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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..."
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The found that after going to the moon, they'd have to go again in an hour. The additive cost was just too much.
I hate to say it, but if some other country (China, India, Russia, etc.) got their act together and went and did something of note in space, it might inspire the administration and congress of the US to place a higher priority and more resources into the american space program. This is a shameful decision for both China and for the space program of the world.
licencing costs alone for the 'Moon' Studio were unreasonable. not to mention time and costs for actually shooting the video and then killing all the witnesses... do you know how much red tape there is in killing witnesses, add to it the 'reasonable death' stories... creative people cost way too much.
A space station? That sure is thrifty!
There's an International Space Station... why can't we all work together?
And I always thought the "I" in ISS stood for "international".
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.
US Military Budget is probably over 40 times Nasas. And I'm pretty sure China, bieng also a nuclear power has a huge military budget to. This is where the money should not go.
Spending in science (space exploration) is always money well spent, specially with unmanned, redundant (two identical spacecrafts or more) missions.
I think they should spend their money on their own people before spending it on the moon.
Spending money on the 'people' will not lead to useful change, even if it's spent on the 'right' things (food, housing, education, etc).
They can't feed their own people without educating them.
They can't educate their people and expect to remain in power.
So they spend it in PR stunts so the uneducated can, if they want, take national pride in a nation which does not treat them well.
And they spend it in military/police funding to keep the powerful in power.
And they limit the flow of information, again, to limit education and to keep the powerful in power.
Until there is a radical change in societal structure/governmental structure, nothing is going to change, regardless of where they put their money.
IMO.
-Adam
well we already have one difficult partner... Russia... who can't put a single thing into orbit within 3 years of when it's supposed to be
there...
Pot, meet Kettle.
Uh, yeah. Like the space shuttle you mean?
Yes, that's right. Currently Russia is the only nation in a position to launch manned spacecraft. Without them we would already have abandoned the IIS and it would likely have already plummeted to the earth.
Meanwhile we can't even save Hubble, and it remains to be seen if we ever get our fleet back off the ground again.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"The United States harbors concerns that the army-run Chinese program could some day pose a threat to U.S. dominance in military satellite communications."
I can understand the concern. A billion plus people, a huge army, an economy that is growing rapidly and will probably soon trounce the US's to become the next Superpower.
But China has never really been an expansionistic type country. It's seems throughout their history, they're usually the ones attacked, or the fighting is domestic (power struggles etc).
Here's where I contradict myself - I could see all of that changing however, a growing economy with a billion++ people will probably need a lot of resources...especially oil.
I wonder if this whole Iraq war is really about safeguarding the middle east from future chinese aggression. I mean, we can't have a communist nation invading a democratic nation! Or even an areas around it as it would cause the domino effect and all the countries around it would fall to communisim as well (SEE Vietnam War).Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
Dude, in the words of Mohammud, 'the poor will always be with us.' If we'd waited for utopia to spring into existence here on Earth we'd never have gone to the moon, never have launched a space shuttle or never done anything else worthwhile.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
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.
Ha, ha, ha. It's very funny for many people to respond to this post and ask, "Are you talking about America?"
The reality, though, is that if you think we have it bad in America, you should really read up on what it's like elsewhere in the world.
Think of it as competition, in the same vein as Linux vs Windows.
Right now America is the undisputed 'king of the hill' or monopoly in world economics and most other areas you'd care to graph. Many other nations work just as well, but they simply don't have teh incredible wealth that the USA has.
Were you aware that the USA spends 1/3 of the money spent around the globe? The GDP of the US is over 11 trillion [US Dollars]. The GDP of the entire global economy is merely 32 Trillion.
The global economy is changing that - we see it as outsourcing, other countries see it as getting US dollars so they can increase their GDP.
If you want to change the monopoly status of the US then you agree to outsourcing, and you should seek to bring other nations to the level the US has rather than bringing the US down.
This, of course, covers nothing about the humanitarian crisis in china
It really is striking to see the level of elitism among americans. I include myself when I say that many in america get a paper cut and don't think about the mere availability of the bandaid as a striking contrast to life elswhere.
So yeah, I laugh when I see the posts asking me if I'm talking about needed gov't change in America vs China. It's really funny to me.
-Adam
yup, it sure is. It also seems to be human nature to dig yourself into unrecoverable debt just to make yourself do something.
I'd prefer we wait until the country has a budget that is not in the red and we have a society that isn't full of poor and destitute people who are dying of random diseases because we are afraid to tell the insurance and oil cartels to fuck off.
Yes, this will likely never happen. My point is made.
Fact of the matter is that NASA's budget is a pittance. It's hardly enough to maintain four stinking Shuttles, much less develop a follow-on vehicle. The ISS is International because the government wouldn't fund NASA to the point of being able to build it ourselves.
And unmanned missions aren't worth the trouble. If we aren't going to go there ourselves, why bother? So we learn that Mars had water once? Whoop-de-do! Doesn't matter a hill of beans what there is to be learned in space if men aren't going to go there. If the manned space program dies, then the rest of it might as well die as well - since we'll be deciding to sit back and play video games till the next asteroid smacks us.
The way people look at space these days is getting to me....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
By the basic logic, then I should not sit and read SlashDot until my house is paid off. But my house will not be paid off for 30 years. Perhaps I should not purchase internet access, as the $50 per month that I spend would do better paying off my house, regardless of what other benefits internet access might give me.
Seriously, if you want universal healthcare... tell your congressman and representative that you will vote for whomever is willing to support it. Tell your friends that this is what you are doing. Then, actually vote that way. Same idea for big oil... Vote green, ride a bicycle.
In the mean time, some people (at least me) think research is usefull and worth some tax dollars.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.