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China Plans 5-day Manned Space Mission
rune writes "Both the BBC and The Register have articles on China's next manned space mission. This time two taikonauts are planned to be on board the Shenzou VI spacecraft sometime during 2005 for about five days. There is also a brief mention of the plans of the Chinese Space Agency for lunar exploration." hrld1,kon adds a link to this article on Chinaview, the official English-language news source for the People's Republic of China.
Russians will be there first...
but does anyone else think this sounds like some cheezy anime cartoon??? taikonauts on the Shinzu??
I'm hoping that with China, and maybe India getting involved in exploring space, maybe the US might get involved too. A three or four way (with Russia) space race, could easily see humans "out there" in the next 50 years. At the current rate, I don't think we'd ever make it.
Meanwhile in North America, we've perfected manufacture of the double bacon cheeseburger. Gulp.
they will remain in orbit for five days, although their craft could support them for up to one week.
wow, IMO that's a pretty a small buffer! i would add more to accomodate for any miscalculations or if they must stay up for londer for whatever reason.
I guess competition in space would be a good way to kickstart the race for Mars... unfortunately.. China is almost 40 years behind the U.S. so it may be a while
From the Article.. "In order to create a craft capable of orbiting in space for five days, scientists say they have been trying to reduce weight and improve the performance of onboad instrumentation."
The funny part is... the US sent men to the moon in the late 60's and the entire spacecraft had less computer power then a 486 computer... And they need to improve current technology???
Just goes to show, with todays technology, we sometimes forget we can simplify things.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
Is happy to note they may be able to get manned craft into space as early as late next year
Maybe they could develop (or copy) a NERVA-like design such as the one Pratt & Whitney has shown about a week ago.
If I remember correctly, the Chinese government never signed anything that forbids them putting fission reactors in orbit.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
to welcome China to the mid 20th century.
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
Currently, the International Space Station consists of pretty much every spacefaring nation on Earth, with the exception of China... due to US uncertainty over its motives. So China is planning to go its own way, build its own station, etc.
I don't know about you, but as a Chinese living in the USA, I would really like for China to join the ISS -- we don't need another Cold War style space race, and cooperation with the world will, I believe, lead to greater transparency and scrutiny of China's space program anyhow.
Indeed, it's absurd that China is currently one of only two nations with a operational manned spaceflight capability, but isn't allowed to join the ISS -- when the ISS is suffering from major logistical resupply problems due to the grounding of the shuttle.
China has, for years, been on a path from isolation back in the 1950s and 1960s, to being a part of the world community in many ways. The US needs to ditch its outdated paranoia, or else the other nations (Russia, EU, etc) need to grow some balls and admit China into the consortium for the benefit of all sides concerned.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Will they be drumming for the aliens?
Can't we just let that word die? We really don't need every nation on earth inventing a new English word for "astronaut" the minute they get themselves a space program, especially when the new word involves roots from two completely different languages.
We also need to let the word "cosmonaut" die, while we're at it, but that one seems a little too heavily ingrained in the media.
one hundred twenty
is just enough characters
to write a haiku
Drop by a typical American fast food "restaurant" sometime and cast your gaze at the McSlaves behind the counter. As for corrupt government, I'll let Dick Cheney field questions about his relationship with Halliburton.
Something is always better than nothing.
Ever since the space shuttle disaster, and the bankrupt of Russia, both the Americans and Russians are stuck with the ultra-expensive ISS.
The Chinese are doing something, and they ought to be congratulated.
If the Indians can do it earlier than the Chinese, so much the better. I also heard that Brazil also has something under development.
How about the Europeans ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And I'm also certian that the US didn't just complete the first non-government manned space flight and doesn't have billions of dollars going to develop private space flight.
Give me a break.
China is emerging as an ecenomic powerhouse, and it looks like it will continue down that path, provided their government doesn't screw up. However please don't pretend like all good things come from China. I gave just a small list of the US companies that produce advanced hardware, including what drives almost all the devices you listed. Your MP3 player may be built in China but it's usually using TI DSPs and AD opamps.
