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.

Comments

LOL

[DarkMantle]

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.

America, meanwhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Is happy to note they may be able to get manned craft into space as early as late next year

Re:America, meanwhile

[Guncrazy]

You mean the American government may be able to get manned craft into space as early as late next year.

Remember, Scaled Composites, a private American company, has just recently completed two manned flights into space. And through a partnership with Virgin Atlantic, they've already pre-booked quite a few future flights.

If you really want America to take a commanding lead in orbital work and space exploration, close NASA. Within 12 months, every one of their scientists and engineers will be re-employed in the private sector, at companies that will find better and cheaper ways to do what NASA is doing today.

Re:I'm sorry...

[bushboy]

Nope.

Sounds to me like China's space program is really going well and also that China is very much a potential super power - time will tell.

Re:Made in China...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting scared.

Scared?? What is their to be scared of?? China is the mightiest nation on earth. They have a standing army larger than the population of the United States. By 2050, if we are still around, you won't have anything to worry about. In fact you'll be happy in your new job that was outsourced from "the mainland" to save China money :)

China needs to join the ISS

[Ryu2]

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.

Re:China needs to join the ISS

[ucsckevin]

i'll give you three reasons the US shouldn't let China join the ISS:

1. Taiwan
2. Tibet
3. East Turkistan (Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region)

say what you will but at least most Iraqis are glad the US invaded, and want us to stay for a while. oh, and we let them protest and practice their religion.

Re:China needs to join the ISS

[cosmo7]

I think one thing that sets China's space program apart from those of the US and Russia is the Chinese' ability to dedicate themselves to long-term programs that do not produce results for decades. Look at the Three Gorges Dam; no western nation would commit themselves to a project that economically makes the ISS look like a summer camp project.

Re:China needs to join the ISS

[mcrbids]

we don't need another Cold War style space race

Except that the 1960/1970's era cold war won't happen again. Power in the 1960/1970s was concentrated into the US govt and the USSR govt.

Today, there's too much distributed power.

I watched an old James Bond movie not too long ago with my kids. In one scene, the phone rings in the car, and Bond goes to answer it.

My teen children, watching, had no idea that was even unusual, since between my wife, myself, and my household, we have 6 phone numbers, two of them cellular! (work phone, home phone, home-office phone, my cell, wife cell)

I had to explain to them how COOL that was back in 1980 when the movie first came out!

Nowadays, it's not NASA vs USSR space, it's NASA, USSR, China, ID Sofware, Scaled Composites, the EU space consortium, etc.

In short, the days of the two-sided pissing match are over. Power is distributing, as it does with technology, and the rules today are fundamentally different.

Nowadays, it's damn hard for the Bond franchise to find technologies cool enough for the next Bond movie. Recently, they've all but stopped trying.

Re:I'm sorry...

[Cali Thalen]

POTENTIAL superpower?!? You'd better hope they don't decide to provide proof of it...

Someone post some stats about China's military numbers and their nuclear arsenal...I'm too lazy to google...

No I'm not...2.5 million in the military, first successful nuclear test, 1964, hydrogen in 1967....OK they're #5 among the main nuclear powers, but that's still ~120 nuclear missles can do enough damage to consider them pretty powerful.

Re:This is way cool...

[AndyChrist]

Five way, if you count private enterprise separately. Six if you count the ESA separately as well.

I wonder if the current partners will try and bring China on board the space station project? It would probably be comforting to know there was another party that could reach it if the US and Russia (at the same time) were rendered unable to.

Well, so long as no one is trying to render anyone else unable to, it's comforting.

At least somebody is doing something

[Taco Cowboy]

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 ?

Re:At least somebody is doing something

[cosmo7]

The ISS doesn't have to be ultra-expensive. The space program has become the pork barrel smorgasbord of American politics. If completion and operation of the ISS was opened to independent contractors costs would plummet.

Think about it: DC. Huge contracts. Political oversight. Do you really think that money is being spent in the most cost-effective way?

Re:At least somebody is doing something

[luvirini]

Unfortunately ISS has to be expensive for the reasons you say and a few more, like the safety requirement. Any new technology is dangerous and people die when making them better. In order for things to get better you that needs to happen. The total number of people who died in the early years of aviation was huge, but again for political reasons that cannot be allowed in the space programs.

Re:At least somebody is doing something

[luvirini]

You do not have to agree, but if you look at history "all" the real advances in technology have caused death in the phases of the enterprise.

Yes people die when things are not good enough, in most cases the reson for them not being good enough is because we do not know enough.

About attitude in general, I think that the current culture trying to overprotect people is stopping innovation in many fields. Some of them important some less important.

I just wonder at what point the good of individual became more important than the good of all. Probably at about the point that humans started to think they can afford the luxury.

Please note that I do not think that human life is cheap, but since the price of progress is the fact that people are willing to take risks, I for one feel the things are often worth it.

To use the small example I used, Airplane development: Sure we could have done it the way NASA does spaceflight with maximum sudy and minimum risks, but in that case I think we would be currently at about the stage where the planes are seen to be safe for public when they have gone through an extended safety training before flying. The high number of people actually collecting the information that today is the basis of aeroplane design were all heroes, and many of them died a hero's death.

To balance things, how many people have later been saved by use of planes to transport medicines and food and so on?

2008 wake up call

[tod_miller]

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.

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... :-) hahahahahahahahhaha laugh. Oh read Neuromancer and see for yourself the Asian overtones that sweep the entire future worlds.

Re:I'm sorry...

[Mant]

Becuase US military planners don't think China will just build more misiles?

Re:I'm sorry...

[Rei]

Not only that, but 24 - even 120 - is an incredibly small number of nuclear weapons for a country as big as China. The US, for comparison, has thousands (~10,000, if I recall correctly - it's been a while)

China's nuclear arsenal is about as good of an example of a "deterrant arsenal" as you can get. And, barring a drastic change in military strategy, if the US tries a "try to break their budget through a big military buildup" strategy, it's only going to break our own budget.

Re:Please, no more "taikonauts"!

[lxt518052]

If the word is to die, it will. But I don't see the reason why it should.

In my opinion, the reason for the word taikonaut to exist is because it carries a Chinese background. You can say "Chinese astronaut", but it's too long and people don't like it when they can use one word. Also, "Chinese astronaut" could be confused with Chinese-American astronauts like Dr Leroy Chiaohttp://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/chiao.h tml.

As a Chinese speaker, I'm not satisfied with the word "taikonauts" either. It sounds wierd to a Chinese ear, especially when pronounced by a non-native English speaker like myself. But it is not possilbe to let the western people read Chinese characters. Even the original pinyin form "taikongren" would cause trouble to most English speakers. Since now people are using it more and more, I can only accept it. That's the way languages evolve.

Language is a living thing. An lively language like English can never be pure. If you want a pure language, there is Latin. But I'm afraid few nowadays know how to pronounce it. During the past centuries, English has absorbed words from Latin, Greek, Indian, Chinese, and many other languages to accommondate ideas from different cultures as well as the new things happening everyday. It can't be perfect in translating these ideas, but certainly it has so far done a good job.