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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."
"Shenzhou 6 is supposed to carry two "Taikonaut" next year."
I bet the people on the space station were getting tired of american and russian food. I never had taikonaut but its probably good...
Hopefully this will get the US to start a space race with China! Just to make sure, everyone tell Bush that if China gets a man on Mars first, that proves that the president of China has a bigger penis than the president of the US.
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Hopefully this will revive the manned spaceflight programs all over the world, preferably in the form of true collaboration and not just let's-all-keep-reinventing-the-wheel kind of silly competition.
We need to get off this planet sooner or later and unmanned probes won't do that.
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snippet from Wikipedia's listing for the Shenzhou - lots more in the link!
Design
Like the Soyuz, the Shenzhou consists of three modules; a forward "orbital" module, a reentry capsule in the middle, and an aft service module. This division is based on the principle of minimizing the amount of material to be returned to Earth. Anything placed in the orbital or service modules does not require heat shielding, and this greatly increases the space available to the spacecraft without increasing weight as much as it would if those modules were also able to withstand reentry.
The orbital module contains space for experiments, crew-serviced or operated equipment, and in-orbit habitation. The reentry capsule contains seating for the crew, and is the only portion of the Shenzhou which returns to Earth's surface. The aft service module contains life support and other equipment required for the functioning of the Shenzhou. Two pairs of solar panels, one pair on the service module and the other pair on the orbital module, have a total area of over 40 square metres, indicating average electrical power over 1.5 kW (three times that of Soyuz and greater than that of the original Mir base module).
Unlike the Soyuz, the orbital module was equipped with its own propulsion, solar power, and control systems, allowing autonomous flight. In the future the orbital modules could also be left behind on a Chinese space station as additional station modules. In the unmanned test flights launched so far, the orbital module of each Shenzhou was left functioning in orbit for several days after the reentry capsule's return.
They're a bunch of circus clown, and putting priorities like that above their nation's welfare shows how much Chinese leaders are disconnected with the reality of their country.
Here goes my karma, but its worth pointing out that exactly the same allegations can be levelled at the current administration of the USA. How precisely has the expenditiure of over $100 billion for the war in Iraq helped the nation's welfare?
Certainly, the war it may have advanced the geopolitical goals of the administration -- much like China's space race will advance the geopolitical goals of their administration. However, the war has done nothing to advance the USA's welfare.
I'm very much in favour of China's forays into space; I think the USA can only benefit from having a competitor in space. Its not coincidence that the US manned space program has declined heavily since the height of the cold war.
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So two Chinese, seven Americans, and a Russian were flying in space...
In case you were wondering like me ...
"Taikong" is a Chinese word that means space or cosmos. The resulted prefix "taiko-" is similar to "astro-" and "cosmo-" that makes three words perfectly symmetric, both in meaning and in form. Removing "g" from "taikong" is to make the word short and easy to pronounce. On the other side, its pronounciation is also close to "taikong ren", the Chinese words "space men".
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As someone who grew up in China I have some insight into the welfare of the Chinese people. In short: it could get a lot better. But that doesn't mean China shouldn't go into space.
We went to war during the great depression. A war that wasn't directly against us (until Pearl Harbor). Should we have? We had millions of starving Americans.
When we went into space we still had people without jobs and without food. Today we have people without jobs and without food. Why are we doing anything but feeding them?
Because that's not how economies work. If China can develop a computer industry jobs will come. If china can develop a science industry jobs will come.
If China just spent its time trying to feed its people then no one would get fed and the government would collapse. You have to make the economy boom and then move on from there. For instance, people are doing a hell of a lot better today then they were in 1979 or even ten years ago. Why? Because China invested in its markets and in its economy and in its peoples sense of national pride.
BTW, China is nothing like the USSR. The USSR never had the world's fastest growing major economy. It certainly never had it for years running as China has.
China can afford going to space. They shouldn't get consumed by it; but I doubt that is what is happening. There is still a lot more money outside the space race than inside the space race.
So they are paying a little for some national pride, so what?
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
I hope you realize that there's more people in the US today without medical insurance than there were in the USSR during the space race? That there's now more people in the US not receiving a reasonable education than in the USSE back then?
It's your "We're awesome, so we have the right to kick ass, everyone else doesn't really deserve it" attitude that made the US a lot of enemies...
Oh, and before you mod this as flamebait, maybe at least try to make an effort to prove me wrong!
The space program could have a good return on the Chinese living standard. This pumps government money in the economy, accelerates progress and gives the citizens a 'pride'.
The space program is not a lot of money in comparison of the government budget. It wouldn't improve life of the citizens much anyway.
And the USA is doing the same financing a very expensive war with a very bad budget and huge dept. Read my sig to understand the effect of the national debt.
Iraq: war to save the U
Yeah, tell that to the chap sleeping on the streets outside my doorstep, the people begging on the subway, the wretched homes in the Bronx and New Jersey, people living in shantytowns all over the midwest, south, etc.
Oh yes, "welfare" is only a dirty word if the US Government says about it, no?
Really -- assuming you're an american and have been brought up in the American way of thinking -- do you seriously think the government can "provide" a standard of living to a billion people? No government has that kind of money. You improve the standard of living by stimulating the economy and creating jobs. You do that, in part, by spurring science and technological research. The post-war defence and space programmes are a big reason for the US's economic superpower status today. (You also need a market economy, which the USSR didn't have, but China's developing one.)
... as space is the ultimate high ground on military thinking and United States is publicly touting to build space-based weaponry to maintain supremecy.
This is just the beginning of next arms race, even India is building nuclear attack platform in space.
Arms control is dead, welcome new instability.
In fact there 2 type of Nuclear propulsion : Without fallout (Nuclear Termal Rocket (NTR) - basically just flying reactor) and with fallout ( Orion - nuclear bomp explosion pushed ship, Nuclear salt water rocket NSWR). AFAIK there is still no usable "build now" NTR design, and overall NTR probably couldn't make one stage to orbit and back reusable trip. NSWR is a radioactive disaster, usable only in space. Orion - battleship sized spaceship on the pushing plate, pushed by nuke explosion probaly most realistic nuclear design, and probaly could be built now. If launched in the Antarctica, radioactive pollution wouldn't be quite disastrous, but still costing one cancer death per launch (for all the world), by some estimation. So until the progress with NTR nuclear propulsion is better used in space (and there is no electromagnetic pulse in space for nuke too)
The USA is less rich than it appears. A lot of the high lifestyle that even the lowest classes live is all financed on consumer debt. People are already reaching their credit limits. Once people can no longer finance new things, they can't purchase new things, and you know where that leads. Like any venture financed with debt, it must return enough to more than compensate for the cost of servicing the debt. As consumer tend to only buy things which don't make money, they're taken on huge amounts of debt that will reduce their buying power for many years to come.
The only difference between the USSR and the USA is that the debt is riding more on the individual consumers in the US. Either way, the people owe lots. The US hasn't provided a decent standard of living for its quater billion citizens.
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