You know it's perfectly possible for China AND the US to be economic powers, and for both to benefit from trade with each other.
/.ing the China View server may be viewed as an attack by the United States on China, you may have just started a nuclear war!
You sez:
"China has, for years, been on a path from
isolation back in the 1950s and 1960s, to
being a part of the world community in many
ways. The US needs to ditch its outdated
paranoia, or else the other nations (Russia,
EU, etc) need to grow some balls and admit
China into the consortium for the benefit of
all sides concerned."
You've hit the bullseye, man !
What else can the ball-less do ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It's good to see that China and India are getting their feet dirty in the Space Race. More information about India's Space program can be found at www.isro.org and its previous achievements can be found at http://www.isro.org/programmes.htm I wish them good luck. I just hope that China's Space program be as open as India's
FYI: even today, you can't send more than a 486 in orbit, mostly because of feature sizes. The smaller the feature size, the easier for cosmic radiation to screw things up.
The Raven
... does this mean that we can stop sending them economic aid? (http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2004/4/6_5.html )
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
motorola makes PPC 603/604 based cpus for sats these days.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Sorry, but from China's perspective why would they want to join a program so compromised and hacked together as the ISS? The original design wasn't bad, but then the politicians decided to make it some great political statement and engineering took a back seat to politics. Diffrent engineering specs, diffrent design standards, diffrent manpower utilization processes, etc. Bad, bad idea. Second only to the engineering designs kludges that resulted in the current shuttle design (which resulted from a set of comprimises between what NASA wanted and what the USAF wanted and neither wanted that co-design, but politicians wanting to forstall a space race between the military and the civilian sides forced the comprimise.)
China would be silly to join a dying, half baked plan like ISS. If the US could figure out how to back out of it's international committments the station would be allowed to die a graceful death tomorrow.
Nope, China will go it alone, and probably get further that way. My only hope is that they do something belligerant in the process so the US feels a need to get off it's butt again and start moving back into space. Bush talks a good game, but probably won't put any real effort into it, and Kerry doesn't even talk about it. But then again, why should either one bother. Most Americans don't care so unless the voters care, politicians won't and our space program languishes, but if China starts looking scary, then the American public will take notice and money will start rolling in. So Go China!
Why are you even scared - so what if China is developing fast, has 1/6 the world population, you can just be thankful (if you like) that for the last few millenia they have been content stuck behind a wall.
:-) hahahahahahahahhaha laugh. Oh read Neuromancer and see for yourself the Asian overtones that sweep the entire future worlds.
I think China is interesting, they will grow rapidly, with ever increasing ties into Japan-tech and don't forget a little sporting event in 2008 that will wake up most of the western world to how great China is.
I wouldn't think for one moment China wants to barrage the US with bombs, I think barraging them with LCD's, Chips and assorted gadgetry will suffice.
Look what happened ot Japan after 2 nuclear bombs. They didn't reinvest into thier army, but in developing technology.
If in 4 years I here rhetorical war mongering amongst a (hopefully not, why not go and vote today?) Bush administration I will wonder what country they will hype up as a threat to world security in order to keep their little club in power.
You see, we have no right being scared, trying to hold back other countries. You cannot be anti-monopolistic and worry about China at the same time.
Fact: China will become a (the) world super power within 40 years, and export technology, culture and politics around the world.
I for one welcome our Chinese overlords...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
wurst?
Ok... let's square this away:
:p
Taiko is Japanese
Tai Kon is Mandarin Chinese
They both have a different pitch to the way they're spoken. Some who are tone deaf may not be able to tell the difference with the exception of the slight pause. They both have different meanings.
Ok? Ok...
Before sending ppl into outer space serious problems have to be solved. Space kills! By its sheer size! Or its other extreme parameters. All of those has to be addressed and solved before it makes any sense putting mankind into space for prolonged time.
Regards Thomas
Thomas S. Iversen
For cryin out loud, must we turn every post into a political weenie roast? Ignoring the fact that certain other nations have their own political cloak and daggery, it would seem he could cooperate pretty well with other nations.
