday, October 1, is China's National Day. This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule. Personally, I hope the competition will jolt the US space program back into more visionary ideas such as the manned Mars mission. Two sites about China's space program can be seen here & here."
Let the race start.
I think the Hare (US) won't beat the turtle (China).
This mission would be titled Shenzhou 5 being the fifth mission with the Chinese made Shenzhou space capsule.
..." that apparently up until yesterday were flowing through the relay.
Among other instruments onboard, they will be deploying the world's first open relay SMTP satellite, usable with a directv or primestar dish and a common 802.11a/b/g bridge.
Later 2005:
In other news, a Chinese satellite exploded over asia yeasterday. Authorites are investigating, but an unnamed internal source indicated that the "... server couldn't handle the 3 billion emails per second
Next day:
Microsoft is claiming victory as hundreds of US Spammers declare bankruptcy.
-Adam
Really, isn't inventing a new nationalistic terminology for space travelers about 50 years past its time? There's no race anymore.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
"...hey, I can see the Great Wall from here!"
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
The US's time as primary space-capable superpower is growing short. We need to kick it into high gear and get cracking if we want to keep the honor.
Time to get moving, and fund Nasa appropriately. Heaven knows that the payoffs from the R & D alone will be worth the money spent. The materials tech from the first space race is still filtering down to civilian life.
Regardless, It is 1957, and shenzou 5 is China's sputnik.
Cuchullain
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
Hopefully, they won't set up a mass base on the moon and threaten us with big rocks dropped from the top of the gravity well.
...where did they get the cloning machines to clone the astronauts??
NarratorDan
"If you're not confused by quantum mechanics, you really don't understand it." - Niels Bohr
Man, I gotta remember that one! My wife is a talk-o-naut whenever she gets within a phone!
Everything depends on you now. We need you to succeed so that others, such as the US, will be stirred to follow.
I'm not against it, but what is the point of Space exploration today? We can do it, we have proven that. It is very expensive though. Satalites yes, but they are self funded, and profitable for private industry. Very little scientific research needs to be done in space.
Sure it is neat to say you went into space, for the small group of people who have done it, but otherwise what value is there in it? Sit in a small space for a few days with nothing to do but look at the earth. I hope you can get some good books/movies, because once the novilty of seeing the earth from above is over with you need something to do.
Scientific research sounds good, but most of it can be done on earth. Few scientific research projects going on in space now even have value to science. If you can come up with a good space research project, good. Except it is so expensive to get into space, you better be sure that you can't get results any other way. Even then, a unmaded probe would be better.
ISS has value, but only because it gets a few russian scientists a job so they don't have develop mistles for evil dictators just to survive. A worthy cause to be sure, but otherwise of no important use.
I say let the chinese get to Mars first. We have enough probes there to be pretty sure that there is no value in sending people there. If a probe discovers something of value that we need people to check out, fine, but until then why have a highly trained person waste months on the trip?
That isn't to say we should stand still. Lets develope something of use here. We can catch up to the Chinese anytime. (if only because the spys mean they can't keep the technology secert for very long...)
I have other things to spend my money on. I hear many retired folks complaining about socal security, I always respond that my parents were not old enough to vote when they sent their socal security money to the moon, so don't blame me for the mess we are in. (Yes that situation is complex than that) I'd like to keep my tax money. Selfish perhaps, but if you won't let me keep it, at least spend it on something that is of use, not waste it on space.
Late thursday 200 miles over Bejing the first Chinese Austonauts in orbit suffered a mishap involving a saftey drill aboard their Shenzhou Spacecraft.
Program manager Mr. Chin Hou stated today that the in flight combustion safety drill ended in tradegy today when the Astonauts in an attempt to perform this manuever opened the pressureized door of their spacecraft and attempted to perform a space walk around the vessel and then return to the confines of their craft.
Mr. Chin Hou later regretted that they hadn't allowed for the fact that when the tests were performed on the ground no one mentioned that there was a vaccum in space. "The Taikonauts in orbit in orbit did not have the nessassary equipment to perform the spacewalk manuever and they suffered from exposure in space as a result," Mr. Chin Hou went on.
The Chinese space agency has reported that they will not schedule any more fire drills aboard their spacecraft until they are equipped for spacewalks and the astonauts are in their suits before such drills are performed in the future.
In other news a Russian based Linux distribution is sueing SCO for infringment.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
You ridicule them because you're scared of them, because maybe they're just as good as you, maybe better. But then again I think I just bit your bait.
Did anyone else misread the "i" as an "l"? The Chinese are about to be launched onto Oprah!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I think you missed the joke... he's alluding to a Chinese Fire Drill.
Chinese Takeouts Arrive at Launch Facility
Hey, Taikonauts must get hungry too.
Oh, Come on..... At least i didn't do another Soviet Russia Joke....
I hope the Chinese Space programs puts a fire under our lazy american asses to get serious about space exploration again.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Time to get moving, and fund Nasa appropriately.
Time to convince taxpaying citizens that Nasa doesn't mean "foolish".
Will I retire or break 10K?
I, for one, welcome our... oh, wait. Go NASA!
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
1. China is laying down lots of money on its carbon nanotube research - they were mentioned as the 2nd most serious research after CNI.
2. They're beefing up their space program. Collecting the knowhow. Launching their own vehicles. Tackling the being-in-space problems on their own.
3. A little prophecy from the Space Elevator's Phase I NIAC paper:
"Let's consider two roughly equal entities (governments, private enterprise etc.). At year zero, entity one begins building a space elevator behind closed doors. The second is looking at building a space elevator and thinks it is important but has not begun building it yet. At year five the news gets out that the first entity is building the space elevator. The second now jumps into its program and starts building. At year ten the first entity has its first elevator operating and the second entity is 18 months from launch of its initial spacecraft. At year fifteen the first entity has six cables up including two 106 kg cables, has a manned station at geosynchronous, has recouped much of the construction cost through selling two cables and through hundreds of launches on its eight cables, and is beginning construction of a Mars cable. The second entity has up its first cable. Note that two additional entities also have cables now because of entity one's sales. At year twenty, entity one is making billions from the tens of cables it has produced, has a manned station on Mars, has a hotel at Geo station which now has a permanent population of over one hundred. Entities two, three, four, five,E each own a handful of cables and are trying to compete with entity one."
Is anyone adding this up?
Here's some ideas for future slashdot headlines:
2004: NASA announces new-and-improved winged-spacetruck candidate.
2009: NASA launches first new winged spacetruck
2015: NASA announces last shuttle of their new shuttle fleet has been delivered.
2015: NASA disassembles shuttle, sends it to space in pieces using chinese elevators to save up on launch costs.
We can all safely assume that one sixth the population of our planet would very much like it to happen _just like that_.
I'd be amused.
-
Chinese Portion
-----------------
Tai - extreme, very
Kong - space, area, emptiness
Greek Portion
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naut - sailor
Have fun!
China decided several hundred years ago to not explore the rest of the world. they decided that there was more important things to spend their money on in the local area. Europe decided to move forward. Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it again.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
god, i want to make this comment yellow dame it how those that work?
COME ON slashdot, add some color!
Personally I thought it was pretty damn funny. Insulting to their race but it wasn't the Chinese that made up the fire drill thing, it was the americans. Seems people were always afraid of the chinese. Chinese finger trap? Think a british salesman made that one up. Chinese = queer or strange.
I just pictured the taikonauts doing a fire drill, freaking hilarious.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
...shortly after achieving orbit, the Chinese capsule was disintegrated by what U.S. officials are describing as a "freak solar flare".