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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.
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.
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.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
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 The US needs to ditch its outdated paranoia, or else the other nations (Russia, EU, etc) need to grow some balls and admit China into the consortium for the benefit of all sides concerned.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.
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.
Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
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.
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 !
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
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.
POTUS Witch Hunt tracker: 75 charges filed against 19 witches, 4 witches cooperating and 5 witches have pled guilty.
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.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.