China Scrubs Moon Mission Plans

Jim McCoy writes "CNN is reporting that according to China's state media, plans for a manned moon mission have been shelved due to cost. They are planning on a space station though..."

Comments

National Space Station

[Angstroem]

Actually, China also postponed the moon mission because they now want to built their very own space station after the US just replied "no" to China's question if they could participate in the ISS project.

And I always thought the "I" in ISS stood for "international".

Re:money

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to necessarily dispute your larger point, but while rural Chinese are impoverished, they're not starving to death. It's not Sudan or North Korea. Although North Korea is kind of their fault.

It's Expensive

[solarlux]

Announcing plans is certainly easier than carrying them out. Cancellations (and cost overruns) have plagued every space program developed in our short "space age".

As an employee for a large aerospace corporation, I'm beginning to recognize why space is so difficult. On the parts level, parts must be "space-qualified", which limits selection to a few choice vendors who, in applying rigorous mil-spec requirements to parts testing and screening, mark-up the price 15x. The only alternative is privately "up-screen" the part according to program requirements, which is also a lengthy and time-consuming process. When dealing with space, so many new concerns must be addressed. Radiation effects, outgassing, vibration impact from launch, severe thermal excursions, redundancies, etc. Each hi-tech subcomponent has to be built twice -- one for flight and one for intense qual unit testing. Close scrutiny of reported industry design flaws must be adhered to. There's been quite a stir relating to some flawed algorithms in Actel FPGAs.

Anyway, my point is that space is difficult and costly -- as evidenced once again by this cancellation. My primary fear is that the USA lacks the monetary dedication to see such a large and bold endeavor as the moon/mars mission through to fruition. As for me, I'm just hoping the TPF and JWST survive.

Re:Fear

[Ragnar Forkbeard]

But China has never really been an expansionistic type country.

Tell that to the Tibetans.