Slashdot Mirror
China Plans Manned Space Flight October 15
epmos writes "As previously reported on /., China is working toward launching a manned space flight Real Soon Now(tm). Many news sites have
stories suggesting it could be as soon as a week away. The flight is expected to last about 90 minutes and complete one orbit." According to some of these stories, though, there's speculation about the flight lasting up to 24 hours.
Were this to be a longer flight, how would they solve the problem of eating with chopsticks in low gravity?
Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
[1800s-style Imperialist Brit Mode On]
Next you'll be telling us that old Johnny Chinaman has gained mastery
over the atom and created a doomsday weapon ready to threaten our
very own God-fearing people.
Well never fear gentle-people, in my new steam-o-matic flying machine
I'll quickly handle this yellow menace so your children can sleep
soundly!
God Bless Queen Victoria
[1800s-style Imperialist Brit Mode Off]
They want their space program back.
:()
(Sorry.
unfortunately, the US and Russia probably won't be part of this space race, which may leave us behind the times.
instead, we'll have China, India, and a few other countries making leaps and bounds, possibly passing both the US and Russia before either country figures out to re-join the space race.
i don't think this is necessarily a "good thing".
I hope everything goes successfully for the Chinese, and I hope that this is only the beginning for a long Chinese manned space program.
Additionally, let this serve as a wake-up call to us, that manned space exploration is a common goal and desire that we all share.
Once they make it to the moon and notice that there is no flag, footprints, or left over rocket parts, then we'll know that the "one small step for mankind" occured somewhere in the Arizona desert.
And why is that? Developing space technology can only be a good thing.
If the US and Russia are too lazy to get off their collective asses and meet the challenge, it's their fault - not China's, India's or other more innovative countries fault.
BOO! TERRO
they have some well thought out elaborate plans already to inhabit the moon.. I don't blame them, it must be getting crowded over there.
bite my glorious golden ass.
Great, a repressive country that hates the entire planet, has nuclear weapons, is mentally unstable, and now can send people into orbit.
Enough about the USA, what about China?
--
This sig is inoffensive.
I personally think this is the best news to happen to space exploration for ages; it might just scare enough people in the US/EU to kick a little more funding towards NASA/ESA.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Done in the '60s or no, manned spaceflight is Very Hard and Very Expensive. Up till now, the manned spaceflight club only had two real members the USA and USSR/Russia. Anybody else pulling this off is news. It's especially news these days since the Russians can't afford to do the things they accomplished in their heyday and the US is infatuated with shuttles and mostly just plays in low Earth orbit.
Manned spaceflight has needed aggressive new blood for some time now. If China starts accomplishing "Great Things", then it just might motivate the US a little.
the first thing that occured to me when I saw this headline was "so f--ing what?". I am certainly not saying that the exploration of space and the science/efforts behind attempting to achieve it aren't anything short of fascinating, but that fact that China's doing something that was done over 30 years ago? Big deal. Or maybe I'm missing the significance? It wouldn't be the first time and I'm sure if I am, there will be no shortage of ./'ers to tell me so.
Well, during the cold war the space program was really a demonstration of capability. If a state has the capabiltiy to put a person in orbit then it is inferred that they also have the capability to hit any country in the world with a missle carrying a good sized payload. This coupled with nuclear capability is a not-so-subtle "don't fuck with us" statement.
The news article says they are planning a single orbit, but you know how it goes: one hour later and they will feel like they need to orbit again.
-Crolis
Today's story:
BEIJING, Oct. 8 -- After a decade of preparation, China will launch its first human being into space on Oct. 15 in a 90-minute flight that will orbit the Earth once, a major Chinese Web site reported in one of the most concrete signs yet that the landmark trip is imminent.
In 2013:
BEIJING, Oct. 15 - As part of a celebration of its first decade of manned space flight, China announces an agreement with the USA's NASA space agency to outsource all space-related operations. An unnamed NASA official said: "Well, they can do it cheaper than we can - we can hire three taikonauts for what it costs us to loft one astronaut - and who cares if some foreigners get killed repairing our satellites?"
