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China Sending Two People Into Space
henrypijames writes "As reported widely in Chinese media, China has began production of and launch preparations for it's new Shenzhou ("divine ship") 6 spaceship. While being roughly equal in design to Shenzhou 5 which sent the first Chinese into space last year (although having capacity for three persons), Shenzhou 6 is supposed to carry two "Taikonaut" next year."
I hope china builds a nuclear powered rocket like some of the designs discussed at http://www.nuclearspace.com/ . Then the defence industry in the US would overide the environmentalists.
Just like a submarine, its crazy not to use nuclear.
Read the mini article, but it sure didn't say much...
- Five to seven day mission doing what?
- Their coming space station will be carrying out what experiments?
- Why aren't they using the already functional International Space Station?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Not! This isn't about manned spaceflight, more about national prestige, anyway, if you really want to feel sad today, read this.
Lighten up. This is nothing compared to the Bush jokes you'll see here. And for all Bush's defects, his government is still a shade less totalitarian than the Chinese one, most people would agree.
Encourage them to do this. It will only accelerate their impoverishment and send them tumbling the way of the USSR. Their economy is about as bad off as the old Soviet Union, full of positive reports to keep ministers from being executed. They've got lots of bank scandals starting to appear showing that their currency is not worth what they say. They've got entire villages infected with AIDS that are about to disappear, because they can only deal with these things by hiding them from public view in the hopes no one will notice before they disappear. Things are going very wrong and have all the earmarks of a government without enough resources to handle it all. They ignore it all to produce a few gems like cavitation torpedoes, a space program, and a couple of capitalist sector cities.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
In the future the orbital modules could also be left behind on a Chinese space station as additional station modules.
This part is really interesting. It means that a Chinese space station could grow up very fast and for very cheaply.
Do you have any more information on this?
Iraq: war to save the U
Yes but as soon as it was over everything vanished totally.
Nobody can go to the moon now and we really have to 'reinvent the wheel' to go back there.
Iraq: war to save the U
I know you're kidding but Eastern and especially Communist collectivism is precisely why China could easily beat the West to a manned Mars mission: get the taikonauts to Mars without worrying how to bring them back. If you figure it out later: great, then you get to tell the West "I told you so". If not, give them the Order of Labour Glory or whatever.
Arms control is dead, welcome new instability.
:)
Arms control works only when the most powerful parties are rational: back when the US and USSR were the only major nuclear powers, this was a true statement, as much as it pains me to say the USSR was "rational."
This is not true anymore: there are too many nuclear powers now, not all of whom want to sacrifice the benefits of being a major nuclear power on the altar of "arms control." Please tell me what you think is in it for them?
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Interesting, is China allowed to dock at the ISS? If they were allowed to can they given the orbit etc..? A quick google did not turn much up. I for one think it would be a great step in the right direction for the Chinese to be allowed to join the Americans and Russians aboard the ISS in future missions.
I didn't see the post that you are referring to but here in America we have something called the first amendment. It's part of our constitution. It states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." Which basically means that in the US you can say pretty much what ever you unless it falls under the fighting words doctrine that is usually interpreted very narrowly by the courts.
Now, the EU on the other hand doesn't have a constitution yet but article 54 of the proposed EU constitution provides no such "absolute" guarantee of free speech.
I can see how you might find this disturbing since our constitution is over 200 years old and you haven't got one yet and you probably won't be able to enjoy the same rights that we have in America.
So if we offend you it's not our problem. It's how we where raised. Blame our parents, their parents, and so on. But eventually you will have to blame yourselves. If I recall correctly America was a colony at one time founded by people fleeing oppression in Europe. It's a shame that that oppression is still going on today. You might want to consider fleeing as well.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
'Don't know if this is your sig or you meant to attach this to your post, but the onus should be on *you* as the one that asserts the point to prove yourself right. Just saying 'education was better in Russia than is in the US now' and 'more people were covered than they are in the US now' doesn't make it so.
So I'll turn it back to you -- I'd like to see figures that prove that the *quality of care* for all those Soviets covered by the national healthcare plan was equal -- or even in the same stratosphere -- as the equivalent US citizen on private health insurance. I won't comment either way on the education stance, which is highly subjective, except to say that a reasonable education is available to as vast majority of Americans. You can lead a horse to water...
As for the question as to whether the US should spend money on a space race when we have so many that don't have insurance, as so many other posters said, this isn't how an economy works. If there were as many people *starving* in the US, living at the absolute bottommost percent of the poverty level when compared to the poorest of the poor countries, the gov't would be abandoning these kinds of cultural/scientific milestones, and pursuing social programs. Wait -- I believe they did already. Look at the state of the union in the 30's. Little programs started like the WPA and the SSA. If JFK faced similar times, you can certainly bet the Apollo money would've gone directly to the soup kitchens.