I mean, feel free to explain it away, but I seriously doubt the situation is even as remotely dire as you portray it when it comes to the current administration. Hell, I'm even one to say they haven't done done a stellar job on the deficit, but I'm thinking it's a tad over the top to say he'll neglect the country. Hell, for neglecting the country, he put a post 9/11 economy back onto it's feet and into something that's currently thriving. How much so, you can debate with yourself all day long, but the trend is definitely in the positive. I won't entirely agree with his fiscal policy, but it's not something you point to and yell "NEGLECT!!" all day long.
I see positives for the space program all the way around on his re-election. 2nd term Presidents have nothing to loose and if one thing has been made obvious and for better or worse, he's not afraid to spend money. Another thing you can count on from his past performance is that he'll stay commited to the project long term. And that's the most you can ask for in a Space program, right there-- The will to spend the money, do the work and resolve to stay the course.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
You may have missed the bit at school where they mentioned that the nuclear club contains Isreal, and contrary to any opinion, Isreal is not a superpower.
In terms of superpowers, you have to look at the GDP and economic growth, and China has quite a deal going. Any company wishing to take advantage of the huge potential workforce has to sign a fifty/fifty deal with the chinese government. There isn't a lot of creative accounting that you can do, and this has fueled the growth over the past ten years, admittedly past it's ability to create infrastructure, but they're attending to that now.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
China launched its first manned satellite in 2003, 40 years after the first manned US satellite. But being 40 years later isn't the same as being 40 years behind, because US space technology stood still, or actually declined, during some of that time. For example, NASA no longer has the technology to send people to the Moon and bring them back - although it could, and did, 30 years ago. Current "state of the art" in US manned launchers is the Shuttle, developed more than 20 years ago. China is probably no more than 5 years behind. So if the US continues to stand still, China could overtake the US in space capability within 5 years.
Clinton was part of the scandal, the defense contractors gave him campaign money and he looked the other way so they could make money from selling the technologies to China. An overviewof Clinton's involvement:
CHINA WILL LIKELY replace the USA as world leader, said Bill Clinton in a recent Washington Post interview. It is just a matter of time. Clinton should know. He has personally done more to build China's military strength than any man on earth.
Most Americans have heard of the so-called "Chinagate " scandal. Few understand its deadly import, however. Web sites such as "Chinagate for Dummies" and its companion "More Chinagate for Dummies" offer some assistance. Unfortunately, with a combined total of nearly 8,000 words, these two sites - like so many others of the genre - offer more detail than most of us "dummies" can absorb.
For that reason, in the 600 words left in this column, I will try to craft my own "Idiot's Guide to Chinagate," dedicated to all those busy folks like you and me whose attention span tends to peter out after about 750 words. Here goes.
When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, China presented little threat to the United States. Chinese missiles "couldn't hit the side of a barn," notes Timothy W. Maier of Insight magazine. Few could reach North America and those that made it would likely miss their targets.
Thanks to Bill Clinton, China can now hit any city in the USA, using state-of-the-art, solid-fueled missiles with dead-accurate, computerized guidance systems and multiple warheads.
China probably has suitcase nukes as well. These enable China to strike by proxy - equipping nuclear-armed terrorists to do their dirty work, while the Chinese play innocent. Some intelligence sources claim that China maintains secret stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on U.S. soil, for just such contingencies.
In 1997, Clinton allowed China to take over the Panama Canal. The Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa leased the ports of Cristobal and Balboa, on the east and west openings of the canal respectively, thus controlling access both ways. A public outcry stopped Clinton in 1998 from leasing California's Long Beach Naval Yard to the Chinese firm COSCO. Even so, China can now strike U.S. targets easily from their bases in Panama, Vancouver and the Bahamas.
How did China catch up so fast? Easy. We sold them all the technology they needed - or handed it over for free. Neither neglect nor carelessness are to blame. Bill Clinton did it on purpose.
As a globalist, Clinton promotes "multipolarity"- the doctrine that no country (such as the USA) should be allowed to gain decisive advantage over others.