In related news, all remaining astronauts have been informed that their services are no longer needed, and offered placement services for lucrative positions in the fast food industries.
I bet some people were saying similar things about the Japanese car-industry - which eventually went out to beat the crap out of the original US car manufacturers.
BOO! TERRO
Without that country sending goods to stock the shelves, your local Wal-Mart would look like Who-ville after the Grinch got done with it. If you're one of the 99% of Americans who send a good chunk of your cash to China every time you go shopping, you hardly have any business complaining about what they decide to spend your money on after you've just willingly given it to them.
will say "Made In China"?
They didn't develop their own space program, they bought some old russian parts.
World War II. German scientists. USA.
it's in my head
Here is the Chinese space program in all its glory.
The China Space Capsule (space.com)
The China Manned launch vehicle (SpaceDaily.com)
The China Manned Launch vehicle (SpaceDaily.com)
The United State's space program is a flabby, stagnant beauracracy. It needs an enema at the top, an exercise program in the middle, and some moral support in the rank and file. Most of all, it needs to take a long, hard look at boron/proton fusion, and get busy designing ships that can use it for swift interplanetary travel.
The fact that both China and India have space programs is beautiful to me. Remember who was first in space? Not John Glenn, but Yuri Gagarin. Perhaps NASA will recover from its existing case of cranial rectitis (hint: leaves a brown ring around your neck) when faced with a large, motivated competitor with a growing economy.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
One of the major flaws, perhaps, with the US democratic system is that it is predicated on a 4 year cycle of election and re-election. This tends to make planning for long-term projects politically disadvantageous to the White House incumbent who ideally wants to see "returns" during his period in office. It is not often that grand projects such as the Interstate system or the Apollo program are enacted.
China is very different. There is a single monolithic party in power. Also do not forget that this a people who have a collective ethno-genetic memory spanning thousands of years who have historically proven willing and able to plan decades and centuries ahead.
Couple the above with the fact that all 9 members of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party politburo are engineers by training and you realize that the forthcoming manned flight is not a flash-in-the-pan but part of a broader strategic decision to achieve preeminence in space.
This is part of a collective Long March by which China aims to overtake the USA in almost every field of human endeavour. This will perhaps take 50 to a 100 years - a sizeable period to the American world-view but much less so to the Chinese mindset. Given the extraordinary progress China has already made since the 1970s we would be fools to doubt their ability to go the rest of the way.
I can go you one better: my Dad worked for NASA during the Apollo program, and for Martin Marietta (as it was then) during Viking and the early stages of the Shuttle. I grew up surrounded by space program memorabilia, and I've always been bitter that we never lived up to the promise of those years. This is damned exciting, and I don't see why you don't see it. Maybe because you grew up in the 60's you're a bitter, jaded old fart who can't get excited about anything any more?
And you know, Zep and Floyd are still good music. Why the hell shouldn't the 14-year-olds enjoy it, if they want to? God, I hate patronizing ageism
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Actually, this is a very bad misconception. To governments, life is a propoganda tool, that is used to massage the 'will' of the masses. Reference recent history.
The loss of 7 lives in a re-entry accident is used by the government to achieve a huge (and very subtle) shift if expenditures. This is being used very effectively behind the scenes to promote the concept of scrapping the shuttle program, in the meantime, no launches, so, no money being spent on launches.
The daily loss of life overseas is being promoted as 'the cost' and a 'justifiable cost' of enforcing a foreign policy on a region that wants no part of it.
It's all how you spin it, and how the press regurgitates the spin. If you can make the masses believe that losing 7 astronauts is 'to much', then you can gain political support for an objective that doesn't include a shuttle program. If you can make the masses believe hundreds of lives are 'worth the price' to support an overseas invasion, then you can gain support for huge expenditures on that program.
Body count is just a propoganda tool, to be used when convenient, and to be swept under the rug when inconvenient. That applies to ALL governments, including the american government.