To this end, Clinton appointed anti-nuclear activist Hazel O'Leary to head the Department of Energy. O'Leary set to work "leveling the playing field," as she put it, by giving away our nuclear secrets. She declassified 11 million pages of data on U.S. nuclear weapons and loosened up security at weapons labs.
Federal investigators later concluded that China made off with the "crown jewels" of our nuclear weapons research under Clinton's open-door policy - probably including design specifications for suitcase nukes.
Meanwhile, Clinton and his corporate cronies raked in millions.
In his book The China Threat, Washington Times correspondent Bill Gertz describes how the system worked. Defense contractors eager to sell technology to China poured millions of dollars into Clinton's campaign. In return, Clinton called off the dogs. Janet Reno and other counterintelligence officials stood down while Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics, Loral Space & Communications and other U.S. companies helped China modernize its nuclear strike force.
"We like your president. We want to see him reelected," former Chinese intelligence chief General Ji Shengde told Chinagate bagman Johnny Chung.
Indeed, Chinese intelligence organized a
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
i guess there really isn't an issue of cost in a communist nation but there would be some other areas that have a greater potential payoff for the chinese... alternative energy reasearch, growing the econemy and their infrastructure or a decent population management plan would be way ahead of shooting people into space... (unless that's their population management plan :) )
All the torrents you could want.
Why are you still using the offensive sexist term "manned mission" ? Please refer to it as a staffed mission, or not at all.
Also, I think it's time some serious research was done into creating non-phallic spacecraft. How do you think creatures from another planet will feel if they see us coming at them in a giant metal todger?
The point that is made is that it makes no sense to use a stupid word with no base in any sane linguistics every time a nation goes into space.
The term astronaut perfectly describes anybody that goes into space in the Englis language, what reason is there to use stupid terms like the one sprouted in the initial posting?
If there was no term to describe a person going into space then the use of a neologism from a different language will be appropriate and to be encouraged.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Look, each language has its own word for "chair". I don't use a different word for a Russian chair than I do for an American chair, and I'm pretty sure that Russians use the same word for an American chair that they do for a Chinese one. Why don't we (English-speaking peoples) call them all "astronauts" (whether they are American, Russian, Chinese, etc.), let the Russians call them all "cosmonauts", etc., etc.
Or we can all call them "space men".
This fear, at it's (your?) root, arises through subconscious desire to keep ones genes swimming in the pool. 1+ Billion Chinese makes it pretty easy to dive in.
-
I Like Chinese Lyrics
Artist: Monty Python (Buy Monty Python CDs)
Album: Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album
-
The world today seems absolutely crackers,
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high.
There's fools and idiots sitting on the trigger.
It's depressing and it's senseless, and that's why...
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're always friendly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
There's nine hundred million of them in the world today.
You'd better learn to like them; that's what I say.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They come from a long way overseas,
But they're cute and they're cuddly, and they're ready to please.
I like Chinese food.
The waiters never are rude.
Think of the many things they've done to impress.
There's Maoism, Taoism, I Ching, and Chess.
So I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
I like their tiny little trees,
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin, and yang-ese.
I like Chinese thought,
The wisdom that Confucious taught.
If Darwin is anything to shout about,
The Chinese will survive us all without any doubt.
So, I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees,
Yet they're wise and they're witty, and they're ready to please.
All together.
[verse in Chinese]
Wo ai zhongguo ren. (I like Chinese.)
Wo ai zhongguo ren. (I like Chinese.)
Wo ai zhongguo ren. (I like Chinese.)
Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien! (How are you; how are you; how are you; goodbye!)
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
Their food is guaranteed to please,
A fourteen, a seven, a nine, and lychees.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
I like their tiny little trees,
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin, and yang-ese.
I like Chinese.
I like Chinese.
They only come up to your knees...
These are the voyages of the Starship, Shenzhou VI. Its 5-day mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no chinaman has gone before!
Meh.
Sure, laugh, but there really are people out there blaming this year's hurricane season on George W. Bush!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The day they are to return to earth, I saw we all don gorilla masks and give the "taikonauts" a wonderful surprise.
Damn dirty apes!
go ahead, spit on me, I just said it first.
I'm curious why the occupation involved with the exploration of space must use names derived from the language of the country doing the exploring?
In what way does "astronaut" convey that the explorer must be from the USA? Why the segregation? Because a precedence was set with "cosmonaut" during the cold war? Do russians and chinese use different names for the space explorers of other countries? Why doesn't the ESA have their own word in place of "astronaut"?
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
looks like a new space race is under way... it will be interesting to see who is next to the moon
Get your torrents...
> scientists say they have been trying to reduce
> weight and improve the performance of onboad instrumentation.
I guess they had two options: enroll all the scientists in a weight loss program, or hack the instrumentation to weigh less. Looks like they opted for the latter.
What is the net result? We are subsidizing the expensive Chinese programs to launch satellites and space telescopes and militarize space. While we give more than $40 billion to China for development, the Chinese initiate massive space and space-militarization programs, including nuclear-weapons development. All activities in the space program of China occur within its military agencies. By contrast, NASA in the USA is a civilian organization.
We should immediately cut China off of the World Bank lifeline.
By contrast, when Japan was impoverished in the 1950s, the Japanese spent almost no money on space programs or nuclear weapons. The Chinese are playing Americans for a bunch of fools.
and when the PRC does win that race,
Mars will be called the "Red Planet"
for more reasons than just the color.
And when they have fully populated Mars,
there will be a new Martian invasion of
Earth! (As everyone knows, history does
follow in the footsteps of science fiction.)
Canada may put economic aid into China, but it is China that is putting economic aid into the US.
With the MASSIVE trade deficit the US runs with China, the US economy is dependent on Chinese investment of that income back into the country. Why doesn't the US push China on human rights, tibet, floating the currency, or any other issue? because they can't- if the chinese government stopped investing in the US, inflation would cripple the US economy.
I think Churchill said it best (I'm paraphrasing) "Their submarines that feindishly sink our ships supplying food are called U-Boats, our boys ships that sink theirs are called submarines!"
U-boat comes from the word "Unterseaboot" (under the water boat) and even though the Allies used it to refer to German subs the Germans used the name for their submarines and allied submarines.
It's a common thing throughout history to differentiate the same thing but owned by different sides by it's name.
Americans in WWII call German tanks as "Panzers" even though that is their word for "tanks" which they call Allied and Soviet tanks as "panzers" as well as their own.
I don't know the exact reasoning behind this but it's common for us to do and we'll most likely do it again.
China will bravely put man into orbit. All hail Chinese 2000's technology! China is the superpower!
I find the anti-American sentiment pretty harsh in here. People praise these missions if the Europeans or Asians take them on, but if USA's NASA did the same thing, people would be putting us down saying how we're dumb and weak.
It seems everyone wants to cheer the failures and downfall of the USA.
Let me just inject some reality into this Anti-US protest:
We put a man in orbit more than 40 years ago.It's 2004, and NOBODY else has progressed past the USA's accomplishments of the late 1960's. With all these people from other countries criticizing Americans saying how you guys are smarter and more capable, where are your countrymen's footprints on the Moon? Where's your Space Shuttle? Where are your rovers operating on Mars? I'm sure you made a nice crater on Mars, but you don't get much scientific data from that.
Time to break it down for you: As bad as the USA is doing right now, we are still the #1 Economic, Military, and technology superpower on the Earth. And as much as you want to knock us, it will still take you decades to catch up to what we did 20 years ago... and we're not sitting still.
So sorry to interrupt your tea party, I think I'll let you get back to your USA bashing now. After all, Slashdot is your escape from reality, and in the real world the USA is doing just fine.
With the superior technology of Europe and Asia, I'd have to say the winner will be.... USA, about 35 years ago!
This one sure has gone the rounds now, just check with Snopes and get this urban legend buried already.
China is a little behind us... I don't see why it matters that they will float around in a black void for 5 days. A lunar landing or a space station would be interesting...but just this?
Unless they've packed a hell of a lot of RoundUp.